cannot yet retain their clothes so long as they
would--only, at present, for a part of the night; but they are pretty
steadily growing more capable, and will by and by develop faces; for
every grain of truthfulness adds a fibre to the show of their humanity.
Nothing but truth can appear; and whatever is must seem."

"Are they upheld by this hope?" I asked.

"They are upheld by hope, but they do not in the least know their hope;
to understand it, is yet immeasurably beyond them," answered Mr. Raven.

His unexpected appearance had caused me no astonishment. I was like a
child, constantly wondering, and surprised at nothing.

"Did you come to find me, sir?" I asked.

"Not at all," he replied. "I have no anxiety about you. Such as you
always come back to us."

"Tell me, please, who am I such as?" I said.

"I cannot make my friend the subject of conversation," he answered, with
a smile.

"But when that friend is present!" I urged.

"I decline the more strongly," he rejoined.

"But when that friend asks you!" I persisted.

"Then most positively I refuse," he returned.

"Why?"

"Because he and I would be talking of two persons as if they were one
and the same. Your consciousness of yourself and my knowledge of you are
far apart!"

The lapels of his coat flew out, and the lappets lifted, and I thought
the metamorphosis of HOMO to CORVUS was about to take place before my
eyes. But the coat closed again in front of him, and he added, with
seeming inconsequence,

"In this world never trust a person who has once deceived you. Above
all, never do anything such a one may ask you to do."

"I will try to remember," I answered; "--but I may forget!"

"Then some evil that is good for you will follow."

"And if I remember?"

"Some evil that is not good for you, will not follow."

The old man seemed to sink to the ground, and immediately I saw the
raven several yards from me, flying low and fast.

CHAPTER XVIII. DEAD OR ALIVE?

I went walking on, still facing the moon, who, not yet high, was staring
straight into the forest. I did not know what ailed her, but she
was dark and dented, like a battered disc of old copper, and looked
dispirited and weary. Not a cloud was nigh to keep her company, and the
stars were too bright for her. "Is this going to last for ever?" she
seemed to say. She was going one way and I was going the other, yet
through the wood we went a long way together. We did not commune much,