Page:Konx Om Pax.pdf/33

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THE WAKE WORLD
17

and the din was simply fearful. So to get the noise out of my head, I took the little whip and whipped myself till all my blood poured down over everything, and I saw the whole house like a cataract of foaming blood rushing headlong from the flaming and scintillating Star of Fire that blazed and blazed in the candescent dome, and everything went red before my eyes, and a great flame like a strong wind blew through the House with a noise louder than any thunder could possibly be, so that I couldn't hold myself hardly, and I took up the sharp knives of the machines and cut myself all over, and the noise got louder and louder, and the flame burnt through and through me, so that I was very glad when my Prince said: "You wouldn't think it, would you, sweetheart? But there are lots of people who stay here all their lives."

Via (Symbol missingHebrew characters) v. Pugnus

Via ยง v. Manus

There are three ways into the Fourth House from below. The first passage is a very curious place, all full of wheels and ever such strange creatures, like monkeys and sphinxes and jackals climbing about them and trying to get to the top. It was very silly, because there isn't really any top to a wheel at all; the place you want to get to is the centre, if you want to be quiet. Then there was a really lovely passage, like a deep wood in Springtime, the dearest old man came along who had lived there all his life, because he was the guardian of it, and he didn't need to travel because he belonged to the First House really from the very beginning. He wore a vast cloak, and he carried a lamp and a long stick; and he said that the cloak meant you were to be silent and not say anything you saw, and the lamp meant you were to tell everybody and make them glad, and the stick was like a guide to tell you which to do. But I didn't quite believe that, because I am getting a grown-up girl now, and I wasn't to be put off like that. I could see that the stick was really the measuring rod with which the whole Palace was built, and the lamp was the only light they had to build it by, and the cloak was the abyss of darkness that covers it all up. That is why dream-people never see beautiful things like I'm telling you about. All their houses are built of common red bricks, and

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