And the shadows, that were web and cloven footed in the house, with the beaks of birds, the shifted shadows that bore a woman in each hand, had no casting substances; and the foam horses of the exterior sea climbed like foxes on the hills. This that held Nant and Manza, the bone of a horse head, the ox and black man arising from the clay picture, was the interior world. This was the interior world where the acid grew stronger, and the death in the acid added ten days to the dead time.

Still Doctor Manza did not see me. I who was the doctor in a dream, the foreign logician, the maker of birds, engrossed in the acid strengthening and the search for oblivion, soon raised the beaker to my mouth as the storm came up. There was thunder as I drank; and as he fell, the lightning darted up the wind.

There is a dead man in the tower, a woman said to her companion as they stood by the door of the central hall. There is a dead man in the central tower, said the corner echoes, and their voices rose through the house. Suddenly the hall was crowded, and the people of the house moved among one another, questioning as to the name of the new dead.

Nant stood above the Doctor. Now the Doctor was dead. There was a corridor leading to the tower of ten days’ death, and there a woman danced alone, with the hands of a man upon her shoulders. And soon the virgins joined her, bared to the waist, and made the movements of dancing; they danced towards the open doors of the corridor, stood lightly in the doorways; they danced four steps towards the doors, and then danced four steps away. In the long hall they danced in celebration of the dead. This was the dance of the halt, the blind and half dead, this the dance of the children, the grave girls bared to the waist, this the dance of the dreamers, the open eyed and the naked hopheads, sleeping as they moved. Doctor Manza was dead at my feet. I knelt down to count his ribs, to raise his jaw, to wrench the beaker of acid from his hand. But the dead hand stiffened.

Said a voice at my elbow, Unlock the hand. I moved to obey the voice, but a softer voice said at my ear, Let the hand stiffen. Strike the second voice. Strike the first voice. I struck at the two voices with my fist, and Nant’s hand turned into a tree.