The musicians were told to stop, the drunken scholars were pushed out into the street and in the stillness that followed the gentle voice of the prophet sounded as though coming from a distance.
"To whom shall I tell of my sorrow? Whom shall I call to weep?" he spoke as though crying in his sleep. "They do not hear, they do not see, they walk in darkness; the foundations of the earth are shaking and there is no wise man to understand and no foolish man to bewail it!"
Suddenly he stretched out his arms and cried in a loud voice: "So it has been and so it shall be, so it has been and so it shall be! There shall be endless evil. The gods will grow weary of men; the gods will forsake the earth and go to heaven. The sun will be darkened, the earth will be waste. The flowers of the fields will set up a moan, the heart of the beasts will weep for men; but men will not weep—they will laugh with sorrow. An old man will say 'I would I were dead,' and the child 'That I had not been born!' There will be a great mutiny throughout the earth. The towns will say 'let us drive out the rulers!' The mob will rush into the courts of judgment; the scrolls of the law will be torn, records of estates scattered, the boundaries between fields wiped out, the frontier posts knocked down. Men will say 'nothing is private, all things are in common; other people's things are mine; I take what I like!' The poor will say to the rich, 'Thief, give me back what you have stolen from me.' The small will say to the great 'all are equal!' Those who have not built the houses will live in them; those who have not tilled the land will fill the granaries; those who have not woven will be clothed in fine raiment, and she who looked at her own reflection in water will now gaze at herself in a mirror. Slaves will wear gold, pearls and lapis-lazuli, and the mistress will go in rags, begging for bread. The beggars will be as gods and the earth will turn upside down as does a potter's wheel!"
Suddenly he stood up and fell on his knees, raising his blind eyes to the sky as though he already saw the things of which he was speaking.
"So it has been and so it shall be—there shall be a new heaven and a new earth. There the lion shall lie down with the lamb and the sucking child shall play on the hole of the asp and the weaned child put his hand on the cockatrice's den. Blessed is He that cometh in the name of the Lord! He will come down like rain on a freshly mown meadow, like dew upon the parched fields. Lo, He cometh!"
He stopped and all were silent. "That's all nonsense," the Noseless Kiki's voice was suddenly heard in the stillness. "Why do you listen to a fool's talk?"
"And why do you revile God's prophet, you dog?" said Hafra the blacksmith, laying his hand on Kiki's shoulder so heavily that Kiki staggered. Freeing himself with an agile movement, he seized the knife that hung at his waist; but glancing at the giant's childish face he evidently changed his mind and said calmly, with a twinkle in his eye,
"Very well, if he is a prophet, let him tell us when this is to be?"
"For such as you—never; but for the saints—soon!" Zen answered.
"Soon? You are wrong there. No, brother, it will take a good long time for fools to grow wise."