"Goethe?"
"Yes; in the eleventh book of Aus meinem Leben he relates how he met the image of himself upon a country road. 'I saw, that is to say, not with the eye of the body, but of the spirit,' he adds. Do you consider Goethe's testimony credible?"
"Yes."
"Well, such sights are not seen every day, just as the hoopoo is not seen every day. But that does not give one any right to doubt that they are seen."
Crex, crex!—The pupil asked: "What is chance?"
"It means something accidental, irregular, illogical in the occurrence of an event. But the word is often misused by those who see, but do not understand. For instance, if after an evil deed you are systematically persecuted by misfortune, that is no chance. Firstly, because the misfortunes appear regularly, but chance is irregular. Secondly, because the punishment follows logically on the evil deed, and chance is illogical. It is therefore something else."
"Yes, it must be so. But what is it that causes me to fail in all my undertakings, to meet in the streets only enemies, to be cheated in all the shops, to get the worst eatables in the market, to read only of wickedness in the papers, not to receive pleasant letters though they have been posted, to miss my train, to see the last cab engaged under my nose, to be given the only room in the hotel where a suicide has been committed, not to meet the person I have taken a special journey to see; to have the money I earn immediately snatched away, to have to remain in a strange town from which all my acquaintances have gone? Then at last, when I have no food, and am on the point of drowning myself, I find a shilling in the street. That cannot be chance? What is it then?"
"It is something else, but how it happens we don't know, since we know so little about the most ordinary phenomena."
"That's only twaddle."
"Crex, crex!"