The hair bristled upon the grey cub’s back, but it bristled silently.
How was he to know that this thing that sniffed was a thing at which to
bristle? It was not born of any knowledge of his, yet it was the
visible expression of the fear that was in him, and for which, in his
own life, there was no accounting. But fear was accompanied by another
instinct—that of concealment. The cub was in a frenzy of terror, yet he
lay without movement or sound, frozen, petrified into immobility, to
all appearances dead. His mother, coming home, growled as she smelt the
wolverine’s track, and bounded into the cave and licked and nozzled him
with undue vehemence of affection. And the cub felt that somehow he had
escaped a great hurt.
But there were other forces at work in the cub, the greatest of which
was growth. Instinct and law demanded of him obedience. But growth
demanded disobedience. His mother and fear impelled him to keep away
from the white wall. Growth is life, and life is for ever destined to
make for light. So there was no damming up the tide of life that was
rising within him—rising with every mouthful of meat he swallowed, with
every breath he drew. In the end, one day, fear and obedience were
swept away by the rush of life, and the cub straddled and sprawled
toward the entrance.
Unlike any other wall with which he had had experience, this wall
seemed to recede from him as he approached. No hard surface collided
with the tender little nose he thrust out tentatively before him. The
substance of the wall seemed as permeable and yielding as light. And as
condition, in his eyes, had the seeming of form, so he entered into
what had been wall to him and bathed in the substance that composed it.
It was bewildering. He was sprawling through solidity. And ever the
light grew brighter. Fear urged him to go back, but growth drove him
on. Suddenly he found himself at the mouth of the cave. The wall,
inside which he had thought himself, as suddenly leaped back before him
to an immeasurable distance. The light had become painfully bright. He
was dazzled by it. Likewise he was made dizzy by this abrupt and
tremendous extension of space. Automatically, his eyes were adjusting
themselves to the brightness, focusing themselves to meet the increased
distance of objects. At first, the wall had leaped beyond his vision.
He now saw it again; but it had taken upon itself a remarkable
remoteness. Also, its appearance had changed. It was now a variegated
wall, composed of the trees that fringed the stream, the opposing
mountain that towered above the trees, and the sky that out-towered the
mountain.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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