...
And as he sat and listened to the machinery tapping away the seconds,
he heard a similar tapping in his brain that swung gradually into
rhythm with the clock. A pendulum in his mind was swinging, each swing
a little shorter than the one before; and he remembered that a dozen
pendulums in a room, starting at different lengths, ended by swinging
all together. "We're slowing up together--stopping!" murmured the two
pendulums. "Why not? Why not? Why not?..."
Presently both would cease, yet ceasing would be the beginning, not
the end. A state without end or beginning would supervene. Ticking
meant time, and time meant becoming; but beyond becoming lay the
bottomless sea of being, which was eternity. Maria floated there--
calm, quiet, serene, little globular Maria, circular, the perfect
form.
The Kitchen Spell rolled in upon him, smothering mind and senses.
It came at first so gradually he hardly noticed it, but it rose and
rose and rose, till at length he sat dipped to the eyes in it, and
then finally his eyes went under too. He was immersed, submerged. The
parochial vanished; he swam in the universal. He felt drowsy, soothed,
and very happy; his heart beat differently.
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