"'My experience is,' said I sententiously, 'that wisdom is misery.'

"'Perhaps it is, young man, but you have never learned that, and
never will. For you the world will continue to wear a noble, awful
face. You will never rise above mysticism.... But be happy in your
own way.'

"Before I realised what he was doing, he jumped tranquilly from the
path, down into the empty void. He crashed with ever-increasing
momentum toward the valley below. I screeched, flung myself down on
the ground, and shut my eyes.

"Often have I wondered which of my ill-considered, juvenile remarks
it was that caused this sudden resolution on his part to commit
suicide. Whichever it might be, since then I have made it a rigid
law never to speak for my own pleasure, but only to help others.

"I came eventually to the Marest. I threaded its mazes in terror for
four days. I was frightened of death, but still more terrified at the
possibility of losing my sacred attitude toward life. When I was
nearly through, and was beginning to congratulate myself, I stumbled
across the third extraordinary personage of my experience--the grim
Muremaker. It was under horrible circumstances. On an afternoon,
cloudy and stormy, I saw, suspended in the air without visible
support, a living man. He was hanging in an upright position in
front of a cliff--a yawning gulf, a thousand feet deep, lay beneath
his feet. I climbed as near as I could, and looked on. He saw me,
and made a wry grimace, like one who wishes to turn his humiliation
into humour. The spectacle so astounded me that I could not even