And then, at last, I stopped outside the street leading to the Frazers’ house.
I leaned over the low Embankment wall and gazed into the vapoury void below, listening to the life of the swiftly-flowing invisible river. In the near distance, the blast of a siren suddenly gave desolation a voice. A moment later, a ruby-coloured light slowly emerged, glowed for a second, and vanished. Then all was still and dark again.
Gradually, a trance-like stupor possessed me. Then slowly, ceaselessly, a sentence began to circle in my mind. It was Marsden’s final statement to Rendell.
“He’s convinced
And then I turned and saw—You!
Your figure was shrouded, but your face was fully revealed. It was the countenance of a new order of Being. I knew that a man from the Future stood before me.
Terror overwhelmed me—then. But I do not fear you—now.
I stretch out my arms and invoke you:—
Come!
I do not know whether you stand on the threshold, or whether unnumbered ages separate us from you. I only know that you
We are the Old—the dying—Consciousness. You are the New—the living—Consciousness. We have violated earth. You will redeem it. We descend the darkening valley of knowledge. You stand on the uplands of wisdom. We are an end. You are a beginning.
If you are a dream, all else is a nightmare. But I have seen God’s signature across your forehead.
Come!
More and more fiercely we deny our need of you. We say you are a fantasy, a lie, an illusion. We madden ourselves with sensation; drug ourselves with work, pleasure, speed; herd in the vast sepulchres of our cities; blind our eyes; deaden our ears; cling to our creed of comfort (Comfort! the last of the creeds!) sink day by day in deeper servitude to our inventions—hoping to numb the knowledge of our emptiness; striving to ease the ache of separation; trying to evade your challenge; seeking to deny our destiny.
Come!
The martyred earth waits for you. Daily, our darkness deepens. Secretly, all are afraid. None knows what to do. To underpin, to patch up, to whitewash sepulchres—these are the substitutes for action. To shout, to boast, to nickname bankruptcy, Prosperity—this is the substitute for leadership. We have glorified ourselves, magnified ourselves, made gods of ourselves. We have served Hate, Greed, Lust. And now darkness deepens round us. And we are afraid.
Come!
Lacking you, there is no solution to any one of our problems. Possessing you, no problems exist. If it be madness to believe in you, the sanity which denies you is a greater madness.
But we who have lived on substitutes; we who have plumbed the abyss of ourselves; we who have glimpsed the magnitude of man’s misery—we do not deny you.
From the midnight of madness we stretch out our arms to you.
A shadow seems to fall across the page I am writing. You are here, in this room! I am certain you are here.
I turn, but I cannot see you. I call, but you do not answer.
I rise, grope round the room seeking you, till at last I stand before a mirror.
But the countenance reflected in that mirror is not mine.