‘And while we built and labored,’ he said, ’our hearts were a little appeased.  And it was called the city of Art, and all was perfect in it, so that nothing had ever been seen to compare with it for beauty; and we walked upon the battlements and looked over the plain and viewed the dwellers there, who were not as we.  And we went on to fill every room and every hall with carved work in stone and beaten gold, and pictures and woven tissues that were like the sun-gleams and the rainbows of the pleasant earth.  And crowds came around envying us and seeking to enter; but we closed our gates and drove them away.  And it was said among us that life would now become as of old, and everything would go well with us as in the happy days.’

The little Pilgrim looked up into his face, and for pity of his pain (though it was past) almost wished that that could have come true.

‘But when the work was done,’ he said, and for a moment no more.

‘Oh, brother! when the work was done?’ ‘You do not know what it is,’ he said, ’to be ten times more powerful and strong, to want no rest, to have fire in your veins, to have the craving in your heart above everything that is known to man.  When the work was done, we glared upon each other with hungry eyes, and each man wished to thrust forth his neighbor and possess all to himself.  And then we ceased to take pleasure in it, notwithstanding that it was beautiful; and there were some who would have beaten down the walls and built them anew; and some would have torn up the silver and gold, and tossed out the fair statues and the adornments in scorn and rage to the meaner multitudes below.  And we who were the workers began to contend one against another to satisfy the gnawings of the rage that was in our hearts.  For we had deceived ourselves, thinking once more that all would be well; while all the time nothing was changed, and we were but as the miserable ones that rushed from place to place.’

Though all this wretchedness was over and past, it was so terrible to think of that he paused and was silent awhile.  And the little Pilgrim put her hand upon his arm in her great pity, to soothe him, and almost forgot that there was another traveller not yet delivered upon the way.  But suddenly at that moment there came up through the depths the sound of a fall, as if the rocks had crashed from a hundred peaks, yet all muffled by the great distance, and echoing all around in faint echoes, and rumblings as in the bosom of the earth; and mingled with them were far-off cries, so faint and distant that human ears could not have heard them, like the cries of lost children, or creatures wavering and straying in the midst of the boundless night.  This time she who was watching upon the edge of the gloom would have flung herself forward altogether into it, had not her companion again restrained her.  ’One has stumbled upon the mountains; but listen, listen, little sister, for the voices are many,’ he