"
"Fame?"
He answered, "likely not. For the man I touch there is a path traced out
in the sand by a finger which no man sees. That he must follow. Sometimes
it leads almost to the top, and then turns down suddenly into the valley.
He must follow it, though none else sees the tracing."
"Love?"
He said, "He shall hunger for it--but he shall not find it. When he
stretches out his arms to it, and would lay his heart against a thing he
loves, then, far off along the horizon he shall see a light play. He must
go towards it. The thing he loves will not journey with him; he must
travel alone. When he presses somewhat to his burning heart, crying,
'Mine, mine, my own!' he shall hear a voice--'Renounce! renounce! this is
not thine!'"
"He shall succeed?"
He said, "He shall fail. When he runs with others they shall reach the
goal before him. For strange voices shall call to him and strange lights
shall beckon him, and he must wait and listen. And this shall be the
strangest: far off across the burning sands where, to other men, there is
only the desert's waste, he shall see a blue sea! On that sea the sun
shines always, and the water is blue as burning amethyst, and the foam is
white on the shore. A great land rises from it, and he shall see upon the
mountain-tops burning gold."
The mother said, "He shall reach it?"
And he smiled curiously.
She said, "It is real?"
And he said, "What IS real?"
And she looked up between his half-closed eyelids, and said, "Touch.
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