'My friends,' he said, 'a disaster has come upon us through the will of the gods, who desire to test us. We can rebuild and return to our brothers everything that has been destroyed here, and I am grateful to the gods that I at a great age have been allowed to witness the way you have all come hither, leaving your own affairs, to help our brothers. But where will we find the flowers to adorn these dead beautifully and properly to celebrate their transformation? For so long as we are alive and present, it must not happen that a single one of these weary pilgrims is interred without the proper floral offering. I do not doubt that you agree.'
'Yes,' they all cried, 'that is our opinion too.'
'I knew it,' the Eldest said in his fatherly voice. 'Now I shall tell you what we must do, my friends. We must transport all these weary ones whom we cannot bury today to the great summer temple high in the mountains where there is still snow. There they will be safe and will remain unchanged until their flowers can be procured. But there is only one who can help us obtain so many flowers at this season. Only the King can do that. Therefore, one of us must be sent to the King to sue for his help.'
And once more they all nodded and cried: 'Yes, yes, to the King!'
'So be it,' the Eldest said, and everyone was happy to see the radiant smile under his white beard. 'But whom shall we send to the King? He must be young and vigorous, for the journey is long, and we must provide him with our best horse. However, he must also be handsome and pure of heart and bright of eye so that the King's heart will be unable to resist him. He need not say much, but his eyes must know how to speak. No doubt the best thing would be to send a child, the handsomest boy in our community, but how could he make such a trip? You must help me, my friends, and if there is anyone here who is willing to undertake this mission or who knows a suitable person, I beg him to speak up.'
The Eldest fell silent, glancing about with his bright eyes, but no one stepped forward and no voice was raised.
When he had repeated his question a second and then a third time, there came out of the throng a sixteen-year-old youth who looked hardly more than a child. He cast his eyes to the ground and blushed as he saluted the Eldest.
The Eldest looked at him and saw in an instant that this was the proper messenger. However, he smiled and said: 'It is fine that you wish to be our messenger, but how comes it that of all this crowd you are the one to volunteer?'
Then the youth raised his eyes to the ancient man and said: 'If there is no other here who wishes to go, then let me go.'
But a man in the crowd shouted: 'Send him, Eldest. We know him. He comes from this village and the earthquakes destroyed his flower garden. It was the most beautiful flower garden in our town.'
The Eldest looked in kindly fashion into the boy's eyes and asked: 'Are you so grieved about your flowers?'
The youth answered very softly: 'I am grieved, but it is not on that account that I have volunteered. I had a dear friend and also a beautiful favourite colt, they both were killed in the earthquake and now they are lying in our hall and there must be flowers so that they can be buried.'
The Eldest blessed him by the laying on of hands, and very quickly the best horse was chosen for him and he sprang instantly to the horse's back, tapped him on the neck and nodded good-bye, then he galloped out of the village, straight across the wet, devastated fields and away.
The youth rode all day. To reach the capital and the King as quickly as he could, he chose the way over the mountains, and at evening as it was growing dark he was leading his steed by the reins up a steep path amid woods and rocks.
A huge dark bird such as he had never seen before flew in front of him, and he followed it until the bird alighted on the roof of a little open temple. The youth left his horse in a forest glade and strode through the wooden pillars into the simple sanctuary. As sacrificial stone he found only a boulder set up, a block of black stone of a kind not to be found in that neighbourhood, and on it the strange symbol of a deity unknown to the messenger: a heart being devoured by a bird of prey.
To show his reverence to the godhead, he offered as a gift a blue bellflower he had plucked at the foot of the mountain and thrust into his buttonhole. Thereupon he lay down in a corner, for he was very weary and wished to sleep.
But he could not find sleep, which customarily stood each night by his bed. The bellflower on the rock or the black stone itself, or whatever it might be, exuded a penetrating, strange, disturbing scent, the uncanny symbol of the god shone with a spectral radiance in the dark hall, and on the roof the strange bird sat and from time to time beat its enormous wings so that there was a rustling in the trees like a coming storm.
Thus it came about that in the middle of the night the young man got up and walked out of the temple and looked up at the bird. The latter beat its wings and stared at the youth.
'Why are you not asleep?' asked the bird.
'I do not know,' the youth said. 'Perhaps because I have learned about sorrow.'
'Just what kind of sorrow?'
'My friend and my favourite steed both have perished.'
'Is dying so bad, then?' the bird asked disdainfully.
'Oh no, great bird, it is not so bad, it is only a farewell, but that is not the reason I am sad. The bad thing is that we cannot bury my friend and my beautiful horse because we have no more flowers.'
'There are worse things than that,' the bird said, and rustled its feathers impatiently.
'No, bird, there is certainly nothing worse. Whoever is buried without floral offering is debarred from rebirth in accordance with his heart's desire. And whoever buries his dead without celebrating the floral festival will see the shades of his departed in his dreams. You can see how it is; even now I cannot sleep because my dead are still without flowers.'
The bird emitted a rasping screech from its hooked beak.
'Young man, you are ignorant of sorrow if you have learned nothing beyond this. Have you never heard tell of the great evils? Of hatred, murder, and jealousy?'
When he heard these words spoken, the youth felt as though he were dreaming. Then he bethought himself and said humbly: 'To be sure, O bird, I remember: these things are written about in the old histories and legends. But surely that is outside reality, or perhaps it was that way in the world once a long time ago before there were any flowers or any kindly gods. Who wants to think of it!'
The bird laughed softly. Then it stretched itself taller and said to the boy in its harsh voice: 'So now you want to go to the King, and shall I show you the way?'
'Oh, you know the way,' the youth cried happily. 'Yes, if you're willing, please do.'
Then the great bird glided silently to the ground, noiselessly spread its wings apart, and directed the youth to leave his horse behind and come with it to the King.
The messenger seated himself and rode on the bird. 'Shut your eyes!' the bird commanded, and the young man did so, and they flew through the darkness of the sky as silently and softly as the flight of an owl, only the cold air whistled around the messenger's ears. And they flew and flew all night long.
When it was early morning they stopped, and the bird cried: 'Open your eyes,' and the youth opened his eyes. He found himself standing at the edge of a forest, and beneath him in the first glow of morning lay a glittering plain, so bright that it dazzled him.
'You will find me here at the edge of the forest again,' the bird cried. It shot into the sky like an arrow and immediately disappeared in the blue.
A strange feeling came over the young messenger as he wandered out of the forest into the broad plain. Everything round about him was so different that he did not know whether he was awake or dreaming. There were meadows and trees like the ones at home, the sun was shining, and the wind played in the tall grass, but there were no people or animals, no dwellings or gardens; instead, it seemed as though an earthquake had occurred here exactly as in the youth's homeland; ruins of buildings, broken branches and uprooted trees, twisted fences and abandoned farming implemen
ts were strewn about, and suddenly he saw lying in the middle of a field a dead man in a horrible state of decomposition. The youth felt revulsion and a touch of nausea rose in his throat, for he had never before seen such a thing. Not even the dead man's face had been covered and it was already ravaged by birds and by decay; the youth gathered leaves and a few flowers and, with averted eyes, covered the dead countenance.
An inexpressibly horrible and oppressive smell hung warm and inescapable over the whole plain. Another corpse lay near at hand in the grass encircled by a flock of ravens, and a horse without a head, and bones of men or animals, and all had been left exposed to the sun, no one seemed to have thought of floral offerings and burial. The youth began to fear that an incredible disaster must have killed each and every person in this land; there were so many dead that he had to give up picking flowers to cover their faces. Full of dread, his eyes half closed, he wandered on, and there poured in upon him from all sides carrion stench and the smell of blood, and from a thousand piles of ruins and heaps of dead there welled mightier and mightier waves of unspeakable misery and sorrow. The messenger believed he had been caught in a terrifying dream that was an admonition from the Heavenly Ones because his own dead were still without floral offerings and without burial. Then he remembered what the mysterious bird on the temple roof had said the night before, and he seemed once more to hear the harsh voice asserting: 'There are many worse things.'
Now he realized that the bird had brought him to another star and that everything his eyes saw was real and true. He recalled the feeling with which sometimes as a boy he had listened to frightening tales of primeval times. This special feeling he now experienced again: a shuddering horror, and behind the horror a quiet, happy assurance in his heart, for all this was infinitely remote and long past. Here everything was like a horror story, this whole strange world of outrage, corpses, and carrion birds seemed without sense and without control, subject to incomprehensible laws, mad laws according to which the evil, the absurd, and the ugly always triumphed instead of the beautiful and good.
And then he caught sight of a living man walking across the field, a farmer or a farm hand, and he ran quickly towards him and called out. As the youth drew near, he was startled and his heart was filled with compassion, for this farmer looked frighteningly ugly and hardly at all like a child of the sun. He appeared to be a selfish and disgruntled man, a man accustomed to seeing only what was false and ugly and evil, one who lived constantly in horrifying nightmares. In his eyes and in his whole face and being, there was no trace of serenity or kindness, no glimmer of graciousness and trust, these simplest and most natural of virtues seemed absent in this unfortunate.
But the youth pulled himself together and with great friendliness approached the fellow as one distinguished by misfortune, greeted him in brotherly fashion, and spoke to him with a smile. The ugly one stood as though turned to stone, looking with amazement out of great troubled eyes. His voice, when he spoke, was harsh and unmusical like the bellowing of cattle; nevertheless, he could not resist the serenity and undemanding trustfulness in the youth's eyes. And when he had stared for a while at the stranger, there broke over his rude and tormented face a kind of smile or grin - ugly enough but gentle and amazed, like the first faint smile of a soul reborn that has just emerged from the lowest regions of the earth. 'What do you want of me?' he asked.
In accordance with the custom of his homeland, the youth replied: ‘I thank you, friend, and I beg you to tell me whether there is any service I can do for you.'
When the farmer was silent, smiling in astonishment and embarrassment, the messenger said to him: 'Tell me, friend, what has happened here? What is this dreadful and horrifying thing?' And he gestured round about with his hand.
The farmer had trouble understanding, and when the messenger had repeated his question, he said: 'Have you never seen this before? This is war, this is a battlefield.' He pointed to a pile of blackened ruins and cried: 'That was my house,' and when the stranger looked with heart-felt sympathy into the farmer's impure eyes, he lowered them and stared at the ground.
'Haven't you a king?' the youth went on to ask, and when the farmer said they had, he asked further: 'Then where is he?' The fellow pointed towards an encampment that was just visible, remote and tiny in the distance. The messenger said farewell, placing his hand on the man's forehead, and departed. The farmer, however, raised both hands to his forehead, shook his heavy head in perplexity, and stood for a time staring after the stranger.
The latter ran and ran, past ruins and horrors, until he came to the encampment. There were armed men everywhere, standing or hurrying about; no one seemed to notice him, and he walked between the men and tents until he came to the biggest and handsomest tent in the camp, which was the King's tent. He entered.
Inside, the King was sitting on a simple, low couch, his mantle beside him, and behind him in deeper shadow crouched a servant who had fallen asleep. The King sat bowed over, deep in thought. His face was beautiful and sad, a shock of grey hair hung over his sun-tanned forehead, his sword lay in front of him on the ground. The youth greeted him with deep reverence, as he would have greeted his own King, and he stood waiting with arms crossed on his breast until the King caught sight of him.
'Who are you?' the King asked severely, drawing his dark brows together, but his glance clung to the pure calm features of the stranger, and the youth looked at him so trustingly and so intimately that the King's voice grew milder.
'I have seen you somewhere before,' he said meditatively, 'or you look like someone I knew in my childhood.'
'I am a stranger,' said the messenger.
'Then it was a dream,' the King said softy. 'You remind me of my mother. Speak to me. Explain.'
The youth began: 'A bird brought me here. In my country there was an earthquake and so we wanted to bury our dead and there were no flowers.'
'No flowers?' said the King.
'No, no more flowers at all. And it is an ill thing, is it not, if one has to bury a dead man and cannot celebrate a flower festival for him; for after all he must enter into his transformation with splendour and joy.'
Then suddenly the messenger remembered how many unburied dead lay out there on that horrible field, and he stopped speaking, and the King looked at him and nodded and sighed heavily.
'I was on my way to our King to ask him for many flowers,' the messenger continued. 'But when I was in the temple in the mountains, a great bird came and said that he would take me to the King, and he brought me through the air to you. O dear King, it was the temple of an unknown deity on whose roof the bird sat and there was a very strange symbol on the altar of this god: a heart being devoured by a bird of prey. But during the night I had a conversation with that great bird and now for the first time I can understand his words, for he said that there was much, much more suffering and evil in the world than I knew. And now I am here, and I have crossed that huge field, and during these hours I have seen infinite suffering and misfortune - oh, much more than our most horrible tales contain. Now I have come to you, O King, and I would like to ask you whether I can be of any service to you.'
The King, who had listened with attention, tried to smile, but his beautiful face was so sad and embittered that he could not smile.
'I thank you,' he said. 'You cannot do me any service. But you have put me in mind of my mother, and for that I thank you.'
The youth was troubled because the King could not smile. 'You are so sad,' he said to him. 'Is it because of this war?'
'Yes,' said the King.
The youth could not help breaking a rule of courtesy towards this heavily burdened and yet, as he felt, noble man by asking: 'But tell me, I beseech you, why do you carry on such wars on your star? Who is to blame for them? Are you yourself in part responsible?'
The King seemed angered at this audacity and for a time stared at the messenger. But he could not continue to meet with his dark gaze the bright and guileless eyes of the stranger.
'You are a child,' said the King, 'and there are things you cannot understand. War is no one's fault, it occurs of itself, like storm and lightning, and all of us who have to fight wars, we are not their originators, we are only their victims.'
'Then no doubt you die very easily?' the youth asked. 'With us at home, to be sure, death is not greatly feared, and most people approach the transformation willingly and happily; but never would anyone dare to kill another. On your star it must be different.'
The King shook his head. 'It is true that killing is not rare among us,' he said, 'but we consider it the worst of crimes. Only in war is it allowed because in war no one kills for his own advantage, out of hatred or envy, but all do only what society demands of them. You are mistaken, however, if you believe that we die easily. If you look into the faces of our dead, you will see. They die hard, they die hard and unreconciled.'
The youth listened to all this in astonishment at the madness and difficulty of the people's way of life on this star. He would have liked to ask many more questions, but he knew with certainty that he would never understand the whole context of these dark and terrifying things; indeed, he felt no real wish to understand them. Either these pitiable creatures belonged to a lower order, were still without the bright gods and were ruled by demons, or some unique mischance, some horrid error, prevailed on this star. And it seemed to him altogether too painful and cruel to go on questioning this king, compelling him to answers and confessions which could only be bitterly humiliating. These people who lived in the dark dread of death and yet slew one another in masses, whose faces were composed with such ignoble coarseness as that of the farmer or with such deep and terrible sorrow as that of the King, they caused him pain, and yet in their disturbing and shaming fashion they seemed to him so strange as to be almost laughable, laughable and silly. But there was one question he could not repress. If these poor souls were retarded beings, belated children, sons of a latter-day outcast star, if their lives passed like a convulsive shudder and ended in slaughter, if they left their dead lying in the fields, or even perhaps ate them - for there had been talk of that in some of those horror stories of primeval times - then nevertheless there must be some intimation of the future, a dream of the gods, something like the seed of soul latent in them; otherwise, this whole unbeautiful world would indeed be but a meaningless error.