Chapter XXXII

As Gud and Fidu journeyed on they came to a rippling rivulet and saw two women who were bathing in the laughing water. Gud was not astonished at what he saw because Gud sees all things, and familiarity breeds contempt. Neither were the women alarmed, because they were busy talking and did not see Gud.

"I am sick of love," one woman said.

Whereupon the other woman said: "My husband understands me."

Just then the Underdog came up panting and athirst and started to lap of the laughing waters of the rippling rivulet. Gud thrust his hand out and jerked the poor beast away. Alas, too late! Fidu had drunk of the bewitched water and when the moon changed its name and a meteor fell into a fit of despondency; the Underdog went mad and frothed at the mouth and bit the hand that fed him, which was the right hand of Gud.

Gud made a tourniquet out of a miser's heart-strings, so that the infection did not pass above the elbow; and he applied leeches to the wound and also an ointment of soothing words so that the pain abated. But the poison of falsehood was so potent that Gud found his right hand had become a deceitful hand and could not write the truth. So Gud exchanged his right hand for his left hand, which was very easy to do since he was in the Nth dimension and outside the limitations of three-dimensional space.

When Fidu, the Underdog, went mad he lost his reason. Gud did not note this at the time because of his own affliction. But after his wound had healed so that it ceased to hurt anything but his conscience, Gud observed, as they walked along, that Fidu had lost his reason. The poor dog walking along there without his reason looked so unreasonable that Gud's heart was touched with compassion and he said: "Fidu, it grieves me to see you without a reason. Here, take mine."

Fidu looked up gratefully out of his sad, mad eyes as Gud handed him his reason. Glad to have a reason again Fidu seized it in his mouth and ran off, frisking and twisting and wanting to bark, which he could not do because he was carrying Gud's reason in his mouth. So he ran ahead and came to a place where the curve crossed over a deep, dark stream. Glancing down into the mirror-like surface of the water, the Underdog saw his reflection. He did not think the reflection was another dog with another reason in his mouth--for Fidu had his reason in his mouth and was still mad in his eyes. When he saw his reflection in the water, he thought it was a porcupine or a civet cat or some other unapproachable creature, and so he barked; and in doing so he let Gud's reason fall into the water. Down, down sank the reason of Gud into the dark, deep water, for it was a very weighty reason.

Fidu did not attempt to dive after it, but the poor, mad dog just stood there and let it sink out of sight into the deep dark water.

When Gud came up he, too, was without his reason and he thought Fidu, standing forlornly on the bridge, was an evil genius. When the mad dog ran on into the gloomy wilderness that was beyond the stream, the mad Gud followed after him and became lost in the wildness of the wilderness.

As Gud wandered on amid the gloomy shadows, the void in his mind, where his reason had been, became filled with many strange illusions, and he discovered that he could now believe many things that he had not previously been able to believe because they had been unreasonable. Faith in things unseen grew within him. The fourth dimension and the squared circle no longer annoyed him. He found that chimeras were very real and also wyverns, and that metaphysical hypotheses were as solid substance and as proven facts.

Gud now understood for the first time in his life that he was Gud and at the same time he was a holy ghost, and that he was also his own father. This last bit of unreasonable comprehension especially relieved Gud. He was sorry he had not accepted it sooner, for because of it he had never really written his autobiography. When he had started to write, he began by describing his father as being in existence before his own birth, and yet Gud had realized that such could not be, as he and his father were one and the same being. The situation had confused Gud's reason, but now with his reason gone it was all very clear.

There were also many other things which Gud had been unable to accept with his reason, but which now, with no appeal to reason, he gladly embraced, and so reveled joyously in his growing faith. The transfiguration of souls particularly entranced him, and he spent many happy hours, as he walked along amid the gloomy shadows of the wildness of the wilderness, in picking out favorite animals to have been and to be. He rather favored having been a quacking ornithorhynchus and going to be a ring-straked giraffe; and yet the claims of the groundhog, which sleeps half its life away, also appealed to Gud, because he had a long time to live. Having considered these and many others, Gud decided to have been all the unattractive animals in the past and to be all the nice ones in the future. After all, he had plenty of past and future and there was no occasion for abbreviating the list.

With his reason gone Gud also accepted polytheism as being quite compatible with monotheism. He no longer found it objectionable to be the only god and yet have a lot of assistant gods, for he saw that this would relieve him of a great deal of labor.

And thus it came about that through the loss of his reason many irrational things which he had previously disputed and disbelieved were now lucid and believable. So gratified was Gud as he realized the magnitude of his growing faith that he gave a great shout of joy.

The shout echoed through the wildness of the wilderness, and the echo came back to Gud; and Gud thought it was a lion's roar.

The mad Underdog also heard Gud's shout and the echo of Gud's shout, and he thought the shout was the blast of a war trumpet, and that the echo was the noise of the celebration of peace.

But Gud did not know what Fidu thought, for Gud was mad. If Gud could only have looked sanely into Fidu's insane eyes, a deal of trouble might have been avoided. But he could not; and Gud thought the echo of his shout was the roar of a mighty, wicked lion, and he thought Fidu thought so, too. And maybe he did.

Then the lion's roar roared again. But Gud was not afraid, for he had no reason to be afraid. Filled with unreasonable faith and valor, Gud seized his staff and charged into the jungle after the lion's roar. And Fidu, the Underdog, followed after Gud, for why shouldn't a mad dog follow a mad master?

The lion's roar roared yet again. The hair on the mad Underdog's back bristled. The dark, dank jungle trembled with the lion's roar. The monkeys in the tree tops chattered with excitement, for it looked to them as if there was going to be a fight.

Gud charged through the underbrush brandishing his staff and came face to face with the lion's roar. And Gud struck viciously and valorously at the lion's roar. But it was only the illusion of a lion's roar and Gud's staff went through the incorporeal stuff like a whip lash through mercy.

Then the lion's roar roared once again, and this time so mightily that Gud died of fright.

When the Underdog came upon the scene, the roar, ashamed of its unreality, had slunk off into the wilderness, and all was quiet in the gloom and the shadow of death.

Fidu sniffed pathetically at his dead master, and then, filled with remorse, he whined piteously, for now that his master was dead the poor mad dog regretted that he had lost Gud's reason.

For a long time Fidu sat in silent vigil by his dead master's side, grieving as hard as a poor mad dog could. But at last he arose and licked the right hand of Gud, which he had bitten in his madness, and gazed again into his dead master's face.

Then, mad though he was, Fidu turned and trotted with unerring canine instinct back to the bridge across the stream. Reaching the bridge he faltered not but dove off bravely into the deep, dark water and retrieved Gud's reason.

All wet and cold, he came back to his poor master's side and laid Gud's reason down beside Gud's head and then barked loudly.

But Gud did not hear the bark of the Underdog, for Gud was dead. So it must be that the hero of this tale, in what shall come hereafter, is only the Ghost of Gud.