“Thou wilt write in the Book, O Achilles?” said the old man, pointing to the table where the mighty tome lay open.
“First, I must write my little treatise upon human life, my father,” said the returned wayfarer in the simple accents of his childhood. “And, perchance, my father, when that is written, if the strength is still given to my right hand, I may, or I may not, write in the Book.”
“I myself have not yet written in it, O Achilles,” said the aged man, his father, with a look of despair. “And I begin to fear that it may not be given to me to write therein. I am old, Achilles; I am old.”
The young man appeared hardly to heed the words of his aged father.
“I will eat,” he said, “and then until midnight is told upon the clocks I will repose, and then I will write my little treatise upon human life.”
Half-naked and unkempt and bare-footed as he was, the returned wayfarer ate and drank; and he then fell asleep in a chair at the side of the bright hearth with his feet stretched out before the embers.
While the returned wayfarer slept profoundly, the aged man, his father, heaped up the fire with coals. Then he went forth into the shop, and took from its recesses the materials for writing.
As the old man was conveying these articles, with every precaution that he might not disturb the sleeper, to the table of the little room, he heard a stealthy knocking, with which he had grown familiar, upon the outer shutters of the shop.
Therefore, as soon as the old man had discharged his burdens, he went to the door of the shop and opened it. Upon the outer threshold was a small, wizened man with a shrewd countenance and a short, bristling moustache.
“Has he come back?” asked the man with an eager whisper.