'
"In the centre of the city a terrible fear troubled my soul, for it
realised that it alone in all this great city of souls preserved
its conscience and its wakefulness. By the glare of men's eyes it
understood how all were somnambulists. We walked among millions who
walked in their sleep. And in their sleep they committed terrible
crimes. They looked at me with eyes that saw not; at the bidding of
strange dreams they went forward secretly.
"I beheld the thousand mockeries, and chief among them the mockery of
our eternal mystery. Instead of the church that is the dome of heaven
itself they had built churches of stone. And the people, urged by
their dreams, congregated themselves in these churches and were
ministered unto by false priests. And dreams of truth conflicted with
nightmare enacted themselves. The churches fell out among themselves,
and the people fought one another. False priests stood by irresolute,
their soft, shapeless lips having been smoothed away by maxims and old
words. And they stood in front of idols in a semblance of defence.
"I pushed many priests aside; I thrust my sword through many idols.
"'Come,' I said, 'your town is terrible. Let me away into my mountain
again. You wish me to consider this world worthy of me; you offer me
its small things in exchange for my great thing.
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