1 The Old Ones know that they are soon to die.
2 We know, when we look into each other's eyes.
3 We ask, why must we know, but it has no answer to give us.
4 We wished to know about all the things which make the earth around us.
5 This is our wonder and our secret fear, that we know and do not resist.
6 We know not why our curse makes us seek we know not what, ever and ever.
7 We know that we are evil, but there is no will in us and no power to resist it.
8 And we know well that there is no transgression blacker than to do or think alone.
9 We had been a good Street Sweeper and like all our brother Street Sweepers, save for our cursed wish to know.
10 And they answered: "Since the Council does not know of this hole, there can be no law permitting to enter it."
11 It whispers to us that there are great things on this earth of ours, and that we can know them if we try, and that we must know them.
12 And when we look thus without words, we both know other things also, strange things for which there are no words, and these things frighten us.
13 What punishment awaits us if it be discovered we know not, for no such crime has come in the memory of men and there are no laws to provide for it.
14 And if sometimes, in the secret darkness of our heart, we regret that which befell us on our fifteenth birthday, we know that it was through our own guilt.
15 For the Council of Vocations knows in its great wisdom where you are needed by your brother men, better than you can know it in your unworthy little minds.
16 We would accept our Life Mandate, and we would work for our brothers, gladly and willingly, and we would erase our sin against them, which they did not know, but we knew.
17 Then visiting Leaders mount the pulpit and they read to us the speeches which were made in the City Council that day, for the City Council represents all men and all men must know.
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