The parents were abed and sleeping. The clock on the wall
ticked loudly and lazily, as if it had time to spare. Outside
the rattling windows there was a restless, whispering wind.
The room grew light, and dark, and wondrous light again, as
the moon played hide-and-seek through the clouds. The boy,
wide-awake and quiet in his bed, was thinking of the Stranger
and his stories.

"It was not what he told me about the treasures," he said
to himself, "that was not the thing which filled me with so
strange a longing. I am not greedy for riches. But the Blue
Flower is what I long for. I can think of nothing else.
Never have I felt so before. It seems as if I had been
dreaming until now--or as if I had just slept over into a new
world.

"Who cared for flowers in the old world where I used to
live? I never heard of anyone whose whole heart was set upon
finding a flower. But now I cannot even tell all that I
feel--sometimes as happy as if I were enchanted. But when the
flower fades from me, when I cannot see it in my mind, then it is
like being very thirsty and all alone. That is what the other
people could not understand.

"Once upon a time, they say, the animals and the trees and
the flowers used to talk to people. It seems to me, every
minute, as if they were just going to begin again. When I
look at them I can see what they want to say. There must be
a great many words that I do not know; if I knew more of them
perhaps I could understand things better. I used to love to