_XVI_
THE AWAKENING
I awoke, with a start. For a moment, I wondered where I was. Thenmemory came to me....
The room was still lit with that strange light--half-sun, half-moon,light. I felt refreshed, and the tired, weary ache had left me. I wentslowly across to the window, and looked out. Overhead, the river offlame drove up and down, North and South, in a dancing semi-circle offire. As a mighty sleigh in the loom of time it seemed--in a suddenfancy of mine--to be beating home the picks of the years. For, so vastlyhad the passage of time been accelerated, that there was no longer anysense of the sun passing from East to West. The only apparent movementwas the North and South beat of the sun-stream, that had become so swiftnow, as to be better described as a _quiver_.
As I peered out, there came to me a sudden, inconsequent memory of thatlast journey among the Outer worlds. I remembered the sudden vision thathad come to me, as I neared the Solar System, of the fast whirlingplanets about the sun--as though the governing quality of time had beenheld in abeyance, and the Machine of a Universe allowed to run down aneternity, in a few moments or hours. The memory passed, along with a,but partially comprehended, suggestion that I had been permitted aglimpse into further time spaces. I stared out again, seemingly, at thequake of the sun-stream. The speed seemed to increase, even as I looked.Several lifetimes came and went, as I watched.
Suddenly, it struck me, with a sort of grotesque seriousness, that Iwas still alive. I thought of Pepper, and wondered how it was that I hadnot followed his fate. He had reached the time of his dying, and hadpassed, probably through sheer length of years. And here was I, alive,hundreds of thousands of centuries after my rightful period of years.
For, a time, I mused, absently. 'Yesterday--' I stopped, suddenly.Yesterday! There was no yesterday. The yesterday of which I spoke hadbeen swallowed up in the abyss of years, ages gone. I grew dazed withmuch thinking.
Presently, I turned from the window, and glanced 'round the room. Itseemed different--strangely, utterly different. Then, I knew what it wasthat made it appear so strange. It was bare: there was not a piece offurniture in the room; not even a solitary fitting of any sort.Gradually, my amazement went, as I remembered, that this was but theinevitable end of that process of decay, which I had witnessedcommencing, before my sleep. Thousands of years! Millions of years!
Over the floor was spread a deep layer of dust, that reached half wayup to the window-seat. It had grown immeasurably, whilst I slept; andrepresented the dust of untold ages. Undoubtedly, atoms of the old,decayed furniture helped to swell its bulk; and, somewhere among it all,mouldered the long-ago-dead Pepper.
All at once, it occurred to me, that I had no recollection of wadingknee-deep through all that dust, after I awoke. True, an incredible ageof years had passed, since I approached the window; but that wasevidently as nothing, compared with the countless spaces of time that, Iconceived, had vanished whilst I was sleeping. I remembered now, that Ihad fallen asleep, sitting in my old chair. Had it gone ...? I glancedtoward where it had stood. Of course, there was no chair to be seen. Icould not satisfy myself, whether it had disappeared, after my waking,or before. If it had mouldered under me, surely, I should have beenwaked by the collapse. Then I remembered that the thick dust, whichcovered the floor, would have been sufficient to soften my fall; so thatit was quite possible, I had slept upon the dust for a million yearsor more.
As these thoughts wandered through my brain, I glanced again, casually,to where the chair had stood. Then, for the first time, I noticed thatthere were no marks, in the dust, of my footprints, between it and thewindow. But then, ages of years had passed, since I had awaked--tens ofthousands of years!
My look rested thoughtfully, again upon the place where once had stoodmy chair. Suddenly, I passed from abstraction to intentness; for there,in its standing place, I made out a long undulation, rounded off withthe heavy dust. Yet it was not so much hidden, but that I could tellwhat had caused it. I knew--and shivered at the knowledge--that it was ahuman body, ages-dead, lying there, beneath the place where I had slept.It was lying on its right side, its back turned toward me. I could makeout and trace each curve and outline, softened, and moulded, as it were,in the black dust. In a vague sort of way, I tried to account for itspresence there. Slowly, I began to grow bewildered, as the thought cameto me that it lay just about where I must have fallen when the chaircollapsed.
Gradually, an idea began to form itself within my brain; a thought thatshook my spirit. It seemed hideous and insupportable; yet it grew uponme, steadily, until it became a conviction. The body under that coating,that shroud of dust, was neither more nor less than my own dead shell. Idid not attempt to prove it. I knew it now, and wondered I had not knownit all along. I was a bodiless thing.
Awhile, I stood, trying to adjust my thoughts to this new problem. Intime--how many thousands of years, I know not--I attained to some degreeof quietude--sufficient to enable me to pay attention to what wastranspiring around me.
Now, I saw that the elongated mound had sunk, collapsed, level with therest of the spreading dust. And fresh atoms, impalpable, had settledabove that mixture of grave-powder, which the aeons had ground. A longwhile, I stood, turned from the window. Gradually, I grew morecollected, while the world slipped across the centuries into the future.
Presently, I began a survey of the room. Now, I saw that time wasbeginning its destructive work, even on this strange old building. Thatit had stood through all the years was, it seemed to me, proof that itwas something different from any other house. I do not think, somehow,that I had thought of its decaying. Though, why, I could not have said.It was not until I had meditated upon the matter, for some considerabletime, that I fully realized that the extraordinary space of time throughwhich it had stood, was sufficient to have utterly pulverized the verystones of which it was built, had they been taken from any earthlyquarry. Yes, it was undoubtedly mouldering now. All the plaster had gonefrom the walls; even as the woodwork of the room had gone, manyages before.
While I stood, in contemplation, a piece of glass, from one of thesmall, diamond-shaped panes, dropped, with a dull tap, amid the dustupon the sill behind me, and crumbled into a little heap of powder. As Iturned from contemplating it, I saw light between a couple of the stonesthat formed the outer wall. Evidently, the mortar was falling away....
After awhile, I turned once more to the window, and peered out. Idiscovered, now, that the speed of time had become enormous. The lateralquiver of the sun-stream, had grown so swift as to cause the dancingsemi-circle of flame to merge into, and disappear in, a sheet of firethat covered half the Southern sky from East to West.
From the sky, I glanced down to the gardens. They were just a blur of apalish, dirty green. I had a feeling that they stood higher, than in theold days; a feeling that they were nearer my window, as though they hadrisen, bodily. Yet, they were still a long way below me; for the rock,over the mouth of the pit, on which this house stands, arches up to agreat height.
It was later, that I noticed a change in the constant color of thegardens. The pale, dirty green was growing ever paler and paler, towardwhite. At last, after a great space, they became greyish-white, andstayed thus for a very long time. Finally, however, the greyness beganto fade, even as had the green, into a dead white. And this remained,constant and unchanged. And by this I knew that, at last, snow lay uponall the Northern world.
And so, by millions of years, time winged onward through eternity, tothe end--the end, of which, in the old-earth days, I had thoughtremotely, and in hazily speculative fashion. And now, it was approachingin a manner of which none had ever dreamed.
I recollect that, about this time, I began to have a lively, thoughmorbid, curiosity, as to what would happen when the end came--but Iseemed strangely without imaginings.
All this while, the steady process of decay was continuing. The fewremaining pieces of glass, had long ago vanished; and, every now andthen, a soft thud, and a little cloud of rising dust, w
ould tell of somefragment of fallen mortar or stone.
I looked up again, to the fiery sheet that quaked in the heavens aboveme and far down into the Southern sky. As I looked, the impression wasborne in upon me, that it had lost some of its first brilliancy--that itwas duller, deeper hued.
I glanced down, once more, to the blurred white of the worldscape.Sometimes, my look returned to the burning sheet of dulling flame, thatwas, and yet hid, the sun. At times, I glanced behind me, into thegrowing dusk of the great, silent room, with its aeon-carpet ofsleeping dust....
So, I watched through the fleeting ages, lost in soul-wearing thoughtsand wonderings, and possessed with a new weariness.