he rattling windows
there was a restless, whispering wind. The room grew light, and dark,
and wondrous light again, as the moon played hide-and-seek through the
clouds. The boy, wide-awake and quiet in his bed, was thinking of the
Stranger and his stories.

"It was not what he told me about the treasures," he said to himself,
"that was not the thing which filled me with so strange a longing. I
am not greedy for riches. But the Blue Flower is what I long for. I can
think of nothing else. Never have I felt so before. It seems as if I
had been dreaming until now--or as if I had just slept over into a new
world.

"Who cared for flowers in the old world where I used to live? I never
heard of anyone whose whole heart was set upon finding a flower. But
now I cannot even tell all that I feel--sometimes as happy as if I were
enchanted. But when the flower fades from me, when I cannot see it in my
mind, then it is like being very thirsty and all alone. That is what the
other people could not understand.

"Once upon a time, they say, the animals and the trees and the flowers
used to talk to people. It seems to me, every minute, as if they were
just going to begin again. When I look at them I can see what they want
to say. There must be a great many words that I do not know; if I knew
more of them perhaps I could understand things better. I used to love to
dance, but now I like better to think after the music."

Gradually the boy lost himself in sweet fancies, and suddenly he
found himself again, in the charmed land of sleep. He wandered in far
countries, rich and strange; he traversed wild waters with incredible
swiftness; marvellous creatures appeared and vanished; he lived with
all sorts of men, in battles, in whirling crowds, in lonely huts. He was
cast into prison. He fell into dire distress and want. All experiences
seemed to be sharpened to an edge. He felt them keenly, yet they did
not harm him. He died and came alive again; he loved to the height of
passion, and then was parted forever from his beloved. At last, toward
morning, as the dawn was stealing near, his soul grew calm, and the
pictures showed more clear and firm.

It seemed as if he were walking alone through the deep woods. Seldom the
daylight shimmered through the green veil. Soon he came to a rocky gorge
in the mountains. Under the mossy stones in the bed of the stream, he
heard the water secretly tinkling downward, ever downward, as he climbed
upward.