'Friend,' he said, 'before you were born into the pleasant earth I had come here. I have gone all the weary round. Listen to one who knows: all is harder, harder, as you go on. You are stirred to go on by the restlessness in your heart, and each new place you come to, the spirit of that place enters into you. You are better here than you will be farther on. You were better where you were at first, or even in the mines, than here. Come no farther. Stay; unless—' but here his voice gave way. He looked at me with anxiety in his eyes, and said no more.
'Then why,' I cried, 'do you go on? Why do you not stay?'
He shook his head, and his eyes grew more and more soft. 'I am going,' he said, and his voice shook again. 'I am going—to try—the most awful and the most dangerous journey—' His voice died away altogether, and he only looked at me to say the rest.
'A journey? Where?'
I can tell no man what his eyes said. I understood, I cannot tell how; and with trembling all my limbs seemed to drop out of joint and my face grow moist with terror. I could not speak any more than he, but with my lips shaped, How? The awful thought made a tremor in the very air around. He shook his head slowly as he looked at me, his eyes, all circled with deep lines, looking out of caves of anguish and anxiety; and then I remembered how he had said, and I had scoffed at him, that the way he sought was one he did not know. I had dropped his hands in my fear; and yet to leave him seemed dragging the heart out of my breast, for none but he had spoken to me like a brother, had taken my hand and thanked me. I looked out across the plain, and the roads seemed tranquil and still. There was a coolness in the air. It looked like evening, as if somewhere in those far distances there might be a place where a weary soul might rest; and I looked behind me, and thought what I had suffered, and remembered the lazar-house and the voices that cried and the hands that beat against the door, and also the horrible quiet of the room in which I lived, and the eyes which looked in at me and turned my gaze upon myself. Then I rushed after him, for he had turned to go on upon his way, and caught at his clothes, crying, 'Behold me, behold me! I will go too!'
He reached me his hand and went on without a word; and I with terror crept after him, treading in his steps, following like his shadow. What it was to walk with another, and follow, and be at one, is more than I can tell; but likewise my heart failed me for fear, for dread of what we might encounter, and of hearing that name or entering that presence which was more terrible than all torture. I wondered how it could be that one should willingly face that which racked the soul, and how he had learned that it was possible, and where he had heard of the way. And as we went on I said no word, for he began to seem to me a being of another kind, a figure full of awe; and I followed as one might follow a ghost. Where would he go? Were we not fixed here forever, where our lot had been cast? And there were still many other great cities where there might be much to see, and something to distract the mind, and where it might be more possible to live than it had proved in the other places. There might be no tyrants there, nor cruelty, nor horrible noises, nor dreadful silence. Towards the right hand, across the plain, there seemed to rise out of the gray distance a cluster of towers and roofs like another habitable place; and who could tell that something better might not be there? Surely everything could not turn to torture and misery. I dragged on behind him, with all these thoughts hurrying through my mind. He was going—I dare to say it now, though I did not dare then—to seek out a way to God; to try, if it was possible, to find the road that led back,—that road which had been open once to all. But for me, I trembled at the thought of that road. I feared the name, which was as the plunging of a sword into my inmost parts. All things could be borne but that. I dared not even think upon that name. To feel my hand in another man's hand was much, but to be led into that awful presence, by awful ways, which none knew—how could I bear it? My spirits failed me, and my strength. My hand became loose in his hand; he grasped me still, but my hold failed, and ever with slower and slower steps I followed, while he seemed to acquire strength with every winding of the way. At length he said to me, looking back upon me, 'I cannot stop; but your heart falls you. Shall I loose my hand and let you go?'
'I am afraid; I am afraid!' I cried.
'And I too am afraid; but it is better to suffer more and to escape than to suffer less and to remain.'
'Has it ever been known that one escaped? No one has ever escaped. This is our place,' I said; 'there is no other world.'
'There are other worlds; there is a world where every way leads to One who loves us still.'