WHITE DUCK 109 



Everyone may know that the country is there because 

 of the blueness; for the air, the void, has no colour, 

 but all matter seen at a distance appears blue — 

 water and trees and mountains; only the sky country 

 is at so vast a distance that we see nothing but the 

 blue colour of it. But there are openings or win- 

 dows in the great plain, and these are the stars, and 

 through these windows the clear, brilliant light of 

 that country shines down on us when it is dark. 



How do the dead get there — flying like soaring 

 birds, up, up, up, until they come to it ? They can 

 certainly fly like birds, but no high-soaring bird and 

 no disembodied spirit can rise by flying to so immense 

 a height; yet when men die they have no thought 

 and desire but for that country, and have no rest or 

 pleasure here, but roam up and down the earth, 

 flying from the sight of human beings, even of their 

 nearest relations and friends, because they are now 

 invisible to mortal eyes, and to find themselves un- 

 recognised and unheard when they speak and no 

 longer remembered is intolerable to them. Therefore, 

 by day, when people are abroad, they fly to forests 

 and uninhabited places, where they lie, but at night 

 they come forth to range the earth in the form of 

 owls and nightjars and loons and rails and all other 

 wandering night-birds with wild and lamentable 

 voices. Night by night they wander, crying out their 

 misery and asking of those they meet to tell them of 

 some way of escape from earth so that they might 

 come at last to the country of the dead; but none 

 can tell them, for they are all in the same miserable 



