Chicken Little: The Inside Story (A Jungian ... - Inner City Books

60 Chicken Little: The Inside Story
“A sensible question,” said Brillig. “Of course, there was no
guarantee that I hadn’t been duped. For all I knew, that merchant
had a kiln in the back yard and turned them out by the hundreds. I
had to consider that possibility. As well, I may have gulled myself.
One man’s numinous experience, as we well know, is another’s
wishful thinking. On both counts, I assure you I spared no effort in
discovering the truth.”
He then explained at some length how he had verified his catch.
I was still in such a state that I could not follow all the details, but
it amounted to a close comparison of his stone with the seven genuine
articles under guard in the Smithsonian. This was not easily
done, for a covenant with the donors—descendants of the monkish
Order whose member had made the original find—specifically restricted
access to accredited archaeologists. 61
“I called in a few markers,” said Brillig.
Arnold left the shard to Rachel and sat back.
“Professor Brillig,” he said, “clearly you are a man of some intellectual
discernment. I am therefore at a loss to understand your
preoccupation with matters that to many—and I confess to leaning
in their direction—might seem rather trivial.”
There, he was at it again.
It was just like Arnold to get me into something and then shift
his ground. One time in Zürich, on a pub crawl, he convinced me
that the ugly one would be more interesting. The next day I showed
him where she bit me.
“It’s your own fault,” he said, “you should know better.”
I rolled my eyes at Brillig. He winked at me and addressed his
remarks to Arnold.
“I could remind you of what Jung got out of playing with stones,
so to speak, 62 but under the circumstances your comment is not entirely
unfair.
“Perhaps I have given you the wrong impression. I am certainly
61 That is still the case. The claim in my Chicken Little paper—to have seen “authenticated
replicas”—was a bare-faced boast. They were really Xeroxes of covertly
taken photos of hazy, dimly lit objects.
62 See Memories, Dreams, Reflections, p. 175.