"'Truth! who is she? Can you eat her? can you drink her? Who has ever
seen her? Your birds were real: all could hear them sing! Oh, fool! vile
reptile! atheist!' they cried, 'you pollute the air.'
"'Come, let us take up stones and stone him,' cried some.
"'What affair is it of ours?' said others. 'Let the idiot go,' and went
away. But the rest gathered up stones and mud and threw at him. At last,
when he was bruised and cut, the hunter crept away into the woods. And it
was evening about him."
At every word the stranger spoke the fellow's eyes flashed back on him--
yes, and yes, and yes! The stranger smiled. It was almost worth the
trouble of exerting oneself, even on a lazy afternoon, to win those
passionate flashes, more thirsty and desiring than the love-glances of a
woman.
"He wandered on and on," said the stranger, "and the shade grew deeper. He
was on the borders now of the land where it is always night. Then he
stepped into it, and there was no light there. With his hands he groped;
but each branch as he touched it broke off, and the earth was covered with
cinders. At every step his foot sank in, and a fine cloud of impalpable
ashes flew up into his face; and it was dark. So he sat down upon a stone
and buried his face in his hands, to wait in the Land of Negation and
Denial till the light came.
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