The episode began in the late afternoon of a day devoted at the start to ordinary
scientific purposes. Walking along an unfrequented seashore, I came upon the broken
prow of a beached boat subsiding in heavy sand, left by the whim of ancient
currents. An incoming fog trailed in wisps over the up thrust ribs of the boat, then approached and enwrapped me, as though to peer into my face. I was not frightened, but I also realized with a slight shock that I was not intended immediately to leave. I sat down then and rested with my back against the overturned boat. A gull passed high overhead, but its cry took on the plaint of something other than itself. I closed my eyes and let the tiny diffused droplets of fog gently palpate my face. My mind streamed wispily through the interstices of time... I slept.
When I awoke, the fog and the night were lifting. Crouched in my sheepskin, I
waited while the dawn began to touch first the sea, then the timbers of the hulk
beside which I had sheltered. It was then I saw the miracle. I saw it because I
was hunched at ground level, no longer gazing with upright human arrogance upon
the things of this world. I did not realize at first what it was.
As my wandering attention centered, I saw nothing but two projecting ears lit by the morning sun. Beneath them, a small neat face looked shyly up at me. The ears crinkled with curiosity at every sound; they had not learned to fear. I crept on my knees around the prow and crouched beside
him. It was a fox pup from a den under the timbers. His parents must not have returned from hunting. He innocently selected what I think was a chicken bone from an untidy pile of splintered rubbish and shook it at me invitingly. There was a vast and playful humor in his face. It has been said repeatedly that one can never, try as he will, get around to the
front of the universe.
Man is destined to see only its far side, to realize nature only in retreat. Yet here was the thing in the midst of the bones, the wide-eyed innocent fox inviting me to play, with the innate courtesy of its two forepaws placed together, along with a mock shake of the head. The universe was swinging around in some fantastic fashion to present its face, and the face was so small that the universe itself was laughing. It was not a time for human dignity, only a time for the observance of amenities
written behind the stars. Gravely, I arranged my own forepaws while the puppy whimpered with excitement. On impulse, I clumsily picked up a bone and shook it in
teeth that had not entirely forgotten their original purpose. Round and round we tumbled for one ecstatic moment. We were the innocent thing in the midst of the bones, born in the egg, born in the den, born at last in human guise to grow coldly remote.
But I had seen my miracle. I had seen the universe as it begins for all things. It was, in reality, a child's universe, a tiny and laughing universe. I rolled the pup on his back and ran, literally ran, for the nearest ridge. The sun was half out of the sea, and the world was swinging back to normal. The adult foxes would be already trotting home.
A little farther on, I passed one on a ridge with brush and head held high. Its
face was watchful but averted. It did not matter. We passed on our separate ways,
eyes not meeting. But to me the mist had come, and the mere chance of two lifted sunlit ears at morning. It was a very small miracle, as is the way of great things. But for just
a moment I had held the universe at bay, by the simple expedient of sitting on my
haunches before a fox den and tumbling about with a chicken bone. It is the gravest, most meaningful act I shall ever accomplish.
