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When he was back in his native country and walked through the streets in his white wig, not a soul recognised him. But a musician who had been in Italy, meeting him in town one day, said in a loud voice, “There goes a maestro!”

Immediately Jubal imagined that he was a great composer. He bought some music paper and started to write a score; that is to say, he wrote a number of long and short notes on the lines, some for the violins, of course, others for the wood-wind, and the remainder for the brass instruments. He sent his work to the Conservatoire. But nobody could play the music, because it was not music, but only notes.

A little later on he was met by an artist who had been in Paris. “There goes a model!” said the artist. Jubal heard it, and at once believed that he was a model, for he believed everything that was said of him, because he did not know who or what he was.

Presently he remembered his wife, and he resolved to go and see her. He did go, but she had married again, and she and her second husband, who was a baron, had gone abroad.

At last he grew tired of his quest, and, like all tired men, he felt a great yearning for his mother. He knew that she was a widow and lived in a cottage in the mountains, so one day he went to see her.

“Don’t you know me?” he asked.

“What is your name?” asked the mother.

“My name is your son’s name. Don’t you know it?”

“My son’s name was Peal, but yours is Jubal, and I don’t know Jubal.”

“You disown me?”

“As you disowned yourself and your mother.”

“Why did you rob me of my will when I was a little child?”

“You gave your will to a woman.”

“I had to, because it was the only way of winning her. But why did you tell me I had no will?”

“Well, your father told you that, my boy, and he knew no better; you must forgive him, for he is dead now. Children, you see, are not supposed to have a will of their own, but grown-up people are.”

“How well you explain it all, mother! Children are not supposed to have a will, but grown-up people are.”

“Now, listen to me, Gustav,” said his mother, “Gustav Peal . …”

These were his two real names, and when he heard them from her lips, he became himself again. All the parts he had played–kings and demons, the maestro and the model–cut and ran, and he was but the son of his mother.

He put his head on her knees and said, “Now, let me die here, for at last I am at home.”