“Pardon me.  I did not understand you, and if you will permit me I—­ But why do you make them swear?”

“My friend, the soul of man, believing itself free and constantly suffering from this spurious freedom, is demanding fetters for itself —­to some these fetters are an oath, to others a vow, to still others simply a word of honour.  You will give me your word of honour, will you not?”

“I will.”

“And by this you are simply striving to enter the harmony of the world, where everything is subjected to a law.  Is not the falling of a stone the fulfilment of a vow, of the vow called the law of gravitation?”

I shall not go into detail about this conversation and the others that followed.  The obstinate and unrestrained youth, who had insulted me by calling me liar, became one of my warmest adherents.

I must return to the others.  During the time that I talked with the young man, the desire for penitence among my charming proselytes reached its height.  Not patient enough to wait for me, they commenced in a state of intense ecstasy to confess to one another, giving to the room an appearance of a garden where dozens of birds of paradise were twittering at the same time.  When I returned, each of them separately unfolded her agitated soul to me....

I saw how, from day to day, from hour to hour, terrible chaos was struggling in their souls with an eager inclination for harmony and order; how in the bloody struggle between eternal falsehood and immortal truth, falsehood, through inconceivable ways, passed into truth, and truth became falsehood.  I found in the human soul all the forces in the world, and none of them was dormant, and in the mad whirlpool each soul became like a fountain, whose source is the abyss of the sea and whose summit the sky.  And every human being, as I have learned and seen, is like the rich and powerful master who gave a masquerade ball at his castle and illuminated it with many lights; and strange masks came from everywhere and the master greeted them, bowing courteously, and vainly asking them who they were; and new, ever stranger, ever more terrible, masks were arriving, and the master bowed to them ever more courteously, staggering from fatigue and fear.  And they were laughing and whispering strange words about the eternal chaos, whence they came, obeying the call of the master.  And lights were burning in the castle—­and in the distance lighted windows were visible, reminding him of the festival, and the exhausted master kept bowing ever lower, ever more courteously, ever more cheerfully.  My indulgent reader will easily understand that in addition to a certain sense of fear which I experienced, the greatest delight and even joyous emotion soon came upon me—­for I saw that eternal chaos was defeated and the triumphant hymn of bright harmony was rising to the skies....