"No, he was drying out in the sun when I first saw him, with Gabriel
sitting at his feet, playing on a flageolet: and naturally I did not pay
any particular attention to such foolishness."

"Well, well, I do not assert that the making of men is the highest form
of art, yet, none the less, a geas is upon me to make myself a very
splendid and admirable young man."

"But why should you be wasting your small portion of breath and
strength? To what permanent use could one put a human being even if the
creature were virtuous and handsome to look at? Ah, Manuel, you have not
seen them pass, as I have seen them pass in swarms, with their wars and
their reforms and their great causes, and leaving nothing but their
bones behind them."

"Yes, yes, to you, at your age, who were old when Nineveh was planned,
it must seem strange; and I do not know why my mother desired that I
should make myself a splendid and admirable young man. But the geas is
upon me."

The Zhar-Ptitza sighed. "Certainly these feminine whims are not easily
explained. Yet your people have some way of making brand-new men and
women of all kinds. I am sure of this, for otherwise the race would have
been extinct a great while since at the rate they kill one another. And
perhaps they do adhere to Jahveh's method, and make fresh human beings
out of earth, for, now I think of it, I have seen the small, recently
completed ones, who looked exactly like red clay."

"It is undeniable that babies do have something of that look," assented
Manuel. "So then, at least, you think I may be working in the proper