Tydomin shuddered.  “You too have met your wicked woman, Spadevil; but your method is a nobler one.”

“Don’t pity other women,” said Spadevil, “but love the right.  Hator also once conversed with Shaping.”

“With the Maker of the World?” said Maskull thoughtfully.

“With the Maker of Pleasure.  It is told how Shaping defended his world, and tried to force Hator to acknowledge loveliness and joy.  But Hator, answering all his marvellous speeches in a few concise, iron words, showed how this joy and beauty was but another name for the bestiality of souls wallowing in luxury and sloth.  Shaping smiled, and said, ’How comes it that your wisdom is greater than that of the Master of wisdom?’ Hator said, ’My wisdom does not come from you, nor from your world, but from that other world, which you, Shaping, have vainly tried to imitate.’  Shaping replied, ’What, then, do you do in my world?’ Hator said, ’I am here falsely, and therefore I am subject to your false pleasures.  But I wrap myself in pain—­ not because it is good, but because I wish to keep myself as far from you as possible.  For pain is not yours, neither does it belong to the other world, but it is the shadow cast by your false pleasures.’  Shaping then said, ’What is this faraway other world of which you say “This is so—­this is not so?” How happens it that you alone of all my creatures have knowledge of it?’ But Hator spat at his feet, and said, ’You lie, Shaping.  All have knowledge of it.  You, with your pretty toys, alone obscure it from our view.’  Shaping asked, ’What, then, am I?’ Hator answered, ’You are the dreamer of impossible dreams.’  And then the story goes that Shaping departed, ill pleased with what had been said.”

“What other world did Hator refer to?” asked Maskull.

“One where grandeur reigns, Maskull, just as pleasure reigns here.”

“Whether grandeur or pleasure, it makes no difference,” said Maskull.  “The individual spirit that lives and wishes to live is mean and corrupt-natured.”

“Guard you your pride!” returned Spadevil.  “Do not make law for the universe and for all time, but for yourself and for this small, false life of yours.”

“In what shape did death come to that hard, unconquerable man?” asked Tydomin.

“He lived to be old, but went upright and free-limbed to his last hour.  When he saw that death could not be staved off longer he determined to destroy himself.  He gathered his friends around him; not from vanity, but that they might see to what lengths the human soul can go in its perpetual warfare with the voluptuous body.  Standing erect, without support, he died by withholding his breath.”

A silence followed, which lasted for perhaps an hour.  Their minds refused to acknowledge the icy winds, but the current of their thoughts became frozen.

When Branchspell, however, shone out again, though with subdued power, Maskull’s curiosity rose once more.  “Your fellow countrymen, then, Spadevil, are sick with self-love?”