VII + 

The Living Book + 

We stood at the entrance of a room of (to us) enormous proportions. It was filled with an equally-diffused light, of which I saw no origin. + 

Neither, when I considered it later, could I observe any appliances for the regulation of temperature or ventilation. Yet the warmth was such that I did not suffer from my lack of clothing; the air was fresh and exhilarating. The arched entrance to the room had no door, but the light stayed at the threshold. Standing on the outer side of the entrance, we supposed ourselves to be unobservable in the darkness. + 

The Dweller that we had followed was a woman, like the one that we had last seen, but her colouring was different. The hair on her head was short, curling, and glossy black. It extended down the spine in the same way. The body-colour varied from a dark bluish-black to the softest, palest greys. The effect was beautiful beyond describing. + 

Her form was as straight and graceful as had been that of the other, nor did it give an impression of great size in a room which was proportioned to it. It was not she that was large, but we that were small. Her body was slim and perfect in its proportions, and her face was flawless, yet where the other had given an impression of youth, there was here an atmosphere of age incalculable. I cannot say from what it came, unless from one thing only. Her eyes were intolerably tired. + 

As she entered the room she had an object about the size of a football perched on her left shoulder. There was a table in the centre, of a transparent blue substance. It had three legs which joined in a twisted knot, and then spread out. I noticed that these legs moved so that the table adjusted itself to her as she approached it, but whether this movement were sentient or mechanical I could not tell. She extended her left arm to the surface of the table, and the object on her shoulder rolled slowly down. + 

It was of the colour of a boiled lobster, with many bluish-white appendages hanging from its surface. They were about an inch in length, and of the shape to a dachshund’s ear. As it rolled forward they spread out like hands, to balance and control its motion, and when it rested those that were close to the ground would support it steadily. + 

It was evidently alive, but it had no other features that I could observe, and it appeared equally comfortable whatever part of its surface were uppermost. + 

The table was relatively higher than those to which we are accustomed, and there was no chair or other seat in the room. + 

The Dweller remained standing, as though her attention were fixed upon the red globule before her. I turned to my companion to convey my wonder, but she gave me a quick thought that she was trying to follow what was happening, and did not wish for distraction, so I looked quietly round the room while I waited. + 

The wall on the side on which we stood, and those to right and left, were blank of all but colour, which was blue, of a very delicately-beautiful tint, which I had not seen previously, evidently designed to harmonise with the colouring of its occupant. + 

The farther wall was of the same nature as those we had passed in the passage, having a living picture within it⁠—if living it could be called, much was an epitome of desolation. + 

It showed far more plainly, or at least to a far greater distance, than did those into which we had looked before. It was a scene of a frozen river, which itself must have been half-a-mile in width, and of an endless solitary frozen plain beyond it. The sky was frosty blue and cloudless. There were no trees⁠—nothing but the frozen river, and the frozen snow. + 

I had a perception that it had lain thus for many centuries, lifeless, windless, and unchanging, and that it was in some inexplicable way akin to the one who appeared to have selected it to companion her, and that within it lay the explanation of the weariness in her eyes. + 

But its desolation was less than hers, for it must have ended at some time in the earth’s history. Though it might have endured for millenniums, yet the time had come when the earth again swung sunward, and the warmth found it. But for the weariness from which she suffered there was no hope at all. + 

Following this impression, it occurred to me as a natural thing that, if reflections of the earth’s changing past were used as mural decorations, such scenes and periods would be preferred as would show little or very gradual differences, or their suitability might be lost. + 

The articles in the room were few. There was a wide shelf at the centre of the left-hand wall, on which were stacked a number of flat boards which were probably pictures, or material for them, for, to the right of the table, there was an easel, such as would have looked natural enough, apart from its size, in a studio of our own day, with a similar board upon it, on which a picture of the frozen desolation was half completed. + 

There were various smaller articles ranged beneath the shelf, of which I could not understand the nature or utility. + 

I returned my attention to my companion, to find her ready for conversing. She said “I cannot learn much, as the thoughts which are passing are not meant for us, but it seems that there is something here similar to your own device, of which you have told me. I know that you have a method of recording ideas and facts by means of marks on retentive substances, so that the knowledge of them may remain, though the brain in which they originated be ended, and that, by this means, you have partly overcome one of the defects of your individual mortality. It seems to me that this method must be subject to great disadvantages, as it must be even easier for such as you are to make marks which will be false, or the record of foolish imaginations, than to be accurate in fact, and wise in deduction; and, as you have no authority to distinguish between them, your children must often be induced to foolishness, or misled to disaster. Possibly the confusion may be so great that they are distracted from any continuing path, and the result is the inconsequent and abortive activities of mind and body to which you are so largely accustomed. + 

“However that may be, it appears that the Dwellers have devised a somewhat similar method of recording the facts they accumulate, or the theories which they formulate, such as is more suited to their greater longevity, and their superior intelligence. + 

“This which we see is one of their books⁠—a living creature of a kind, designed to store the thoughts that are given to it, and to convey them at later periods to any inquiring mind. She whom we now see is both the custodian and the compiler of these volumes, and I gather that she is now placing on record the events in which we have so lately participated.” + 

While I received this explanation, the Dweller had crossed the room, and picked up a metal article of a brass colour, and of the shape of a figure eight, which she laid flatly on the ground, and within one of the loops of which she placed the living ball, with which she had now apparently finished, and then stood for some time gazing at the half-painted picture, and at the scene from which it was taken. Her method of painting was different from our own in this particular, that one part of the picture was entirely finished, but ended abruptly at a blank which was not touched at all. + 

After a time, she resumed her work, and the reason of this became evident. She painted with a long pencil terminating in a small flat pad, of a surface of two or three square inches, and this she dipped into saucers of various semiliquid colours which were arranged upon a wide ledge of the easel below the picture. There could only have been black and white and shades of blue and grey that were needed, but the pad was dipped many times, and touched lightly with a finely pointed instrument in her left hand, till at last she was satisfied, and it was pressed upon the surface of the picture, to which it added a further rectangle of finished work. The picture was then touched slightly with another pad, apparently to blend the added portion perfectly with the earlier work, and the same process was resumed. + 

It was slow to watch, but my companion was of an unhurried mind, and it is my own disposition to go cautiously when in doubt. I was neither willing to leave this scene for a further risk of the dark passage, nor to face a crisis by revealing ourselves in the room, and so we sat and watched in the outer darkness. It was not a very long vigil, for the artist appeared to weary, laid down her tools, hesitated, walked towards the scene which she had been painting, stood gazing at it for some time in silence, and then lay down beneath it, where it appeared that the floor rose in a smooth curve, a few feet above the surrounding level. + 

This surface gave way gently to the impression of her body, which sank down partly within it. She lay face forward, her head turned from us, her arms extended straightly above her head. Lying so, she stretched for half the length of the room. There was no sound of breathing, and we could not tell whether she slept, but after watching for some time longer we were of one mind to adventure a further investigation, and very quietly we entered the room together. + 