But I continued saying: “If your majesty wishes to obtain information regarding the existence of truth, I would advise you to send a committee of such as are less conceited and capable of seeing beyond the wall which their egoism has built around them.”
I was still speaking when the three gnomes returned, and they reported unanimously that they had been to dreamland, and that they had seen no other light but their own, and that it was an absurdity to believe in the existence of a universal sun; for if there were such a light it could not have escaped their notice, and, moreover, the presence of such a light would make everybody look of the same colour, so that not one person could be distinguished from another.
Thereupon all the dark gnomes, such as had as little light and intelligence as possible, were gathered, and out of them the king selected three almost entirely dark dwarfs. They were surely the most sorry-looking imbeciles which it has ever been my misfortune to behold. Big-headed, hydrocephalic, with shrunken brains, they were the very personification of abject stupidity; they seemed to have not more understanding than an oyster, although their power of seeing appeared good enough. These were appointed as a committee to seek for the sun, and it was ordered that they should be conducted to the frontier of the outer world, there to be left to their own fate and to begin their researches. This was accordingly done: the three idiots were taken away, and I pitied them, for I doubted whether they would ever have sense enough to find their way back.
“I am curious to hear the report of this committee,” remarked the queen, “perhaps it would have been still better to blindfold them.”
To this I replied—
“I fear that your majesty will be disappointed; for, even if the dwarfs perceive the sun, they will be incapable to understand what they see, or to describe it.”
“Hear! hear!” exclaimed the king, and all the gnomes began to regard me with awe and respect; but Cravatu said—
“Really there is more behind this person than we suspected. He is one of those who sees that which cannot be.”
Thereupon the king conferred upon me the office of head fortune-teller to the court, and I was treated with great respect. The whole behaviour of the gnomes changed; the queen smiled at me, and invited me to the palace; but the princess was delighted, and as she took my arm, she said to me with a triumphant smile: “I knew that you were more than a spook after all.”