"All rhetoric, my worthy friend--mere bombast! 'Oh! Alas!' and 'Ah!' All those are impotent cryings which show that the business is beyond you. If you had full control of expression, you would not utter such cries--you would form, shape, knead, create, model--_model_! Plasticity, Johannes! That is the thing--vision, color, imagery! I see nothing in that poem. I want something to see and taste. Just think of that sonnet of mine! Every line full of form, of imagery, of real, actual things! With you, there is nothing but vague terms--weak swaggering--all about the spirit of your Father, and such things--none of them to be seen. And, to produce effect, you call upon the other words: 'Ah!' and 'Alas!' and 'Oh!' as if that helped, at all. Any cad could do that if he fell into the water. That is not poetry." Johannes was completely routed. And although his hostess tried to console him with assurances that if he did his best things would go better with him by and by, when he was a little older, it was of no avail. Johannes already knew that it was quite in vain for him to attempt his best, so long as the inspiration he so much needed was withheld. His night was a sad one; for the serious words of the poem were continually before him, and to think that they had been disdained was indeed torture. They would not be driven away, but remained to vindicate their worth. And then he wished that others, as well as he, should value them. But his powerlessness and his own mistrust, were a grievous vexation. In the small hours, he had just fallen asleep--probably for only a few minutes--when he awoke again with the feeling that his room was full, but with what kind of company--human beings or other creatures--he could not tell. He did not see them; for just in the place where he was looking there was no one, and where he wanted to look, he could not. He seemed to be prevented from doing so by a strange power. He heard a laugh, and the sound was very familiar to him. It was a dismal, old-time memory. It was Pluizer's laugh. Could Pluizer be in the room? Johannes tried his best to look at the spot whence the sound came. Exerting himself, he saw something at last--not an entire figure, but hands only--two, four, six little hands, busily doing something. Higher up, to what was above the hands, he could not look--but that they were the hands of Pluizer he was quite positive. There was something in those hands--a white band--and the little hands were very busy tying all kinds of knots in it. And all the while there was continuous laughing and snickering, as if it was great fun. What could that mean? Johannes felt that something menaced. The play of those little hands portended danger. Most plainly of all he saw the white band--a common, white tape.