Chapter 93 The Ferry's Gift

The east room, kept through the years by the children who had sat in it, became the school's quietest room, and the quietest room was the one where the Ferry had sat, and the sitting of the Ferry had been the whole of its teaching, and the teaching was the sitting, and the sitting was the gift, and the gift was the keeping, and the keeping was the Ferry's last port, and the last port was the school, and the school was the children, and the children were the keeping, and the keeping went on. And the Ferry's last port was the school itself, and when the sitting ended with the coming of the third spring the east room was left furnished with the whole of the Ferry's teaching, which could not be packed or carried or taught by any other hand, but which had entered the children the way the note had entered the coal, and the entering was the whole of the Ferry's gift, and the gift was the children, and the children were the keeping, and the Ferry, whose long life had been the carrying of things from one door to another, carried at the end of its life the one thing it had never expected to carry, which was its own teaching, given away to the children of the two worlds who would carry it forward when the old lamplighter could carry no more, and the carrying forward was the whole of the two roads' third spring, and the third spring was the Ferry's last port, and the last port was the school, and the school was the children, and the children were the keeping, and the keeping went on, forever. The Ferry had never once asked to be taught a lesson about itself, and the children of the second school, who had been taught for a whole season by the sitting of the old lamplighter in the east room, had learned more from the sitting than from any lesson, and the more was the whole of the Ferry's gift, the gift of a life lived entirely in the carrying of other things, offered as an example of what a life is for, and the children, who had never once been told to be like the Ferry, found themselves, without knowing it, becoming like the Ferry, the way water becomes like the channel it runs in, and the becoming was the Ferry's whole teaching, and the teaching was the sitting, and the sitting was the gift, and the gift was the whole of the Ferry's long service compressed into a single season in an east room with the children of the drowned country and the lit world gathered round. The deep-keeper, the drowned country's own assessor, came to the east room in the third month of the Ferry's sitting, and it did not come to assess but to sit, because there are some keepings that cannot be assessed, only witnessed, and the deep-keeper sat with the children and the Ferry through the whole of one long afternoon, and at the end of the afternoon it said the only sentence it had ever said in the hearing of children, which was that the old lamplighter had carried the drowned country's note for so long that the note had carried the lamplighter in return, and the carrying in return was the whole of the keeping, and the keeping was the sitting, and the sitting was the deep-keeper's own first lesson, and the deep-keeper left the east room changed, not assessed but assessed against its own ledger for the first time, and the ledger found it wanting the only thing that matters, which is the willingness to sit still in a room with the kept and be taught by them. Marta began bringing bread to the east room in the weeks of the Ferry's sitting, because Marta had learned in the first season of the two roads that a room where something true is being taught needs bread the way a lit room needs lamps, and the bread came and the children ate it and the Ferry sat and the east room, which had been a bare room with bare benches, became one of the most furnished rooms in the school, furnished entirely by the sitting of an old lamplighter and the bread of an old kitchen, and the furnishing was the whole of the Ferry's gift, and the gift was the sitting, and the sitting was the bread, and the bread was shared, and the sharing was the whole of the two roads' lesson, the lesson the Ferry had been carrying its whole long life without knowing it carried, that a life spent carrying other things is a life that has, in the end, carried everything, and the everything was in the east room, sitting and being taught, forever. The Ferry, whose whole long service had been the carrying of the note and the coal and the dark's own account, gave, in the second winter of the two roads, the last gift it had to give, and the gift was itself, the whole shape of a life spent ferrying between doors offered to the second school as a teaching, the way a retired sailor offers the shape of his crossings to a class of children who have never seen the sea, and the teaching was not a lesson but a sitting, the Ferry sitting in the second school's east room for a whole season, available to any child who wished to ask it a question, and the children, who had never once been offered the whole life of a lamplighter as a thing to be sat beside, came and asked, and the Ferry answered in its rust-and-distance voice, and the answers were the whole of the drowned country's oral history given back to the drowned country's own children in the second school's east room, and the giving back was the Ferry's gift, and the gift was the Ferry, and the Ferry was the giving, and the giving was the teaching, and the teaching was the whole of the second winter's east room, and the east room was the Ferry's last port.