am I to do? I am a most perplexed and wretched
man. [_He falls on his knees, and stretches his hands in entreaty over
the abyss_]. I invoke the oracle. I cannot go back and connive at a
blasphemous lie. I implore guidance.

_The Pythoness walks in on the gallery behind him, and touches him on
the shoulder. Her size is now natural. Her face is hidden by her hood.
He flinches as if from an electric shock; turns to her; and cowers,
covering his eyes in terror._

THE ELDERLY GENTLEMAN. No: not close to me. I'm afraid I can't bear it.

THE ORACLE [_with grave pity_] Come: look at me. I am my natural size
now: what you saw there was only a foolish picture of me thrown on a
cloud by a lantern. How can I help you?

THE ELDERLY GENTLEMAN. They have gone back to lie about your answer. I
cannot go with them. I cannot live among people to whom nothing is real.
I have become incapable of it through my stay here. I implore to be
allowed to stay.

THE ORACLE. My friend: if you stay with us you will die of
discouragement.

THE ELDERLY GENTLEMAN. If I go back I shall die of disgust and despair.
I take the nobler risk. I beg you, do not cast me out.

_He catches her robe and holds her._

THE ORACLE. Take care. I have been here one hundred and seventy years.
Your death does not mean to me what it means to you.

THE ELDERLY GENTLEMAN. It is the meaning of life, not of death, that
makes banishment so terrible to me.

THE ORACLE. Be it so, then. You may stay.

_She offers him her hands. He grasps them and raises himself a little by
clinging to her. She looks steadily into his face. He stiffens; a little
convulsion shakes him; his grasp relaxes; and he falls dead._

THE ORACLE [_looking down at the body_] Poor shortlived thing! What else
could I do for you?

PART V.

As Far as Thought can Reach

_Summer afternoon in the year 31,920 A.D. A sunlit glade at the southern
foot of a thickly wooded hill. On the west side of it, the steps and
columned porch of a dainty little classic temple. Between it and the
hill, a rising path to the wooded heights begins with rough steps of
stones in the moss. On the opposite side, a grove. In the middle of the
glade, an altar in the form of a low marble table as long as a man, set
parallel to the temple steps and pointing to the hill. Curved marble
benches radiate from it into the foreground; but they are not joined to
it: there is plenty of space to pass between the altar and the benc