It sometimes is forced to come out that the solution to a simple problem cannot but be complex. My problem was surely simple, that of a need to obtain a coffin, so as thereby to have followed the instructions and heeded the warnings of my beloved ancestors, instructions and warnings which, once heard, must be followed hard upon with dedicated acts of obedience. Mere suggestions and hints from the dead must be taken as absolute commands. In spiritual matters such as this, disobedience implies nothing more or less than a lack of understanding. And equally it is assumed that whoever properly understands the commands of the dead will be incapable of disobeying them. This is a necessary closure and must be accepted as such, if what is to follow will not be meaningless.
As said, my problem was a simple one. And though at first I had thought the solution would also be simple, it was not to be so. After considerable pondering upon my problem, it came to me that because Jacob Moon had been compelled to prohibit me from building my own coffin, I was now required to have one brought in to me ready-made. To be sure, he was compelled by law to prohibit me as well from importing any coffin or from utilizing any substitute as I might find among my incidental furnishings, but by disobeying him in these matters I would not, as in the former proposed solution, implicate an innocent man in my crime. I was therefore free to ignore his latter pair of prohibitions, and this thought filled me with jubilation, and I grew impatient for my wife and her cousin to arrive so that I could unfold these thoughts to them.
Upon their arrival at my cell, and after I had explained to them that henceforward I would not compel them to participate with me or with the jailor Jake (as they had come to call him) in the foul acts of sensual gratification, those spirit-soiling celebrations of life to which we had become habituated, I related to the two women the nature of my dream and the warnings and instructions I had received from my father and uncle. They both seemed greatly relieved and pleased with my obvious recovery from the disease of sensuality that had debilitated our wills for so long, and even Jacob Moon, when I had opened my experience of the dream to him, and my consequent resolution, seemed somewhat relieved and in a clear way impatient to get back downstairs to his office where, as I knew, he had a massy pile of paperwork awaiting his attention and signature. My wife’s cousin, Gina, indicated that she was already late for a prior appointment in the city, and afterwards, when she had taken her leave, I related to my wife my most recent conclusion, that I was compelled by circumstance and the law to order and have shipped to me a ready-made coffin from some coffin-maker among our brethren outside.
As she is an extremely intelligent woman, she quickly pointed out to me that I would not be free to have a coffin shipped if anyone were able by examining it to determine that it was indeed a coffin, for to manufacture and distribute such items, as I more than any man must know, was a crime. In my excitement at the prospect, I had forgotten this obstacle. After a moment of dismay, however, I started up again with pleasure, for my wife suggested to me that I could surely receive a wooden cabinet or trunk, if one could be made and shipped to me, and especially if it were properly fitted out as a cabinet or trunk, so that any postal authority or prison examiner looking for contraband would, on inspecting it, conclude that the object was nothing more harmful to the common weal than a cabinet or trunk. She imaged such an object for me, pointing out that it could be made according to my specifications for a coffin, with the skin of it hinged and set with brass handles and with short legs attached to the base so as to resemble what is commonly called a hope chest and often used by young women for storing up their dowry of linens and clothing against the day when they marry (for that reason are they called hope chests). She further pointed out that it would be necessary to fill the chest with numerous items of cloth, linens, blankets and garments, &c, or the inspectors and surely my wiley jailor would discover the deceit, for they would know that I, as an impoverished prisoner, could not own sufficient items so as to require such a large chest for their storage.
This last observation by my wife, however, filled me with despair again, for I saw that no one would believe that I, of all prisoners, was the legitimate recipient of such a lavish gift as a large wooden chest filled with expensive items of cloth. My poverty was well known, for my calling had been publicly forbidden to me, and it was also well known that my wife and five children had been forced as a consequence to throw themselves upon the kindness of strangers and the few among the brethren who dared to be seen aiding them. How could a man, people would ask themselves, who cannot afford to feed and clothe and house his own wife and children, suddenly provide himself with a large hand-made wooden chest stuffed with blankets, coats, hand towels and warm undergarments?
My dear wife saw my despair and with reluctance conceded that the ruse would not be taken, though at first she had seemed to view the expense of such a gift as not especially dear or difficult to finance, even. By so much was she conscious of my need that she had difficulty making herself aware of the practical considerations. But I had swiftly itemized for her clarification the costs of such a chest and its necessary contents, as I knew any inspector would be able to do immediately upon opening it and examining it for contraband, an itemization, in fact, he would be required by law to make, so as to fix the shipping and delivery charges, and then she realized how incriminating (of me, my presumed poverty) it would be. It would be as if a starving mouse were suddenly revealed to own a cupboard full of cheese, she lightly said to me, in a characteristically generous attempt to dispel my gloom with humor.
It here came to me that the gift of the hope chest would have to be made by someone of means, if it were to be a believable gift, and such a person would have to be a philanthropist who had determined to aid and comfort those who, among society’s less fortunate creatures, had been designated by society as its prisoners. Now since there was no way to regard me as worthy of being singled out by such a benefactor, for there were many who were as needy as I and some even more so, then the gift of a hope chest would have to be made to many prisoners equally and at once, enough of them so that I would not seem to have been specially chosen for the gift. The only number of prisoners that seemed appropriate, however, was three hundred eighty-seven, which was the number of prisoners, including me, then inhabiting my particular prison. I very quickly calculated what this would mean, in terms of materials alone, so as to estimate the approximate cost of such a huge undertaking as the manufacture of three hundred eighty-seven hope chests, and to my disappointment, I determined that the project would require over a half-ton of cotton batting (one thousand one hundred sixty-one pounds, to be exact), and also one thousand nine hundred thirty-five yards of red velvet cloth, and over two and one-third linear miles of twelve by one inch pine board.
At my recital of these quantities, my wife gave a high laugh and turned away from me, as if to hide tears of discouragement, for I knew that she could not imagine any benefactor wealthy enough to be willing to pay for such an undertaking. And we both knew that we could not request the gift of these hope chests and their contents from my impoverished brethren, my fellow coffin-makers who were now so scattered in the land as to be hopelessly out of contact with one another and quite incapable of a cooperative endeavor of these proportions, even had we been able to pay for the materials ourselves.