but that would have been too
direct; the devil works in a more cunning way. He let him see and seek
the true and the good; but while the young man was contemplating them,
the evil spirit blew one mote after another into each of his eyes; and
such a proceeding would be hurtful even to the best sight. Then the
fiend blew upon the motes, so that they became beams; and the eyes
were destroyed, and the Seer stood like a blind man in the wide world,
and had no faith in it: he lost his good opinion of it and himself;
and when a man gives up the world and himself, all is over with him.

"Over!" said the wild swan, who flew across the sea towards the east.
"Over!" twittered the swallows, who likewise flew eastward, towards
the Tree of the Sun. That was no good news that they carried to the
young man's home.

"I fancy the _Seer_ must have fared badly," said the second brother;
"but the _Hearer_ may have better fortune." For this one possessed the
sense of hearing in an eminent degree: he could hear the grass grow,
so quick was he to hear.

He took a hearty leave of all at home, and rode away, provided with
good abilities and good intentions. The swallows escorted him, and he
followed the swans; and he stood far from his home in the wide world.

But he experienced the fact that one may have too much of a good
thing. His hearing was _too_ fine. He not only heard the grass grow,
but could hear every man's heart beat, in sorrow and in joy. The whole
world was to him like a great clockmaker's workshop, wherein all the
clocks were going "tick, tick!" and all the turret clocks striking
"ding dong!" It was unbearable. For a long time his ears held out, but
at last all the noise and screaming became too much, for one man.
There came blackguard boys of sixty years old--for years alone don't
make men--and raised a tumult at which the hearer might certainly have
laughed, but for the applause which followed, and which echoed through
every house and street, and was audible even in the country high road.
Falsehood thrust itself forward, and played the master; the bells on
the fool's cap jangled, and declared they were church bells; and the
noise became too bad for the _Hearer_, and he thrust his fingers into
his ears; but still he could hear false singing and bad sounds, gossip
and idle words, scandal and slander, groaning and moaning without and
within. Heaven help us! He thrust his fingers deeper and deeper into
his ears, but at last the