asure! Space and Time and Mode of Being, as
with walls of adamant unscalable, impenetrable, shut me in from that
gulf! True, it might yet be in my power to pass again through the door
of light, and journey back to the chamber of the dead; and if so, I was
parted from that chamber only by a wide heath, and by the pale,
starry night betwixt me and the sun, which alone could open for me the
mirror-door, and was now far away on the other side of the world! but an
immeasurably wider gulf sank between us in this--that she was asleep and
I was awake! that I was no longer worthy to share with her that sleep,
and could no longer hope to awake from it with her! For truly I was much
to blame: I had fled from my dream! The dream was not of my making,
any more than was my life: I ought to have seen it to the end! and in
fleeing from it, I had left the holy sleep itself behind me!--I would go
back to Adam, tell him the truth, and bow to his decree!

I crept to my chamber, threw myself on my bed, and passed a dreamless
night.

I rose, and listlessly sought the library. On the way I met no one; the
house seemed dead. I sat down with a book to await the noontide: not
a sentence could I understand! The mutilated manuscript offered itself
from the masked door: the sight of it sickened me; what to me was the
princess with her devilry!

I rose and looked out of a window. It was a brilliant morning. With a
great rush the fountain shot high, and fell roaring back. The sun sat in
its feathery top. Not a bird sang, not a creature was to be seen. Raven
nor librarian came near me. The world was dead about me. I took another
book, sat down again, and went on waiting.

Noon was near. I went up the stairs to the dumb, shadowy roof. I closed
behind me the door into the wooden chamber, and turned to open the door
out of a dreary world.

I left the chamber with a heart of stone. Do what I might, all was
fruitless. I pulled the chains; adjusted and re-adjusted the hood;
arranged and re-arranged the mirrors; no result followed. I waited and
waited to give the vision time; it would not come; the mirror stood
blank; nothing lay in its dim old depth but the mirror opposite and my
haggard face.

I went back to the library. There the books were hateful to me--for I
had once loved them.

That night I lay awake from down-lying to uprising, and the next day
renewed my endeavours with the mystic door. But all was yet in vain. How
the hours went I cannot