Direct questioning brought only a shake of the head. Towns—yes, of course there were towns—further on; but no one lived in them—you could not get a living out of pavements, bricks and hard roads.... Up the river—the way he had come—was a stretch of dead land where nothing grew and no one lived; he had seen it for himself and knew best what lay beyond it. Lower down the river were the other camps like their own; so many they knew of, and others they had heard of further off. In the distance—on the other side of those hills—there had been a large town in the old days; ruins of it—miles of streets and ruins—were lying on both banks of the river. They themselves had never entered it—only seen it from a distance—but those who lived nearer had said it was mostly in ruins and that bodies were thick in the streets. In the summer, they had heard, it was forbidden to enter it; because it was those who had gone there in search of plunder who first were smitten with the sickness which spread from their camp along the valley. It was the wind blowing over the town—so they said—which brought the bad smell and the flies.... No, they did not know its name; had never heard it. * * * * * It was when he turned from the present to the past that Theodore found himself against a barrier, the barrier unexpected of a plain unwillingness to talk of the world that had vanished. When spoken of at all it was spoken of carefully, with precaution and choosing of phrase, and no man gave easily many details of his life before the Ruin. At first the strange attitude puzzled him—he could make nothing of the odd, suspicious glances whereby questioning was met, the attempt to parry it, the cautious, non-committal replies; it was only by degrees that he grasped their significance and understood how complete was that renunciation of the past which these people had imposed upon themselves. Forgetfulness—so Theodore learned in time—was more than a precaution; it had been preached in the new-born world as a religion, accepted as an article of faith. The prophet who had expressed the common need and instinct in terms of religion had in due time made his appearance; a wild-eyed, eloquent scarecrow of a man, aflame with belief in his sacred mission and with loathing for the sins of the world. Coming from no one knew where, he carried his gospel through a land left desolate, proclaiming his creed of salvation through ignorance and crying woe on the yet unrepentant sinners who should seek to preserve the deadly knowledge that had brought God’s judgment on the world!