A Voyage to Arcturus

by David Lindsay

  Chapter 12. SPADEVIL

  Maskull found that his new organs had no independent function of theirown, but only intensified and altered his other senses. When he used hiseyes, ears, or nostrils, the same objects presented themselves to him,but his judgment concerning them was different. Previously all externalthings had existed for him; now he existed for them. According towhether they served his purpose or were in harmony with his nature, orotherwise, they had been pleasant or painful. Now these words “pleasure”and “pain” simply had no meaning.

  The other two watched him, while he was making himself acquainted withhis new mental outlook. He smiled at them.

  “You were quite right, Tydomin,” he said, in a bold, cheerful voice. “Wehave been fools. So near the light all the time, and we never guessedit. Always buried in the past or future—systematically ignoring thepresent—and now it turns out that apart from the present we have no lifeat all.”

  “Thank Spadevil for it,” she answered, more loudly than usual.

  Maskull looked at the man’s dark, concrete form. “Spadevil, now I meanto follow you to the end. I can do nothing less.”

  The severe face showed no sign of gratification—not a muscle relaxed.

  “Watch that you don’t lose your gift,” he said gruffly.

  Tydomin spoke. “You promised that I should enter Sant with you.”

  “Attach yourself to the truth, not to me. For I may die before you, butthe truth will accompany you to your death. However, now let us journeytogether, all three of us.”

  The words had not left his mouth before he put his face against thefine, driving snow, and pressed onward toward his destination. He walkedwith a long stride; Tydomin was obliged to half run in order to keep upwith him. The three travelled abreast; Spadevil in the middle. The fogwas so dense that it was impossible to see a hundred yards ahead. Theground was covered by the green snow. The wind blew in gusts from theSant highlands and was piercingly cold.

  “Spadevil, are you a man, or more than a man?” asked Maskull.

  “He that is not more than a man is nothing.”

  “Where have you now come from?”

  “From brooding, Maskull. Out of no other mother can truth be born. Ihave brooded, and rejected; and I have brooded again. Now, after manymonths’ absence from Sant, the truth at last shines forth for me in itssimple splendour, like an upturned diamond.”

  “I see its shining,” said Maskull. “But how much does it owe to ancientHator?”

  “Knowledge has its seasons. The blossom was to Hator, the fruit is tome. Hator also was a brooder—but now his followers do not brood. In Santall is icy selfishness, a living death. They hate pleasure, and thishatred is the greatest pleasure to them.”

  “But in what way have they fallen off from Hator’s doctrines?”

  “For him, in his sullen purity of nature, all the world was a snare, alimed twig. Knowing that pleasure was everywhere, a fierce, mockingenemy, crouching and waiting at every corner of the road of life, inorder to kill with its sweet sting the naked grandeur of the soul, heshielded himself behind pain. This also his followers do, but they donot do it for the sake of the soul, but for the sake of vanity andpride.”

  “What is the Trifork?”

  “The stem, Maskull, is hatred of pleasure. The first fork isdisentanglement from the sweetness of the world. The second fork ispower over those who still writhe in the nets of illusion. The thirdfork is the healthy glow of one who steps into ice-cold water.”

  “From what land did Hator come?”

  “It is not said. He lived in Ifdawn for a while. There are many legendstold of him while there.”

  “We have a long way to go,” said Tydomin. “Relate some of these legends,Spadevil.”

  The snow had ceased, the day brightened, Branchspell reappeared like aphantom sun, but bitter blasts of wind still swept over the plain.

  “In those days,” said Spadevil, “there existed in Ifdawn a mountainisland separated by wide spaces from the land around it. A handsomegirl, who knew sorcery, caused a bridge to be constructed across whichmen and women might pass to it. Having by a false tale drawn Hator on tothis rock, she pushed at the bridge with her foot until it tumbled intothe depths below. ‘You and I, Hator, are now together, and there is nomeans of separating. I wish to see how long the famous frost man canwithstand the breath, smiles and perfume of a girl.’ Hator said no word,either then or all that day. He stood till sunset like a tree trunk, andthought of other things. Then the girl grew passionate, and shook hercurls. She rose from where she was sitting she looked at him, andtouched his arm; but he did not see her. She looked at him, so that allthe soul was in her eyes; and then she fell down dead. Hator awoke fromhis thoughts, and saw her lying, still warm, at his feet, a corpse. Hepassed to the mainland; but how, it is not related.”

  Tydomin shuddered. “You too have met your wicked woman, Spadevil; butyour method is a nobler one.”

  “Don’t pity other women,” said Spadevil, “but love the right. Hator alsoonce conversed with Shaping.”

  “With the Maker of the World?” said Maskull thoughtfully.

  “With the Maker of Pleasure. It is told how Shaping defended his world,and tried to force Hator to acknowledge loveliness and joy. But Hator,answering all his marvellous speeches in a few concise, iron words,showed how this joy and beauty was but another name for the bestialityof souls wallowing in luxury and sloth. Shaping smiled, and said, ‘Howcomes it that your wisdom is greater than that of the Master of wisdom?’Hator said, ‘My wisdom does not come from you, nor from your world, butfrom that other world, which you, Shaping, have vainly tried toimitate.’ Shaping replied, ‘What, then, do you do in my world?’ Hatorsaid, ‘I am here falsely, and therefore I am subject to your falsepleasures. But I wrap myself in pain—not because it is good, but becauseI wish to keep myself as far from you as possible. For pain is notyours, neither does it belong to the other world, but it is the shadowcast by your false pleasures.’ Shaping then said, ‘What is this farawayother world of which you say “This is so—this is not so?” How happens itthat you alone of all my creatures have knowledge of it?’ But Hator spatat his feet, and said, ‘You lie, Shaping. All have knowledge of it. You,with your pretty toys, alone obscure it from our view.’ Shaping asked,‘What, then, am I?’ Hator answered, ‘You are the dreamer of impossibledreams.’ And then the story goes that Shaping departed, ill pleased withwhat had been said.”

  “What other world did Hator refer to?” asked Maskull.

  “One where grandeur reigns, Maskull, just as pleasure reigns here.”

  “Whether grandeur or pleasure, it makes no difference,” said Maskull.“The individual spirit that lives and wishes to live is mean andcorrupt-natured.”

  “Guard you your pride!” returned Spadevil. “Do not make law for theuniverse and for all time, but for yourself and for this small, falselife of yours.”

  “In what shape did death come to that hard, unconquerable man?” askedTydomin.

  “He lived to be old, but went upright and free-limbed to his last hour.When he saw that death could not be staved off longer he determined todestroy himself. He gathered his friends around him; not from vanity,but that they might see to what lengths the human soul can go in itsperpetual warfare with the voluptuous body. Standing erect, withoutsupport, he died by withholding his breath.”

  A silence followed, which lasted for perhaps an hour. Their mindsrefused to acknowledge the icy winds, but the current of their thoughtsbecame frozen.

  When Branchspell, however, shone out again, though with subdued power,Maskull’s curiosity rose once more. “Your fellow countrymen, then,Spadevil, are sick with self-love?”

  “The men of other countries,” said Spadevil, “are the slaves of pleasureand desire, knowing it. But the men of my country are the slaves ofpleasure and desire, not knowing it.”

  “And yet that proud pleasure, which rejoices in self-torture, hassomething noble in it.”

  “He who studi
es himself at all is ignoble. Only by despising soul aswell as body can a man enter into true life.”

  “On what grounds do they reject women?”

  “Inasmuch as a woman has ideal love, and cannot live for herself. Lovefor another is pleasure for the loved one, and therefore injurious tohim.”

  “A forest of false ideas is waiting for your axe,” said Maskull. “Butwill they allow it?”

  “Spadevil knows, Maskull,” said Tydomin, “that be it today or be ittomorrow, love can’t be kept out of a land, even by the disciples ofHator.”

  “Beware of love—beware of emotion!” exclaimed Spadevil. “Love is butpleasure once removed. Think not of pleasing others, but of servingthem.”

  “Forgive me, Spadevil, if I am still feminine.”

  “Right has no sex. So long, Tydomin, as you remember that you are awoman, so long you will not enter into divine apathy of soul.”

  “But where there are no women, there are no children,” said Maskull.“How came there to be all these generations of Hator men?”

  “Life breeds passion, passion breeds suffering, suffering breeds theyearning for relief from suffering. Men throng to Sant from all parts,in order to have the scars of their souls healed.”

  “In place of hatred of pleasure, which all can understand, what simpleformula do you offer?”

  “Iron obedience to duty,” answered Spadevil.

  “And if they ask ‘How far is this consistent with hatred of pleasure?’what will your pronouncement be?”

  “I do not answer them, but I answer you, Maskull, who ask the question.Hatred is passion, and all passion springs from the dark fires of self.Do not hate pleasure at all, but pass it by on one side, calm andundisturbed.”

  “What is the criterion of pleasure? How can we always recognise it, inorder to avoid it?”

  “Rigidly follow duty, and such questions will not arise.”

  Later in the afternoon, Tydomin timidly placed her fingers on Spadevil’sarm.

  “Fearful doubts are in my mind,” she said. “This expedition to Sant mayturn out badly. I have seen a vision of you, Spadevil, and myself lyingdead and covered in blood, but Maskull was not there.”

  “We may drop the torch, but it will not be extinguished, and others willraise it.”

  “Show me a sign that you are not as other men—so that I may know thatour blood will not be wasted.”

  Spadevil regarded her sternly. “I am not a magician. I don’t persuadethe senses, but the soul. Does your duty call you to Sant, Tydomin? Thengo there. Does it not call you to Sant? Then go no farther. Is not thissimple? What signs are necessary?”

  “Did I not see you dispel those spouts of lightning? No common man couldhave done that.”

  “Who knows what any man can do? This man can do one thing, that man cando another. But what all men can do is their duty; and to open theireyes to this, I must go to Sant, and if necessary lay down my life. Willyou not still accompany me?”

  “Yes,” said Tydomin, “I will follow you to the end. It is all the moreessential, because I keep on displeasing you with my remarks, and thatmeans I have not yet learned my lesson properly.”

  “Do not be humble, for humility is only self-judgment, and while we arethinking of self, we must be neglecting some action we could be planningor shaping in our mind.”

  Tydomin continued to be uneasy and preoccupied.

  “Why was Maskull not in the picture?” she asked.

  “You dwell on this foreboding because you imagine it is tragical. Thereis nothing tragical in death, Tydomin, nor in life. There is only rightand wrong. What arises from right or wrong action does not matter. Weare not gods, constructing a world, but simple men and women, doing ourimmediate duty. We may die in Sant—so you have seen it; but the truthwill go on living.”

  “Spadevil, why do you choose Sant to start your work in?” asked Maskull.“These men with fixed ideas seem to me the least likely of any to followa new light.”

  “Where a bad tree thrives, a good tree will flourish. But where no treeat all can be found, nothing will grow.”

  “I understand you,” said Maskull. “Here perhaps we are going tomartyrdom, but elsewhere we should resemble men preaching to cattle.”

  Shortly before sunset they arrived at the extremity of the upland plain,above which towered the black cliffs of the Sant Levels. A dizzy,artificially constructed staircase, of more than a thousand steps ofvarying depth, twisting and forking in order to conform to the angles ofthe precipices, led to the world overhead. In the place where they stoodthey were sheltered from the cutting winds. Branchspell, radiantlyshining at last, but on the point of sinking, filled the cloudy sky withviolent, lurid colors, some of the combinations of which were new toMaskull. The circle of the horizon was so gigantic, that had he beensuddenly carried back to Earth, he would by comparison have fanciedhimself to be moving beneath the dome of some little, closed-incathedral. He realised that he was on a foreign planet. But he was notstirred or uplifted by the knowledge; he was conscious only of moralideas. Looking backward, he saw the plain, which for several miles pasthad been without vegetation, stretching back away to Disscourn. Soregular had been the ascent, and so great was the distance, that thehuge pyramid looked nothing more than a slight swelling on the face ofthe earth.

  Spadevil stopped, and gazed over the landscape in silence. In theevening sunlight his form looked more dense, dark, and real than everbefore. His features were set hard in grimness.

  He turned around to his companions. “What is the greatest wonder, in allthis wonderful scene?” he demanded.

  “Acquaint us,” said Maskull.

  “All that you see is born from pleasure, and moves on, from pleasure topleasure. Nowhere is right to be found. It is Shaping’s world.”

  “There is another wonder,” said Tydomin, and she pointed her fingertoward the sky overhead.

  A small cloud, so low down that it was perhaps not more than fivehundred feet above them, was sailing along in front of the dark wall ofcliff. It was in the exact shape of an open human hand, with downward-pointing fingers. It was stained crimson by the sun; and one or two tinycloudlets beneath the fingers looked like falling drops of blood.

  “Who can doubt now that our death is close at hand?” said Tydomin. “Ihave been close to death twice today. The first time I was ready, butnow I am more ready, for I shall die side by side with the man who hasgiven me my first happiness.”

  “Do not think of death, but of right persistence,” replied Spadevil. “Iam not here to tremble before Shaping’s portents; but to snatch men fromhim.”

  He at once proceeded to lead the way up the staircase. Tydomin gazedupward after him for a moment, with an odd, worshiping light in hereyes. Then she followed him, the second of the party. Maskull climbedlast. He was travel stained, unkempt, and very tired; but his soul wasat peace. As they steadily ascended the almost perpendicular stairs, thesun got higher in the sky. Its light dyed their bodies a ruddy gold.

  They gained the top. There they found rolling in front of them, as faras the eye could see, a barren desert of white sand, broken here andthere by large, jagged masses of black rock. Tracts of the sand werereddened by the sinking sun. The vast expanse of sky was filled by evil-shaped clouds and wild colors. The freezing wind, flurrying across thedesert, drove the fine particles of sand painfully against their faces.

  “Where now do you take us?” asked Maskull.

  “He who guards the old wisdom of Sant must give up that wisdom to me,that I may change it. What he says, others will say. I go to findMaulger.”

  “And where will you seek him, in this bare country?”

  Spadevil struck off toward the north unhesitatingly.

  “It is not so far,” he said. “It is his custom to be in that part whereSant overhangs the Wombflash Forest. Perhaps he will be there, but Icannot say.”

  Maskull glanced toward Tydomin. Her sunken cheeks, and the dark circlesbeneath her eyes told of her extreme weariness.
/>   “The woman is tired, Spadevil,” he said.

  She smiled. “It’s but another step into the land of death. I can manageit. Give me your arm, Maskull.”

  He put his arm around her waist, and supported her along that way.

  “The sun is now sinking,” said Maskull. “Will we get there before dark?”

  “Fear nothing, Maskull and Tydomin; this pain is eating up the evil inyour nature. The road you are walking cannot remain unwalked. We shallarrive before dark.”

  The sun then disappeared behind the far-distant ridges that formed thewestern boundary of the Ifdawn Marest. The sky blazed up into more vividcolors. The wind grew colder.

  They passed some pools of colourless gnawl water, round the banks ofwhich were planted fruit trees. Maskull ate some of the fruit. It washard, bitter, and astringent; he could not get rid of the taste, but hefelt braced and invigorated by the downward-flowing juices. No othertrees or shrubs were to be seen anywhere. No animals appeared, no birdsor insects. It was a desolate land.

  A mile or two passed, when they again approached the edge of theplateau. Far down, beneath their feet, the great Wombflash Forest began.But daylight had vanished there; Maskull’s eyes rested only on a vaguedarkness. He faintly heard what sounded like the distant sighing ofinnumerable treetops.

  In the rapidly darkening twilight, they came abruptly on a man. He wasstanding in a pool, on one leg. A pile of boulders had hidden him fromtheir view. The water came as far up as his calf. A trifork, similar tothe one Maskull had seen on Disscourn, but smaller, had been stuck inthe mud close by his hand.

  They stopped by the side of the pond, and waited. Immediately he becameaware of their presence, the man set down his other leg, and waded outof the water toward them, picking up his trifork in doing so.

  “This is not Maulger, but Catice,” said Spadevil.

  “Maulger is dead,” said Catice, speaking the same tongue as Spadevil,but with an even harsher accent, so that the tympanum of Maskull’s earwas affected painfully.

  The latter saw before him a bowed, powerful individual, advanced inyears. He wore nothing but a scanty loincloth. His trunk was long andheavy, but his legs were rather short. His face was beardless, lemon-coloured, and anxious-looking. It was disfigured by a number oflongitudinal ruts, a quarter of an inch deep, the cavities of whichseemed clogged with ancient dirt. The hair of his head was black andsparse. Instead of the twin membranous organs of Spadevil, he possessedbut one; and this was in the centre of his brow.

  Spadevil’s dark, solid person stood out from the rest like a realityamong dreams.

  “Has the trifork passed to you?” he demanded.

  “Yes. Why have you brought this woman to Sant?”

  “I have brought another thing to Sant. I have brought the new faith.”

  Catice stood motionless, and looked troubled. “State it.”

  “Shall I speak with many words, or few words?”

  “If you wish to say what is not, many words will not suffice. If youwish to say what is, a few words will be enough.”

  Spadevil frowned.

  “To hate pleasure brings pride with it. Pride is a pleasure. To killpleasure, we must attach ourselves to duty. While the mind is planningright action, it has no time to think of pleasure.”

  “Is that the whole?” asked Catice.

  “The truth is simple, even for the simplest man.”

  “Do you destroy Hator, and all his generations, with a single word?”

  “I destroy nature, and set up law.”

  A long silence followed.

  “My probe is double,” said Spadevil. “Suffer me to double yours, and youwill see as I see.”

  “Come you here, you big man!” said Catice to Maskull. Maskull advanced astep closer.

  “Do you follow Spadevil in his new faith?”

  “As far as death,” exclaimed Maskull.

  Catice picked up a flint. “With this stone I strike out one of your twoprobes. When you have but one, you will see with me, and you willrecollect with Spadevil. Choose you then the superior faith, and I shallobey your choice.”

  “Endure this little pain, Maskull, for the sake of future men,” saidSpadevil.

  “The pain is nothing,” replied Maskull, “but I fear the result.”

  “Permit me, although I am only a woman, to take his place, Catice,” saidTydomin, stretching out her hand.

  He struck at it violently with the flint, and gashed it from wrist tothumb; the pale carmine blood spouted up. “What brings this kiss-loverto Sant?” he said. “How does she presume to make the rules of life forthe sons of Hator?”

  She bit her lip, and stepped back. “Well then, Maskull, accept! Icertainly should not have played false to Spadevil; but you hardly can.”

  “If he bids me, I must do it,” said Maskull. “But who knows what willcome of it?”

  Spadevil spoke. “Of all the descendants of Hator, Catice is the mostwholehearted and sincere. He will trample my truth underfoot, thinkingme a demon sent by Shaping, to destroy the work of this land. But a seedwill escape, and my blood and yours, Tydomin, will wash it. Then menwill know that my destroying evil is their greatest good. But none herewill live to see that.”

  Maskull now went quite close to Catice, and offered his head. Caticeraised his hand, and after holding the flint poised for a moment,brought it down with adroitness and force upon the left-hand probe.Maskull cried out with the pain. The blood streamed down, and thefunction of the organ was destroyed.

  There was a pause, while he walked to and fro, trying to staunch theblood.

  “What now do you feel, Maskull? What do you see?” inquired Tydominanxiously.

  He stopped, and stared hard at her. “I now see straight,” he saidslowly.

  “What does that mean?”

  He continued to wipe the blood from his forehead. He looked troubled.“Henceforward, as long as I live, I shall fight with my nature, andrefuse to feel pleasure. And I advise you to do the same.”

  Spadevil gazed at him sternly. “Do you renounce my teaching?”

  Maskull, however, returned the gaze without dismay. Spadevil’s image-like clearness of form had departed for him; his frowning face he knewto be the deceptive portico of a weak and confused intellect.

  “It is false.”

  “Is it false to sacrifice oneself for another?” demanded Tydomin.

  “I can’t argue as yet,” said Maskull. “At this moment the world with itssweetness seems to me a sort of charnel house. I feel a loathing foreverything in it, including myself. I know no more.”

  “Is there no duty?” asked Spadevil, in a harsh tone.

  “It appears to me but a cloak under which we share the pleasure of otherpeople.”

  Tydomin pulled at Spadevil’s arm. “Maskull has betrayed you, as he hasso many others. Let us go.”

  He stood fast. “You have changed quickly, Maskull.”

  Maskull, without answering him, turned to Catice. “Why do men go onliving in this soft, shameful world, when they can kill themselves?”

  “Pain is the native air of Surtur’s children. To what other air do youwish to escape?”

  “Surtur’s children? Is not Surtur Shaping?”

  “It is the greatest of lies. It is Shaping’s masterpiece.”

  “Answer, Maskull!” said Spadevil. “Do you repudiate right action?”

  “Leave me alone. Go back! I am not thinking of you, and your ideas. Iwish you no harm.”

  The darkness came on fast. There was another prolonged silence.

  Catice threw away the flint, and picked up his staff. “The woman mustreturn home,” he said.

  “She was persuaded here, and did not come freely. You, Spadevil, mustdie—backslider as you are!”

  Tydomin said quietly, “He has no power to enforce this. Are you going toallow the truth to fall to the ground, Spadevil?”

  “It will not perish by my death, but by my efforts to escape from death.Catice, I accept your judgment.”
/>
  Tydomin smiled. “For my part, I am too tired to walk farther today, so Ishall die with him.”

  Catice said to Maskull, “Prove your sincerity. Kill this man and hismistress, according to the laws of Hator.”

  “I can’t do that. I have travelled in friendship with them.”

  “You denied duty; and now you must do your duty,” said Spadevil, calmlystroking his beard. “Whatever law you accept, you must obey, withoutturning to right or left. Your law commands that we must be stoned; andit will soon be dark.”

  “Have you not even this amount of manhood?” exclaimed Tydomin.

  Maskull moved heavily. “Be my witness, Catice, that the thing was forcedon me.”

  “Hator is looking on, and approving,” replied Catice.

  Maskull then went apart to the pile of boulders scattered by the side ofthe pool. He glanced about him, and selected two large fragments ofrock, the heaviest that he thought he could carry. With these in hisarms, he staggered back.

  He dropped them on the ground, and stood, recovering his breath. When hecould speak again, he said, “I have a bad heart for the business. Isthere no alternative? Sleep here tonight, Spadevil, and in the morninggo back to where you have come from. No one shall harm you.”

  Spadevil’s ironic smile was lost in the gloom.

  “Shall I brood again, Maskull, for still another year, and after thatcome back to Sant with other truths? Come, waste no time, but choose theheavier stone for me, for I am stronger than Tydomin.”

  Maskull lifted one of the rocks, and stepped out four full paces.Spadevil confronted him, erect, and waited tranquilly.

  The huge stone hurtled through the air. Its flight looked like a darkshadow. It struck Spadevil full in the face, crushing his features, andbreaking his neck. He died instantaneously.

  Tydomin looked away from the fallen man.

  “Be very quick, Maskull, and don’t let me keep him waiting.”

  He panted, and raised the second stone. She placed herself in front ofSpadevil’s body, and stood there, unsmiling and cold.

  The blow caught her between breast and chin, and she fell. Maskull wentto her, and, kneeling on the ground, half-raised her in his arms. Thereshe breathed out her last sighs.

  After that, he laid her down again, and rested heavily on his hands,while he peered into the dead face. The transition from its heroic,spiritual expression to the vulgar and grinning mask of Crystalman camelike a flash; but he saw it.

  He stood up in the darkness, and pulled Catice toward him.

  “Is that the true likeness of Shaping?”

  “It is Shaping stripped of illusion.”

  “How comes this horrible world to exist?”

  Catice did not answer.

  “Who is Surtur?”

  “You will get nearer to him tomorrow; but not here.”

  “I am wading through too much blood,” said Maskull. “Nothing good cancome of it.”

  “Do not fear change and destruction; but laughter and joy.”

  Maskull meditated.

  “Tell me, Catice. If I had elected to follow Spadevil, would you reallyhave accepted his faith?”

  “He was a great-souled man,” replied Catice. “I see that the pride ofour men is only another sprouting-out of pleasure. Tomorrow I too shallleave Sant, to reflect on all this.”

  Maskull shuddered. “Then these two deaths were not a necessity, but acrime!”

  “His part was played and henceforward the woman would have dragged downhis ideas, with her soft love and loyalty. Regret nothing, stranger, butgo away at once out of the land.”

  “Tonight? Where shall I go?”

  “To Wombflash, where you will meet the deepest minds. I will put you onthe way.”

  He linked his arm in Maskull’s, and they walked away into the night. Fora mile or more they skirted the edge of the precipice. The wind wassearching, and drove grit into their faces. Through the rifts of theclouds, stars, faint and brilliant, appeared. Maskull saw no familiarconstellations. He wondered if the sun of earth was visible, and if sowhich one it was.

  They came to the head of a rough staircase, leading down the cliffside.It resembled the one by which he had come up; but this descended to theWombflash Forest.

  “That is your path,” said Catice, “and I shall not come any farther.”

  Maskull detained him. “Say just this, before we part company—why doespleasure appear so shameful to us?”

  “Because in feeling pleasure, we forget our home.”

  “And that is—”

  “Muspel,” answered Catice.

  Having made this reply, he disengaged himself, and, turning his back,disappeared into the darkness.

  Maskull stumbled down the staircase as best he could. He was tired, butcontemptuous of his pains. His uninjured probe began to dischargematter. He lowered himself from step to step during what seemed aninterminable time. The rustling and sighing of the trees grew louder ashe approached the bottom; the air became still and warm. Inky blacknesswas all around him.

  *****

  He at last reached level ground. Still attempting to proceed, he beganto trip over roots, and to collide with tree trunks. After this hadhappened a few times, he determined to go no farther that night. Heheaped together some dry leaves for a pillow, and immediately flunghimself down to sleep. Deep and heavy unconsciousness seized him almostinstantly.