The Brown Man with Queer Feet  
Early in the following morning Jurgen left Cameliard, traveling toward Carohaise, and went into the Druid forest there, and followed Merlin's instructions.
 
"Not that I for a moment believe in such nonsense," said Jurgen: "but it will be amusing to see what comes of this business, and it is unjust to deny even nonsense a fair trial."
 
So he presently observed a sun-browned brawny fellow, who sat upon the bank of a stream, dabbling his feet in the water, and making music with a pipe constructed of seven reeds of irregular lengths. To him Jurgen displayed, in such a manner as Merlin had prescribed, the token which Merlin had given. The man made a peculiar sign, and rose. Jurgen saw that this man's feet were unusual.
 
Jurgen bowed low, and he said, as Merlin had bidden: "Now praise be to thee, thou lord of the two truths! I have come to thee, O most wise, that I may learn thy secret. I would know thee, and would know the forty-two mighty ones who dwell with thee in the hall of the two truths, and who are nourished by evil-doers, and who partake of wicked blood each day of the reckoning before Wennofree. I would know thee for what thou art."
 
The brown man answered: "I am everything that was and that is to be.
Never has any mortal been able to discover what I am."
 
Then this brown man conducted Jurgen to an open glen, at the heart of the forest.
 
"Merlin dared not come himself, because," observed the brown man, "Merlin is wise. But you are a poet. So you will presently forget that which you are about to see, or at worst you will tell pleasant lies about it, particularly to yourself."
 
"I do not know about that," says Jurgen, "but I am willing to taste any drink once. What are you about to show me?"
 
The brown man answered: "All."
 
So it was near evening when they came out of the glen. It was dark now, for a storm had risen. The brown man was smiling, and Jurgen was in a flutter.
 
"It is not true," Jurgen protested. "What you have shown me is a pack of nonsense. It is the degraded lunacy of a so-called Realist. It is sorcery and pure childishness and abominable blasphemy. It is, in a word, something I do not choose to believe. You ought to be ashamed of yourself!"
 
"Even so, you do believe me, Jurgen."
 
"I believe that you are an honest man and that I am your cousin: so there are two more lies for you."
 
The brown man said, still smiling: "Yes, you are certainly a poet, you who have borrowed the apparel of my cousin. For you come out of my glen, and from my candor, as sane as when you entered. That is not saying much, to be sure, in praise of a poet's sanity at any time. But Merlin would have died, and Merlin would have died without regret, if Merlin had seen what you have seen, because Merlin receives facts reasonably."
 
"Facts! sanity! and reason!" Jurgen raged: "why, but what nonsense you are talking! Were there a bit of truth in your silly puppetry this world of time and space and consciousness would be a bubble, a bubble which contained the sun and moon and the high stars, and still was but a bubble in fermenting swill! I must go cleanse my mind of all this foulness. You would have me believe that men, that all men who have ever lived or shall ever live hereafter, that even I am of no importance! Why, there would be no justice in any such arrangement, no justice anywhere!............