g, proud of his
purse, another of the key he carried at his girdle, though he had
nothing to unlock; one proud of his moth-eaten coat, another of his
wasted body. "Vanity! I must hasten downward, dip my finger in the
pot, and taste!" he said. "But for awhile I will still sit here, for
the wind blows so pleasantly against my back. I'll sit here so long as
the wind blows. I'll enjoy a slight rest. 'It is good to sleep long in
the morning, when one has much to do,' says the lazy man. I'll stop
here so long as this wind blows, for it pleases me."

And there he sat, but he was sitting upon the weathercock of the
steeple, which kept turning round and round with him, so that he was
under the false impression that the same wind still blew; so he might
stay up there a goodly while.

But in India, in the castle in the Tree of the Sun, it was solitary
and still, since the brothers had gone away one after the other.

"It goes not well with them," said the father; "they will never bring
the gleaming jewel home; it is not made for me; they are gone, they
are dead!" And he bent down over the Book of Truth, and gazed at the
page on which he should read of life after death; but for him nothing
was to be seen or learned upon it.

The blind daughter was his consolation and joy: she attached herself
with sincere affection to him; for the sake of his peace and joy she
wished the costly jewel might be found and brought home. With kindly
longing she thought of her brothers. Where were they? Where did they
live? She wished sincerely that she might dream of them, but it was
strange, not even in dreams could she approach them. But at length,
one night, she dreamt that the voices of her brothers sounded across
to her, calling to her from the wide world, and she could not refrain,
but went far far out, and yet it seemed in her dream that she was
still in her father's house. She did not meet her brothers, but she
felt, as it were, a fire burning in her hand, but it did not hurt her,
for it was the jewel she was bringing to her father. When she awoke,
she thought for a moment that she still held the stone, but it was the
knob of her distaff that she was grasping. During the long nights she
had spun incessantly, and round the distaff was turned a thread, finer
than the finest web of the spider; human eyes were unable to
distinguish the separate threads. She had wetted them with her tears,
and the twist was strong as a cable. She rose, and her res