There was a rushing noise in my ears, a flickering before my eyes. Every sound, however light, every motion of a twig or a blade of grass made me shudder, and threw me on to the ground with fright. I hid my face in the sand. Whether or not I slept, and how long I lay there, I cannot tell! But I suddenly heard someone breathing close to me; I spring up and--I am not alone! Two well-known, deep, black eyes are gazing at me in all candor and gentleness. It is the lunatic. "What are you doing here?" I ask in smothered tones. "I never sleep in the town!" he answers sadly, and his glance is so gentle, the voice so brotherly, that I recover myself completely and lose all fear. "Once upon a time," I reflected, "lunatics were believed to be prophets--it is still so in the East--and I wonder, perhaps he is one, too! Is he not persecuted like a prophet? Don't they throw stones at him as at a prophet? Don't his eyes shine like stars? Doesn't his voice sound like the sweetest harp? Does he not bear the sorrows of all, and suffer for a whole generation? Perhaps he also knows what shall be hereafter!" I have a try and begin to question him, and he answers so softly and sweetly, that I think sometimes it is all a dream, the dream of a summer's night outside the fortress. "Do you believe in the days of the Messiah?" I ask him. "Of course!" he answers gently and confidently, "he _must_ come!" "He must?!" "O, surely! All wait for him, even the heavens and the earth wait! If it were not so, no one would care to live, to dip a hand in cold water--and if people live as they do and show they _want_ to live, it is a sign they all feel that Messiah is coming, that he must come, that he is already on the way." "Is it true," I question further, "that first there will be dreadful wars, and false Messiahs, on account of whom people will tear one another like wild beasts, till the earth be soaked with blood? Is it true that rivers of blood will flow from east to west and from north to south, and all the animals and beasts drink human blood, all the fields and gardens and wild places and roads be swamped with human blood, and that in the middle of this bloody time the _true_ Messiah will come--the _right_ one? Is that true?" "True!" "And people will know him?" "Everyone will know him. Nobody will be mistaken. He will be Messiah in every look, in every word, in every limb, in every glance. He will have no armies with him, he will ride on no horse, and there will be no sword at his side--" "Then, what?" "He will have wings--Messiah will have wings, and then everyone will have wings. It will be like this: suddenly there will be born a child with wings, and then a second, a third, and so it will go on. At first people will be frightened, by degrees they will get used to it, until there has arisen a whole generation with wings, a generation that will no longer struggle in the mud over a Parnosseh-worm."