And again he played, and a hut rose up with a patch of cleared soil around it, and a spring near by.
Then the king said, “Here will I dwell, and if I am to be cut off from the rest of the world, I will lead a peaceful life in this valley.”
The sun was rising, the sounds had ceased, and the old man had disappeared.
He made his way slowly to the patch of cultivated ground, he knocked at the door of the hut, and then he called out. No answer was made to the sound of his voice, he entered, and saw a rude, plain interior. There were two forms half lying, half propped up by the walls, and some domestic implements lay about. But when he spoke to the beings they did not answer, and when he touched their arms they fell powerless on the ground and remained there. A terrible fear came on the king lest he should become such as these. He left them and again sought a possible outlet, but fruitlessly. And that evening he sought the old man again and inquired what sort of beings these were.
“For though in form and body like children outwardly,” said the king, “they do nothing and seem unable to move; are they in an enchanted slumber?”
Then the old man came near to the edge of the ravine and, speaking solemnly and low, said:
“O king, thou dost not yet know the nature of the place wherein thou art. For these children are like the children thou hast known always both in form and body. I have worked on them as far as is within my power. But here in this valley a law reigns which binds them in sleepfulness and powerlessness. For here in everything that is done there is as much pain as pleasure. If it is pleasant to tread a downward slope there is as much pain in ascending the upward slope. And in every action there is a pleasant part and a painful part, and in the tasting of every herb the beings feel a bitter taste and a sweet taste, so indistinguishably united that the pleasure and the pain of eating it are equally balanced. And as hunger increases the sense of the bitterness in the taste increases, so it is never more pleasant to eat than not to eat. Everything that can be done here affords no more pleasure than it does pain, from the greatest action down to the least movement. And the beings as I can make them, they follow pleasure and avoid pain. And if the pleasure and the pain are equal they do not move one way or the other.”