I left the old granary for an extended trip and the rain fell and I was soaked through but continued vaguely to progress day after day, until at length I found another granary next to which people were transacting business unconnected with grain. Beneath the trees I saw musicians manipulating their instruments as if they were milking cows, and every so often the whole scene would suddenly lurch forward. I considered making a comment, but then noticed everything on the surface of the earth had become completely silent. At that point they—who they were I couldn’t tell—approached me from behind and took away the god I was traveling with. And of course I was upset but this was all pantomime so I swallowed my protests. They kept the god for ten days as a guarantee, while according to regulation I was made to scrub the path with sticks and sprinkle it with oil. Each night I withdrew to a small ditch by an olive grove. In due course the god and I were sent back to the place that had ransomed us, even as we had abandoned it, and without uttering any sound we leapt together from the second to the third tier deep inside the predicament we held true to, and this was noted by others.
