was hard and damp – the air thick, and intolerably close. Johannes dared scarcely to breathe, and waited in mute terror.
He heard Pluizer's voice. It had a hollow ring, as if in a great cellar.
"Here, Johannes, follow me."
He felt the ground rise up before him to a mountain. With the aid of Pluizer's hand he climbed this, in deepest darkness. He seemed to be walking over a garment that gave way under his tread. He stumbled over hollows and hillocks, following Pluizer, who led him to a level spot where he clung in place by some long stems that bent in his hands like reeds.
"Here is a good place to stop. A light!" cried Pluizer.
The dim light showed in the distance, rising and falling with its bearer. The nearer it came and the more its faint glow filled the space, the more terrible was Johannes' distress.
The mountain he had traveled over was long and white. The reeds to which he was clinging were brown, and fell below in lustrous rings and waves.
He recognized the straight form of a human being; and the cold level on which he stood was the forehead.
Before him, like two deep dark caverns, lay the insunken eyes, and the blue light shone over the thin nose, and the ashen lips opened in a rigid, dismal death-grin.
Pluizer gave a shrill laugh, that was immediately stifled by the damp, wooden walls.
"Is not this a surprise, Johannes?"
The long worm came creeping on between the folds of the shroud; it pushed itself cautiously up over the chin, and slipped through the rigid lips into the black mouth-hole.
"This was the beauty of the ball – the one you thought more lovely than an elf. Then, sweet perfume streamed from her clothes and hair; then her eyes sparkled, and her lips laughed. Look now at her!"
With all his terror, there was doubt in Johannes' eyes. So soon? Just now so glorious – and already…?
"Do you not believe me?" sneered Pluizer. "A half-century lies between then and now. There is neither hour nor time. What once was shall always be, and what is to be has already been. You cannot conceive of it, but you must believe it. Here all is truth – all that I show you is true – true! Windekind could not say that."
And with a grin Pluizer skipped around on the dead face, performing the most odious antics. He sat on an eyebrow, and lifted up an eyelid by the long lashes. The eye which Johannes had seen sparkle with joy was staring in the dim light – a dull and wrinkled white.
"Now – forward!" cried Pluizer. "There happens to be more to see."
The worm appeared, slowly crawling out of the right corner of the mouth; and the frightful journey was resumed. Not back again, but over new ways equally long and dreary.
"Now we come to an old one," said the earth-worm, as a black wall again shut off the way. "This has been here a long time."
It was less horrible than the former one. Johannes only saw a confused heap, with discolored bones protruding. Hundreds of worms and insects were silently busy with it. The light alarmed them.
"Where do you come from? Who brings a light here? We have no use for it!"
And they sped away into the folds and hollows. Yet they recognized a fellow-being.
"Have you been next door?" the worms inquired. "The wood is hard yet."
The first worm answered, "No!"
"He wants to keep that morsel for himself," said Pluizer softly to Johannes.
They went farther. Pluizer explained things and pointed out to Johannes those whom he had known. They came to a misformed face, with staring, protruding eyes, and thick black lips and cheeks.
"This was a stately gentleman," said he gaily. "You ought to have seen him – so rich, so purse-proud and conceited. He retains his puffed-up appearance."
And so it went on. Besides these there were meagre, emaciated forms with white hair that reflected blue in the feeble light; and little children with large heads and aged, wizened faces.
"Look! These have grown old since they died," said Pluizer.
They came to a man with a full beard, whose white teeth gleamed between the drawn lips. In the middle of his forehead was a little round black hole.
"This one lent Hein a helping hand. Why not a bit more patient? He would have come here just the same."
And there were still more passages – recent ones – and other straight forms with rigid, grinning faces, and motionless, folded hands.
"I am going no farther now," said the earwig. "I do not know the way beyond this."
"Let us turn back," said the worm.
"One more, one more!" cried Pluizer.
So on they marched.
"Everything you see exists," said Pluizer as they proceeded. "It is all real. One thing only is not real. That is yourself, Johannes. You are not here, and you cannot be here."
And he burst out laughing as he saw the frightened and vacant look on Johannes' face at this sally.
"This is the last – actually the last."
"The way stops short here. I will go no farther," said the earwig, peevishly.
"Well, I mean to go farther," said Pluizer; and where the way ended he began digging with both hands.
"Help me, Johannes!" Without resistance Johannes sadly obeyed, and began scooping up the moist, loose earth.
They drudged on in silence until they came to the black wood.
The worm had drawn in its ringed head, and backed out of sight. The earwig dropped the light and turned away.
"They cannot get in – the wood is too new," said he, retreating.
"I shall!" said Pluizer, and with his crooked fingers he tore long white cracking splinters out of the wood.
A fearful pressure lay on poor Johannes. Yet he had to do it – he could not resist.
At last, the dark space was open. Pluizer snatched the light and scrambled inside.
"Here, here!" he called, and ran toward the other end.
But when Johannes had come as far as the hands, that lay folded upon the breast, he was forced to stop. He stared at the thin, white fingers, dimly lighted on the upper side. He recognized them at once. He knew the form of the fingers and the creases in them, as well as the shape of the long nails now dark and discolored. He recognized a brown spot on the forefinger.
They were his own hands.
"Here, here!" called Pluizer from the head. "Look! do you know him?"
Poor Johannes tried to stand up, and go to the light that beckoned him, but his strength gave way. The little light died into utter darkness, and he fell senseless.
XII
He had sunk into a deep sleep – to depths where no dreams come.
In slowly rising from those shades to the cool grey morning light, he passed through dreams, varied and gentle, of former times. He awoke, and they glided from his spirit like dew-drops from a flower. The expression of his eyes was calm and mild while they still rested upon the throngs of lovely images.
Yet, as if shunning the glare of day, he closed his eyes to the light. He saw again what he had seen the morning before. It seemed to him far away, and long ago; yet hour by hour there came back the remembrance of everything – from the dreary dawn to the awful night. He could not believe that all those horrible things had occurred in a single day; the beginning of his misery seemed so remote – lost in grey mists.
The sweet dreams faded away, leaving no trace behind. Pluizer shook him, and the gloomy day began – dull and colorless – the forerunner of many, many others.
Yet what he had seen the night before on that fearful journey stayed in his mind. Had it been only a frightful vision?
When he asked