Page:Weird Tales Volume 5 Number 2 (1925-02).djvu/49

position. Yet it quivered and vibrated with every breath of air, as if its component parts were disconnected and in constant circulation, so to speak, as indeed all so-called 'matter' actually is. In color this veil, screen—whatever it might be termed—was grayish-blue, like the sky on a winter morning.

"I pressed my finger into the veil and it penetrated the entire length of the member, as if there had been no limit to the depth or thickness of the obstacle between the study and the outer air.

"When I removed my finger, there was no visible orifice. I puzzled over the queer matter until I recalled my real purpose here and finally selected a few valuable small instruments (much as I disliked doing so) and laid them aside to take along. Then, drawn by a curiosity over which I seemed to have no control, I again turned to the mysterious aperture. I threw again the light from my pocket lamp upon the surface, which oscillated and wavered like the surface of a pond disturbed by a vagrant breeze. Yet it gave the impression of tremendous activity and vitality, as if, odd though it sounds, it were the seat of all motion. I know how ineffectual must be my attempt to make this clear, and all my similes are lame. Yet there are no words to tell just how this affected me.

"Some attraction kept me there, induced me to place first a tentative finger, then my arm through, or rather, into the veil. I followed with one foot—in another moment I had slipped through!

"If I have had difficulty in expressing myself heretofore, what must be my dilemma now, when I attempt to describe what followed. After all, our vocabulary is wofully limited when it comes to the consideration of matters outside the ken of common knowledge and average minds. I had, so it seemed, entered a void, though all about me was that impression, real or imaginary, of tremendous vitality and activity. I seemed to have gained an unwonted lightness, as if I had become a part of this great external and internal commotion. Also, I seemed to possess, at least to feel the possession of, superior power, as yet untested. I sensed rather than felt things, but instinctively I knew I had blundered into some strange state of existence, but that I was there too soon. I stretched my wings, metaphorically, like the fledgeling bird when its pinions are first given to the air. I felt the limitless, vast and untried reaches of my new world all about me and time had assumed new standards, if not altogether annihilated. I realized that, already, since my plunge into the unknown, I had lived centuries. They say hasheesh eaters sometimes experience these sensations—I do not know; that is one drug I have never tried.

"Then, as my perceptions became a trifle clearer, though as yet far from clear, I saw dimly, almost introspectively, if that is comprehensible, a great plain bordered by colorless skies, across which rolled great, vaporous clouds.

"Suddenly I was aware of sounds, many and indeterminate; sounds that, came from nowhere and died away into nothingness. Now they rose to a babble of what might have been voices, though no words were distinguishable; again they were but subdued moans, sounding the very depths of anguish and despair.

"I moved forward, and vistas changed as if by magic. I realized that with one brief step I had covered inestimable space and that eons of time had passed me by. The landscape, if I may call it such when there was no land, became a vivid green with a sky of gold. Another step forward, and dull, overpowering blackness enveloped me. It was as if I had