Two-Legs had grown so old that no one now knew his age.
His family was constantly increasing and dispersed over the whole earth. When people thought that they were becoming too many in one place, then some of them broke up and moved to others, where the land was new. They reclaimed it, extracted metals from the mountains and sailed on the rivers and the sea. Railways and steamboats ran from one end of the earth to the other.
People went so far apart that they spoke different languages and no longer knew one another. In every country there were clever men who made new and marvellous discoveries that lightened the work of their brethren and made them richer and happier.
Each time that a man made one of these discoveries, he went off to Two-Legs, wherever he might happen to be, to show it to him and receive his praise, for he was honoured by them all as the father of the whole race and the wisest of all who lived on earth.
Two-Legs himself no longer had any idea of the number of his descendants; and it seemed as if he simply did not care. He lived now with one tribe of his people and now with the other, always alone in a house to himself, where he could quietly indulge in thought. Often, young men came to him to learn from him. Then he gave them of his wisdom and sent them out into the world again; but what he thought of in his inmost self he talked about to no one.
When he sat outside his house and gazed and pondered, the voices spoke to him as before:
“Two-Legs ... the lord of the earth ... the vanquisher of the animals....”
“Two-Legs ... who conquered the wind and made it his servant, as he did with the ox and the horse....”
“Two-Legs ... who tamed the wild steam and imprisoned it in the engine, which now has to obey his commands and do his errands....”
Two-Legs listened to the voices.