About this time, I became aware, in an indifferent sort of way, of a growing sense of numbness, that robbed me of the fear, which I should otherwise have felt, on approaching that awesome Pile.  As it was, I viewed it, calmly—­much as a man views calamity through the haze of his tobacco smoke.

In a little while, I had come so close to the House, as to be able to distinguish many of the details about it.  The longer I looked, the more was I confirmed in my long-ago impressions of its entire similitude to this strange house.  Save in its enormous size, I could find nothing unlike.

Suddenly, as I stared, a great feeling of amazement filled me.  I had come opposite to that part, where the outer door, leading into the study, is situated.  There, lying right across the threshold, lay a great length of coping stone, identical—­save in size and color—­with the piece I had dislodged in my fight with the Pit-creatures.

I floated nearer, and my astonishment increased, as I noted that the door was broken partly from its hinges, precisely in the manner that my study door had been forced inward, by the assaults of the Swine-things.  The sight started a train of thoughts, and I began to trace, dimly, that the attack on this house, might have a far deeper significance than I had, hitherto, imagined.  I remembered how, long ago, in the old earth-days, I had half suspected that, in some unexplainable manner, this house, in which I live, was en rapport—­to use a recognized term—­with that other tremendous structure, away in the midst of that incomparable Plain.

Now, however, it began to be borne upon me, that I had but vaguely conceived what the realization of my suspicion meant.  I began to understand, with a more than human clearness, that the attack I had repelled, was, in some extraordinary manner, connected with an attack upon that strange edifice.

With a curious inconsequence, my thoughts abruptly left the matter; to dwell, wonderingly, upon the peculiar material, out of which the House was constructed.  It was—­as I have mentioned, earlier—­of a deep, green color.  Yet, now that I had come so close to it, I perceived that it fluctuated at times, though slightly—­glowing and fading, much as do the fumes of phosphorus, when rubbed upon the hand, in the dark.

Presently, my attention was distracted from this, by coming to the great entrance.  Here, for the first time, I was afraid; for, all in a moment, the huge doors swung back, and I drifted in between them, helplessly.  Inside, all was blackness, impalpable.  In an instant, I had crossed the threshold, and the great doors closed, silently, shutting me in that lightless place.

For a while, I seemed to hang, motionless; suspended amid the darkness.  Then, I became conscious that I was moving again; where, I could not tell.  Suddenly, far down beneath me, I seemed to hear a murmurous noise of Swine-laughter.  It sank away, and the succeeding silence appeared clogged with horror.