Chapter XIV: Part III: I (4)

Alas! Johannes could not yet do that. He had no wings. He did, indeed, see rays of light at times, and here and there a bit of blue sky. But he could not get to it--he could not get out! And on he went again--upstairs, downstairs, through doorways, halls, and great garrets. And the terrible arms lay everywhere.

Again Marjon sang:

"Marvelous, matchless blue
I cleave in flight.
The spheres are not so fleet
As my winged feet.

"World after world speed by
Under my hand,
New ones I ever espy,
Countless as sand.

"Blue of the skies!
Blue of the deep!
Now make me wise--No
more to weep."

Johannes also heard the blue calling him; but what the magic word was he could not guess. He was on his knees now, before a small, garret window through which he could barely thrust his arm. Behind him he could hear a shuffling and sliding. It was the long arm again!

"It's a shame!" said Wistik again, his little face red with anger, "the way they have maligned me! I ought to be hail-fellow with the Evil One for not letting you be. What a rascal he is! Do you want to be rid of me, Johannes?"

"No, Wistik. I believe that you are good even if you have often disappointed me and made me very restless. You have shown me so much that is beautiful. But why do you not help me now? If you call me you ought to help me.

"No," said Wistik; "you must help yourself. You must act, you understand? Act! You know that _It_ is behind you, do you not?"

"Yes, yes!" shrieked Johannes.

"But, boy, do not shriek at me! Shriek at _It_. It is much more afraid of you than you are of It. Try!"

That was an idea. Johannes set his teeth, clenched his fists, turned round and shouted:

"Out, I say! Out with you--you ugly, miserable wretch!"

I even believe he used a swear-word. But one ought to forgive him, because it was from sudden excitement. When he saw that the long arms shriveled and drew away, and that it grew still in the house--when he felt his distress abating and saw the sunlight burst out, revealing a spacious deep-blue sky--then his anger calmed down, and he felt rather ashamed of having been so vehement.

"That is good!" said Wistik. "But do not be unmannerly--do not scold. That is hateful. But nevertheless, act, and learn compassion."

Johannes was now no longer afraid; he shouted for joy. Yes, he was bathed in tears of thankfulness and relief. Oh, the glorious blue sky!

"Now you know it, once for all," said Wistik.

Marjon's voice again in song. But this time very different--the air of one of her old songs merely hummed: a customary calling sound--a soft suppressed little tune. And thereupon followed a "tap, tap, tap," at his chamber door, to tell him that it was half-past eight and time to get up.

* * * * *

Fresh energy, a feeling of high spirits and courage, filled Johannes that day. At last he was going to act--to do something to end his difficulties.

First, he sought an opportunity to speak with Van Lieverlee. He went to brave him in his own rooms where he had never yet been. There he saw a confused medley of dissimilar things: some rare old pieces of furniture, and oriental rugs; a large collection of pipes and weapons; a few modern books; on the wall some picture-studies of which Johannes could not glean the meaning; some French posters picturing frivolous girls. With the same glance he saw mediæval prints of saints in ecstasy, and plaster casts of wanton women, and the heads of emaciated monks. There were images of Christ in hideous nakedness, and lithographs and casts so blood-curdling, crazy, and bizarre that they made Johannes think of his most frightful dreams.

"What are you here for?" asked Van Lieverlee tot Endegeest who, with an empty pipe in his mouth and a face full of displeasure, lay stretched out languidly on the floor.

"I have come to ask something," said Johannes, not exactly knowing how to begin.

"Not in the mood for it," drawled Van Lieverlee.

The day before, Johannes would have wilted. Not so to-day. He seated himself, and thought of what Wistik had said--"Act!"

"I will not wait any longer," he began again. "I have waited too long already."

"The big priest has had you in hand, has he not?" said Van Lieverlee, with a little more interest.

"Yes," replied Johannes; "did you know it? What do you think of him?"

Van Lieverlee gaped, nodded, and said: "A knowing one! Just let him alone. Biceps! you know--biceps! All physique and intellectuality. Representative of his entire organization. Can't help respecting it, Johannes. How those fellows can thunder at the masses! One can't help taking off his hat to them. The whole lot of the Reformed aren't in it with them! Theirs is only half-work; they are irresolute in everything they give or take; _krita-krita_, as we say in Sanscrit. Whether you do good or do ill, aways do it wholly, not by halves; otherwise you yourself become the dupe. If you would keep the people down, hold them down completely. To establish a church, and at the same time talk of liberty of conscience, as do the Protestants--that is stuff and nonsense --nothing comes of it. You may see that from the results. Every dozen Protestants have their own church with its own dogmas, with its own little faith which alone can save, and with its little coterie of the elect! No, compared with them the Roman Church is at least a respectable piece of work--a formidable concern."

"Do you believe in it?" asked Johannes.

Van Lieverlee shrugged his shoulders.

"I shall have to think it over a while longer. If I think it agreeable to believe in it, then I shall do so. But it will be in the genuine old Church, with Adam and Eve, and the sun which circles around the earth; not in that modernized, up-to-date Church, altered according to the advancement of science--with electric light and the doctrine of heredity. How disgusting! No, I must have the church of Dante, with a real hell full of fire and brimstone, right here under our earth, and Galileo inside of it."

"But I did not come to inquire about that," said Johannes, sticking to his point. "I am not content, and you ought to help me. What I have heard in the Pleiades, and from Father Canisius does not satisfy me. I am sure, also, that it is not in this way I shall find my friend again; and now I am determined to find him."

"Where, then, do you wish to look for him?"

"I believe," said Johannes, "that if he is to be found anywhere, it is among the poor--the laborers."

"Ah! Would you take part in the labor agitation? Well, you can do so, but I do not agree to go with you. You know what I think about that. Socialism has got to come, but I am not going to concern myself with it. It smells too much of the proletariat. I am very glad of the birth of a new society, but a birth is always an unsavory incident. I leave that to the midwife. I'll wait until the infant is thoroughly washed and tidy before making its acquaintance."

"But I wish to look for my friend."

Van Lieverlee stood up and stretched himself.

"You bore me," said he, "with that eternal chatter about your friend."

"Act!" thought Johannes, and he went on:

"You promised to show me the way to what I am seeking, and to give an explanation of my experiences. But I know no more than I knew before."

"Your own fault, my friend. Result of pride and self-seeking. Why have you had so little to do with me? You kept yourself with those two little girls. Did they enlighten you?"

"Quite as much as you did," replied Johannes.

Van Lieverlee looked up in surprise. That was insubordination--open resistance. However, he thought it better to take no notice, so he said:

"But since you will join the labor movement, then you must find out for yourself. I won't hold you back. Go, then, and look for your Mahatma!"

"But how am I to begin? You have so many friends--do you know some one who can help me?"

Van Lieverlee thought about it while looking steadily at Johannes. Then he said, deliberately:

"Very well. I know of one who is in the middle of it. Would you like to go to him?"

"Yes, at once, if you please."

"Good," said Van Lieverlee. Together they set out. The friend referred to was the editor of a journal--a Doctor of Laws. Felbeck was his name.

His office was far from luxurious in appearance. The steps were worn, and the door-mat was trodden to shreds. It was a dreary and sombre place. Large posters and caricatures were pasted on the walls, and on the table, lay many pamphlets and papers. Also there were writing-desks, letter-boxes, and rush-bottomed chairs. Two clerks sat there writing, and a few men, with hats on and cigars in their mouths, were talking. There was a continual running to and fro of people--printers' devils, and men in slouch hats.

Dr. Felbeck himself had a pale, thin face, square jaws, bristling hair, and a black goatee and moustache. His eyes were deep-set, and they looked at Johannes keenly, in a manner not fitted to put him into a restful and confiding state of mind.

"This young person," said Van Lieverlee, "wishes, as you express it, to turn his back upon his bourgeois status, and to swell the ranks of the struggling proletariat. Is that what you call it?"

"Well!" said Dr. Felbeck. "He need not be ashamed of it, and you might follow his example, Van Lieverlee."

"Who knows what I may yet do," said Van Lieverlee, "when the proletariat shall have learned to wash itself?"

"What!" said Felbeck. "Would you, a poet, have washed and combed proletarians, with collars and silk hats? No, my friend; with their vile and callous fists they will smash your refined and coddled civilization, like an _etagère_ of bric-à-brac in a parlor!" Dr. Felbeck vented his feelings in a blow at the imaginary _etagère_. The attention of a clerk on the other side of the room was arrested, and he stopped his work. Van Lieverlee, too, looked somewhat interested.

"A revolution appeals to me," said Van Lieverlee. "With barricades, and fellows on them with red flags, straggling hair, and bloodshot eyes. That isn't bad. But you people of the Society of the Future!--Heaven preserve us from that tedious and kill-joy crowd! I would ten times over prefer an obese, over-rich banker with his jeweled rings, who, waxing fat through the misfortunes of simpletons, builds a villa in Corfu, to your future citizen."

"You do not at all understand it yet," said Felbeck, with a slighting laugh. "You are bound to have such notions because you belong to the bourgeois class of which you are an efflorescence. You are obliged to talk like a bourgeois, and versify like one. You cannot do otherwise. You cannot possibly comprehend the proletarian civilization of the future. It is to be evolved from the proletarian class to which we belong, and with which your young friend wishes to connect himself, as I perceive with pleasure."

The clerk across the room came nearer, to listen to the speech of his chief. He was an under-sized young man whose pomaded black hair was parted in the middle. He had a crooked nose straddled by eye-glasses, and thick lips from between which dangled a cigar--even while he spoke. He wore a well-fitting suit, and pointed shoes with gaiters.

"May I introduce myself," said he. "I am Kaas--fellow-partner Isadore Kaas."

"Pleased to meet you," said Van Lieverlee. And Johannes also received a handshake.

"Have you come to register yourself?" the partner asked.

"In what?" asked Johannes, who had not yet exactly gotten the idea of things. "In the proletarian class?"

"As a member of the party," said Kaas.

"What does that imply?" asked Johannes, hesitating.

"It implies," said Felbeck, "that you renounce the privileges of the class to which you are native, and that you range yourself, under the red flag, in the ranks of the International Workingmen's Party--with the struggling proletariat--the party of the future."

"Then what have I to do?"

"Sign your name, make a small contribution, attend the meetings, read our paper, spread our doctrines, and vote for our candidates in the elections."

"Nothing else?" asked Johannes.

"Well, is not that enough?"

"Did you not speak of privileges I must renounce?"

"There, there!" said partner Kaas, "do not make too much of that, to begin with. Don't be frightened. For the present, nothing further is required of you."

"Oh, I was not afraid," said Johannes, a trifle vexed that he should have been misunderstood. "I was even hoping that I might be able to do more."

"So much the better! So much the better!" said Kaas, stepping hurriedly over to his desk again, and eagerly hunting for a pen. "That settles it. Your name, if you please."

But Johannes was not, for the time being, in a very compliant mood. Since he had dared the octopus he had found that he had more than one string to his bow.

"No, I came for something else. I have a dear friend who lives and works for the poor and oppressed. I am looking for him. I saw him last, at the great strike of the miners, in Germany. Since that time I have heard nothing from him, but I know, surely, that he is with the working people. Mijnheer van Lieverlee has told me that you were in the midst of the labor movement. Could you not help me?"

"What's his name?" asked Dr. Felbeck.

"They know him as Markus," replied Johannes, although it cost him an effort to speak the dear name in that place.

"Markus?" repeated the gentleman, considering. "Markus only?"

"Markus Vis," said Johannes, with yet more reluctance.

"Oh! He!" exclaimed partner Kaas.

"Markus Vis?" said Felbeck, turning round to the others in the office. "Is that--?"

"Yes, yes!" interrupted Kaas, "the very same who caused that row at the Exchange."

"Gee! That confounded anarchist!" cried one of the soft-hatted smokers.

"Is he a friend of yours?" asked Dr. Felbeck, with a disdainful sniff.

"Yes, Mijnheer, my best friend," said Johannes, firmly.

"Well, young man, you consort with odd and dangerous friends.

"Do you know where he is?" asked Johannes, quite undisturbed.

"Not I," declared Felbeck, scornfully. "Do any of you happen to know?"

"I rather think somewhere in the neighborhood of Bedlam," said another man.

"Trommel," called Felbeck to a clerk who had kept on writing, "where does Vis hang out at present?"

"Markus Vis?" said partner Trommel. "Well, for the nonce, at the office of an iron foundry. He has a job there."

"That's a neat berth for him," remarked one of the smokers. "You'll see what a boot-licker he'll be after he puts on a collar."

"What foundry is that?" asked Van Lieverlee.

"In the 'de Ruiter,' of your uncle Mijnheer van Trigt," replied partner Trommel.

"How long has he been there?" asked Van Lieverlee.

"For two or three weeks past."

"Is he a tall dark fellow with a beard, and curling hair, and a jumper?"

"That is it--exactly!" said various voices.

Van Lieverlee swung round, strode up to the window, threw back his head, pulled out his handkerchief, and snorted into it. The bystanders could hardly tell whether he was sneezing, or laughing, or indisposed.

"Excuse me!" he cried out. "Something comical occurred to me."

Then he snorted again, and one could plainly see that he was laughing.

"A Mahatma!" they heard him murmur, in the middle of his laughing. "Oh! Oh! but that is good! A Mahatma!"

Those present looked rather perplexed at this outburst, as if waiting for further explanation.

"If I only had had that description earlier, Johannes," said Van Lieverlee, recovering from his fit of laughter, "we need not have annoyed these gentlemen. Your friend is in my uncle's office. I have seen him several times."

"Then will you go there with me?" asked Johannes. His voice was still firm, but I assure you his eyes were full of tears. However, he controlled himself in the presence of those men and partners.

"Of course, of course! Sometime!" said Van Lieverlee, in high glee; and he actually began laughing again. He made a pretense of trying to control this outburst, but such was his manner that Johannes would have liked to strike him straight in the face.

He did not do it, however, but went down the steps with Van Lieverlee without having enrolled in the proletarian class.

"Well, good-by!" said Van Lieverlee, when they were in the street, giving Johannes' hand an immoderate shake. "I must go to the Soos.[1] Sometime we will go to the foundry. I'll make some inquiries, first. We'll go sometime--of course--of course!"

With his mouth still twisted in irony, and humming a song, he passed on, in affected indifference. That evening--alone--Johannes hunted for the foundry. But the office was closed and dark, and there was no one about to give him information.

He found in his own little room a small bit of cheer--a vase of forget-me-nots, from Marjon.

[1] Soos = Abbreviation of _Societeit_, or Club.

XI

"Wistik, dear," said Johannes, "let me hold your hand. You are such a good and true friend. I am not sorry any more that I slipped from under Windekind's mantle to listen to you."

"One must not admire oneself--I have always said that," replied Wistik, "but it is very true that I am good, and do not deserve all those mean things said of me. And what is the truth may be acknowledged, even if it be called boasting. Neither bragging nor decrying, but the truth--that is my idea."

Thereupon the little fellow nodded proudly, and set his cap on more firmly.

They were sitting on a rocky coast. To the left the sun was shining brightly upon a steep wall of rose-red rocks. To the right was a gentle upward slope, where trees were growing, with delicate silver-grey foliage. In front of them lay the wide waters of the sea--almost motionless, but slightly stirring with the fresh wind, and sparkling in the light. There was nothing to be seen save red rocks, blue sky, and water. The blue, crystal-clear water lapped and gurgled and splashed about the hollows and chinks in the stone at their feet, and then disappeared in the clefts and caves, where the sea-weed and the coral were. How bright it was! How fresh and spacious!

"I never see Windekind, now," said Johannes. "It is truly sad, for Father Pan's kingdom was most beautiful. But I am resigned, and I believe you when you say that still more beautiful things are to be found. Did I not once think the dunes the most beautiful of all, and fear I never should feel at home anywhere else? But now this strange land seems to me even greater, and I feel at home here also. Where are we, dear Wistik?"

"What difference does it make?" said Wistik, who never willingly admitted he did not know a thing.

"It does not matter," replied Johannes. "The main thing is that I know that I am I--Johannes, and that I see things good and clear; that yesterday I was at that office, and that I sought for Markus at the foundry. And I know too that I might now be seen lying asleep. But yet I am not dreaming, for I am wide awake--quite wide awake, and I remember everything."

"Exactly," agreed Wistik. "Do you recollect what Markus said about remembering?"

He paused a moment, and then went on in a tone that grew softer and more solemn.

"Remembrance, Johannes, is truly a holy thing; for it makes the past--_present_. Now the future to it ... and then we should be...."

"Where, Wistik?"

"In that still autumn day, where the gold on the tree-tops never fades, and a branch never breaks. Do you remember?" asked Wistik, hardly above a whisper.

Johannes nodded, in silence. After a while he said:

"It is splendid, Wistik, that I still remember, even in the night, and stay awake and knowing things, even although my body is asleep in bed. I will not be dead and lie down like a log, forgetting everything, as some do in sleep. Neither will I dream all sorts of nonsense, as if every night I grew foolish. That is shameful. I will not do so."

"Right, Johannes! No one wishes to be dead, and no one wishes to be foolish. And when human beings sleep they are dead, and when they dream they are foolish. None of that for me!"

"I shall try to live in my sleep, and to be wise in my dreams," said Johannes. "But it is hard, and time flies so fast!"

He gazed at his hands, his limbs, and his whole body. He had on his handsomest suit. In amazement, he asked:

"What body is this I have on, Wistik? And how silly to wear clothes. What clothes are these?"

"Do you not see? They are your own clothes."

So it was. Johannes recalled them precisely. And he held in his hand one of Marjon's blue forget-me-nots.

"I do not understand it, Wistik! That I have a dream-life--that I travel with you in the night, that I do understand. But how did my clothes get here? Do my clothes dream, too?"

"Why not?" asked Wistik.

Astonished, Johannes continued to meditate. The water swirled and splashed all about the hollows in the rocks. The exquisite warbling of a yellow-finch rang sweet and plaintive from between the clefts.

"But if everything can dream, then everything must be alive--my trousers too, and my shoes."

"Why not?" said Wistik again. "Just prove to me that they are not."

The way to do that was not clear to Johannes.

"Or perhaps," he resumed, "perhaps I make everything--rocks, sea, light, and clothing. One or the other; _I_ dream it and make it, or it dreams everything itself and makes itself."

"It cannot be any other way," assented Wistik.

"But then, I could make something else if I wished to."

"I think so, too," said Wistik.

"A violin? Could I make a violin, and then play on it?"

"Just try it," said Wistik.

Behold! There was the violin--all ready for him. Johannes took it, and passed the bow over the strings as if he had handled it all his life. The most glorious music came from it--as fine as any he had ever heard.

"Oh, Wistik! Do you hear? Who would ever have thought that I could make such music!"

"'Vraagal can do all that Vraagal wills,' said Pan."

"Yes," said Johannes, musing an instant, and forgetting his violin, which forthwith vanished. "Pan also spoke of the real Devil, you remember. He said that I must ask you to show him to me."

Wistik had drawn up his little knees and placed his arms about them, his long beard hanging down in front to his shins. Sitting thus, he threw a sidelong glance at Johannes, to see if he intended to do it. Then his entire little body began to tremble. "Shall we not take a little fly out over the ocean?" he asked.

But Johannes was not to be diverted.

"No, I want to see the real Devil."

"Are you sure, Johannes?"

"Yes," replied the latter. He felt himself a hero, now, after having defied the octopus.

"Think well about it," said Wistik.

"What does he look like?"

"What do you think?"

"I think," said Johannes, beginning to look stern and angry, "I think he looks like Marjon's sister."

"Why?" asked Wistik.

"Because I hate her! Because whatever I think beautiful she always spoils for me, and spoils it through the remembrance alone. She looks like Marjon, and she also looks like that dear friend about whom I am always thinking; and yet she is not the same--she is ugly and common. She kissed me once, and it has spoiled my life."

"Wrong, Johannes! He does not look in the least like that," said Wistik.

Suddenly, Johannes noticed that the bright light was growing dimmer, and that the great firm rocks began to quiver and shake as if seen through heated air, uneven glass, or flowing water.

Then, all at once, he knew, without descrying it, through an inner feeling of nameless distress, that _It_ was sitting behind him.

It! You know well, do you not, what it was? It--the same that sat by the pool when that poor young girl was drowned--It was sitting behind him, huge and deathly still. Sunlight, sea, and rocks--the whole beautiful land, grew hazy and vague.

"He is here," whispered Wistik, "behind us. Bear up, Johannes! You yourself wanted it."

"What shall I do?" asked Johannes, now very nervous and terrified.

"Do not be afraid! For God's sake, do not be afraid! If you do you are lost."

"Shall I cry to God, or to Jesus? Or cross myself?"

"He cares not a bit for such things; he laughs at them; he knows all about them. He makes fun of prayers and the sign of the cross. The main thing is to keep on the alert, and not to be afraid. He will be very friendly, and show you all kinds of pretty and interesting sights, and he will try to make you sleepy and afraid. But you must not fear and must not forget. Above all, keep fast hold of Marjon's flower. And here ... look!"

With his nervously trembling little fingers Wistik fumbled in the small satchel that always hung by a strap over his shoulder, and took from the jumbled lot of pebbles, scissors, lead-pencils, and dried plants, a little mirror on the frame of which his name was neatly engraved. Then in a voice shaken and nearly speechless with emotion, he said: "Hold that good and fast! It is your salvation. Go now, dear boy. Go!"

And the good little fellow wept.

"Are you not going with me?" asked Johannes, in agitation.

"I am his greatest enemy," said Wistik; "he cannot endure the sight of me. But I will stay in the neighborhood. Call me once in a while, and I will answer you. Then you will know that you are safe...."

"Welcome, Johannes!" said a gentle, friendly voice, and a soft warm hand clasped his own. "You are not embarrassed in my presence, I hope."

Could that be the Evil One? A nice, polite person like that, with such taking manners, and such a caressing voice? Johannes looked round, in amazement, to the place where _It_ was. He could not distinguish clearly, nor look straight at the speaker, but he seemed to be an ordinary, modish gentleman, with a frank, smiling face--well dressed in a brown suit and a straw hat.

"Would you not like to make acquaintance with me and my Museum?" continued the speaker. "It is an excellent collection--sure to please you. But what have you in your hand? Not a mirror, is it? Fie! You must throw it away. I have no patience with such mirrors. I abhor them! They foster only conceit."

The soft hand essayed to take away the mirror, but Johannes held it fast, and said firmly: "I will keep the mirror."

He had scarcely said this when there flitted across that smiling, honest-looking face a shade of indescribable malice. It was very brief, but plain enough to cause Johannes a shudder, and to convince him that truly the Evil One stood before him.

But instantly the face became again most frank and winning, and he heard:

"Very well, then, as you please. We will begin by making the acquaintance of my subjects--all of them friends, comrades, or relatives."

Just then Johannes heard again the well-remembered whispering and giggling which he had heard while watching the little hands. On all sides, amid much rustling and shuffling, he heard breathing, coughing, and sniffling--all sorts of queer human sounds, as if the place was thronged with people. But still he could see nothing.

"You fancied I was very different, did you not, Johannes? That I had horns and a tail? That idea is out of date. No one believes it now. Thank God we are forever above that foolish separation of good and evil. That is untenable Dualism. My kingdom is as good as the other."

"What is your name?" asked Johannes.

"They call me King Waan.[1] Yes, indeed! I am a king, if I do appear so humble. Besides, external pomp is out of fashion. I am a constitutional, bourgeois, democratic king. Here, Bangeling![2] Come here! This is my most trusty helper--my right hand, in fact."

Johannes shuddered at the sight of Bangeling--a shrinking, stooping, pale, and loathsome youngster. His eyes were red-rimmed, and glanced shiftingly right and left--never straight in front. His lean knees knocked against each other, and every moment his rag-covered body twitched with terror, and he cried: "Oh, Heaven! Oh, God! Now you will catch it! It is too late! Too la-a-ate!"

To hear and see this repeatedly, without becoming frightened oneself, was not easy; but Johannes pressed his flower close to his breast and cried:

"Wistik!"

"Ay, ay!" he heard his good little friend shout.

But the voice sounded from above, and far away. And suddenly Johannes had a very distinct sensation of falling, fast as lightning, down fathomless depths, although everything around him remained the same.

"Are we falling down below?" he asked.

King Waan gave Johannes a falsely-sweet smile. "One should not ask such impolite questions when making a visit," said he.

"Get away!" cried Johannes to Bangeling, who was now standing close beside them, twitching and whining. Then a throng of frightful figures pushed forward, trying to approach him, grinning, twisted, misformed faces--some with big purple noses, others with drooling lips--still others pale, and passive, with closed eyes, but with scornful muttering mouths.

Johannes knew these figures well; he had often when a child seen them in his dreams. And doubtless you also have seen many of them in the night--just before the measles broke out, or after you have eaten too much pie for dinner.

And you were very much afraid of them, were you not? Perhaps as much as formerly Johannes was. But this time he was not in the least afraid. When they came too near, he called out in a fierce voice: "Back!" Then they grew pale, and crumpled up like withered toadstools.

"This one is Ginnegap!"[3] said the Devil, pointing out a girl-like being with open mouth, dull eyes, and a finger in each nasty nostril, who was constantly tittering. "Another excellent assistant of mine. Here are Labbekak[4] and Goedzak;[5] charming twins, compact of goodness and charity. Just look! They quiver and quake like jelly. They have no bones, and they never did any wrong. If they do not belong in heaven, who does?"

"Of course they have no sense," said Johannes.

"But here, then--this one--an old acquaintance of yours. Maybe you think he has no wits, either?"

Who was it Johannes saw there? Pluizer, in truth--his old enemy Pluizer! But he lacked a good deal of looking so pert and fierce as formerly. Upon seeing Johannes he hid himself behind the back of a stout, dumpy demon.

"A little to one side, Sleur!" said the king to the bulky devil. "Give Johannes a peep at his old friend."

But Sleur did not budge. He was very sluggish. Pluizer called out:

"Does Death know about it, Johannes--that you are already here?"

"What is this place, really?" asked Johannes. "Hell? Is it here that Dante was?"

"Dante?" asked the Devil. And all his retainers whispered and tittered and chattered: "Dante? Dante? Dante?"

"Surely," resumed the king, "you must mean that nice place full of light where it is so hot and smells so bad; where sand melts; where rivers of blood are seething, and the boiling pitch is ever bubbling; where they scream and yell and curse and lament, and swear at one another."

"Yes," said Johannes. "Dante told about that."

"But, my little friend!" said the Devil, affably, "that is not here, as you can very well see. That is not my kingdom. That is the kingdom of another who, they say, is called Love. With me, no one suffers. I am not so cruel as that. I cause no one pain."

"I know that well," said Johannes, "for so long as I have pain I am alive and am warned. Is it not so, Wistik?"

"Yes!" cried the little fellow, his voice now sounding as if far in the distance--up above.

"We are falling all the time!" said Johannes, in great alarm.

"Do not think about it. Does it make you dizzy? I thought you were so level-headed. Just give this a look. This is my cabinet of curiosities."

And before Johannes knew that he had entered anything he found himself in a very small, close room. It was exactly like a bathroom with low ceilings, and was brightly lighted.

"You did not think to find it so well lighted here, _did_ you?"

"Trick-light!" shouted Wistik, his voice coming faintly from above.

"Look! Here lies an acquaintance of yours."

And King Waan pointed to a straight white form that lay on the stone floor. It was Heléne; and Johannes saw that she was calmly sleeping.

Two imps stood looking at her; one was Bangeling; the other, equally small and dirty, stood gnawing his nails. His head, with its misshapen ears, was much too big for him. He had on a barret-cap of aniline blue velvet, with russet ribbons, a pale-green blouse of Scotch plaid, and short trousers, as purple as spoiled berry-juice.

"That is Degeneracy," said Waan. "These two brought her here; a deserving deed. We hope to keep her. Look! See how peacefully she sleeps."

The sight of the pale, still sleeper, with her outspread black hair, made Johannes also feel drowsy. But he looked in his little mirror, holding his eyes open, hard, and called: "Heléne!"

The long dark lashes were lifted just a little.

"Pst! Not a word!" said the king. "Here we come to number two--a pretty and clever piece of work."

By a little door, so low and narrow that Johannes had to wriggle his way through it, they entered the next place. They were in an extremely smart little church--a dolls' church. The walls were bare and white, and little candles were burning. In the pulpit stood a tiny little dominie, preaching fervidly, gesticulating with hand and head.

"Dominie Kraalboom!" cried Johannes, in astonishment. "Who is he raving at?"

"Look at him, Johannes!" said Waan. "Only do not think he is dead. In order to come here one does not have to wait till death. And do you not see at whom he is raving? Take a good look."

"Reflectors!" exclaimed Johannes. In reality the little church was empty, but it was everywhere furnished with pretty little mirrors, and in each one of them was reflected the dominie's little face surrounded by a halo.

"Those mirrors are of peculiar manufacture. I make much use of them. The imported article alone I cannot endure. Look! here is the counterpart."

Another little church--just as smart and neat and light. But here there were many more candles, also flowers and images. The walls were gaudily painted with pictures, and Father Canisius stood in glittering, gold-embroidered garments, praying and mumbling before the altar.

Johannes looked up at the stained-glass windows. It was as dark as pitch behind them.

"What is outside there?" he asked. "Just let me look out." And he thought he could hear the snickering and giggling of the imps who were peering through the windows.

"Keep away! Silence!" cried the king, sternly.

"Wistik!" called Johannes.

"Ay!" sounded the voice, now very fine, and far away. And they kept falling, falling.

Through a long, narrow passage they went to the next number. It did not smell very fresh there, and Johannes soon noticed that this stale-smelling apartment corresponded with what they usually called at home "the best room."

In the middle of the white-wood floor stood an overturned waste-water pail. A puddle of thick, offensive fluid lay trickling around it.

"Under this," said King Waan, "sits one of the most remarkable specimens in my collection. It is a little creature having the habit of describing precisely everything it sees. His watchword is: '_Truth Above Everything_!' He could not have a finer one. I make very interesting experiments with him. Sometimes I put him here, sometimes there. Just now he is under this pail. Listen to him!"

A light little voice came monotonously out from under the pail:

"A rich, soft greyish violet shading off through brown into cream-white, clot-curdling stripe coagulations; long flittery-fluttery down-trickling welter-whirls filtering through pale-yellow toned-down dully shining topazy vaults; faint phlegmy greyish-green dozing off...."

And thus the voice went on until Johannes began to get quite qualmish and drowsy.

"Is not that nice? Lately, I had him in a cuspidor. You should have heard him then. Here is his label."

And he pointed to a trim little tag on which was marked: _Division, Fine Arts. Naturalist, var. Word-Artist. Locality: Terra Firma of Europe. Rather rare._

"Is Van Lieverlee here, also?" asked Johannes.

"To be sure! I have him a few centuries farther on, composing sonnets," said the Wicked One. "This is a very large place although you might not think so. I can show you only a small part of it."

Then they came to a division called "Sciences," and the Devil said:

"Look! That concerns you, Wisdom-Seeker!"

And he had Johannes look through the crack of the door, into a little room brightly lighted, cram-full of books. Professor Bommeldoos was there, standing on his head.

"Pluizer taught him that," said the Devil. "And do you see that clever contrivance he has made of mirrors and copper tubes? That is to look into his own brains with. He thinks to become still wiser."

The professor was utterly absorbed in his intricate apparatus, and gazed and gazed, with all his might, into an odd sort of twisted tubing, the end of which was attached to the back part of his head.

Johannes heard a low rushing and roaring, as if made by a gust of wind.

"Silence!" cried the Devil, testily.

But the roaring sound continued and grew louder.

"What is that?" asked Johannes.

"That is Death," said the Devil, spitefully. "He is called an ally of mine, but he often muddles up my affairs here, and he steals by the thousand the choicest specimens in my collection--especially the crack-brained."

"Here they are all crack-brained," said Johannes.

"Yes; but those you in the awake-life call that, he snatches away from me. Here we come to the division, "Happiness." This is the richest man in the world. Would you like a magnifying glass?"

The pen wherein sat the richest man in the world was all of gold, but so small that Johannes could not possibly enter it. The richest man in the world had a large head, quite bare and bald, above a very small insignificant body. He moved slowly back and forth, like a caterpillar incasing himself; and out of his little lips there driveled golden threads with which he made a cocoon of himself.

"Poor fellow!" said Johannes, shuddering.

"Nonsense! Nonsense!" returned the Devil. "Here they are all happy. They know no better. I never torment as does the Other with his Love eternal. I have also here the classification 'War.' You would naturally think that these must be unhappy. But quite the contrary. In general, I am an enemy of war. I prefer peace, as you will presently see. But this is a pleasant 'War.' In fact, the people enjoy it. For that reason it belongs here."

And now they came to a long row of very small pens in which was just such a bustle as one hears at night in a chicken-coop when the fowls are going to sleep. Over each little pen was: "_Religious War," "Party Strife," "Class Strife_," and as Johannes looked in through a small window, he saw a solitary little fellow, much excited and red in the face, who stood skirmishing in front of a mirror. The reflection of his own figure was so queer that it looked like someone's else.

In the third pen Johannes saw Dr. Felbeck. With furious fists, the little fellow rushed up to the mirror again and again, and stamped and scolded and raved until the foam flew from his mouth.

Then they came to a very long and diminishing little room that bore the words Love and Peace.

"There!" said the Devil. "Now we can talk aloud. They are not easily wakened here. Snug and cozy, is it not? A section of it also is _Pure Living_, and _Piety_, and _Benevolence_."

In the little ward stood many tiny beds, as in a hospital; and Johannes saw Labbekak and Goedzak in slovenly felt slippers, shuffling back and forth, distributing cups of warm tea and spoonfuls of a syrupy mixture. The beings in the little beds licked off the spoons, and fell asleep again.

Outside, the demons yelled and screeched still louder, and the downward motion was so apparent that Johannes grew dizzy.

"Here, also," said the Devil, "Death does me much harm."

Johannes looked at him. He now appeared wholly different. His brown suit had disappeared, and his smooth supple body--as shiny as a snakeskin--was as iridescent as water stirred by dripping tar. His face, too, was far less affable. Hollow and grinning, it began to look like a death's head.

"You are the real Death!" exclaimed Johannes. "The other is a good friend of mine. I have no more fear of him."

The Devil laughed and reached out his hand toward Johannes' little flower. But Johannes caught it up close to his breast. The flower hung limp and seemed to be perishing. The little mirror shook like a leaf in his hand, so that he could scarcely hold it.

"Wistik!" he cried.

He listened, but could hear nothing. And now he seemed to be falling with whizzing speed. Johannes was greatly alarmed. The long ward with its rows of little beds grew ever longer, ever narrower.

"Wistik! Marjon! Let me out! Let me out! Set me free!"

"I have also a classification 'Freedom'," remarked the Devil, pointing out a mannikin who, busy with a long ribbon inscribed with the words "_Freedom and 'Justice_," kept winding it around his head, arms, and legs until he could not move a muscle.

"No!" cried Johannes, banging with both hands--in which were still clutched his flower and mirror--at a hard, spotted door. This door was marked "_Sin and Crime_."

"Look out!" said the Devil. "Do you not see what it says over it?"

"I do not care what it says!" cried Johannes, pounding away.

"Take care! For God's sake, take care!" shouted Bangeling.

"Help! Wistik! Marjon! Markus! help!" cried Johannes, crashing through the door.

Before him he saw a black and bottomless night; but it was more spacious, and he felt his distress diminishing.

And now he saw the imps all racing after him, and they were playing with something. It glittered as they threw it, one to another, and they tugged and pulled and spit on it, and did things still worse--such as only very vile and impudent beings could do.

It was a book, and Johannes saw his name upon it--his own and his family name. Johannes was called the "Traveler" of his family.

At last one of the imps caught hold of it by a leaf, and flung it high up in air to tear it to pieces. The leaves fluttered and glittered, but held together. And the book, ceasing to fall, went higher and higher up into the dark night until it seemed in the far distance to be a little star.

Johannes kept looking at it with all his might, and it seemed to him as if he were a light bit of wood, or a bubble, rising swifter and swifter to the surface--from out the awful depths of the sea. Then, slowly, the heavens grew blue and bright.

At last he was drifting in the full light of day. His eyes were still closed, but he felt that he had returned to his _day_ body, and he rested--still a little longer--in the light, motionless, blissful slumber of a convalescent, or of one come home again after a long and weary journey.

[1] Waan = Error.

[2] Bangeling = Little coward.

[3] Ginnegap = Giggler.

[4] Labbekak = Duffer.

[5] Goedzak = Goody-goody.

XII

"Shall we go to the beach this morning?" asked Countess Dolores after breakfast. "It will be fresh and cool there now."

It was a merry morning trip. Both of the little girls went with them, and Johannes carried a small folding chair, and his friend's book. The countess took a seat in a beach-chair, and Johannes sat at her feet and read aloud to her, while the two children--their skirts tucked up, and their little feet and legs bare and pink in the clear light--busied themselves in the water and sand, with their pails and shovels.

Everything was flooded with sunshine, and clearly, beautifully tinted:--the knotted blonde tresses of the little girls--beneath their broad-brimmed white beach-hats--against the delicate blue of the horizon; the still deeper blue of the sea wherein could be seen the bright figures of the bathers in their red and blue bathing-dresses; and right and left the pure white sand, and the snowy foam.

Johannes had indeed become quite accustomed to what had so pained him at first--the profanation of the sea by human beings--so they were happy hours.

He resolved this morning to resume his inquiries after Markus, as soon as he was at liberty to do so.

They had not been sitting long on the beach when Van Lieverlee came sauntering-up, arrayed in white flannel. He was without a waistcoat, but wore a lilac shirt, and a wide, black-silk girdle, and had on a straw hat.

He gave the countess a graceful cordial greeting, and immediately said to Johannes, this time without irony:

"I sent to my uncle, this morning, for information. Your friend is not there now. He received his discharge last Saturday on account of his disorderly conduct."

"What had he done?" asked Johannes.

"He had delivered an address at the exchange when, mark you, he had gone there on a matter of business. Now," said Van Lieverlee, looking at the countess with a smile, "it is quite obvious that a man of affairs could not retain such a clerk as that. It takes my uncle Van Trigt, who is so jealous of his good name, to deal with such cases."

"Yes, I understand," said Dolores.

"It depends, though, upon what he said," ventured Johannes.

"No! One talks about business at the exchange--not about reason and morality. There is a time and a place for everything. My uncle was well satisfied with him in all else. He had taken him for a rather well-bred person, he said. But the man has a remarkable propensity for discoursing in public places."

"Where is he now?"

"Where is any idler who has received his discharge? Off looking for an easy berth, L should say."

"Is your friend so very poor?" asked the countess, in a serious whisper, as one would speak over the shame of a kinsman.

"Of course," replied Johannes, with a positiveness that was a challenge. "Indeed, he would be ashamed not to be poor."

"I think such men insufferable!" exclaimed Van Lieverlee. "As Socrates said, their conceit can be seen through the holes in their clothes. Without even opening their mouths they--every one of them--seem to be forever preaching morals and finding fault. I hate the tribe. They are of all men the most turbulent and dangerous."

Johannes had never yet seen Van Lieverlee so angry, but he remained cool throughout the tirade, and kept his temper.

The countess said in a languid voice:

"He certainly is very immoderate. I cannot say, either, that such pronounced types are to my taste."

Johannes was silent, and the other two talked together a while longer. The children came up nearer, and lying down in the clean, clear sand, they listened to the conversation. It was a bright group, for they were all dressed in white, except Johannes.

At last Van Lieverlee rose to go, and the countess, clinging to his hand, with a certain warmth of manner said:

"Of course you are coming to dinner?"

"Most assuredly!" replied Van Lieverlee.

* * * * *

After he had gone, there were several moments of constrained silence--a sort of suspense so obvious that even the children did not resume their chatter as usual, but continued silently playing with the sand, as if waiting for something to be said.

Johannes also began to comprehend that something was pending, but he had no idea of what it could be.

At last the lady said, rather hesitatingly, while tracing all kinds of curious figures in the sand, with her parasol:

"Have you not observed anything, Johannes?"

"Observed anything? I? No, Mevrouw," replied Johannes, with some discomposure. He surely had observed nothing.

"I have!" said Olga, decidedly, without looking up.

"I, too!" lisped Frieda after her.

"Hear the little smarties!" said Mevrouw, laughing in confusion, and blushing. "Well, what have you observed?"

"A new papa!" replied Olga.

"A new papa!" repeated Frieda.

Johannes looked up in some surprise and perplexity, into the beautiful, laughing eyes, and exquisite, blushing face of his friend.

Her laugh was a confirmation; and accompanying her question with a shake of the head, she continued:

"Really, do you not understand yet?"

"No," replied Johannes, in all seriousness. "Who is the new papa?"

"There he goes," said Olga, pointing with her little white finger after Van Lieverlee. And Frieda, too, stretched out her little hand in his direction.

"Fie, children! Do not point," said Mevrouw.

And Johannes began to comprehend--much as one does who has fallen out of a window, or has been struck on the head with a stone. As in the latter case, his first thought was astonishment at the cause of the blow, and that he could possibly survive it.

The blue air, the sea, the sand, the series of light-green dunes, the houses, the white figures--everything reeled and whirled, and then grew altogether black. He could not think, but only felt that he was extremely uncomfortable and qualmish. He was obliged to go.

As he stood up, he heard the words: "How pale you are!" That was the last. Then he walked away, beside the sea, hearing nothing save the washing of the waves upon the sand and the rushing of the blood in his ears.

He staggered a little back and forth, as if he had been drinking too much, and he wondered how that could be.

At last he could no longer see the people or houses--only water, sky, and sand.

It seemed to have been his intention; for, weak and limp, he went and lay down in the loose sand, and fell into a drowse.

XIII

Such drowsing is not real sleep, neither does it refresh. When Johannes awoke after a quarter of an hour, his throat was parched, and he felt as if his heart were shriveled in his breast. He essayed to think over what had happened, but it was too bitter and too frightful. He looked at the imprinted sand where he had been lying, as if he would go to sleep again. But now he could not sleep, and must stay awake.

He sat up and stared at the sea, and then again at the dunes. What was it that had befallen him? A very long time--he knew not himself how long--he sat looking. Then he stood up, feeling stiff and sluggish, as if dead tired from a long journey. Slowly and aimlessly he dragged himself into the dunes, and tried to take an interest in the beetles and the flowers. Sometimes, from force of habit, he succeeded; but immediately there returned the shudderings which that cruel blow had caused.

It had never entered his head that he himself would marry his friend. Why, then, should it go to his heart as if he were flung aside and trampled upon, now that another was about to take the place of her husband?

"It must not--_must_ not be!" was all he could say. He very well knew that the world did not always concern itself with his thoughts, and that his day-life was conducted quite differently from his night-life where everything proceeded from his will and wish. But this was so squarely against his desires and ideas that it seemed to him as if the world _must_ care about it.

Naturally, the world continued not to mind anything about it, because the world is a far greater and stronger thought than that of Little Johannes.

And if he had been sensible he would have modestly admitted it, because it is true. Then, at the most, that truth would only have saddened him.