VIII

gigantic cave, and were lost to view. The goddess shrank down on the ground, the sign on her forehead glittered brightly. She seemed to be under the influence of a dream. She closed her eyes and her large features were twisted in pain. Suddenly she cried out, and out of her forehead sprang stars, which hurried in lovely arcs and half-circles over the black sky.

One of the stars rushed noisily through the air to meet me, as if seeking me out. With a crash it burst into a thousand sparks, lifting me off my feet and hurling me on to the ground. The world broke up thunderously about me.

They found me close to the poplar, covered with earth and wounded in several places.

I lay in a cellar, guns growled and rumbled overhead, I lay in a cart, and was jolted over empty fields. For the most part I was either asleep or unconscious. But the more deeply I slept, the more strongly I felt that I was being drawn, that I followed at the will of a force over which I was not master.

I lay on straw in a stable, it was dark, someone trod on my hand. But my inner self willed to go further, the mysterious force drew me on. Again I lay in a cart, and later on a stretcher. Even more strongly I felt in me the command to go forward, I was conscious only of the pressure, the force which seemed to be controlling my journeying thus from place to place.

At last I was there. It was night. I was fully conscious and I felt strongly the secret attraction and power which had brought me to that place. Now I was lying in a room, on a bed made up on the floor. I felt I had arrived at the place to which I had been called. I glanced around, close to my mattress was another, on which someone was lying, someone who bent over and looked at me. It was Max Demian.