In the depths of the stillness that flowed forth once the stifling clamor had been rebuked, the voice of an enchanting flute rose up; the universe hushed to hear it, and the tranquil night gave ear.
The moon stole toward the shore to hold converse with the waves, and a star slipped out from the horizon, and then another followed it...
And the buds of the slumbering flowers opened, as though the drops of dew had touched them at the hour before dawn.
The flute's voice was so deep that it touched everything. It was sweet and tender — in its sweetness a strength, and in its tenderness a vigor — and it was tremulous and leaping, holding manifold meanings of life, and other meanings besides.
Nothing was stirring abroad in that darkness — the second watch of the night having run its course — but a specter, immense and hollow, whose form could not be clearly made out: was it nearer to man than to beast, or to some skeleton never yet seen... or was it all of these together?
It was journeying through the night without direction, when suddenly its voice rang out, trembling, with these words:
Who is this that stirs in the air the echo of this foolish tune — the flute? And when the flute answered him only with sweet, coquettish notes, he flared into a rage and screamed:
Know then, insolent one, that this night is a night of repose for me; in it I draw up my plans and conduct my affairs, and I prepare what belongs to tomorrow for tomorrow, and what belongs to the day after for the day after; and whoever muddies the clarity of my thinking — I shall soon give him a taste of death.
The flute went on with its song in its sweet tones, and answered: Will you not first be so kind, O specter, as to make your person known — and after that, command whom you please with what you please?
The specter asked it: How astonishing! Do you not know me yet?? Said the flute: No!
A thunderous guffaw was heard, filling the void; the universe shuddered at it, and the worlds awoke in terror. And he who had loosed it shouted:
I, fellow, am the son of the ancient ages. I was created a little after the first man, and I have walked along with his sons generation after generation until I reached this present age, whose days I make hot with clangor and rumbling.
Said the flute: Are you thunder, then?
Said the specter: No — thunder is but a piece of my chatter.
It said: Are you fire, then?
He said: Nor that either, for fire itself springs from my depths.
It said: Then you are the volcano...
He said: No, no — not that either. From volcanoes people keep their distance and so are safe from their lava; but I — I follow them wherever they walk and wherever they settle, and I cast terror and panic into their hearts; and how swiftly I mow them down like a harvest and erase their traces, as though only days before they had not filled the eye of life and been the focus of hope's gazes.
Said the flute: It seems to me, O specter, that you are the phantom of Azrael, come to muddy the serenity of this dreaming night. So I beg you, in mercy's name, to cease your terrorizing and to leave the world reposing in quiet, ease, and peace.
The specter guffawed once more, then cried: What absurdity! Azrael and Azrael's retinue take their orders from me, wherever I will and the moment I summon them. I, fellow, am a power beside which all powers fall short... I am...
And the flute cut him short: A power beside which all powers fall short?! Oh... if there were in your words any kind of tenderness or love, if there were in your tone any shade of mercy, or if you were not boastful to the point of drowning in it, it would be nearer to logic for me to say that you were God.
The specter answered him, his voice so broken it could scarcely be made out: I do not know this thing that you call God...
Said the flute: Are you Time, then?
He said: Nor am I that. I act, and Time inscribes my deeds in letters that blaze...
The flute fell silent a little; then it spoke, its tone so changed that it had become a blend of mockery, insistence, and deliberateness, the words following one upon another in its supple throat as tears follow one another in the eyes of a bereaved mother...
Who, then, are you, if not scorching selfishness and hateful force — the iron specter that created "Achilles," hero of Homer's Iliad; that formed "Julius Caesar" and his peer "Alexander"; that made of "Napoleon" and "Hitler" and their like among humanity's tyrants dutiful sons who water your selfishness with the blood of men, sate your gluttony with the torn limbs of humankind, and pluck their living hearts from their breasts for your sake, caring nothing for mercy — as though pride, pride in what they do, had seized them, or as though they had drowsed on the wine of your triumph and slept to the lullaby of your self-seeking, so that they are neither of mankind nor of anything other than mankind.
Said the specter: These whom you style my sons are surely in the right in their revolt and their onrush;