‚the spring with a great longing to reach it. And the heart cries out to the spring incessantly. But if it is worn out, and wishes to test a small’ while and take breath from its great sorrow, then a great bird comes and spreads his wings over it, and then it rests a while in its shade; but even during the rest it is still eonscious of of the spring and looks toward it. (And after the rest it arises to go to the source; but when it only starts to go to it, it no longer sees the slope .ofthe mountain; that it.saw ‘all along, and it can no longer look toward the spring. And would its looking toward the spring have to cease, then perforce must it die, for life and the life of all things rest in it, and only from it have all things their being. But when it no longer sees the slope of the mountain, then the longing to see the spring grows even greater than the longing tocome to it; and the heart of the world returns to its place. The spring, though, ‚has not been given endurance, for it is time itself, and cannot out of itself gain a measure of life, and so must it remain forever hidden in oblivion, and could never lie disclosed to the heart. : But it: receiyes from the heart a measure of:life, for the 'heart presents to it one day, and: sends it as a gift; and so the spring endures. And when the day sinks down and flows into the evening, then they speak to one another words of farewell, and the last blessing, and the chant of eternal sorrow wells up: And the heart is in the pangs of death and wishes to die, for it has not more than one day to give, and the terror is on it that the spring will be removed over the borders of time. But the man of True Grace watches with comprehending eye over the heart and the spring. And as the evening stretches into the night, and the sad song sounds through the night, he presents to the ‚heart a new day, and the heart, in turn, to the spring. But know that the time the good man bestows he,has from my hand. For I go all over the world and gather together all good deeds and all the works of charity. And I pronounce upon..them the words of great - harmony, and they themselves turn to melody, and these I bring to the man of True Grace, and he creates time from them. Time is born of melody, and melody of charity. And so the
songs flow from the days, and come to the heart, and from the heart to the spring; and so the world endures and exists in its sorrow. But the word and song of the soul fill me eternally. And this I give to you to-day, O children! as a wedding gift, that you may be as I."
Silent, with bowed heads because of the new joy, both received the word of the beggar, and silent, but with hearts full of the soulful song, passed the third day for them.
V.
But on the fourth morning came again a longing to see the beggar with the crooked neck, who once showed them so much goodness, and again he unexpectedly stood before them, as if called by their longing. And he said:
“I have come to renew in full realization my blessing of the woods, when you were children. You think I have a crooked neck, and cannot gaze straight in your eye. . See, I have as straight a neck as you, but I always turn away my face from the vanities of men, and do not wish to mingle my breath with their breath. My neck’is well built, in such a way that from my throat I can beget all voices of the world that are not speech or productive of words, and there is none that has so strange a sound that I cannot imitate it in its kind. And this is confirmed by the people who live in the land of music. For there is a land in which all are skilled in the playing of flute and harp, and the melodies resound a thousandfold, and yet related through the streets, and even the lisp of the children is a wondrous song there. And each one has in his throat a great mass of voices that throng, and beg to be sung, and be set free.
“Once the masters of that land, of the voices that lived in them, told how not only the tone of living things came to them and begged to be helped to freedom and consummation through their mouth, but also the soul of the harp, and the Iute, and the viola wedded themselves to its soul, and spoke therefrom. Then I cried out, for I was with them, and spoke: ‘My voice, within itself, holds all your various expressions, and more than this; for it has a share in all sounds that never reach to you.