Now there seemed to be nothing more to do except to transfer that little measure of white fluid from the glass to my mouth, and thus to open the great door at whose bolts and bars we stare blankly from the day of birth to the day of death.  Every panel of that door is painted with a different picture touched to individual taste.  Some are beautiful, and some are grim, and some are neutral-tinted and indefinite.  My favourite picture used to be one of a boat floating on a misty ocean, and in the boat a man sleeping—­myself, dreaming happily, dreaming always.

But that picture had gone now, and in place of it was one of blackness, not the tumultuous gloom of a stormy night, but dead, cold, unfathomable blackness.  Without a doubt that was what lay behind the door—­only that.  So soon as ever my wine was swallowed and those mighty hinges began to turn I should see a wall of blackness thrusting itself ’twixt door and lintel.  Yes, it would creep forward, now pausing, now advancing, until at length it wrapped me round and stifled out my breath like a death mask of cold clay.  Then sight would die and sound would die and to all eternities there would be silence, silence while the stars grew old and crumbled, silence while they took form again far in the void, for ever and for ever dumb, dreadful, conquering silence.

That was the only real picture, the rest were mere efforts of the imagination.  And yet, what if some of them were also true?  What if the finished landscape that lay beyond the doom-door was but developed from the faint sketch traced by the strivings of our spirit—­to each man his own picture, but filled in, perfected, vivified a thousandfold, for terror or for joy perfect and inconceivable?

The thought was fascinating, but not without its fears.  It was strange that a man who had abandoned hopes should still be haunted by fears—­like everything else in the world, this is unjust.  For a little while, five or ten minutes, not more than ten, I would let my mind dwell on that thought, trying to dig down to its roots which doubtless drew their strength from the foetid slime of human superstition, trying to behold its topmost branches where they waved in sparkling light.  No, that was not the theory; I must imagine those invisible branches as grim skeletons of whitened wood, standing stirless in that atmosphere of overwhelming night.

So I sat myself in a chair, placing the medicine glass with the draught of bane upon the table before me, and, to make sure that I did not exceed the ten minutes, near to it my travelling clock.  As I sat thus I fell into a dream or vision.  I seemed to see myself standing upon the world, surrounded by familiar sights and sounds.  There in the west the sun sank in splendour, and the sails of a windmill that turned slowly between its orb and me were now bright as gold, and now by contrast black as they dipped into the shadow.  Near the windmill was a cornfield, and beyond the cornfield stood a cottage whence came the sound of lowing cattle and the voices of children.  Down a path that ran through the ripening corn walked a young man and a maid, their arms twined about each other, while above their heads a lark poured out its song.