At that word Johannes looked timidly up at his Guide with startled face and wide-open eyes. In a flash of the steel-blue lightning, Johannes saw the pale brow, with the dark eyes turned kindly toward him. The hair of his Guide was matted and dripping with water, as were also his beard and his moustache. The locks clung to his white gleaming forehead, and his eyes glowed with an inner light. Johannes felt a boundless love and adoration, and at the same time an inexpressible compassion. "My brother!" thought he. "Oh, good, good man!" And he said: "How wet you are! Put my jacket over your head. I do not need it." But in the darkness his hand was gently restrained, and they hurried on while the sweat and the rain were commingled upon their faces. * * * * * After a while his Guide said to him: "Johannes, pay attention to me, for I am going to say something to you that you must bear in mind. Your true life is only now beginning, and it is difficult to live a good life. If only you could remember what I am now telling you, you would never again be unhappy. Neither life nor people would be able to make you unhappy. And yet it will not prove thus--because you will forget." There was silence for a while, broken only by the whistling of the wind, the flapping of their garments, and their rapid breathing--for they were walking very fast. "Train your memory, therefore; for without an exact and retentive memory nothing good is attained. And mark this well; not the small and transient must you be mindful of, but the great and the eternal." Then there was a flash of lightning, and it seemed as if the heavens were being consumed in the white fire, while a terrific peal of thunder immediately followed, directly over their heads. But Johannes' thoughts were dwelling attentively upon the words he had heard, and he was neither frightened nor disquieted. He raised his head, proud and glad that he was not afraid, and looked, with wide-open eyes, into the high, dark dome of the heavens. "This is the great and the eternal, is it not?" he asked. "This I will bear in mind." But his Guide said: "It is not the thunder and the lightning which you must bear in mind, for they are temporal and will often recur; but that you were unafraid, and bravely held up your countenance--_that_ you must remember, and the reason why you did so. For it will thunder and lighten at other times, and you will be afraid. But even now--at this instant--it could strike you dead. Why do you not fear now?" "Because you are with me," said Johannes. "Well, then, Johannes, remember this; you always have me with you." * * * * * They were silent for a long while, and Johannes was thinking over these noble words. But he did not understand their import. If he were always to have his Leader with him, how could he forget? Then he asked, although he well knew what the reply would be: "Are you, then, going to stay with me always?"