and orchard, the fields of ripe corn, and the meadows reaching
to the reed-beds by the river. You see me standing here beside
you, and hear my voice; but I tell you that all these things--
yes, from that star that has just shone out in the sky to the
solid ground beneath our feet--I say that all these are but
dreams and shadows; the shadows that hide the real world from
our eyes. There is a real world, but it is beyond this glamour
and this vision, beyond these 'chases in Arras, dreams in a
career,' beyond them all as beyond a veil. I do not know whether
any human being has ever lifted that veil; but I do know,
Clarke, that you and I shall see it lifted this very night from
before another's eyes. You may think this all strange nonsense;
it may be strange, but it is true, and the ancients knew what
lifting the veil means. They called it seeing the god Pan."

Clarke shivered; the white mist gathering over the
river was chilly.

"It is wonderful indeed," he said. "We are standing on
the brink of a strange world, Raymond, if what you say
is true. I suppose the knife is absolutely necessary?"

"Yes; a slight lesion in the grey matter, that is all;
a trifling rearrangement of certain cells, a microscopical
alteration that would escape the attention of ninety-nine brain
specialists out of a hundred. I don't want to bother you with
'shop,' Clarke; I might give you a mass of technical detail which
would sound very imposing, and would leave you as enlightened as
you are now. But I suppose you have read, casually, in
out-of-the-way corners of your paper, that immense strides have