Sometimes beneath layers of thick crystal
he would see blue or green water swirling, inhabited by vivid fish and
growths of rainbow foliage. Then they would be treading on furs of
every texture and colour or along corridors of palest ivory, unbroken
as though carved complete from the gigantic tusks of dinosaurs extinct
before the age of man ....
Then a hazily remembered transition, and they were at dinner--where
each plate was of two almost imperceptible layers of solid diamond
between which was curiously worked a filigree of emerald design, a
shaving sliced from green air. Music, plangent and unobtrusive,
drifted down through far corridors--his chair, feathered and curved
insidiously to his back, seemed to engulf and overpower him as he
drank his first glass of port. He tried drowsily to answer a question
that had been asked him, but the honeyed luxury that clasped his body
added to the illusion of sleep--jewels, fabrics, wines, and metals
blurred before his eyes into a sweet mist ....
"Yes," he replied with a polite effort, "it certainly is hot enough
for me down there."
He managed to add a ghostly laugh; then, without movement, without
resistance, he seemed to float off and away, leaving an iced dessert
that was pink as a dream .... He fell asleep.
When he awoke he knew that several hours had passed. He was in a great
quiet room with ebony walls and a dull illumination that was too
faint, too subtle, to be called a light.
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