“Am I a man dreaming that he is a butterfly, or a butterfly dreaming that he is a man?”
Zhuangzi’s Butterfly Dream
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Where Don Carotte, a knight of noble bearing and exceedingly irascible temper, beneath the gigantic boughs of the tree of the arboreal donkeys, catches sight of Sang Chaud returning from a mysterious conversation. The tiny donkey, meanwhile, has quietly withdrawn. The knight, who cannot abide any matter of importance being discussed without his knowledge, stamps his heel upon the ground and commands his squire to recount the intrigue of the infiltrator…
DON CAROTTE
(raising his head, his beard and moustache quivering)
Now then, Sang Chaud! Speak, upon your solemn word,
With whom were you conversing? Let the truth be heard!
What knave, what rogue, what spectre, what beast of ill repute
Dared turn your head from me, and leave my summons mute?
Speak plainly! Speak boldly! No quibbling, no disguise!
I loathe a half-fed reason dressed up in borrowed lies!
SANG CHAUD
(respectfully removing his hat)
My lord, with all the honour that your arms command,
No traitor stood before me, no villain in the land,
But rather a gentle creature, humble in his bearing,
Who might one day prove worthy of your noble caring.
And should your lordship grant me leave to speak my mind,
A finer mount, perhaps, you would be hard to find.
DON CAROTTE
(leaping as though stung by a horsefly)
A mount! What monstrous talk! By all my fathers' blood!
One of those wretched donkeys, those creatures of the mud?
Those miserable jackasses, whose backs, to their disgrace,
Seem fashioned for the refuse of the marketplace?
I! A knight-errant! I, the scourge of every knave!
To ride a common greybeast! Fie! I'd seek my grave!
SANG CHAUD
(with gentle but stubborn conviction)
Softly, my noble sire! A donkey has his worth,
Though clad in humble raiment and scorned upon this earth.
Some carry in their silence a treasure none has known,
Which many a prince might seek in vain upon his throne.
DON CAROTTE
(knitting his brows)
By my beard! Beneath these branches, dost thou mean to say
Thou heardst a puny donkey reason and hold sway?
Did this jackass discourse? Did he teach, perchance?
Preach the Holy Gospel, or lead some sacred dance?
SANG CHAUD
(clasping his hands as though before a tribunal)
Nay, noble sire, nay! The creature uttered naught,
Nor do I claim he taught me any doctrine wrought.
Yet while I stood beside him, in his silent presence,
A question strange arose and troubled my very essence;
It entered in my head, without a knock or cry,
As night steals through the heart beneath an unseen sky.
DON CAROTTE
(with majestic impatience)
A question? So be it! But whence came this affair?
For naught springs out of nothing, whatever fools declare!
If the donkey spoke no word, what fiend contrived to throw
Such thoughts into thy narrow skull, like stars to darkness low?
SANG CHAUD
(looking anxiously towards the branches)
I know not, noble lord, yet, begging no offence,
I think it passed through him, through his mute presence.
He spoke no single word, no sentence, no decree,
Yet something seized my thoughts and would not set them free.
DON CAROTTE
(narrowing his small eyes)
Come forth, then! Let this riddle enter now the fray!
With horns or claws or teeth, let it wound me as it may!
I am a man who dares confront a dragon vast,
And fear no words, though Satan himself should speak at last!
But mark me, Sang Chaud! Beware of treachery:
Who offers me a labyrinth must guide me through its mystery!
SANG CHAUD
(rubbing his forehead and lowering his voice)
Alas! The wonder stays, but words have slipped away;
Their order fell to pieces somewhere along the way.
My memory, good sire, is riddled through with holes;
One word remains, another flees beyond my soul!
Pray grant me leave to render, with some liberty,
What faint resemblance still survives in memory…*
“Who am I, when the daylight calls me from my sleep,
And echoes of the night within my spirit creep?
Each dawn restores the words that haunt me without end,
The voices heard in dreams, which follow and descend:
I am an infiltrator, by a secret way,
Within a double agent where my thoughts go astray;
That agent is my host, and yet that host is me,
I am the spy of the traitor who gave birth to me.
He is divided, torn, he breaks and flees his name;
By day I dwell in him, by night he does the same.
If I am he whose mouth declares with solemn cry,
‘I am,’ who hears those words within my hidden ‘I’?
And if I am not merely the ear that lies in wait,
Whose voice speaks through my mouth, and knows my secret fate?
Am I the one who speaks? Am I the one who hears?
Or someone else concealed behind these two who appear?
Then came the understanding I could never quite dismiss:
A single word can build a hell, an endless abyss;
And when I say ‘I am,’ believing I have found my way,
A hundred walls may rise between myself and me that day.”
*“Who am I if, waking again and again, day after day, I am pursued by the echo of words heard in my sleep: I am an infiltrator inside a schizophrenic double agent who is myself. Who am I if I am the one who says it, and who am I if I am merely the one who hears it?”
