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CHU-BU AND SHEEMISH
It was the custom on Tuesdays in the temple of Chu-bu for the priests
to enter at evening and chant, "There is none but Chu-bu."
And all the people rejoiced and cried out, "There is none but Chu-bu."
And honey was offered to Chu-bu, and maize and fat. Thus was he
magnified.
Chu-bu was an idol of some antiquity, as may be seen from the colour
of the wood. He had been carved out of mahogany, and after he was
carved he had been polished. Then they had set him up on the diorite
pedestal with the brazier in front of it for burning spices and the
flat gold plates for fat. Thus they worshipped Chu-bu.
He must have been there for over a hundred years when one day the
priests came in with another idol into the temple of Chu-bu and set it
up on a pedestal near Chu-bu's and sang, "There is also Sheemish."
And all the people rejoiced and cried out, "There is also Sheemish."
Sheemish was palpably a modern idol, and although the wood was stained
with a dark-red dye, you could see that he had only just been carved.
And honey was offered to Sheemish as well as Chu-bu, and also maize
and fat.
The fury of Chu-bu knew no time-limit: he was furious all that night,
and next day he was furious still. The situation called for immediate
miracles. To devastate the city with a pestilence and kill all his
priests was scarcely within his power, therefore he wisely
concentrated such divine powers as he had in commanding a little
earthquake. "Thus," thought Chu-bu, "will I reassert myself as the
only god, and men shall spit upon Sheemish."
Chu-bu willed it and willed it and still no earthquake came, when
suddenly he was aware that the hated Sheemish was daring to attempt a
miracle too. He ceased to busy himself about the earthquake and
listened, or shall I say felt, for what Sheemish was thinking; for
gods are aware of what passes in the mind by a sense that is other
than any of our five. Sheemish was trying to make an earthquake too.
The new god's motive was probably to assert himself. I doubt if Chu-bu
understood or cared for his motive; it was sufficient for an idol
already aflame with jealousy that his detestable rival was on the
verge of a miracle. All the power of Chu-bu veered round at once and
set dead against an earthquake, even a little one. It was thus in the
temple of Chu-bu for some time, and then no earthquake came.
To be a god and to fail to achieve a miracle is a despairing
sensation; it is as though among men one should determine upon a
hearty sneeze and as though no sneeze should come; it is as though one
should try to swim in heavy boots or remember a name that is utterly
forgotten: all these pains were Sheemish's.
And upon Tuesday the priests came in, and the people, and they did
worship Chu-bu and offered fat to him, saying, "O Chu-bu who made
everything," and then the priests sang, "There is also Sheemish"; and
Chu-bu was put to shame and spake not for three days.
Now there were holy birds in the temple of Chu-bu, and when the third
day was come and the night thereof, it was as it were revealed to the
mind of Chu-bu, that there was dirt upon the head of Sheemish.
And Chu-bu spake unto Sheemish as speak the gods, moving no lips nor
yet disturbing the silence, saying, "There is dirt upon thy head, O
Sheemish." All night long he muttered again and again, "there is dirt
upon Sheemish's head." And when it was dawn and voices were heard far
off, Chu-bu became exultant with Earth's awakening things, and cried
out till the sun was high, "Dirt, dirt, dirt, upon the head of
Sheemish," and at noon he said, "So Sheemish would be a god." Thus was
Sheemish confounded.
And with Tuesday one came and washed his head with rose-water, and he
was worshipped again when they sang "There is also Sheemish." And yet
was Chu-bu content, for he said, "The head of Sheemish has been
defiled," and again, "His head was defiled, it is enough." And one
evening lo! there was dirt on the head of Chu-bu also, and the thing
was perceived of Sheemish.
It is not with the gods as it is with men. We are angry one with
another and turn from our anger again, but the wrath of the gods is
enduring. Chu-bu remembered and Sheemish did not forget. They spake as
we do not speak, in silence yet heard of each other, nor were their
thoughts as our thoughts. We should not judge them merely by human
standards. All night long they spake and all night said these words
only: "Dirty Chu-bu," "Dirty Sheemish." "Dirty Chu-bu," "Dirty
Sheemish," all night long. Their wrath had not tired at dawn, and
neither had wearied of his accusation. And gradually Chu-bu came to
realize that he was nothing more than the equal of Sheemish. All gods
are jealous, but this equality with the upstart Sheemish, a thing of
painted wood a hundred years newer than Chu-bu, and this worship given
to Sheemish in Chu-bu's own temple, were particularly bitter. Chu-bu
was jealous even for a god; and when Tuesday came again, the third day
of Sheemish's worship, Chu-bu could bear it no longer. He felt that
his anger must be revealed at all costs, and he returned with all the
vehemence of his will to achieving a little earthquake. The
worshippers had just gone from his temple when Chu-bu settled his will
to attain this miracle. Now and then his meditations were disturbed by
that now familiar dictum, "Dirty Chu-bu," but Chu-bu willed
ferociously, not even stopping to say what he longed to say and had
already said nine hundred times, and presently even these
interruptions ceased.
They ceased because Sheemish had returned to a project that he had
never definitely abandoned, the desire to assert himself and exalt
himself over Chu-bu by performing a miracle, and the district being
volcanic he had chosen a little earthquake as the miracle most easily
accomplished by a small god.
Now an earthquake that is commanded by two gods has double the chance
of fulfilment than when it is willed by one, and an incalculably
greater chance than when two gods are pulling different ways; as, to
take the case of older and greater gods, when the sun and the moon
pull in the same direction we have the biggest tides.
Chu-bu knew nothing of the theory of tides, and was too much occupied
with his miracle to notice what Sheemish was doing. And suddenly the
miracle was an accomplished thing.
It was a very local earthquake, for there are other gods than Chu-bu
or even Sheemish, and it was only a little one as the gods had willed,
but it loosened some monoliths in a colonnade that supported one side
of the temple and the whole of one wall fell in, and the low huts of
the people of that city were shaken a little and some of their doors
were jammed so that they would not open; it was enough, and for a
moment it seemed that it was all; neither Chu-bu nor Sheemish
commanded there should be more, but they had set in motion an old law
older than Chu-bu, the law of gravity that that colonnade had held
back for a hundred years, and the temple of Chu-bu quivered and then
stood still, swayed once and was overthrown, on the heads of Chu-bu
and Sheemish.
No one rebuilt it, for nobody dared to near such terrible gods. Some
said that Chu-bu wrought the miracle, but some said Sheemish, and
thereof schism was born. The weakly amiable, alarmed by the bitterness
of rival sects, sought compromise and said that both had wrought it,
but no one guessed the truth that the thing was done in rivalry.
And a saying arose, and both sects held this belief in common, that
whoso toucheth Chu-bu shall die or whoso looketh upon Sheemish.
That is how Chu-bu came into my possession when I travelled once
beyond the hills of Ting. I found him in the fallen temple of Chu-bu
with his hands and toes sticking up out of the rubbish, lying upon his
back, and in that attitude just as I found him I keep him to this day
on my mantlepiece, as he is less liable to be upset that way. Sheemish
was broken, so I left him where he was.
And there is something so helpless about Chu-bu with his fat hands
stuck up in the air that sometimes I am moved out of compassion to bow
down to him and pray, saying, "O Chu-bu, thou that made everything,
help thy servant."
Chu-bu cannot do much, though once I am sure that at a game of bridge
he sent me the ace of trumps after I had not held a card worth having
for the whole of the evening. And chance alone could have done as much
as that for me. But I do not tell this to Chu-bu.
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