Chapter 2

Cruelty, cruelty, cruelty--all is cruelty! Boys are beaten; oxen are stabbed till the blood bursts forth; happy, industrious, dung-collecting beetles are bitten in two by careless, happy, beetle-collecting dogs--everything is wicked and cruel. The Kaffir has beautiful legs, but he will kick his wife, and TANT' SANNIE, alas! will not be there to drop a pickle-tub on his head. And over everything hangs that inscrutable charm which hovers for ever for the human intellect over the incomprehensible and shadowy. _Omne ignotum pro mirifico_, I might say, but I prefer the longer phrase.

And I stood at the gate of Heaven, I and TANT' SANNIE; and we spoke to everybody quite affably; and they all had time to listen to what we said, and to make suitable replies.

And I said, "Are we all here?"

And she said, "Not all."

And I said, "The absent are always in the wrong."

And she said, "I have heard that in French."

And I said, "Is not that impertinent?"

And she said, "No."

And a great Light fell across her face, as though a palm had smitten it, and the name of the palm was Hand, and its fruits were fingers five.

And again I addressed myself in terms of familiarity to the Ever-lasting, and I planted a book upon the clouds, where eight children lay prone with bees flying about their childish bonnets.

And there came a knock at my door.

"Eight o'clock!" said One. "Arise!"

"Nay," I answered; "it cannot be."

"But the water is hot within the can, and the table will be spread for them that break their fast."

"So be it. I rise." And behold it was a dream!