"This was the beauty of the ball—the one you thought more lovely than an elf. Then, sweet perfume streamed from her clothes and hair; then her eyes sparkled, and her lips laughed. Look now at her!"
With all his terror, there was doubt in Johannes' eyes. So soon? Just now so glorious—and already...?
"Do you not believe me?" sneered Pluizer. "A half-century lies between then and now. There is neither hour nor time. What once was shall always be, and what is to be has already been. You cannot conceive of it, but you must believe it. Here all is truth—all that I show you is true—true! Windekind could not say that."
And with a grin Pluizer skipped around on the dead face, performing the most odious antics. He sat on an eyebrow, and lifted up an eyelid by the long lashes. The eye which Johannes had seen sparkle with joy was staring in the dim light—a dull and wrinkled white.
"Now—forward!" cried Pluizer. "There happens to be more to see."
The worm appeared, slowly crawling out of the right corner of the mouth; and the frightful journey was resumed. Not back again, but over new ways equally long and dreary.
"Now we come to an old one," said the earth-worm, as a black wall again shut off the way. "This has been here a long time."
It was less horrible than the former one. Johannes only saw a confused heap, with discolored bones protruding. Hundreds of worms and insects were silently busy with it. The light alarmed them.
"Where do you come from? Who brings a light here? We have no use for it!"
And they sped away into the folds and hollows. Yet they recognized a fellow-being.