"I advanced towards my host, who was laid on a half-broken bed, lighted up by a night lamp in a pot of earth. I said-- "'Master, you whose touch heals and whose words restore, who are you?' "Lifting his eyes to me, he replied simply, 'There is no master now; we are all children of God: call me brother.' "'Then,' I replied, 'Brother, who then are you?' "'I am _he who is._ Like the shepherd on the tops of the cliffs I have heard the cry of the multitude; it is like the moan of the waves at the winter equinox; that cry has pierced my heart and I have come.' "Motioning me to come nearer, he went on-- "'Son of doubt, who art sowing sorrow and reaping anguish, what seekest thou? The sun or darkness? Death or life? Hope or the grave?' "'Brother, I seek after truth,' I replied. 'I have hailed the past, I have questioned its abysmal depths whence came the rumours that had reached me: the past was deaf to my cries.' "'The past was not to hear you. Every age has had its own prophets, and each country its monuments; but prophets and monuments have vanished like shadows: what was life yesterday is to-day but death. Do not then evoke the past, let it fall asleep in the darkness of its tombs in the dust of its solitary places.' "I went on--'I questioned the present amidst the flashes and deceptions of this century, but it did not hear me either.' "'The present was not to hear you; its flashes do but precede the storm, and its law is not the law of the future.' "'Brother, what then is this law? What are the showers that make it blossom, and what sun sheds light upon it?' "'God will teach thee.' "Pointing to me to be seated near to him, he added: 'Sit down and listen attentively, for I will declare the truth unto you. I am he who crieth to the people, "Watch at the threshold of your dwelling and sleep not: the hour of revelation is at hand ..."' "At that moment the earth trembled, a hurricane beat against the window panes, belfries rang of themselves; the disciple would fain flee, but fear riveted him to the master's side. He continued-- "I foreboded that something strange would take place before me, and indeed as the knell of the belfry rang out on the empty air, a song which had no echo in mortal tongue, abrupt, quick and laden with indefinable mockery, answered him from under the earth, and rising from note to note, from the deepest to the shrillest tones, it resounded and rebounded like some wounded snake, and grated like a saw being sharpened; finally, ever decreasing, ever-growing feebler, until it was lost at last in space. And this is the burden of the song--