It shook the very bowels of the building. I was closer to it than
that other time, when it had followed me from the goblin garden. There
was strength and hardness in it, as of metal reverberation. Some touch
of numbness, almost of paralysis, must surely have been upon me that I
felt no actual terror, for I remember even turning and standing still to
hear it better. "That is the Noise," my thought ran stupidly, and I
think I whispered it aloud; "the Doors are closing." The wind outside
against the windows was audible, so it cannot have been really loud, yet
to me it was the biggest, deepest sound I have ever heard, but so far
away, with such awful remoteness in it, that I had to doubt my own ears
at the same time. It seemed underground--the rumbling of earthquake
gates that shut remorselessly within the rocky Earth--stupendous
ultimate thunder. They were shut off from help again. The doors had
closed.
I felt a storm of pity, an agony of bitter, futile hate sweep through
me. My memory of the figure changed then. The Woman with the glass of
cooling water had stepped down from Heaven; but the Man--or was it Men?
--who smeared this terrible layer of belief and Thought upon the
world!.
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