The worm crept up along the plaits of the shroud: he glided over the chin and the stiffened lips and into the mouth.
'This was the beauty of the ball, whom you thought lovelier even than an elf. Then her hair and dress shed sweet fragrance; then her eyes sparkled and her lips smiled. Now,—look at her!'
With all his horror there was doubt in Johannes's eyes. So soon? The splendour was but now—and already——?
'Do you not believe me?' grinned Pluizer. 'Half a century lies between now and then. Time and the hour are no more. What has been shall always be, and what shall be has ever been. You could not conceive of it, but you must believe it. Everything here is the truth. All I tell you is true! True!—and Windekind could not say that.'
With a nod and a grimace he leaped round the dead face, and played the most horrible antics. He sat on the eyebrows and raised the eyelids by the long lashes. The eye, which Johannes had seen bright with gladness, stared dull and white in the pale light.
'Now onwards!' cried Pluizer. 'There is more yet to be seen.'
The worm came creeping up from a corner of the mouth, and the dreadful march began once more. Not back again, but along new paths, no less long and gloomy.
'This is much older,' said the earthworm as he made his way through another black wall. 'This has been here a very long time.'
It was less dreadful here than before. Johannes saw nothing but a confused mass, out of which brown bones projected. Hundreds of insects were silently busy here. The light startled and alarmed them.
'Where do you come from? Who brings a light here? We want no light.' And they hastily vanished into the folds and crevices. But they recognised a fellow-creature.