Down, down, until the great groans which arose from the domes and Ionic
roofs about me told that the sad old earth sought rest in eternity,
while the universe shrugged its shoulders over the loss of another star.
And now, the great invisible fear became apparent, tangible, for all the
sins, the woes, the miseries, the dreads, the dismal achings and
throbbings, the dreariness and gloom of the lost star came together and
like a huge geni took form and hideous shape--octopus-like--which slowly
approached me, erstwhile happy--and hovered about my couch in fearful
menace.
* * * * *
Oh, shining web of hair, burst loose your bonds and bid me move! Oh,
time, cease not your calculations, but speed me on to deliverance! Oh,
silence, vast, immense, infuse into your soul some sound other than the
heavy throbbing of this fast disintegrating heart! Oh, pitiless stone
arches, let fall your crushing weight upon this Stygian monster!
I pray to time, to eternity, to the frozen aeons of the past. Useless. I
am seized, forced to open my cold lips; there is agony,--supreme, mortal
agony of nerve tension, and wrenching of vitality. I struggle, scream,
and clutching the monster with superhuman strength, fling him aside, and
rise, bleeding, screaming--but triumphant, and keenly mortal in every
vein, alive and throbbing with consciousness and pain.
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