“Stop!” exclaimed Pistorius vehemently. “There is a great difference between whether one merely carries the world in oneself, or whether one is conscious of that as well. A madman can have ideas which remind one of Plato, and a pious little boy in a Moravian boarding school will recreate in his thought profound mythological ideas which occur in the gnostics or in Zoroaster. But he does not realize it! He is a tree or a stone, at best an animal, as long as he does not know it. But, when the first spark of this knowledge glimmers in him he becomes a man. You will not consider all the two-legged creatures who walk out there in the street as human beings, simply because they walk erect and carry their young nine months in the womb? Look how many of them are fish or sheep, worms or leeches, how many are ants or bees. Well, in reach of them are the possibilities of becoming human creatures, but only when they feel this, it is only when, if even in part, they learn to make them conscious, that these potentialities become theirs.” Our conversations were somewhat after this style. They seldom taught me anything completely new, anything absolutely surprising. But all, even the most banal, hit like a light persistent hammer-stroke on the same point in me, all helped in my development, all helped to peel off skins, to break up eggshells, and after each talk I held my head somewhat higher, I was more sure of myself until my yellow bird pushed his beautiful bird-of-prey crest through the ruins of the world-shell. We frequently related our dreams to one another. Pistorius knew how to interpret them. A curious example comes to my mind. I dreamed I was able to fly. I was flung through the air, so to speak--impelled by a great force over which I had not the mastery. The sensation of this flight was exhilarating, but soon changed to fear as I saw myself snatched up involuntarily to risky heights. There I made the saving discovery that I could control my rise and fall by arresting my breath and by breathing again.