'And shall I find it with you?'
'Yes, Johannes. But you must forget men and women. It is a bad beginning to have been born to be a man; but you are still young. You must put away from you all remembrance of your human life; among them you would go astray, and fall into mischief and strife and wretchedness—it would be with you as it was with the young cockchafer of whom I told you.'
'What happened to him afterwards?'
'He saw the beautiful light of which the old chafer spoke; he thought he could do no better than fly towards it at once. He flew straight into a room, and into a human hand. For three days he lived in torture; he was shut up in a cardboard box; they tied a thread to his feet and let him fly at the end of it; then they untied him, with one wing and one leg torn off; and at last, helplessly creeping round and round on a carpet, trying to feel his way back to the garden, a heavy foot crushed him to death.
'All the creatures, Johannes, which come out and about at night are just as much children of the Sun as we are. And although they have never seen their glorious father, still an obscure remembrance always tempts them wherever a light is beaming. And thousands of poor creatures of the darkness find a miserable end through their love for the Sun, from which they were so long since parted, and to which they have become strangers. And in the same way a vague and irresistible attraction brings men to ruin in the false image of that Great Light whence they proceeded, but which they no longer know.'
Johannes looked inquiringly into Windekind's eyes, but they were as deep and mysterious as the dark sky between the stars.
'Do you mean God?' he timidly asked.
'God?' There was a soft smile in the deep eyes. 'I know, Johannes, what you are thinking of when you speak that word,—of the chair by your bed-side where you knelt to say your long prayers last evening—of the green serge curtains in front of the church window, which you gaze at by the hour on Sunday mornings—of the capital letters in your little Bible—of the church-bag with its long pole—of the stupid singing and the stuffy atmosphere. All that you mean by the word, Johannes, is a monstrous, false image. In place of the sun a huge petroleum lamp, to which thousands and thousands of flies are helplessly and hopelessly stuck fast!'
'But what then is the name of that Great Light, Windekind? And to whom must I pray?'
'Johannes, it is as though a patch of mould should ask me what was the name of the earth which bears it round in space. Even if there were any answer to your question you would no more understand it than an earthworm can hear the music of the stars. Still, I will teach you to pray.'