“Old Broodviol smoothed his face, and said, ’This perhaps will not be so difficult.  I will explain the marvel.  Every man and woman among us is a walking murderer.  If a male, he has struggled with and killed the female who was born in the same body with him—­if a female, she has killed the male.  But in this child the struggle is still continuing.’

“‘How shall we end it?’ asked my mother.

“’Let the child direct its will to the scene of the combat, and it will be of whichever sex it pleases.’

“‘You want, of course, to be a man, don’t you?’ said my mother to me earnestly.

“‘Then I shall be slaying your daughter, and that would be a crime.’

“Something in my tone attracted Broodviol’s notice.

“’That was spoken, not selfishly, but magnanimously.  Therefore the male must have spoken it, and you need not trouble further.  Before you arrive home, the child will be a boy.’

“My father walked away out of sight.  My mother bent very low before Broodviol for about ten minutes, and he remained all that time looking kindly at her.

“I heard that shortly afterward Alppain came into that land for a few hours daily.  Broodviol grew melancholy, and died.

“His prophecy came true—­before we reached home, I knew the meaning of shame.  But I have often pondered over his words since, in later years, when trying to understand my own nature; and I have come to the conclusion that, wisest of men as he was, he still did not see quite straight on this occasion.  Between me and my twin sister, enclosed in one body, there never was any struggle, but instinctive reverence for life withheld both of us from fighting for existence.  Hers was the stronger temperament, and she sacrificed herself—­ though not consciously—­for me.

“As soon as I comprehended this, I made a vow never to eat or destroy anything that contained life—­and I have kept it ever since.

“While I was still hardly a grown man, my father died.  My mother’s death followed immediately, and I hated the associations of the land.  I therefore made up my mind to travel into my mother’s country, where, as she had often told me, nature was most sacred and solitary.

“One hot morning I came to Shaping’s Causeway.  It is so called either because Shaping once crossed it, or because of its stupendous character.  It is a natural embankment, twenty miles long, which links the mountains bordering my homeland with the Ifdawn Marest.  The valley lies below at a depth varying from eight to ten thousand feet—­a terrible precipice on either side.  The knife edge of the ridge is generally not much over a foot wide.  The causeway goes due north and south.  The valley on my right hand was plunged in shadow—­ that on my left was sparkling with sunlight and dew.  I walked fearfully along this precarious path for some miles.  Far to the east the valley was closed by a lofty tableland, connecting the two chains of mountains, but overtopping even the most towering pinnacles.  This is called the Sant Levels.  I was never there, but I have heard two curious facts concerning the inhabitants.  The first is that they have no women; the second, that though they are addicted to travelling in other parts they never acquire habits of the peoples with whom they reside.