Sirius (12 page)

The young dog was now seriously worrying about his future, Sheep-farming was not without interest, now that he was helping Pugh in a more human way; but it was not what he was
for
. What
was
he for? Was he
for
anything? He remembered his desolate impression on the snow-clad moors that the whole world was just a purposeless accident. Now, he somehow could not believe it. Yet the all-wise Thomas said no one was
for
anything, they just
were
. Well, what could a unique creature like him, a sheer freak, find to
be?
How could he discover peace of mind, of spirit? Thomas did not see why he should worry. Thomas had a nice slick programme for him.

One evening when the others had gone to bed, man and dog were left in the sitting-room in the course of one of those long talks which had been so great a factor in the education of Sirius. They were sitting before the fire, Thomas in one of the easy chairs, Sirius luxuriating on the couch. Thomas had been telling him of the progress of his research, and explaining the latest theory about the localization of mental powers in the brain-centres. He was pleased at the dog's shrewd questions, and had said so. Sirius, after a pause in which he absently licked a paw while gazing into the fire, said, "Even by human standards I really am fairly bright, am I?" "Indeed you are," was the prompt reply. Sirius continued, "You see, I don't seem able to think properly. My mind keeps wandering. I start out to think about something, and then suddenly, with a jolt I wake up to find I've been thinking about something else instead; and often I can't even remember what it was, or even what the first subject was. It's frightening. Do you think I'm going mad? It's like--going off on the trail of a rabbit and then being led aside by a hare, and then streaking off on the smell of a fox, and twisting and doubling on the trail till all of a sudden you find yourself up against water, and no trail at all. And then you say to yourself, 'How on earth did I get here? What in hell was I doing?" Human beings don't think that way, do they?" Thomas laughed with delight. "Don't they!" he said. "I certainly think that way myself, and I'm not exceptionally scatter-brained." Sirius sighed with relief, but continued, "Then there's another thing. Sometimes I managed to follow a trail of thought quite well for a long time, in and out, up and down, but always with my mind's nose on the trail; and then suddenly I find--well, the weather has changed and given it all a different meaning. It was warm and bright, but now it's cold and dank. No, worse than that! It was fox, and now it's cat, so to speak, or just dull cow, or horrible menagerie tiger. No,
it's
the same but
I
have changed. I wanted it desperately, and now I don't. There's an entirely new me. That's frightening, too," Thomas reassured him. "Don't worry, old thing!" he said. "It's just that you're a rather complicated person, really, and there's too much diversity in you to be easily systematized."

Sirius once more licked his paw, but soon stopped to say, "Then I really am a
person
, not just a laboratory animal?" "Of course," said Thomas, "and a very satisfactory person, too; and an excellent companion for
this
person, in fact the best I have, apart from one or two colleagues." Sirius added for him, "And Elizabeth, I suppose." "Of course, but that's different. I meant man-to-man companionship." Sirius pricked his ears at that phrase, and Thomas laughed at himself. Said the dog, "Then why apprentice me to a sub-human job, which is bound to dehumanize me?" "My dear Sirius," replied Thomas with some heat, "we have had all that out before, but let's try to settle it now, once for all. It's true you have a first-class human intelligence, but you are not a man, you are a dog. It's useless to train you for some human trade, because you can't do it. But it's immensely important to give you some responsible practical work until the time comes for you to join us at Cambridge. You are not to be an imitation man. You are a super-super-dog. This sheep-dog life is very good for you. Remember you are not yet seventeen. There's no hurry. Your pace is Plaxy's, not Idwal's. If you grow up too quick, you'll fossilize too quick. Stick to sheep. There's a lot in that job, if you give your mind to it. When you come to us at the lab we want you to have had experience of a normal dog's way of life."

Inwardly Sirius said, "Blast the lab!" but to Thomas he said, "I
have
been putting my mind into the job. And as a matter of fact it's not just sheer dog's work now. Pugh has been giving me a lot of man's work to do. He knows I am different from Idwal. But--well, that sort of work, though it
is
largely man's work, does deaden the mind. And the mind--is
me
. I'm not human, but also I'm not canine. Fundamentally I'm just the sort of thing you are yourself. I have a canine clothing, just as you have a human clothing, but
I
--I am"--he paused and looked warily at Thomas-- "a spirit, just as you are." Thomas snorted, and presently his smell went rather sour. Then almost in the tone of a liberal-minded parent expostulating with a child that had said something "rude," he remarked, "Why use that silly meaningless word? Besides, who has been putting such ideas into your head?"

Sirius did not answer this last question. Instead, he said, "There's something in me very different from my canine body. If
you
had a dog's body instead of a man's, you would grasp that as clearly as I do. You couldn't help it. You would feel like someone trying to typewrite on a sewing machine, or make music with a typewriter. You would never mistake the sewing machine for
you, yourself
."

"I see what you mean," said Thomas, "but the conflict is not really between your spirit and your canine body; it's between the canine part of your body and the super-canine part, that I gave you."

There was silence in the room for a full minute. Then Sirius yawned, and felt the warmth of the fire on his tongue. He said, "That sounds so sensible; and yet, though I'm only seventeen and only a dog, I can smell there's something wrong with it. It's only just a bit more true than the 'soul" dope that the parsons give--the Rev. Davies, for instance, when he called on us, and tried to convert you to Methodism, while you tried to convert him to scientific method. Do you remember? He caught me staring too interestedly at him, and he said I looked as if I was more open to persuasion than you were yourself, and it was a pity, almost, that God hadn't given
me
a soul to be saved."

Thomas smiled, and rose to go to bed. As he passed Sirius he gave his ear a friendly pull, and said, "Oh, well, nearly all great questions turn out in the end to be misconceived. Probably both our answers are wrong."

Sirius, getting down from the couch, suddenly realized that he had been once more side-tracked from his purpose, which was to discuss his future. "One thing is sure," he said, "My job is not just sheep, and it's not to alternate between being a sheep-dog and being a super-laboratory-animal. It's the spirit."

Thomas came to a halt. "Oh, very well," he said gently, respectfully, but with a faint ridicule that did not escape Sirius. "Your job's the spirit." Then after a pause he added with friendly sarcasm, "We must send you to a theological college."

Sirius gave a snort of indignation. He said, "Of course I don't want the old religious dope. But I don't want just the new science dope either. I want the truth." Then, realizing that he had said the wrong thing, he touched his master's hand. "I'm afraid I'm not working out according to plan," he said. "But if I am really a
person
you shouldn't expect me to. Why did you make
me
without making a world for me to live in. It's as though God had made Adam and not bothered to make Eden, nor Eve. I think it's going to be frightfully difficult being me."

Thomas laid his hand on the dog's head. The two stood gazing into the dying fire. The man said to the dog, "It's my fault that you are more than a dog. It's my meddling that woke the 'spirit" in you, as you call it. I'll do my best for you, I promise. And now let's go to bed."

THOMAS succeeded in persuading Sirius to complete his year with Pugh, assuring him with Machiavellian subtlety that it would be an invaluable "spiritual training." And it was. It was a Spartan, an ascetic life; for Sirius accepted all the ordinary sheep-dog conditions. At times it was a life of grim hardship and overwork. Men and dogs returned from their labour dead tired, and fit for nothing but supper and sleep. But there were other times when there was little to be done that did not necessitate human hands. Then Sirius used to lie about pretending to sleep, but in fact trying desperately to think about man and himself, and the identity of the spirit in them, a task in which he was singularly unsuccessful.

Since Pugh was by now fairly well in the know about Sirius, Thomas had arranged that during his last term the dog should have more or less regular hours, like a human worker, so that he could frequently go home and put in a little study. The word "study," of course, was not mentioned, but Pugh agreed with a knowing wink.

Expeditions over the high hills were becoming rather much for the ageing Welshman, so he handed over more and more responsibility to Sirius. He arranged with the saddler to make two pairs of small panniers which could be strapped on to the dogs" flanks. These he filled with lotions, medicines, bandages. Sirius could now travel far afield and doctor sick sheep without Pugh having to accompany him. He would set off with Idwal, who now accepted him as a leader, and spend the day inspecting the whole flock. When they had rounded up a bunch of sheep into some remote moorland pen, Sirius would examine each one of them for foot-rot or fly-strike. Any animal that showed restlessness, or kept trying to nibble at its own back, was probably infected with fly-strike. Sirius was sufficiently human to dislike exposing the grubs with his own teeth, and cleaning out the superficial wound with his tongue; but the work had to be done. By keeping a sharp watch on the flock, and tackling the earliest symptoms himself, he was able to reduce to a minimum the number of advanced cases which demanded attention from man's exploring fingers. But inevitably a few were not found till they were deeply infected. These had to be taken away for human treatment. Very rarely Sirius came on sheep lying down, neither ruminating nor sleeping, and with great open wounds seething with grub. For these he had to fetch human aid at once, or they would soon die. Pugh, by the way, had put all the drugs and ointments into tins with clip-on lids which Sirius could open without excessive difficulty.

When the shearing season arrived the whole flock had to be brought down in batches, and put into pens to be tackled each in turn by one of the half-dozen shearers who were going the round of all the flocks in the district. The actual shearing was a job which Sirius would never be able to do. Nothing but human hands or some mechanical device could ever divide a sheep from its fleece. Sirius would stand about watching the manual dexterity of the shearers with fascination and sadness. The sheep, on its haunches between the knees of the man, would sometimes struggle, generally when its skin was nipped and little red stains appeared on the cream of its inner wool: but in the main the blades peeled off its coat as though merely undressing the creature. The gleaming inner surface of the fleece, as it was rolled back upon its own drab exterior, was a wave of curd. When the operation was over, the naked, angular beast would spring away bleating with bewilderment.

Throughout the last few months of his year with Pugh, Sirius was much absorbed in his work; but also he was in a state of suppressed excitement, and of conflict. He delighted in the prospect of release from this servitude, yet in spite of himself he regretted that the connection must he broken. He had become thoroughly interested, and he had a real affection for Pugh. It seemed mean to desert him. And though Cambridge promised novelty and a great diversity of human contacts, he was sufficiently imaginative to realize that town lift might not suit him at all.

There was also another and a deeper conflict in his mind, one which was increasingly troubling him, It was the endless conflict over his relations with the dominant species of the planet. Never did he cease to feel that man and he were at once poles asunder and yet in essential nature identical. At this early stage the trouble had not come clear to him. He could not yet focus it. But to explain his obscure and still largely inarticulate distress, his biographer must set forth Sirius's plight with a clarity which he himself had not yet attained. Men were many and he was one. They had walked the eartth for a million years or more, and they had finally possessed it entirely. And he? Not only was he himself a unique product of their cunning, but the whole race of dogs were their creation. Only the wolf was independent. And wolves were now no more than a romantic relic that man would never again seriously fear. Little by little, through their million years, men had worked out their marvellous human way of living, culminating in civilization. With those enviable hands of theirs they had built themselves their first crude forest shelters, then settlements of huts, then good stone houses, cities, railways. With nicely correlated hand and eye they had made innumerable subtle implements, from microscopes to battleships and aeroplanes. They had discovered so much, from electrons to galaxies. They had written their millions of books, which they could read as easily as he could follow a trail on a damp morning. And some few of those hooks even he must read, because they had the truth in them, a bit of it. He, by contrast, with his clumsy paws and imprecise vision, could never do anything worthy of the brain that Thomas had given him. Everything worth while in him had come from mankind. His knowledge, such as it was, they had taught him. His love of the arts, of wisdom, of the "humanities!" God! Would that wisdom lay rather in "caninities!" For him there was no possible life-aim except to help on in some minute way the great human enterprise, whether through the humble work of sheeptending or the career that Thomas had planned for him as a museum piece and a tenth-rate scientist. For him there could be no wisdom but man's alien wisdom; just as for him there could be no real loving but the torturing business of loving these infinitely alien human creatures. Or would Thomas some day produce others of his kind for him to love? But they would be so young.