Adding upstream version 1.0.2.upstream/1.0.2upstream

Signed-off-by: Daniel Baumann <daniel.baumann@progress-linux.org>

1 files changed, 767 insertions, 0 deletions

diff --git a/src/io/crystalegg.xml b/src/io/crystalegg.xml
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..0e916e7
--- /dev/null
+++ b/src/io/crystalegg.xml
@@ -0,0 +1,767 @@
+<?xml version="1.0" standalone="no"?>
+<!DOCTYPE book PUBLIC "-//OASIS//DTD DocBook XML V4.2//EN"
+                "http://www.oasis-open.org/docbook/xml/4.2/docbookx.dtd">
+<book>
+
+<bookinfo>
+  <title>The Crystal Egg</title>
+  <author><firstname>H. G.</firstname><surname>Wells</surname></author>
+</bookinfo>
+
+
+<chapter>
+
+<para>
+   There was, until a year ago, a little and very grimy-looking shop
+near Seven Dials over which, in weather-worn yellow lettering, the name
+of "C. Cave, Naturalist and Dealer in Antiquities," was inscribed. The
+contents of its window were curiously variegated. They comprised some
+elephant tusks and an imperfect set of chessmen, beads and weapons, a
+box of eyes, two skulls of tigers and one human, several moth-eaten
+stuffed monkeys (one holding a lamp), an old-fashioned cabinet, a
+flyblown ostrich egg or so, some fishing-tackle, and an extraordinarily
+dirty, empty glass fish tank. There was also, at the moment the story
+begins, a mass of crystal, worked into the shape of an egg and
+brilliantly polished. And at that two people, who stood outside the
+window, were looking, one of them a tall, thin clergyman, the other a
+black-bearded young man of dusky complexion and unobtrusive costume. The
+dusky young man spoke with eager gestulation, and seemed anxious for his
+companion to purchase the article.
+</para>
+
+<para>
+   While they were there, Mr. Cave came into his shop, his beard still
+wagging with the bread and butter of his tea. When he saw these men and
+the object of their regard, his countenance fell. He glanced guiltily
+over his shoulder, and softly shut the door. He was a little old man,
+with pale face and peculiar watery blue eyes; his hair was a dirty grey,
+and he wore a shabby blue frock-coat, an ancient silk hat, and carpet
+slippers very much down at heel. He remained watching the two men as
+they talked. The clergyman went deep into his trouser pocket, examined a
+handful of money, and showed his teeth in an agreeable smile. Mr. Cave
+seemed still more depressed when they came into the shop.
+</para>
+
+<para>
+   The clergyman, without any ceremony, asked the price of the crystal
+egg. Mr. Cave glanced nervously towards the door leading into the
+parlour, and said five pounds. The clergyman protested that the price
+was high, to his companion as well as to Mr. Cave -- it was, indeed,
+very much more than Mr. Cave had intended to ask, when he had stocked
+the article -- and an attempt at bargaining ensued. Mr. Cave stepped to
+the shop-door, and held it open. "Five pounds is my price," he said, as
+though he wished to save himself the trouble of unprofitable discussion.
+As he did so, the upper portion of a woman's face appeared above the
+blind in the glass upper panel of the door leading into the parlour, and
+stared curiously at the two customers. "Five pounds is my price," said
+Mr. Cave, with a quiver in his voice.
+</para>
+
+<para>
+   The swarthy young man had so far remained a spectator, watching Cave
+keenly. Now he spoke. "Give him five pounds," he said. The clergyman
+glanced at him to see if he were in earnest, and, when he looked at Mr.
+Cave again, he saw that the latter's face was white. "It's a lot of
+money," said the clergyman, and, diving into his pocket, began counting
+his resources. He had little more than thirty shillings, and he appealed
+to his companion, with whom he seemed to be on terms of considerable
+intimacy. This gave Mr. Cave an opportunity of collecting his thoughts,
+and he began to explain in an agitated manner that the crystal was not,
+as a matter of fact, entirely free for sale. His two customers were
+naturally surprised at this, and inquired why he had not thought of that
+before he began to bargain. Mr. Cave became confused, but he stuck to
+his story, that the crystal was not in the market that afternoon, that a
+probable purchaser of it had already appeared. The two, treating this as
+an attempt to raise the price still further, made as if they would leave
+the shop. But at this point the parlour door opened, and the owner of
+the dark fringe and the little eyes appeared.
+</para>
+
+<para>
+   She was a coarse-featured, corpulent woman, younger and very much
+larger than Mr. Cave; she walked heavily, and her face was flushed.
+"That crystal is for sale, she said. "And five pounds is a good enough
+price for it. I can't think what you're about, Cave, not to take the
+gentleman's offer!"
+</para>
+
+<para>
+   Mr. Cave, greatly perturbed by the irruption, looked angrily at her
+over the rims of his spectacles, and, without excessive assurance,
+asserted his right to manage his business in his own way. An altercation
+began. The two customers watched the scene with interest and some
+amusement, occasionally assisting Mrs. Cave with suggestions. Mr. Cave,
+hard driven, persisted in a confused and impossible story of an enquiry
+for the crystal that morning, and his agitation became painful. But he
+stuck to his point with extraordinary persistence.
+It was the young Oriental who ended this curious controversy. He
+proposed that they should call again in the course of two days -- so as
+to give the alleged enquirer a fair chance. "And then we must insist,"
+said the clergyman. "Five pounds." Mrs. Cave took it on herself to
+apologise for her husband, explaining that he was sometimes "a little
+odd," and as the two customers left, the couple prepared for a free
+discussion of the incident in all its bearings.
+</para>
+
+<para>
+   Mrs. Cave talked to her husband with singular directness. The poor
+little man, quivering with emotion, muddled himself between his stories,
+maintaining on the one hand that he had another customer in view, and on
+the other asserting that the crystal was honestly worth ten guineas.
+"Why did you ask five pounds?" said his wife. "Do let me manage my
+business my own way!" said Mr. Cave.
+</para>
+
+<para>
+   Mr. Cave had living with him a step-daughter and a step-son, and at
+supper that night the transaction was re-discussed. None of them had a
+high opinion of Mr. Cave's business methods, and this action seemed a
+culminating folly.
+</para>
+
+<para>
+   "It's my opinion he's refused that crystal before," said the
+step-son, a loose-limbed lout of eighteen.
+</para>
+
+<para>
+   "But Five Pounds!" said the step-daughter, an argumentative young
+woman of six-and-twenty.
+</para>
+
+<para>
+   Mr. Cave's answers were wretched; he could only mumble weak
+assertions that he knew his own business best. They drove him from his
+half-eaten supper into the shop, to close it for the night, his ears
+aflame and tears of vexation behind his spectacles. "Why had he left the
+crystal in the window so long? The folly of it!" That was the trouble
+closest in his mind. For a time he could see no way of evading sale.
+</para>
+
+<para>
+   After supper his step-daughter and step-son smartened themselves up
+and went out and his wife retired upstairs to reflect upon the business
+aspects of the crystal, over a little sugar and lemon and so forth in
+hot water. Mr. Cave went into the shop, and stayed there until late,
+ostensibly to make ornamental rockeries for gold-fish cases but really
+for a private purpose that will be better explained later. The next day
+Mrs. Cave found that the crystal had been removed from the window, and
+was lying behind some second-hand books on angling. She replaced it in a
+conspicuous position. But she did not argue further about it, as a
+nervous headache disinclined her from debate. Mr. Cave was always
+disinclined. The day passed disagreeably. Mr. Cave was, if anything,
+more absent-minded than usual, and uncommonly irritable withal. In the
+afternoon, when his wife was taking her customary sleep, he removed the
+crystal from the window again.
+</para>
+
+<para>
+   The next day Mr. Cave had to deliver a consignment of dog-fish at one
+of the hospital schools, where they were needed for dissection. In his
+absence Mrs. Cave's mind reverted to the topic of the crystal, and the
+methods of expenditure suitable to a windfall of five pounds. She had
+already devised some very agreeable expedients, among others a dress of
+green silk for herself and a trip to Richmond, when a jangling of the
+front door bell summoned her into the shop. The customer was an
+examination coach who came to complain of the non-delivery of certain
+frogs asked for the previous day. Mrs. Cave did not approve of this
+particular branch of Mr. Cave's business, and the gentleman, who had
+called in a somewhat aggressive mood, retired after a brief exchange of
+words -- entirely civil so far as he was concerned. Mrs. Cave's eye then
+naturally turned to the window; for the sight of the crystal was an
+assurance of the five pounds and of her dreams. What was her surprise to
+find it gone!
+</para>
+
+<para>
+   She went to the place behind the locker on the counter, where she had
+discovered it the day before. It was not there; and she immediately
+began an eager search about the shop.
+</para>
+
+<para>
+   When Mr. Cave returned from his business with the dog-fish, about a
+quarter to two in the afternoon, he found the shop in some confusion,
+and his wife, extremely exasperated and on her knees behind the counter,
+routing among his taxidermic material. Her face came up hot and angry
+over the counter, as the jangling bell announced his return, and she
+forthwith accused him of "hiding it."
+</para>
+
+<para>
+   "Hid what?" asked Mr. Cave.
+</para>
+
+<para>
+   "The crystal!"
+</para>
+
+<para>
+   At that Mr. Cave, apparently much surprised, rushed to the window.
+"Isn't it here?" he said. "Great Heavens! what has become of it?"
+</para>
+
+<para>
+   Just then, Mr. Cave's step-son re-entered the shop from the inner
+room -- he had come home a minute or so before Mr. Cave -- and he was
+blaspheming freely. He was apprenticed to a second-hand furniture dealer
+down the road, but he had his meals at home, and he was naturally
+annoyed to find no dinner ready.
+</para>
+
+<para>
+   But, when he heard of the loss of the crystal, he forgot his meal,
+and his anger was diverted from his mother to his step-father. Their
+first idea, of course, was that he had hidden it. But Mr. Cave stoutly
+denied all knowledge of its fate -- freely offering his bedabbled
+affidavit in the matter -- and at last was worked up to the point of
+accusing, first, his wife and then his step-son of having taken it with
+a view to a private sale. So began an exceedingly acrimonious and
+emotional discussion, which ended for Mrs. Cave in a peculiar nervous
+condition midway between hysterics and amuck, and caused the step-son to
+be half-an-hour late at the furniture establishment in the afternoon.
+Mr. Cave took refuge from his wife's emotions in the shop.
+</para>
+
+<para>
+   In the evening the matter was resumed, with less passion and in a
+judicial spirit, under the presidency of the step-daughter. The supper
+passed unhappily and culminated in a painful scene. Mr. Cave gave way at
+last to extreme exasperation, and went out banging the front door
+violently. The rest of the family, having discussed him with the freedom
+his absence warranted, hunted the house from garret to cellar, hoping to
+light upon the crystal.
+</para>
+
+<para>
+   The next day the two customers called again. They were received by
+Mrs. Cave almost in tears. It transpired that no one could imagine all
+that she had stood from Cave at various times in her married pilgrimage.
+. . . She also gave a garbled account of the disappearance. The
+clergyman and the Oriental laughed silently at one another, and said it
+was very extraordinary. As Mrs. Cave seemed disposed to give them the
+complete history of her life they made to leave the shop. Thereupon Mrs.
+Cave, still clinging to hope, asked for the clergyman's address, so
+that, if she could get anything out of Cave, she might communicate it.
+The address was duly given, but apparently was afterwards mislaid. Mrs.
+Cave can remember nothing about it.
+</para>
+
+<para>
+   In the evening of that day, the Caves seem to have exhausted their
+emotions, and Mr. Cave, who had been out in the afternoon, supped in a
+gloomy isolation that contrasted pleasantly with the impassioned
+controversy of the previous days. For some time matters were very badly
+strained in the Cave household, but neither crystal nor customer
+reappeared.
+</para>
+
+<para>
+   Now, without mincing the matter, we must admit that Mr. Cave was a
+liar. He knew perfectly well where the crystal was. It was in the rooms
+of Mr. Jacoby Wace, Assistant Demonstrator at St. Catherine's Hospital,
+Westbourne Street. It stood on the sideboard partially covered by a
+black velvet cloth, and beside a decanter of American whisky. It is from
+Mr. Wace, indeed, that the particulars upon which this narrative is
+based were derived. Cave had taken off the thing to the hospital hidden
+in the dog-fish sack, and there had pressed the young investigator to
+keep it for him. Mr. Wace was a little dubious at first. His
+relationship to Cave was peculiar. He had a taste for singular
+characters, and he had more than once invited the old man to smoke and
+drink in his rooms, and to unfold his rather amusing views of life in
+general and of his wife in particular. Mr. Wace had encountered Mrs.
+Cave, too, on occasions when Mr. Cave was not at home to attend to him.
+He knew the constant interference to which Cave was subjected, and
+having weighed the story judicially, he decided to give the crystal a
+refuge. Mr. Cave promised to explain the reasons for his remarkable
+affection for the crystal more fully
+on a later occasion, but he spoke distinctly of seeing visions therein.
+He called on Mr. Wace the same evening.
+</para>
+
+<para>
+   He told a complicated story. The crystal he said had come into his
+possession with other oddments at the forced sale of another curiosity
+dealer's effects, and not knowing what its value might be, he had
+ticketed it at ten shillings. It had hung upon his hands at that price
+for some months, and he was thinking of "reducing the figure," when he
+made a singular discovery.
+</para>
+
+<para>
+   At that time his health was very bad -- and it must be borne in mind
+that, throughout all this experience, his physical condition was one of
+ebb -- and he was in considerable distress by reason of the negligence,
+the positive ill-treatment even, he received from his wife and
+step-children. His wife was vain, extravagant, unfeeling and had a
+growing taste for private drinking; his step-daughter was mean and
+over-reaching; and his step-son had conceived a violent dislike for him,
+and lost no chance of showing it. The requirements of his business
+pressed heavily upon him, and Mr. Wace does not think that he was
+altogether free from occasional intemperance. He had begun life in a
+comfortable position, he was a man of fair education, and he suffered,
+for weeks at a stretch, from melancholia and insomnia. Afraid to disturb
+his family, he would slip quietly from his wife's side, when his
+thoughts became intolerable, and wander about the house. And about three
+o'clock one morning, late in August, chance directed him into the shop.
+</para>
+
+<para>
+   The dirty little place was impenetrably black except in one spot,
+where he perceived an unusual glow of light. Approaching this, he
+discovered it to be the crystal egg, which was standing on the corner of
+the counter towards the window. A thin ray smote through a crack in the
+shutters, impinged upon the object, and seemed as it were to fill its
+entire interior.
+</para>
+
+<para>
+   It occurred to Mr. Cave that this was not in accordance with the laws
+of optics as he had known them in his younger days. He could understand
+the rays being refracted by the crystal and coming to a focus in its
+interior, but this diffusion jarred with his physical conceptions. He
+approached the crystal nearly, peering into it and round it, with a
+transient revival of the scientific curiosity that in his youth had
+determined his choice of a calling. He was surprised to find the light
+not steady, but writhing within the substance of the egg, as though that
+object was a hollow sphere of some luminous vapour. In moving about to
+get different points of view, he suddenly found that he had come between
+it and the ray, and that the crystal none the less remained luminous.
+Greatly astonished, he lifted it out of the light ray and carried it to
+the darkest part of the shop. It remained
+bright for some four or five minutes, when it slowly faded and went out.
+He placed it in the thin streak of daylight, and its luminousness was
+almost immediately restored.
+</para>
+
+<para>
+   So far, at least, Mr. Wace was able to verify the remarkable story of
+Mr. Cave. He has himself repeatedly held this crystal in a ray of light
+(which had to be of a less diameter than one millimetre). And in a
+perfect darkness, such as could be produced by velvet wrapping, the
+crystal did undoubtedly appear very faintly phosphorescent. It would
+seem, however, that the luminousness was of some exceptional sort, and
+not equally visible to all eyes; for Mr. Harbinger -- whose name will be
+familiar to the scientific reader in connection with the Pasteur
+Institute -- was quite unable to see any light whatever. And Mr. Wace's
+own capacity for its appreciation was out of comparison inferior to that
+of Mr. Cave's. Even with Mr. Cave the power varied very considerably:
+his vision was most vivid during states of extreme weakness and fatigue.
+</para>
+
+<para>
+   Now, from the outset this light in the crystal exercised a curious
+fascination upon Mr. Cave. And it says more for his loneliness of soul
+than a volume of pathetic writing could do, that he told no human being
+of his curious observations. He seems to have been living in such an
+atmosphere of petty spite that to admit the existence of a pleasure
+would have been to risk the loss of it. He found that as the dawn
+advanced, and the amount of diffused light increased, the crystal became
+to all appearance non-luminous. And for some time he was unable to see
+anything in it, except at night-time, in dark corners of the shop.
+</para>
+
+<para>
+   But the use of an old velvet cloth, which he used as a background for
+a collection of minerals, occurred to him, and by doubling this, and
+putting it over his head and hands, he was able to get a sight of the
+luminous movement within the crystal even in the day-time. He was very
+cautious lest he should be thus discovered by his wife, and he practised
+this occupation only in the afternoons, while she was asleep upstairs,
+and then circumspectly in a hollow under the counter. And one day,
+turning the crystal about in his hands, he saw something. It came and
+went like a flash, but it gave him the impression that the object had
+for a moment opened to him the view of a wide and spacious and strange
+country; and, turning it about, he did, just as the light faded, see the
+same vision again.
+</para>
+
+<para>
+   Now, it would be tedious and unnecessary to state all the phases of
+Mr. Cave's discovery from this point. Suffice that the effect was this:
+the crystal, being peered into at an angle of about 137 degrees from the
+direction of the illuminating ray, gave a clear and consistent picture
+of a wide and peculiar country-side. It was not dream-like at
+all: it produced a definite impression of reality, and the better the
+light the more real and solid it seemed. It was a moving picture: that
+is to say, certain objects moved in it, but slowly in an orderly manner
+like real things, and, according as the direction of the lighting and
+vision changed, the picture changed also. It must, indeed, have been
+like looking through an oval glass at a view, and turning the glass
+about to get at different aspects.
+</para>
+
+<para>
+   Mr. Cave's statements, Mr. Wace assures me, were extremely
+circumstantial, and entirely free from any of that emotional quality
+that taints hallucinatory impressions. But it must be remembered that
+all the efforts of Mr. Wace to see any similar clarity in the faint
+opalescence of the crystal were wholly unsuccessful, try as he would.
+The difference in intensity of the impressions received by the two men
+was very great, and it is quite conceivable that what was a view to Mr.
+Cave was a mere blurred nebulosity to Mr. Wace.
+</para>
+
+<para>
+   The view, as Mr. Cave described it, was invariably of an extensive
+plain, and he seemed always to be looking at it from a considerable
+height, as if from a tower or a mast. To the east and to the west the
+plain was bounded at a remote distance by vast reddish cliffs, which
+reminded him of those he had seen in some picture; but what the picture
+was Mr. Wace was unable to ascertain. These cliffs passed north and
+south -- he could tell the points of the compass by the stars that were
+visible of a night -- receding in an almost illimitable perspective and
+fading into the mists of the distance before they met. He was nearer the
+eastern set of cliffs, on the occasion of his first vision the sun was
+rising over them, and black against the sunlight and pale against their
+shadow appeared a multitude of soaring forms that Mr. Cave regarded as
+birds. A vast range of buildings spread below him; he seemed to be
+looking down upon them; and, as they approached the blurred and
+refracted edge of the picture, they became indistinct. There were also
+trees curious in shape, and in colouring, a deep mossy green and an
+exquisite grey, beside a wide and shining canal. And something great and
+brilliantly coloured flew across the picture. But the first time Mr.
+Cave saw these pictures he saw only in flashes, his hands shook, his
+head moved, the vision came and went, and grew foggy and indistinct. And
+at first he had the greatest difficulty in finding the picture again
+once the direction of it was lost.
+</para>
+
+<para>
+   His next clear vision, which came about a week after the first, the
+interval having yielded nothing but tantalising glimpses and some useful
+experience, showed him the view down the length of the valley. The view
+was different, but he had a curious persuasion, which his subsequent
+observations abundantly confirmed, that he was regarding this strange
+world from exactly the same spot, although he was looking
+in a different direction. The long facade of the great building, whose
+roof he had looked down upon before, was now receding in perspective. He
+recognised the roof. In the front of the facade was a terrace of massive
+proportions and extraordinary length, and down the middle of the
+terrace, at certain intervals, stood huge but very graceful masts,
+bearing small shiny objects which reflected the setting sun. The import
+of these small objects did not occur to Mr. Cave until some time after,
+as he was describing the scene to Mr. Wace. The terrace overhung a
+thicket of the most luxuriant and graceful vegetation, and beyond this
+was a wide grassy lawn on which certain broad creatures, in form like
+beetles but enormously larger, reposed. Beyond this again was a richly
+decorated causeway of pinkish stone; and beyond that, and lined with
+dense red weeds, and passing up the valley exactly parallel with the
+distant cliffs, was a broad and mirror-like expanse of water. The air
+seemed full of squadrons of great birds, manoeuvring in stately curves;
+and across the river was a multitude of splendid buildings, richly
+coloured and glittering with metallic tracery and facets, among a forest
+of moss-like and lichenous trees. And suddenly something flapped
+repeatedly across the vision, like the fluttering of a jewelled fan or
+the beating of a wing, and a face, or rather the upper part of a face
+with very large eyes, came as it were close to his own and as if on the
+other side of the crystal. Mr. Cave was so startled and so impressed by
+the absolute reality of these eyes, that he drew his head back from the
+crystal to look behind it. He had become so absorbed in watching that he
+was quite surprised to find himself in the cool darkness of his little
+shop, with its familiar odour of methyl, mustiness, and decay. And, as
+he blinked about him, the glowing crystal faded, and went out.
+</para>
+
+<para>
+   Such were the first general impressions of Mr. Cave. The story is
+curiously direct and circumstantial. From the outset, when the valley
+first flashed momentarily on his senses, his imagination was strangely
+affected, and, as he began to appreciate the details of the scene he
+saw, his wonder rose to the point of a passion. He went about his
+business listless and distraught, thinking only of the time when he
+should be able to return to his watching. And then a few weeks after his
+first sight of the valley came the two customers, the stress and
+excitement of their offer, and the narrow escape of the crystal from
+sale, as I have already told.
+</para>
+
+<para>
+   Now, while the thing was Mr. Cave's secret, it remained a mere
+wonder, a thing to creep to covertly and peep at, as a child might peep
+upon a forbidden garden. But Mr. Wace has, for a young scientific
+investigator, a particularly lucid and consecutive habit of mind.
+Directly the crystal and its story came to him, and he had satisfied
+himself, by seeing the phosphorescence with his own eyes, that there
+really was a certain evidence for Mr. Cave's statements, he proceeded to
+develop the matter systematically. Mr. Cave was only too eager to come
+and feast his eyes on this wonderland he saw, and he came every night
+from half-past eight until half-past ten, and sometimes, in Mr. Wace's
+absence, during the day. On Sunday afternoons, also, he came. From the
+outset Mr. Wace made copious notes, and it was due to his scientific
+method that the relation between the direction from which the initiating
+ray entered the crystal and the orientation of the picture were proved.
+And, by covering the crystal in a box perforated only with a small
+aperture to admit the exciting ray, and by substituting black holland
+for his buff blinds, he greatly improved the conditions of the
+observations; so that in a little while they were able to survey the
+valley in any direction they desired.
+</para>
+
+<para>
+   So having cleared the way, we may give a brief account of this
+visionary world within the crystal. The things were in all cases seen by
+Mr. Cave, and the method of working was invariably for him to watch the
+crystal and report what he saw, while Mr. Wace (who as a science student
+had learnt the trick of writing in the dark) wrote a brief note of his
+report. When the crystal faded, it was put into its box in the proper
+position and the electric light turned on. Mr. Wace asked questions, and
+suggested observations to clear up difficult points. Nothing, indeed,
+could have been less visionary and more matter-of-fact.
+</para>
+
+<para>
+   The attention of Mr. Cave had been speedily directed to the bird-like
+creatures he had seen so abundantly present in each of his earlier
+visions. His first impression was soon corrected, and he considered for
+a time that they might represent a diurnal species of bat. Then he
+thought, grotesquely enough, that they might be cherubs. Their heads
+were round, and curiously human, and it was the eyes of one of them that
+had so startled him on his second observation. They had broad, silvery
+wings, not feathered, but glistening almost as brilliantly as new-killed
+fish and with the same subtle play of colour, and these wings were not
+built on the plan of a bird-wing or bat, Mr. Wace learned, but supported
+by curved ribs radiating from the body. (A sort of butterfly wing with
+curved ribs seems best to express their appearance.) The body was small,
+but fitted with two bunches of prehensile organs, like long tentacles,
+immediately under the mouth. Incredible as it appeared to Mr. Wace, the
+persuasion at last became irresistible, that it was these creatures
+which owned the great quasi-human buildings and the magnificent garden
+that made the broad valley so splendid. And Mr. Cave perceived that the
+buildings, with other peculiarities, had no doors, but that the great
+circular windows, which
+opened freely, gave the creatures egress and entrance. They would alight
+upon their tentacles, fold their wings to a smallness almost rod-like,
+and hop into the interior. But among them was a multitude of
+smaller-winged creatures, like great dragon-flies and moths and flying
+beetles, and across the greensward brilliantly-coloured gigantic
+ground-beetles crawled lazily to and fro. Moreover, on the causeways and
+terraces, large-headed creatures similar to the greater winged flies,
+but wingless, were visible, hopping busily upon their hand-like tangle
+of tentacles.
+</para>
+
+<para>
+   Allusion has already been made to the glittering objects upon masts
+that stood upon the terrace of the nearer building. It dawned upon Mr.
+Cave, after regarding one of these masts very fixedly on one
+particularly vivid day, that the glittering object there was a crystal
+exactly like that into which he peered. And a still more careful
+scrutiny convinced him that each one in a vista of nearly twenty carried
+a similar object.
+</para>
+
+<para>
+   Occasionally one of the large flying creatures would flutter up to
+one, and, folding its wings and coiling a number of its tentacles about
+the mast, would regard the crystal fixedly for a space, -- sometimes for
+as long as fifteen minutes. And a series of observations, made at the
+suggestion of Mr. Wace, convinced both watchers that, so far as this
+visionary world was concerned, the crystal into which they peered
+actually stood at the summit of the end-most mast on the terrace, and
+that on one occasion at least one of these inhabitants of this other
+world had looked into Mr. Cave's face while he was making these
+observations.
+</para>
+
+<para>
+   So much for the essential facts of this very singular story. Unless
+we dismiss it all as the ingenious fabrication of Mr. Wace, we have to
+believe one of two things: either that Mr. Cave's crystal was in two
+worlds at once, and that, while it was carried about in one, it remained
+stationary in the other, which seems altogether absurd; or else that it
+had some peculiar relation of sympathy with another and exactly similar
+crystal in this other world, so that what was seen in the interior of
+the one in this world, was, under suitable conditions, visible to an
+observer in the corresponding crystal in the other world; and vice
+versa. At present, indeed, we do not know of any way in which two
+crystals could so come en rapport, but nowadays we know enough to
+understand that the thing is not altogether impossible. This view of the
+crystals as en rapport was the supposition that occurred to Mr. Wace,
+and to me at least it seems extremely plausible. . . .
+</para>
+
+<para>
+   And where was this other world? On this, also, the alert intelligence
+of Mr. Wace speedily threw light. After sunset, the sky darkened
+rapidly -- there was a very brief twilight interval indeed -- and the
+stars shone out. They were recognisably the same as those we see,
+arranged in the same constellations. Mr. Cave recognised the Bear, the
+Pleiades, Aldebaran, and Sirius: so that the other world must be
+somewhere in the solar system, and, at the utmost, only a few hundreds
+of millions of miles from our own. Following up this clue, Mr. Wace
+learned that the midnight sky was a darker blue even than our midwinter
+sky, and that the sun seemed a little smaller. And there were two small
+moons! "like our moon but smaller, and quite differently marked" one of
+which moved so rapidly that its motion was clearly visible as one
+regarded it. These moons were never high in the sky, but vanished as
+they rose: that is, every time they revolved they were eclipsed because
+they were so near their primary planet. And all this answers quite
+completely, although. Mr. Cave did not know it, to what must be the
+condition of things on Mars.
+</para>
+
+<para>
+   Indeed, it seems an exceedingly plausible conclusion that peering
+into this crystal Mr. Cave did actually see the planet Mars and its
+inhabitants. And, if that be the case, then the evening star that shone
+so brilliantly in the sky of that distant vision, was neither more nor
+less than our own familiar earth.
+</para>
+
+<para>
+   For a time the Martians -- if they were Martians -- do not seem to
+have known of Mr. Cave's inspection. Once or twice one would come to
+peer, and go away very shortly to some other mast, as though the vision
+was unsatisfactory. During this time Mr. Cave was able to watch the
+proceedings of these winged people without being disturbed by their
+attentions, and, although his report is necessarily vague and
+fragmentary, it is nevertheless very suggestive. Imagine the impression
+of humanity a Martian observer would get who, after a difficult process
+of preparation and with considerable fatigue to the eyes, was able to
+peer at London from the steeple of St. Martin's Church for stretches, at
+longest, of four minutes at a time. Mr. Cave was unable to ascertain if
+the winged Martians were the same as the Martians who hopped about the
+causeways and terraces, and if the latter could put on wings at will. He
+several times saw certain clumsy bipeds, dimly suggestive of apes, white
+and partially translucent, feeding among certain of the lichenous trees,
+and once some of these fled before one of the hopping, round-headed
+Martians. The latter caught one in its tentacles, and then the picture
+faded suddenly and left Mr. Cave most tantalisingly in the dark. On
+another occasion a vast thing, that Mr. Cave thought at first was some
+gigantic insect, appeared advancing along the causeway beside the canal
+with extraordinary rapidity. As this drew nearer Mr. Cave perceived that
+it was a mechanism of shining
+metals and of extraordinary complexity. And then, when he looked again,
+it had passed out of sight.
+</para>
+
+<para>
+   After a time Mr. Wace aspired to attract the attention of the
+Martians, and the next time that the strange eyes of one of them
+appeared close to the crystal Mr. Cave cried out and sprang away, and
+they immediately turned on the light and began to gesticulate in a
+manner suggestive of signalling. But when at last Mr. Cave examined the
+crystal again the Martian had departed.
+</para>
+
+<para>
+   Thus far these observations had progressed in early November, and
+then Mr. Cave, feeling that the suspicions of his family about the
+crystal were allayed, began to take it to and fro with him in order
+that, as occasion arose in the daytime or night, he might comfort
+himself with what was fast becoming the most real thing in his existence.
+</para>
+
+<para>
+   In December Mr. Wace's work in connection with a forthcoming
+examination became heavy, the sittings were reluctantly suspended for a
+week, and for ten or eleven days -- he is not quite sure which -- he saw
+nothing of Cave. He then grew anxious to resume these investigations,
+and, the stress of his seasonal labours being abated, he went down to
+Seven Dials. At the corner he noticed a shutter before a bird fancier's
+window, and then another at a cobbler's. Mr. Cave's shop was closed.
+</para>
+
+<para>
+   He rapped and the door was opened by the step-son in black. He at
+once called Mrs. Cave, who was, Mr. Wace could not but observe, in cheap
+but ample widow's weeds of the most imposing pattern. Without any very
+great surprise Mr. Wace learnt that Cave was dead and already buried.
+She was in tears, and her voice was a little thick. She had just
+returned from Highgate. Her mind seemed occupied with her own prospects
+and the honourable details of the obsequies, but Mr. Wace was at last
+able to learn the particulars of Cave's death. He had been found dead in
+his shop in the early morning, the day after his last visit to Mr. Wace,
+and the crystal had been clasped in his stone-cold hands. His face was
+smiling, said Mrs. Cave, and the velvet cloth from the minerals lay on
+the floor at his feet. He must have been dead five or six hours when he
+was found.
+</para>
+
+<para>
+   This came as a great shock to Wace, and he began to reproach himself
+bitterly for having neglected the plain symptoms of the old man's
+ill-health. But his chief thought was of the crystal. He approached that
+topic in a gingerly manner, because he knew Mrs. Cave's peculiarities.
+He was dumbfoundered to learn that it was sold.
+</para>
+
+<para>
+   Mrs. Cave's first impulse, directly Cave's body had been taken
+upstairs, had been to write to the mad clergyman who had offered five
+pounds for the crystal, informing him of its recovery; but after a
+violent hunt in which her daughter joined her, they were convinced
+of the loss of his address. As they were without the means required to
+mourn and bury Cave in the elaborate style the dignity of an old Seven
+Dials inhabitant demands, they had appealed to a friendly
+fellow-tradesman in Great Portland Street. He had very kindly taken over
+a portion of the stock at a valuation. The valuation was his own and the
+crystal egg was included in one of the lots. Mr. Wace, after a few
+suitable consolatory observations, a little offhandedly proffered
+perhaps, hurried at once to Great Portland Street. But there he learned
+that the crystal egg had already been sold to a tall, dark man in grey.
+And there the material facts in this curious, and to me at least very
+suggestive, story come abruptly to an end. The Great Portland Street
+dealer did not know who the tall dark man in grey was, nor had he
+observed him with sufficient attention to describe him minutely. He did
+not even know which way this person had gone after leaving the shop. For
+a time Mr. Wace remained in the shop, trying the dealer's patience with
+hopeless questions, venting his own exasperation. And at last, realising
+abruptly that the whole thing had passed out of his hands, had vanished
+like a vision of the night, he returned to his own rooms, a little
+astonished to find the notes he had made still tangible and visible upon
+his untidy table.
+</para>
+
+<para>
+   His annoyance and disappointment were naturally very great. He made a
+second call (equally ineffectual) upon the Great Portland Street dealer,
+and he resorted to advertisements in such periodicals as were likely to
+come into the hands of a bric-a-brac collector. He also wrote letters to
+The Daily Chronicle and Nature, but both those periodicals, suspecting a
+hoax, asked him to reconsider his action before they printed, and he was
+advised that such a strange story, unfortunately so bare of supporting
+evidence, might imperil his reputation as an investigator. Moreover, the
+calls of his proper work were urgent. So that after a month or so, save
+for an occasional reminder to certain dealers, he had reluctantly to
+abandon the quest for the crystal egg, and from that day to this it
+remains undiscovered. Occasionally, however, he tells me, and I can
+quite believe him, he has bursts of zeal, in which he abandons his more
+urgent occupation and resumes the search.
+</para>
+
+<para>
+   Whether or not it will remain lost for ever, with the material and
+origin of it, are things equally speculative at the present time. If the
+present purchaser is a collector, one would have expected the enquiries
+of Mr. Wace to have readied him through the dealers. He has been able to
+discover Mr. Cave's clergyman and "Oriental" -- no other than the Rev.
+James Parker and the young Prince of Bosso-Kuni in Java. I am obliged to
+them for certain particulars. The object of the Prince was simply
+curiosity -- and extravagance. He was so eager to buy,
+because Cave was so oddly reluctant to sell. It is just as possible that
+the buyer in the second instance was simply a casual purchaser and not a
+collector at all, and the crystal egg, for all I know, may at the
+present moment be within a mile of me, decorating a drawing-room or
+serving as a paper-weight -- its remarkable functions all unknown.
+Indeed, it is partly with the idea of such a possibility that I have
+thrown this narrative into a form that will give it a chance of being
+read by the ordinary consumer of fiction.
+</para>
+
+<para>
+   My own ideas in the matter are practically identical with those of
+Mr. Wace. I believe the crystal on the mast in Mars and the crystal egg
+of Mr. Cave's to be in some physical, but at present quite inexplicable,
+way en rapport, and we both believe further that the terrestrial crystal
+must have been -- possibly at some remote date -- sent hither from that
+planet, in order to give the Martians a near view of our affairs.
+Possibly the fellows to the crystals in the other masts are also on our
+globe. No theory of hallucination suffices for the facts.
+</para>
+
+</chapter>
+
+</book>
+