Twilight Land

So the father and the mother sat down to the feast with their son and his queen, but all the time they did not know him. The old king tasted the food and tasted the food, but he could not eat of it.

“Do you not feel hungry?” said the young king.

“Alas,” said his father, “I crave your majesty’s pardon, but there is no salt in the food.”

“And so is life lacking of savor without love,” said the young king; “and yet because I loved you as salt you disowned me and cast me out into the world.”

Therewith he could contain himself no longer, but with the tears running down his cheeks kissed his father and his mother; and they knew him, and kissed him again.

Afterwards the young king went with a great army into the country of his elder brothers, and, overcoming them, set his father upon his throne again. If ever the two got back their crowns you may be sure that they wore them more modestly than they did the first time.

So the Fisherman who had one time unbottled the Genie whom Solomon the Wise had stoppered up concluded his story, and all of the good folk who were there began clapping their shadowy hands.

“Aye, aye,” said old Bidpai, “there is much truth in what you say, for it is verily so that that which men call – love – is – the – salt – of – “…

His voice had been fading away thinner and thinner and smaller and smaller – now it was like the shadow of a voice; now it trembled and quivered out into silence and was gone.

And with the voice of old Bidpai the pleasant Land of Twilight was also gone. As a breath fades away from a mirror, so had it faded and vanished into nothingness.

I opened my eyes.

There was a yellow light – it came from the evening lamp. There were people of flesh and blood around – my own dear people – and they were talking together. There was the library with the rows of books looking silently out from their shelves. There was the fire of hickory logs crackling and snapping in the fireplace, and throwing a wavering, yellow light on the wall.

Had I been asleep? No; I had been in Twilight Land.

And now the pleasant Twilight Land had gone. It had faded out, and I was back again in the work-a-day world.

There I was sitting in my chair; and, what was more, it was time for the children to go to bed.