It's been my story ever since I can remember
anything--my adventure, my dream, my life. And when the great Net
faded a little and wanted brightening, we knew an enormous cavern in
the mountains where lost starlight collected, and we used to gather
this in thousands of sacks, and wash and paint the entire web afresh.
That made it sticky, so that the passengers hung in it longer. Don't
you remember?
They came back with starlight in their hair and eyes and voices--and
in their hearts.'
'And the way you--_we_ got them into the Net,' he interrupted
excitedly, 'was by understanding them--by feeling with them---'
'Sympathy,' she laughed, 'of course! Only there were so many I could
not reach and could not understand, and so could never get in. In
particular there was some one who ought to have been there to help me.
If I could find that some one I could do twice as much. I searched and
searched. I hunted through every corner of the garden, through forest,
cavern, sky, but never with success. Orion never overtook me! My
longing cried every where, but in vain. Oh, Orion, my lost Orion, I
have found you now at last!... The Net flashed messages in all
directions, but without response. This some one who could make my work
complete existed--that I _knew_--only he was hidden somewhere out of
sight--concealed in some corner or other, veiled by a darkness that he
wove about himself--as though by some funny kind of wrong thinking
that obscured the light I searched for and made it too dim to reach me
properly.
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