THE FORTUNE-TELLER
"And I saw a great sadness coming over men. The best became weary of their works.
A doctrine went out, a belief ran with it : ' All is empty, all is equal, all hath been!'
And from all hills it echoed : ' All is empty, all is equal, all hath been ! '
True, we have reaped. But why grew all our fruits rotten and brown ? What hath fallen down from the evil moon last night ?
In vain hath been all work, our wine hath become poison, an evil eye hath burnt our fields and hearts yellow.
Dry all of us have become ; and when fire falleth down on us we become dust like ashes. Fire itself we have wearied out. For us, all wells pined away; even the sea receded from us. All the soil is going to break, but the depth is not going to devour anything !
Alas ! where is a sea left to be drowned in ? Thus soundeth our lament, away over shallow swamps.
Verily, we are already too weary to die. Now we wake on and live on in burial vaults!"
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