We answer that he is a fool. He falls into a rage then; nothing can bring him into worse humor than to show disbelief in his moral fall.

Still, he is an honest fellow to the marrow of his bones.

Once he and I went astray in the mountains of Salzkammergut, near Zell am See. Since night had come it was easy to break one's neck.

"Dost hear," said Antek to me, "thou hast more talent than I, therefore life is a greater loss to thee. I will go ahead. If I fall, thou wilt stay on the spot till morning, and in the morning thou canst save thyself somehow."

"Thou wilt not go ahead; I will go, because I can see better."

"If I don't break my neck to-day," said Antek, "I'll finish in the canal--it's all one to me."

We fall to disputing. Meanwhile it has become as dark as in a cellar. In the end of ends we conclude to go at hazard. We advance cautiously.

The place is wide enough at first, but afterward narrower and narrower.

As far as we can see, on the right and left are abysses, probably bottomless.

The ridge grows still narrower, and, what is more, pieces of stone, loosened by the wind, fall away from under our feet.

"I will go on my hands and knees; 'tis impossible to go any other way!"

said Antek.

In truth, 'tis impossible to go any other way, so we go on our hands and knees, advancing like two chimpanzees.

But soon it appears that that too is impossible. The back of the cliff becomes as narrow as a horse's back. Antek sits astride of it, I also, and leaning on our hands put down before us we pushed forward with uncommon damage to our clothing. After a certain time I hear the voice of my comrade,--

"Vladek?"

"What is it?"

"The ridge has come to an end."

"And what is there beyond?"

"Emptiness--there must be a precipice."

"Take a stone and throw it, we will listen to hear if it is a long time falling."

In the darkness I hear Antek feeling to find a fragment of crumbling rock.

"I am throwing," said he, "listen."

I open both ears.

Silence!

"Haven't you heard anything?"

"No!"

"We have ended up nicely! The place must be a hundred fathoms deep."

"Throw once more."

Antek finds a larger stone, throws it.

No sound!

"What does this mean, no bottom, or what?" asked Antek.

"Hard to help it! We will sit here till morning."

We are sitting there. Antek throws a couple of stones more; all in vain. An hour passes, a second, at last I hear my friend's voice,--

"Vladek, but don't go to sleep--hast a cigarette?"

It appears that I have cigarettes, but we have used up our matches.

Despair! The hour may be one in the morning, or not even so late. Very fine rain begins to fall. Around us, darkness impenetrable. I come to the conclusion that people who live in towns or in villages have no idea of what silence is,--silence like that which surrounds us, silence which rings in our ears. I almost hear the blood coursing in my veins; I hear the beating of my own heart perfectly. At first the position interests me. To sit in the midst of the silent night on the back of a cliff, as on a horse, and right over a bottomless abyss, that could not be done by some shopkeeper of the city; but soon the air becomes cold, and, to crown everything, Antek begins to philosophize,--

"What is life? Life is just swinishness. People talk about art! art! May I and art be ----. Art is pure monkeying with nature, and meanness besides. Twice I have seen the Salon. Painters sent in so many pictures that one might have made canvas beds of them for all the Jews living; and what were these pictures? The lowest possible pandering to shopkeepers' tastes, painted for money, or the stuffing of stomachs. A chaos of art, nothing more! Were that art, I would that paralysis had struck it; luckily there is no real art upon earth--there is only nature. Maybe nature is swinishness also. The best would be to jump down here--and end everything quickly. I would do so if I had vodka; but as I have no vodka, I will not, for I have made a vow not to die sober."

I was used to this gabbling of Antek's; still, in that silence and bewilderment, in cold, in darkness, at the edge of a precipice, his words made even me gloomy. Fortunately he talked himself out and stopped. He threw a couple of stones more, repeated a couple of times more, "Not a sound," and then for three hours we were silent.

It seemed to me that daybreak would come before long, when suddenly we heard a calling and the sound of wings.

It was dark yet, and I could see nothing; I was certain, however, that eagles were beginning to circle over the precipice. "Kra! kra!" was heard with greater force above and in the darkness. It astonished me to hear such a multitude of voices, just as if whole legions of eagles were passing. But, happen what might, they were heralding daylight.

After a while, I saw my hands resting on the rocky edge; then Antek's shoulders were outlined in front of me, precisely like a dark object on a ground somewhat less dark. That ground grew paler each instant. Then a rich, light silver tone began to shine in on the rocks and on Antek's shoulders. This color filled the darkness more and more, just as if into that darkness some one were pouring a silver liquid which permeated it, mixed with it, and from black made it gray, from gray pearl-color. There was also a certain severity and dampness about us; not only the cliff but the air too seemed moist.

Now more light comes every moment. I am looking, trying to fix in my mind those changes in tone, and am painting a little in my soul, when all at once Antek's cry interrupts me,--

"Tfu! idiots!"

And his shoulders vanish from my eyes.

"Antek!" I cry, "what are thou doing?"

"Don't howl! look here!"

I bend over, look--what appears? I am sitting on a rocky cliff which slopes down to a meadow, lying perhaps a yard and a half below me. The moss deadened the sound of the stones, for the meadow is very level; at a distance the road is visible, and on it crows, which I took for eagles. To walk home with the greatest comfort it was merely necessary to take our legs off the rock.

Meanwhile, we had been sitting on that rock, our teeth chattering, through the whole of God's night.

I know not why, but while waiting in the studio with Antek for the house-owner, that adventure of a year and a half before came to my mind, as if it had happened the previous day. That recollection gave me great solace; therefore I said at once,--

"Dost remember, Antek, how we thought ourselves sitting on the edge of a precipice, and it turned out that there was a level road right before us? It may be the same to-day. We are as poor as church mice, as thou knowest; the house-owner wants to turn us out of the studio; meanwhile all things may change. Let some sluice of glory and money open out to us."

Antek was sitting just then on the straw bed, pulling on his boots, grumbling the while that life was made up of pulling boots on in the morning and pulling them off at night; that only the man had sense who had courage to hang himself, which, if he, Antek, had not done hitherto, it was simply because he was not only a supreme fool, but a low coward besides.

My outburst of optimism interrupted his meditation; so he raised his fishy eyes and said,--