The Quest

"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 Pluizer about it, shyly, the latter looked at him queerly and scoffingly.

"What do you mean?" he asked.

Johannes did not see the leer in his eye, and asked if it had really happened – he still saw it all so sharp and clear.

"How silly you are, Johannes! Indeed, such things as that can never happen."

Johannes did not know what to think.

"We will soon put you to work; and then you will ask no more such foolish questions."

So they went to Doctor Cijfer, who was to help Johannes find what he was seeking.

While in the crowded street, Pluizer suddenly stood still, and pointed out to Johannes a man in the throng.

"Do you remember him?" asked Pluizer, bursting into a laugh when Johannes grew pale and stared at the man in horror.

He had seen him the night before – deep under the ground.

The doctor received them kindly, and imparted his wisdom to Johannes who listened for hours that day, and for many days thereafter.

The doctor had not yet found what Johannes was seeking; but was very near it, he said. He would take Johannes as far as he himself had gone, and then together they would surely find it.

Johannes listened and learned, diligently and patiently, day after day and month after month. He felt little hope, yet he comprehended that he must go on, now, as far as possible. He thought it strange that, seeking the light, the farther he went the darker it grew. Of all he learned, the beginning was the best; but the deeper he penetrated the duller and darker it became. He began with plants and animals – with everything about him – and if he looked a long while at them, they turned to figures. Everything resolved itself into figures – pages full of them. Doctor Cijfer thought that fine, and he said the figures brought light to him; – but it was darkness to Johannes.

Pluizer never left him, and pressed and urged him on, if he grew disheartened and weary. He spoiled for him every moment of enjoyment or admiration.

Johannes was amazed and delighted as he studied and saw how exquisitely the flowers were constructed; how they formed the fruit, and how the insects unwittingly aided the work.

"That is wonderful," said he. "How exactly everything is calculated, and deftly, delicately formed!"

"Yes, amazingly formed," said Pluizer. "It is a pity that the greater part of that deftness and fineness comes to naught. How many flowers bring forth fruit, and how many seeds grow to be trees?"

"But yet everything seems to be made according to a great plan," said Johannes. "Look! the bees seek honey for their own use, and do not know that they are aiding the flowers; and the flowers allure the bees by their color. It is a plan, and they both unfold it, without knowing it."

"That is fine in sound, but it fails in fact. When the bees get a chance they bite a hole deep down in the flower, and upset the whole intricate arrangement. A cunning craftsman that, to let a bee make sport of him!"

And when he came to the study of men and animals – their wonderful construction – matters went still worse.

In all that looked beautiful to Johannes, or ingenious, Pluizer pointed out the incompleteness and defects. He showed him the great army of ills and sorrows that can assail mankind and animals, with preference for the most loathe-some and most hideous.

"That designer, Johannes, was very cunning, but in everything he made he forgot something, and man has a busy time trying as far as possible to patch up those defects. Just look about you! An umbrella, a pair of spectacles – even clothing and houses – everything is human patchwork. The design is by no means adhered to. But the designer never considered that people could have colds, and read books, and do a thousand other things for which his plan was worthless. He has given his children swaddling-clothes without reflecting that they would outgrow them. By this time nearly all men have outgrown their natural outfits. Now they do everything for themselves, and have absolutely no further concern with the designer and his scheme. Whatever he has not given them they saucily and selfishly take; and when it is obviously his will that they should die, they sometimes, by various devices, evade the end."

"But it is their own fault!" cried Johannes. "Why do they wilfully withdraw from nature?"

"Oh, stupid Johannes! If a nursemaid lets an innocent child play with fire, and the child is burned, who is to blame? The ignorant child, or the maid who knew that the child would burn itself? And who is at fault if men go astray from nature, in pain and misery? Themselves, or the All-wise Designer, to whom they are as ignorant children?"

"But they are not ignorant. They know…"

"Johannes, if you say to a child, 'Do not touch that fire; it will hurt,' and then the child does touch it, because it knows not what pain is, can you claim freedom from blame, and say, 'The child was not ignorant?' You knew when you spoke, that it would not heed your warning. Men are as foolish and stupid as children. Glass is fragile and clay is soft; yet He who made man, and considered not his folly, is like him who makes weapons of glass, careless lest they break – or bolts of clay, not expecting them to bend."

These words fell upon Johannes' soul like drops of liquid fire, and his heart swelled with a great grief that supplanted the former sorrow, and often caused him to weep in the still, sleepless hours of the night.

Ah, sleep! sleep! There came a time after long days when sleep was to him the dearest thing of all. In sleep there was no thinking – no sorrow; and his dreams always carried him back to the old life. It seemed delightful to him, as he dreamed of it; yet, by day he could not remember how things had been. He only knew that the sadness and longing of earlier times were better than the dull, listless feeling of the present. Once he had grievously longed for Windekind – once he had waited, hour after hour, on Robinetta. How delightful that had been!

Robinetta! Was he still longing? The more he learned, the less he longed – because that feeling, also, was dissected, and Pluizer explained to him what love really was. Then he was ashamed, and Doctor Cijfer said that he could not yet reduce it to figures, but that very soon he would be able to. And thus it grew darker and darker about Little Johannes.

He had a faint feeling of gratitude that he had not recognized Robinetta on his awful journey with Pluizer.