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THE WAKE WORLD
9

Via (Symbol missingsymbol characters) v. Cranium

Via (Symbol missingHebrew characters) v. Hamus

Via (Symbol missingHebrew characters) v. Os

Domus VII v. Victoria

people reading them till they were so silly, they didn't know what they were doing. And there were cheats, and doctors, and thieves; I was really very glad to go away.

There were three ways into the Seventh House, and the first was such a funny way. We walked through a pool, each on the arm of a great big Beetle, and then we found ourselves on a narrow winding path. There were nasty Jackals about, they made such a noise, and at the end I could see two towers. Then there was the queerest moon you ever saw, only a quarter full. The shadows fell so strangely, one could see the most mysterious shapes, like great bats with women's faces, and blood dripping from their mouths, and creatures partly wolves and partly men, everything changing one into the other. And we saw shadows like old, old, ugly women, creeping about on sticks, and all of a sudden they would fly up into the air, shrieking the funniest kind of songs, and then suddenly one would come down flop, and you saw she was really quite young and ever so lovely, and she would have nothing on, and as you looked at her she would crumble away like a biscuit. Then there was another passage which was really too secret for anything; all I shall tell you is, there was the most beautiful Goddess that ever was, and she was washing herself in a river of dew. If you ask what she is doing, she says: "I'm making thunderbolts." It was only starlight, and yet one could see quite clearly, so don't think I'm making a mistake. The third path is a most terrible passage; it's all a great war, and there's earthquakes and chariots of fire, and all the castles breaking to pieces. I was glad when we came to the Green Palace.

It was all built of malachite and emerald, and there was the loveliest gentlest living, and I was married to my Fairy Prince there, and we had the most delicious honeymoon, and I had a beautiful baby, and then I remembered myself, but only just in time, and said: "Kiss me!" And he kissed me and said: "My goodness! But that was a near thing that time; my little girl nearly went to sleep. Most people who reach the Seventh House stay there all their lives, I can tell you."

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