"That is the business of a sexton.If only the rest of the clergy understood it as well!"In went his beak again through the soft turf,and out came the wriggling worm.He tossed it in the air,and away it flew.
I looked behind me,and gave a cry of dismay:I had but that moment declared I would not leave the house,and already I was a stranger in the strange land!
"What right have you to treat me so,Mr.Raven?"I said with deep offence."Am I,or am I not,a free agent?""A man is as free as he chooses to make himself,never an atom freer,"answered the raven.
"You have no right to make me do things against my will!""When you have a will,you will find that no one can.""You wrong me in the very essence of my individuality!"I persisted.
"If you were an individual I could not,therefore now I do not.You are but beginning to become an individual."All about me was a pine-forest,in which my eyes were already searching deep,in the hope of discovering an unaccountable glimmer,and so finding my way home.But,alas!how could I any longer call that house HOME,where every door,every window opened into OUT,and even the garden I could not keep inside!
I suppose I looked discomfited.
"Perhaps it may comfort you,"said the raven,"to be told that you have not yet left your house,neither has your house left you.At the same time it cannot contain you,or you inhabit it!""I do not understand you,"I replied."Where am I?""In the region of the seven dimensions,"he answered,with a curious noise in his throat,and a flutter of his tail."You had better follow me carefully now for a moment,lest you should hurt some one!""There is nobody to hurt but yourself,Mr.Raven!I confess I should rather like to hurt you!""That you see nobody is where the danger lies.But you see that large tree to your left,about thirty yards away?""Of course I do:why should I not?"I answered testily.
"Ten minutes ago you did not see it,and now you do not know where it stands!""I do."
"Where do you think it stands?"
"Why THERE,where you know it is!"
"Where is THERE?"
"You bother me with your silly questions!"I cried."I am growing tired of you!""That tree stands on the hearth of your kitchen,and grows nearly straight up its chimney,"he said.
"Now I KNOW you are making game of me!"I answered,with a laugh of scorn.
"Was I making game of you when you discovered me looking out of your star-sapphire yesterday?""That was this morning--not an hour ago!"
"I have been widening your horizon longer than that,Mr.Vane;but never mind!""You mean you have been making a fool of me!"I said,turning from him.
"Excuse me:no one can do that but yourself!""And I decline to do it."
"You mistake."
"How?"
"In declining to acknowledge yourself one already.You make yourself such by refusing what is true,and for that you will sorely punish yourself.""How,again?"
"By believing what is not true."
"Then,if I walk to the other side of that tree,I shall walk through the kitchen fire?""Certainly.You would first,however,walk through the lady at the piano in the breakfast-room.That rosebush is close by her.You would give her a terrible start!""There is no lady in the house!"
"Indeed!Is not your housekeeper a lady?She is counted such in a certain country where all are servants,and the liveries one and multitudinous!""She cannot use the piano,anyhow!"
"Her niece can:she is there--a well-educated girl and a capital musician.""Excuse me;I cannot help it:you seem to me to be talking sheer nonsense!""If you could but hear the music!Those great long heads of wild hyacinth are inside the piano,among the strings of it,and give that peculiar sweetness to her playing!--Pardon me:I forgot your deafness!""Two objects,"I said,"cannot exist in the same place at the same time!""Can they not?I did not know!--I remember now they do teach that with you.It is a great mistake--one of the greatest ever wiseacre made!No man of the universe,only a man of the world could have said so!""You a librarian,and talk such rubbish!"I cried."Plainly,you did not read many of the books in your charge!""Oh,yes!I went through all in your library--at the time,and came out at the other side not much the wiser.I was a bookworm then,but when I came to know it,I woke among the butterflies.To be sure I have given up reading for a good many years--ever since Iwas made sexton.--There!I smell Grieg's Wedding March in the quiver of those rose-petals!"I went to the rose-bush and listened hard,but could not hear the thinnest ghost of a sound;I only smelt something I had never before smelt in any rose.It was still rose-odour,but with a difference,caused,I suppose,by the Wedding March.
When I looked up,there was the bird by my side.
"Mr.Raven,"I said,"forgive me for being so rude:I was irritated.
Will you kindly show me my way home?I must go,for I have an appointment with my bailiff.One must not break faith with his servants!""You cannot break what was broken days ago!"he answered.
"Do show me the way,"I pleaded.
"I cannot,"he returned."To go back,you must go through yourself,and that way no man can show another."Entreaty was vain.I must accept my fate!But how was life to be lived in a world of which I had all the laws to learn?There would,however,be adventure!that held consolation;and whether I found my way home or not,I should at least have the rare advantage of knowing two worlds!
I had never yet done anything to justify my existence;my former world was nothing the better for my sojourn in it:here,however,I must earn,or in some way find,my bread!But I reasoned that,as I was not to blame in being here,I might expect to be taken care of here as well as there!I had had nothing to do with getting into the world I had just left,and in it I had found myself heir to a large property!If that world,as I now saw,had a claim upon me because I had eaten,and could eat again,upon this world I had a claim because I must eat--when it would in return have a claim on me!
"There is no hurry,"said the raven,who stood regarding me;"we do not go much by the clock here.Still,the sooner one begins to do what has to be done,the better!I will take you to my wife.""Thank you.Let us go!"I answered,and immediately he led the way.
