The Devil laughed and reached out his hand toward Johannes' little flower. But Johannes caught it up close to his breast. The flower hung limp and seemed to be perishing. The little mirror shook like a leaf in his hand, so that he could scarcely hold it. "Wistik!" he cried. He listened, but could hear nothing. And now he seemed to be falling with whizzing speed. Johannes was greatly alarmed. The long ward with its rows of little beds grew ever longer, ever narrower. "Wistik! Marjon! Let me out! Let me out! Set me free!" "I have also a classification 'Freedom'," remarked the Devil, pointing out a mannikin who, busy with a long ribbon inscribed with the words "_Freedom and 'Justice_," kept winding it around his head, arms, and legs until he could not move a muscle. "No!" cried Johannes, banging with both hands--in which were still clutched his flower and mirror--at a hard, spotted door. This door was marked "_Sin and Crime_." "Look out!" said the Devil. "Do you not see what it says over it?" "I do not care what it says!" cried Johannes, pounding away. "Take care! For God's sake, take care!" shouted Bangeling. "Help! Wistik! Marjon! Markus! help!" cried Johannes, crashing through the door. Before him he saw a black and bottomless night; but it was more spacious, and he felt his distress diminishing. And now he saw the imps all racing after him, and they were playing with something. It glittered as they threw it, one to another, and they tugged and pulled and spit on it, and did things still worse--such as only very vile and impudent beings could do. It was a book, and Johannes saw his name upon it--his own and his family name. Johannes was called the "Traveler" of his family. At last one of the imps caught hold of it by a leaf, and flung it high up in air to tear it to pieces. The leaves fluttered and glittered, but held together. And the book, ceasing to fall, went higher and higher up into the dark night until it seemed in the far distance to be a little star. Johannes kept looking at it with all his might, and it seemed to him as if he were a light bit of wood, or a bubble, rising swifter and swifter to the surface--from out the awful depths of the sea. Then, slowly, the heavens grew blue and bright. At last he was drifting in the full light of day. His eyes were still closed, but he felt that he had returned to his _day_ body, and he rested--still a little longer--in the light, motionless, blissful slumber of a convalescent, or of one come home again after a long and weary journey. [1] Waan = Error. [2] Bangeling = Little coward. [3] Ginnegap = Giggler. [4] Labbekak = Duffer. [5] Goedzak = Goody-goody. XII "Shall we go to the beach this morning?" asked Countess Dolores after breakfast. "It will be fresh and cool there now."