THE EQUINOX
coffee, then a burning taste, then a sour taste that I don’t
know. All these tastes issue from his eyes; he signua/s them.
I can see his eyes now. They are very round, with perfectly
black pupils, perfectly white iris, and the cornea pale blue.
The sense of desolation is so acute that I keep on trying to
get away from the vision.
I told him that I could not understand his taste-language,
so instead he set up a humming very much like a big electric
plant with dynamos going.
Now the atmosphere is deep night-blue; and by the power
of that atmosphere, the pillars kindle to a dull glowing crim-
son, and the throne is a dull, ruddy gold. And now, through
the humming, come very clear, bell-like notes, and farther
still a muttering, like that of a gathering storm.
And nowI hear the meaning ofthe muttering: Iam he who
was before the beginning, and in my desolation I cried aloud,
saying, let me behold my countenance in the concave of the
abyss. And I beheld, and lo! in the darkness of the abyss my
countenance was black, and empty, and distorted, that was
(once) invisible and pure.
Then I closed mine eye, that I might not behold it, and
for this was it fixed. Now it is written that one glance of
mine eye shall destroy it. And mine eye I dare not open,
because of the foulness of the vision. Therefore do I gaze
with these two eyes throughout the aeon. Is there not one of
all my adepts that shall come unto me, and cut off mine eye-
lids, that I may behold and destroy?
Now I take a dagger, and, searching out his third eye,
seek to cut off the eye-lids, but they are of adamant. And the
edge of the dagger is turned.
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