whatever it was, lighted up with curious varieties of lighting, in tints of different colors.  The doors and windows were all open; and whosoever would could come in from the dance or from the laden tables, and sit down where they pleased and rest, always with a pleasant view out upon the streets, so that they should lose nothing of the spectacle.  And the dresses, both of women and men, were beautiful in form and color, made in the finest fabrics, and affording delightful combinations to the eye.  The pleasure which I took in all I saw and heard was enhanced by the surprise of it, and by the aspect of the places from which I had come, where there was no regard to beauty nor anything lovely or bright.  Before my arrival here I had come in my thoughts to the conclusion that life had no brightness in these regions, and that whatever occupation or study there might be, pleasure had ended and was over, and everything that had been sweet in the former life.  I changed that opinion with a sense of relief, which was more warm even than the pleasure of the present moment; for having made one such mistake, how could I tell that there were not more discoveries awaiting me, that life might not prove more endurable, might not rise to something grander and more powerful?  The old prejudices, the old foregone conclusion of earth that this was a world of punishment, had warped my vision and my thoughts.  With so many added faculties of being, incapable of fatigue as we were, incapable of death, recovering from every wound or accident as I had myself done, and with no foolish restraint as to what we should or should not do, why might not we rise in this land to strength unexampled, to the highest powers?  I rejoiced that I had dropped my companion’s hand, that I had not followed him in his mad quest.  Sometime, I said to myself, I would make a pilgrimage to the foot of those gloomy mountains, and bring him back, all racked and tortured as he was, and show him the pleasant place which he had missed.

In the mean time the music and the dance went on.  But it began to surprise me a little that there was no pause, that the festival continued without intermission.  I went up to one of those who seemed the masters of ceremony, directing what was going on.  He was an old man, with a flowing robe of brocade, and a chain and badge which denoted his office.  He stood with a smile upon his lips, beating time with his hand to the music, watching the figure of the dance.

‘I can get no one to tell me,’ I said, ’what the occasion of all this rejoicing is.’

‘It is for your coming,’ he replied without hesitation, with a smile and a bow.

For the moment a wonderful elation came over me.  ‘For my coming!’ But then I paused and shook my head.  ’There are others coming besides me.  See! they arrive every moment.’

‘It is for their coming too,’ he said with another smile and a still deeper bow; ‘but you are the first as you are the chief.’