DAVID had not gone far on his way when the Voice spoke to him again. He had quite forgotten it during the time he worked at the Cobbler’s cottage, for the old couple had kept him so busy that he had had no time to think of anything but his work.
“What is up now?” asked the Voice. “Where are we going?”
“There,” answered David, “after the Blue Bird. Did I not tell you the colour on its wings would be more beautiful in this light than ever before? Is it not so? Were they ever more brilliant or more iridescent?”
With David’s renewed ability to see the Blue Bird, all the memory of the past returned to him so clearly that it seemed but yesterday that he had entered the little door in the tree trunk.
“Why leave the cobbler and his wife and Ruth?” asked the Voice. “I liked it there and found myself very comfortable and well cared for, even if they did work us rather hard at times. I should have liked to remain there all the days of my life.—I don’t care for this business of chasing the Blue Bird,” he added sulkily.
“That is because you do not understand,” said David. “Your duty is to obey and do as I tell you, not to grumble and find fault with every little hardship! There is a goal that I am aiming for, and the Blue Bird is leading me there; so I must and will follow it.”
The Voice grumbled a bit more, but David paid no attention to it, for his mind was filled with more interesting thoughts. He had rested under a tree as night approached, and the Blue Bird had sought shelter in the thick foliage of the same tree. The Voice had taken this opportunity to speak to him again.
David was now in the Forest Beyond the Woodlands, you perceive, for he had stepped into this country when he passed through the little door that led from the other side of the great tree. In this land things happen otherwise than in our land; or, if they do not actually happen otherwise, it seems so to those who live there, for everyone there is able to understand the inside of a thing as well as the outside. If you are able to understand only the outside of a thing, you will, more times than a few, entirely misunderstand the whole thing; but if you can understand the inside, it is not in the least necessary to bother much about the outside, for that will take care of itself. Everything that has an outside has been made for the sake of the inside that it contains; and as everything has two sides, of course, you understand that there must be an inside as well as an outside. It is a very good thing to be able to see the inside of a thing and to look for it more carefully than you look for the outside; and if you learn really to see it, you will have more than a few surprises in your life, through finding that you are able to see both sides at once.
David now found himself able to understand the song of the Blue Bird as he had never understood it before; for he could now perceive the inside of things as well as the outside. He was much surprised when he realized that, instead of its being just a bird’s song as he had always supposed, each note meant certain definite ideas and thoughts which the Blue Bird was expressing. For this reason the song was never twice exactly alike. David had never noticed this before: the song had always seemed to him just the same clear, sweet musical ripple, repeating itself over and over. Now he began to detect the several notes and how varied they were in accent and arrangement; and he learned that it was within this variety of accent and arrangement that the sense of the song was to be found. Then, little by little, David caught the inner meanings of the different symbols of sound; so that, from now on, every time the Blue Bird sang, its song conveyed a special message to David’s heart and mind.
He had followed the Bird for some time—just how long, he did not know—when presently he came upon a tiny green rose-covered cottage. The Bird flew to the vine over the doorway and began to sing as if its tiny throat would burst.