...relates the otherwise unnamed speaker’s journey to a mysterious land across the sea, where he tries but fails to make contact with the people who dwell there. He descends into despair and near-madness, after years eventually returning to his own country, to find himself utterly alienated from those he once knew. A wanderer, walking by the shore, he comes across a white bell-like shell in which he hears the sound of distant harbors and seas. It is then that a boat appears-- and he is borne away to a strange country, beyond the deep, a realm glittering, beautiful and mysterious. There, he hears the sound of distant music, voices and footfalls, but when he seeks the source of the sound the mysterious inhabitants of the land only flee from him.

Climbing onto a mound, he presumptuously names himself the King of the place, and challenges its people to come forth. Instead, however, darkness descends upon him, and he falls to the ground, blinded and bent.

Afterward, he wanders in the wood, growing old. And, after a year and a day, broken and weary he seeks out the sea and boards a ship that will take him back to his own land.

When he arrives home, though, the sea-bell is silent, and he is alienated from his own world, misunderstood and forsaken by those he once knew.

In addition to the labor needed to make the intellectual and spiritual journey, such a pilgrim may also suffer aloneness from the resulting separation from those uninspired, the secret treasure of enlightenment a comfort oblique to the vital need a living, social being bears for community and human understanding.

Then, the solitary journey's pangs are appeased by human connection. When KrOB pays a welcome visit, the incident at once deflects all morose wallowing in existential sorrows. An additional hour provides a lighter tone, as we close after five hours. NEXT WEEK: Peppe, or not?