A wealthy and well-dressed executive tries to convince a hermit to leave his isolated mountain home, but the hermit has other ideas.
An elderly hermit lived on a mountain only a few miles from a great city. He had lived there all his life, spending his days in a cave where he kept enough to eat and a place to sleep. When the weather was warm, he would sit outside his cave and say hello to the hikers who climbed the difficult paths to the top. He was well-known in the area, and many people gave him food and stopped to talk. They always came away feeling differently about themselves; his mild eyes and his piercing stare were a combination that led many people to change their way of life. Some admired him, but many others feared him, and no one ever challenged him.
At the same time, a huge company in the nearby city had plans to expand. One thing stood in the way: the mountain. One thing stood in the way of clearing away the land on the mountain: the hermit. At a board meeting, attended by all the important executives, it was decided that someone had to visit the hermit and convince him that it was a good idea to move. They would offer him any amount of money; they would find him another place to live; they would do whatever he wanted. However, the executives knew that the hermit was a popular and stubborn man, and that it would not be easy.
"I volunteer!" said Eric Wellington. Eric was the Vice President of Finance; he was only in his late thirties, but he was already at the top of the corporate world. He had been born into privilege, moving from prep school to Harvard, and then on to Harvard Business School. He had joined the company immediately, and had moved up through the ranks to the top at a rapid pace. Now he was successful, respected, and wealthy.
He looked upon the visit to the hermit as a challenge; he volunteered happily, unaware that many of the more seasoned executives looked at him with surprise and hesitation. They had heard rumors about the hermit's difficult temperament, and his refusal to negotiate.
Therefore, it was decided that Eric would make the trip. The following day, he left his BMW at home and took the company limousine the thirty miles to the mountain. The driver found the one road leading up to the one path that approached the top, and drove the car as far as he could. Finally, realizing that he would have to walk, Eric told the driver to park and stepped out.
Anyone passing Eric that cool windy day on the mountain would have been impressed by him: Tall, dignified, distinguished, he looked the part of the very successful businessman, as he straightened the jacket of his custom tailored $3,000 navy blue pinstriped suit and silk tie, brushed off his $1500 briefcase and ran his manicured hand over his hundred dollar haircut.
He glanced at his black captoe shoes, polished like mirrors by the old shoeshine man in his office building, leaned over to flick a speck off them and checked to see if his cuffs broke evenly over them.
He knew, however, that this was not the clothing for mountain climbing, and anxiously checked his gleaming shoes as he walked. After questioning a passing runner, who looked at him in surprise, he was relieved to discover that the hermit's cave was a very short distance. After a twenty minute walk, he found himself at the cave, and stepped into the opening. He looked inside.
A small fire was burning in a sort of stone fireplace, and Eric noticed that a hole in the rock above allowed the smoke to escape. A simple bed of straw was on the left, and a simple table was on the right. The hermit sat in the middle of the cave, in front of the fire. He was a man in his sixties, with deeply wrinkled and tanned skin. His hair was ragged and he wore an incongruous and very dirty baseball cap on top, and a tangled gray beard covered his face. He wore only an old patched jacket and a dirty robe, which looked more like rags. It was old and tattered. His feet were bare and as leathery and tanned as his face. He looked up, and showed no surprise at his visitor.
"Yes?" he said, and his eyes swept over Eric. He took in the expensive suit, the carefully knotted tie, the impeccable hair, and, especially, the shiny black shoes. Eric was anxiously removing the dust of the road from them with a piece of Kleenex, when he met the hermit's eyes.
For a moment, he did not know where he was.
The hermit seemed to look right through him, opening up his mind with eyes that were disarmingly mild, yet like a laser. He quickly came to himself, however, and introduced himself and explained his reason for coming so far. After giving the hermit his sales pitch, with the confidence and arrogance that had always served him well in the past, he stopped and looked at his listener. He had finished with the offer of a fine job for him at company headquarters, provided of course that he chose to "improve his appearance"...
The hermit did not change his expression. In a quiet, steady voice, he said: "You mean if I dress like you." Once again, Eric felt his mind opening up, but now something else was happening.
He felt as if the hermit himself had stepped inside him, and with him, an alien presence. The presence filled and overpowered his mind, like a thick, dank mist covering his senses and dulling his thoughts. It claimed its place, putting down roots which spread like tentacles into his thought life and his emotions.
He, Eric Wellington, had to make room for this other person, and his thoughts grew vague and confused.
"I've lived here all my life and my grand-daddy and his grand-daddy. Now you want me to move away so you can tear this mountain apart. You're an invader."
Eric looked at him in bewilderment. He dismissed the hermit's words, and began again to speak, but stopped as he looked at the hermit's eyes.
The hermit sat on the floor and motioned Eric to the only chair in the room. He began to speak. Each word hit Eric like a blow.
"You an unhappy man, and you are driven to live a life you do not enjoy. I will give you a new life." The hermit stopped speaking and stared at Eric, whose throat had gone dry.
In the silence of the cave, surrounded by the greater silence of the mountain, the words pierced Eric's mind and settled into his being, where they seemed to magnify. Were they true? A new life? He had always thought he was happy, but now there was another opinion to contend with, another voice; the presence that had entered now spoke for him and to him, agreeing with the hermit and confirming the harsh and condemning words. Eric felt his self-possession and his confidence weakening.
"But...I don't want a new life..." Eric's own voice sounded dry and flat, and his words rebounded in his own mind. Did he want a new life?
Again he heard the new voice inside him, and as he looked again at the hermit's eyes, this voice said the only thing that mattered was receiving an answer from the hermit as to how to find peace. At the same time, Eric Wellington, Harvard educated corporate executive, struggled to think. The next words came through the new voice - the voice of the presence.
"Tell...tell me how..." said Eric in a quiet voice, utterly different from the clear, confident voice of the successful executive. Eric the executive struggled like a moth caught in the sticky mesh of a spider's web while the usurping presence spoke for him: "Please, tell me how."
The hermit smiled, but then, as he looked at Eric's briefcase and his suit, he shook his head and spoke in a clear and ringing tone that was at odds with his calm stare.
"How dare you come here wearing those clothes!? Did you think you would impress me with your appearance? Did you think I would feel inferior to you because of your expensive suit or your polished shoes? You are a man who thinks only of surface things. I cannot help you!"
Eric felt a sense of alarm and urgency that he had never felt before.
"Please!" he begged. "Don't give up on me!"
The hermit thought for a moment, and then smiled again. "There IS one way, but it will not be easy..."
Eric looked at him with anticipation, as if everything depended upon it.
The homeless man smiled and looked directly in front of him. Eric had crossed his leg and his polished shoe was only a few inches from the hermit's face.
The hermit asked Eric if he had his cell phone with him. A surprised Eric nodded, and then the hermit told him: "You are a successful executive, with all the possessions you might want. You must start again, as if you had never become a successful executive. You must be humbled. Let me tell you something: in ancient times, servants were told to go barefoot as a symbol of their position in life; this, too, must happen to you."
Eric felt himself turn red and then white. "What?! I don't understand?!"
The hermit smiled. "You wear the uniform of an invader. When armies invaded a nation, captives had their shoes taken away. Until now, you have been one of the invaders. Now..."
Eric felt a lump in his throat. "But...but I'm not a captive..."
The hermit tapped a withered and dirty finger on the polished toe of the gleaming dress shoe, as Eric spontaneously pulled his foot away. "It is clear that your shoes are symbols of prestige and success; they separate you from the common man, and you value them far too highly. From now on, you will never again wear shoes and learn to live your life as a barefoot man. Shoes are always the key. Once a man has left them behind, he can move on to what is next. And for you, that is your new identity: the identity of a beggar."
The soothing voice of the presence filled his mind with agreement. Yes, it was inevitable. Then Eric's own voice broke through the miasma with a jolt. He suddenly became angry. Take off his shoes!!
"I'm sorry to have taken up your time" said Eric in his old voice, looking at the hermit with condescension. He straightened his tie and informed the old man that he had an important meeting to attend.
"No" said the hermit with quiet certainty. "You will never again attend a business meeting."
"Really?" said Eric, with an attempt at dignified contempt. He stood up to leave, and moved slowly to the door of the cave; his feet felt like they were made of led. His thoughts were a blur. His heart was pounding. He stood for a moment at the entry way, and then turned back. He came up against a force so great inside his own mind that he could not fight it without extreme stress.
He battled for what seemed like hours but was really only a few minutes. The entry of the cave was so close! Then he made the mistake of turning again and looking at the hermit, who once again seemed to enter into him with razor sharp eyes. Eric's look of anguish gave way to compliance as he looked into the hermit's face.
The professional businessman struggled for a few more moments against the presence, and then fell silent. He looked down at the shoes that had been handmade for him in London; they were still new, and only a few scuff marks sullied the soles. With a sigh, he returned to the chair and sat down again.
"Now I will make you one of us" said the hermit solemnly, and proceeded with his initiation ceremony.
The hermit's wiry fingers closed around Eric's right ankle. He picked up his foot, and the executive did not protest. With dirty and gnarled fingers, he slowly untied the right shoe, then pulled it off Eric's foot. He carefully placed it on the floor of the cave, and Eric's foot in its thin black sock fell to the ground. Then the hermit followed with the left shoe.
Eric did not move, but merely stared at his gleaming black shoes through a fog of confusion and a sense of strange relief. Then the hermit reached under the tailored cuffs of the $3,000 suit and pulled off Eric's black dress socks. He reached over to the fireplace, picked up a lump of soot and ashes, and rubbed them into Eric's bare feet; he then placed them on the cold floor of the cave.
"Now you have entered the new life" said the hermit quietly, folding the socks and carefully placing them in the shoes. "Now you have left behind the elite world you have inhabited and have joined the great majority of the human race, who are barefoot throughout their lives. You have fallen from your pedestal."
Eric stared in bewilderment at his feet. Why was he doing this? He was a successful executive! His thoughts seemed to come from far away. He knew that his old life was falling away like melting snow. He looked at the shoes he had worn with such confidence as if they belonged to someone else.
The hermit then pulled out a cardboard box. "Here, you will place your cufflinks, tiepin, Rolex, and wallet." Eric nodded, and began to unfasten his monogrammed cufflinks; he removed all the items and dropped them one at a time into the box.
"Do you see?" said the hermit. "All of these items are symbols of your success. They have kept you in prison. They have made you think you are better, special. You have taken refuge in being a well-dressed executive. Not anymore..." and the hermit pulled out a tattered robe. Now, you must remove those fancy clothes, and put on this robe, as a symbol of your new lowly position. You may step outside for privacy..."
Eric nodded and stepped outside the cave. The voice spread over his thoughts like smothering honey and oil. He smelled the cool air of the mountain while the presence took up more and more territory in his inner life. "Take off your suit" said the presence.
He took off the suit, sliding his arms for the last time out of the satin lining, sliding the red suspenders off his shoulders and stepping out of the hand tailored trousers. He let the $3,000 suit, the preeminent symbol of corporate success, drop to the ground in a pile of pinstriped wool. Then he slowly undid his neatly knotted silk tie and slid it from around his neck, followed by the pcket handkerchief, his starched white shirt with its French cuffs, and even his underwear.
In a few moments, he entered the cave again, wearing only the overalls and carrying his business attire in a pile that smelled of cologne and starch and wool. The hermit nodded approval. He held up Eric's shoes, which were almost new with little wear on the soles, glistening in the firelight, and the black business socks, which looked strangely insubstantial. "These will no longer tell you who you are."
Eric thought of all the meetings where he had worn those shoes with pride and confidence, and even swagger. Never again would he wear them.
"Now...You must quit your job."
In the silence that followed, Eric felt stunned. Quit his job? The voice of the old Eric inside him began to protest, but when he looked up at the hermit, his thoughts melted into a "Yes, of course!" Within minutes, he had told the stunned CEO that he was, indeed, quitting.
The hermit smiled with approval. "Now you must call your stockbroker and sell all your stocks and donate the money to a charity, and call the owner of your condo and sell your condo, and arrange for all your furniture and clothing to be donated to Goodwill. Then you must sell your car."
Eric felt each command like a blow, yet the blow felt strangely muffled and pleasant. The presence agreed with every word, and the presence was now answering for Eric, as Eric himself cowered desperately in the corner of his own mind, fighting a battle that was already lost. Nothing seemed to matter except pleasing the hermit.
Within thirty minutes, all the arrangements had been made. Eric was now unemployed, broke, and homeless.
However, the transformation of Eric was not yet complete. The hermit had an official" new identity for the formerly well-dressed man who had made a million dollar deal the day before....
"In the morning, you will beg for money with me. You will have a new name: Humillado, which means humbled in Spanish" said the hermit, and the next day Eric, or rather, Humillado sat outside with the hermit and began his new life.
The job of reeducation took several weeks; it was not enough to change the present; every trace of Eric Wellington, financier, would have to be removed and replaced with a new set of memories, attitudes, habits and behavior. Each day the hermit forced him to forget his life of success and prestige, replacing the memories of honors in college and success in the boardroom with days of begging on the mountain. The upper class financier still clung desperately to life in his own mind as the days went by, but any attempts to assert his identity, to reclaim his thoughts or his emotions or his own past were ruthlessly crushed by the hermit.
The hermit convinced him that he was not the well-born product of a wealthy family, but a boy abandoned in the slums and taken in by the hermit, who gave him a home. Thus, Humillado owed everything to the hermit. The speech of an educated man was replaced by the limited speech of a beggar and his physical appearance changed as well.
One night a dream woke Humillado in a sweat. He had seen himself sitting in a large office, wearing a business suit and having his shoes shined. When he woke, he thought of the dream and told the hermit, who quickly told him how foolish it was to worry about such things.
"Yes" thought Humillado. Me! Wearing shoes! And a suit! I'm just a hermit, a beggar? and he fell silent. The gentleman who had walked with brisk strides through glass and chrome office buildings to the satisfying click of his own shoes on the waxed floors said, and thought, nothing more about it.
The winter came within a few days, and snow made the mountain impassable. As the days and then the weeks went by, the man who had been Eric's neatly combed hair grew long and tangled, and a beard replaced the carefully shaven face he had always worn. The soles of his feet became toughened. His manicured nails grew long and dirty, and he lost weight through the regimen of eating only scraps.
Eric Wellington was no more.
The other executives, however, were stunned and bewildered. They assumed that Eric had simply left the country. Then the limousine driver informed them that he had not returned. As soon as the weather allowed, Porter Everett the third, the CEO of the company took the same journey to the hermit's cave. There the CEO stood, staring at the thin, ragged man before him. It took him several minutes to realize that this was, or had been, Eric Wellington.
The CEO exploded with anger and shock, asking he who had been Eric where his clothes had gone and why he had quit his job and sold everything. The hermit looked at Humillado and Humillado looked at the hermit, and both looked at the CEO's navy blue Armani suit, the gold silk tie and matching pocket handkerchief, and the polished black shoes. The hermit noticed that the CEO continually smoothed his thick, carefully combed prematurely gray hair.
Then the hermit asked Humillado to wait outside the cave, and invited the CEO in for a talk. After thirty minutes had passed, Humillado heard a raised voice; he peered inside and observed the CEO, whose sleek and dapper presence filled the cave. This time it was far more difficult; Porter Everett's will was far stronger than the man who had been Eric's, and the battle between the hermit and the impeccably tailored, perfectly groomed captain of finance was a fierce one.
"I am an executive. That is my JOB!" cried Porter, breathing heavily. The same sickly sweet mist was filling his mind, blurring his thoughts and challenging everything he was. A voice of mocking amusement entered his thoughts and would not let go. "I am NOT a hermit".
The absurdity of his words stunned him, as they echoed in the cave. "WHAT IS HAPPENING TO ME!" he cried out, raging against the presence as it penetrated his being.
The hermit simply stared at him. "You wear the uniform of an invader. You won't need those anymore" he said, pointing to the CEO's feet.
"My SHOES!? You don't UNDERSTAND!" yelled the CEO, his face perspiring despite the cold mountain air. "I am NOT a hermit! I am an executive, an EXECUTIVE!"
The hermit continued to stare at the impeccably tailored man in front of him. The presence filled the air, thick and heavy, and it infiltrated the very being of Porter Everett. An alien presence, finding a home as it assaulted and began to overwhelm the priveleged bastion of this business tycoon's personality.
The proud and arrogant head of the executive was still held high, but Humillado watched Mr. Everett's feet, and knew that the polished English loafers were key. To strip THIS man of his identity would take all of the persuasive powers the hermit had.
But the mountain was with him.
The hermit was fixing his eyes on the CEO's flushed face. The feet inside the tasseled loafers began to move. Slowly, slowly, the right foot began to slide out of the imported polished leather; their owner grimaced with frustration as he felt his will giving way. Then he pulled his foot all the way out, and began to take off the left shoe as well. For a moment, Mr. Everett stared at his toes through the thin material of his business socks, tears of anger rolling down his cheeks. The hermit grinned and picked up the shoes. "Now the socks. You won't need them for your new life."
In a moment, the CEO was barefoot; the hermit went to the back of the cave, carrying his trophies, and in that moment, Porter Everett came back to life, cutting through the web of cloying illusion that had invaded his mind through the hermit. He realized in a second that this was his chance of escape. He would have to forget about his shoes.
He slipped out of the cave and began to walk as quickly as possible down the dirt path of the mountain, making his way on vulnerable bare feet down the cold and rocky path. He stumbled a few times but kept going. Nettles grabbed at his trousers as he ran, and he stopped to roll up his trouser legs. One of his suspender buttons popped open, and he felt his shirt sliding out of his trousers.
Pictures of his priveleged life filled his thoughts. If only he could make it to the road! A tree branch scratched his face, and his heel caught on a patch of grass; he slid several feet and landed on his back. Sore and increasingly disheveled, he rose to his feet and continued the journey. At last, the road became visible ahead.
He arrived at the road and looked around him with relief and desperation. A dump truck was rumbling down the road and stopped suddenly as the CEO waved his arms desperately. The driver, an elderly and grizzled man, stopped and looked in amazement at this weird apparition: a man who was apparently a wealthy business executive, dressed to the nines, down to cufflinks and a perfectly placed pocket handkerchief and matching tie, hair gel and designer suit, and incongruous bare feet.
The old man just looked at him, and then drove off. The CEO yelled after him, when he felt a hand on his arm. It was Humillado, and the hermit was with him. The hermit simply stared at him, and the CEO's shoulders slumped. His toes dug into the earth as he fell to the ground, desperate and begging, as the knees of his designer suit fell into the dust and sweat streaked his neatly parted hair. His suspenders were sliding off, and his shirt tail was coming out. A cufflink came undone and dropped into a clump of grass.
"What do you want?" he cried, tears streaming down his cheeks. "I am an executive, a businessman, a success! I have a family...I have dozens of people working for me, a corner office, a mansion..."
Porter grabbed the hermit's robe, wimpering and begging him to allow him to return to his life.
The hermit merely smiled. "No more invader. Now you are a hermit, like me." The oily, smoky presence poured itself over him, and Porter Everett was caught in the web. The hermit reached over and pulled out the silk pocket handkerchief from the pocket of the suit jacket. Then he boldly untied the silk necktie and pulled it off the executive's neck.
The proud CEO said nothing in protest, but grimaced with humiliation as this miserable little man stripped him of those symbols of power and authority. He followed the other two back up the path to the cave.
As they walked, the presence pushed itself further and further into the private sanctum of Porter Everett's existence. His past, his present and his future were now the property of this force. The inner struggle was terrible and silent.
A few minutes later, the CEO divested himself of his suit and all the remaining trappings of his old life. He put on a dirty and tattered robe. Then the hermit prepared a razor and shaving cream. The CEO leaned his head down, and soon his head was completely bald; the hair that he had been a source of his vanity littered the cave. His face seemed smaller without the hair, and a sheepish grin had replaced the proud gaze. Then the CEO made the same calls that Humillado had made, selling everything, giving the company to the other businessmen. His eyes no longer held the gleam of a predatory businessman, but the mild, stunned look of his new identity. He left the cave and returned wearing the robe. The hermit said to him: "You are no longer Porter Everett the third, wealthy businessman. You are now Mendigo, which means "Beggar."
Within a few days, his family came to see him, stunned and horrified by his "decision" to become a hermit. They found him glassy-eyed as he cleaned the floor of the cave. He resisted all their entreaties and tears. They left and never returned.
The company executives were now so alarmed that they sold the company, and left the city for other jobs. On the mountain, the two former executives eventually found their own caves.
But the first hermit, the old man, kept souvenirs. In the back of the cave, unbeknownst to the others, two very expensive tailored suits could be found on hangers. Just as big game hunters have trophies on their walls, so too did the hermit.
The hermit even left the mountain sometimes to have the clothes cleaned and pressed, and on Saturday evenings while the beggars were sitting outside their caves, he polished the shoes and briefcases left behind by two very well dressed gentlemen who no longer needed them.