And with a grin Pluizer skipped around on the dead face, performing the most odious antics. He sat on an eyebrow, and lifted up an eyelid by the long lashes. The eye which Johannes had seen sparkle with joy was staring in the dim light--a dull and wrinkled white. "Now--forward!" cried Pluizer. "There happens to be more to see." The worm appeared, slowly crawling out of the right corner of the mouth; and the frightful journey was resumed. Not back again, but over new ways equally long and dreary. "Now we come to an old one," said the earth-worm, as a black wall again shut off the way. "This has been here a long time." It was less horrible than the former one. Johannes only saw a confused heap, with discolored bones protruding. Hundreds of worms and insects were silently busy with it. The light alarmed them. "Where do you come from? Who brings a light here? We have no use for it!" And they sped away into the folds and hollows. Yet they recognized a fellow-being. "Have you been next door?" the worms inquired. "The wood is hard yet." The first worm answered, "No!" "He wants to keep that morsel for himself," said Pluizer softly to Johannes. They went farther. Pluizer explained things and pointed out to Johannes those whom he had known. They came to a misformed face, with staring, protruding eyes, and thick black lips and cheeks. "This was a stately gentleman," said he gaily. "You ought to have seen him--so rich, so purse-proud and conceited. He retains his puffed-up appearance." And so it went on. Besides these there were meagre, emaciated forms with white hair that reflected blue in the feeble light; and little children with large heads and aged, wizened faces. "Look! These have grown old since they died," said Pluizer. They came to a man with a full beard, whose white teeth gleamed between the drawn lips. In the middle of his forehead was a little round black hole. "This one lent Hein a helping hand. Why not a bit more patient? He would have come here just the same." And there were still more passages--recent ones--and other straight forms with rigid, grinning faces, and motionless, folded hands. "I am going no farther now," said the earwig. "I do not know the way beyond this." "Let us turn back," said the worm. "One more, one more!" cried Pluizer. So on they marched. "Everything you see exists," said Pluizer as they proceeded. "It is all real. One thing only is not real. That is yourself, Johannes. You are not here, and you _cannot_ be here." And he burst out laughing as he saw the frightened and vacant look on Johannes' face at this sally. "This is the last--actually the last." "The way stops short here. I will go no farther," said the earwig, peevishly. "Well, _I_ mean to go farther," said Pluizer; and where the way ended he began digging with both hands. "Help me, Johannes!" Without resistance Johannes sadly obeyed, and began scooping up the moist, loose earth.