old of all kinds of
desires; some good and some bad, some asleep and some awake, some alive
and some dead, some raging like a hundred hungry lions, and some
satisfied as a sleeping child. Well, then, this mean man was called Mr.
Desires-awake, and what his desires were awake after and set upon we have
already seen in his head-dress and heard in his prayer. His house, on
the other hand, will not be so well known. For it was less a house than
a hut--a hut hidden away out of sight and back behind Mr. Wet-eyes' hut.
Mr. Desires-awake's cottage was so mean and meagre that no one ever came
to visit him unless it was his next-door neighbour. They never left
their cottages, those two poor men, unless it was to see one another; or,
strange to tell, unless it was to go out at the city gate to see and to
speak with their Prince. And at such times their venturesomeness both
astonished themselves and amused their Prince. Sometimes he laughed to
see them back at his door again; but more often he wept to see and hear
them; all which made the guards of his pavilion to wonder who those two
strange men might be. And thus it was that if at any long interval of
time any of the men of the city desired to see Mr. Desires-awake, he was
sure to be found at the pavilion door of his Prince, or else in his
neighbour's cottage, or else at home in his own. From year's end to
year's end you might look in vain for either of those two poor men in the
public resorts of Mansoul. When all the town was abroad on holidays and
fair-days and feast-days, those two mean men were then closest at home.
And when the booths of the town were full of all kinds of wares and
merchandise, and all the greens in the town were full of games, and
plays, and cheats, and fools, and apes, and knaves, only those two
penniless men would abide shut up at home. At home; or else together
they would go to a market-stance set up by their Prince outside the walls
where one was stationed to stand and to cry: 'Ho! every one that
thirsteth, come ye to the waters, and he that hath no money. Wherefore
do ye spend money for that which is not bread, and your labour for that
which satisfieth not? Incline your ear and come to me; hear, and your
soul shall live.' And sometimes the Prince would go out in person to
meet the two men with nothing to pay, and would Himself say to them, I
counsel thee to buy of Me gold tried in the fire, and white raiment, and
anoint thine eyes with eye-s