The Man continued on his way in the land of Aram. Wandering intently across a broad flat plain the colour of the sky, at last he arrived beside a stream where another cast his nets.

‘Do you know me?’ asked the Man, and the other, looking not up from his work, replied in languorous speech, each phrase fading into the next as if he made music: ‘I am the one who knows. In my nets I have caught many fish, and every day I mend my knots, and every day I tie new knots to catch more. Perhaps one day I will know you.’

The Man continued on his way unsatisfied, until there transpired from the land the sky and the land from the sky, and stepping into the gap he came into Padin, the oldest of the kingdoms whose work was Aram. Around him there was beauty, and in his spirit there awoke a void that hungered. Suddenly aroused, he sought to step into the union whence he broke forth, but found that it was vanished. Knowing nothing of sea foam and a western wind, he did not find himself possessed of a ready mind, and he was cast into a deep sleep there an inch beside the path into the deeps of Padin. Flowers grew beside him, and sweetly entreated him with their beauty, but he was blind.