“Just like travelers in the desert.”  Dorothea’s eyes made effort to open, but sleepily they closed again.  “Why didn’t he ask somebody the way?”

“He didn’t think any one knew.  He was much wiser than most of the people who passed him.  To many who seemed to be in need he had given money; he was very generous, very kind, and he gave freely; but he always turned his head away when he gave.  He did not like to see suffering and sorrow; and with sin of certain sorts he had no sympathy, and so he would not look.  But after a while he had to look.

“He was standing at the place from which he had started, and, to his surprise, he saw what he had never seen before.  Out from its center led all sorts of roads that stretched beyond sight, and on each of them people were traveling, all kinds of people, and he knew he could no longer stand still.  He must take one of these roads, but which one he did not know.  As he stood uncertain what to do, he felt some one touch him; and, looking down, he saw a child; and into his strong hand the child slipped his little one.

“‘I have been waiting for you,’ he said.  ’I have been waiting a long, long time.’

“‘For me?’ The man drew back.  ’You can’t have been waiting for me.  I do not know you, child!’

“He heard a little sigh, as soft as the stir of wings, and again the boy smiled.

“‘But I know you.  There is much for you to do.’

“Again the man held back.  ’There is nothing for me to do.  I pay my taxes and give my tithes, and let the world alone.’

“‘You cannot let the world alone.  It is your world.’  The boy looked up.  ‘Come, they are waiting.’

“‘Who is waiting?’

“‘Your people.’

“‘I have no people.  There is no one waiting for me.’

“The child shook his head.  ’You do not know your people, and they are waiting.  We must hurry, the time is short.  We will go on this road first, and then on that, and then on that and that and that.  On each one they are waiting.’

“All through the night they traveled, uphill and down, and in and out of narrow paths and hidden places, and everywhere he saw them, the people he had never known.  Into the darkness of pits and mines, into the fires of foundries and furnaces, into the factories where wheels turned night and day, and into the holds of the ships of the sea, the child led him to show him the people who were his.  In cellars and garrets, in jails and prisons, in shops and stores, in hunger and cold, in the silence of sickness, the noise of sin, they were waiting for his coming; and in their faces was that which made him cover his, and he begged the child to take him where breath could come again.

“But the child held his hand still tighter.  ’You have traveled long and you have not known,’ he said.  ’You helped to make things as they are, and now you must see.’

“’I helped to make things as they are?  I have not even dreamed such things could be!’