And the hunter cried:
“Oh, you who have lived here so long, tell me, what is that great wild bird I have seen sailing in the blue? They would have me believe she is a dream; the shadow of my own head.”
The old man smiled.
“Her name is Truth. He who has once seen her never rests again. Till death he desires her.”
And the hunter cried:
“Oh, tell me where I may find her.”
But the old man said:
“You have not suffered enough,” and went.
Then the hunter took from his breast the shuttle of Imagination, and wound on it the thread of his Wishes; and all night he sat and wove a net.
In the morning he spread the golden net upon the ground, and into it he threw a few grains of credulity, which his father had left him, and which he kept in his breast-pocket. They were like white puff-balls, and when you trod on them a brown dust flew out. Then he sat by to see what would happen. The first that came into the net was a snow-white bird, with dove’s eyes, and he sang a beautiful song—“A human-God! a human-God! a human-God!” it sang. The second that came was black and mystical, with dark, lovely eyes, that looked into the depths of your soul, and he sang only this—“Immortality!”