a life bud—a bud that would grow by every pure thought, every good deed, but at which everything evil and unworthy in our lives would gnaw like a worm. Ah! long since must mine have been gnawed away. I have looked back over my life; it has grown unworthy. Unworthiness would go forth from it. What should I have gained by such an exchange?
But there are, as we know, men who, ere they leave this life, destroy every possibility of re-birth on earth, and who win the steadfast certainty of eternal bliss. And these are the very men who, forsaking everything, adopt the pilgrim's life.
What, then, can the burning torches of the robbers, what their swords, do for me?
And I, who had at first trembled anxiously because of the robbers and had afterwards longed impatiently for them as my one hope—I now neither feared them nor hoped for anything from them. Freed alike from fear and hope, I felt a great calm. In this peace I assuredly experienced a foretaste of the joy which is theirs who have reached the pilgrim's goal; for, as I stood over against the robbers, so those pilgrims surely stand over against all the powers of this world; neither do they fear such, nor do they hope for anything from them, but abide in peace.
And I, who, twenty-four hours earlier, feared to start out on a short journey on account of the hardships and the meagre fare of the caravan life—I now decided without fear or vacillation to journey shelterless and on foot to the end of my days, content to "take things as they come."
Without once going back into the house, I went straight away to a shed lying between the garden and courtyard, where all kinds of tools were kept. There I took an
