Then the sun's disk rose, more sedately, at the exact spot where Lucifer
had shown the way; and climbing upwards, produced a spectacle for which I
was not prepared.
For as it left the horizon, a counterfeit sun began to unroll itself from
the true, as one might detach a petal from a rose; at first they clung
together, but soon, with a wrench, parted company, and while the one
soared aloft, the image remained below, weltering on the treacherous mere.
For a short while the flaming phantasma lingered firm and orb-like, while
the space between itself and reality grew to a hand's breadth; then slowly
deliquesced. It gave a prolonged shiver and sank, convulsed, into the
earth.
Light was diffused; the colour of daytime invaded the ground at our feet,
flitting like some arterial rill through the dun spaces. Wonderful, this
magic touch of awakening! It is the same swiftness of change as at sunset,
when the desert folds itself to sleep, like some gorgeously palpitating
flower, in the chill of nightfall; or rather, to use a metaphor which has
often occurred to me, it hardens its features, crystallizing them into a
stony mask, even as some face, once friendly, grows strangely indifferent
in death.
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