nsuming flames rose to meet it from
the riven womb of earth, rushing up to lick the sky. What had been air
turned to fire and ashes, the silver and gold stars fell crashing from
the firmament, and the heavens themselves bowed and collapsed, burying
the ruined earth. Ashes, ashes, fine grey dusty ashes pervaded space,
till presently a hurricane rose and swept away the chaos of gloom, and
vast nothingness yawned before her: a bottomless abyss--an insatiable
throat, swallowing down with greedy thirst all that was left; till where
the world had been, with gods and men and all their works, there was
only nothingness; hideous, inscrutable and unfathomable. And in it,
above it, around it--for what are the dimensions of nothingness?--there
reigned the incomprehensible Unity of the Primal One, in calm and
pitiless self-concentration, beyond--the Real, nay even beyond the
Conceivable--for conception implies plurality--the Supreme One of the
Neo-Platonists to whose school she belonged.

The old woman's blood ran cold and hot as she pictured the scene; but
she believed in it, and chose to believe in it; "Nothing, nothing..."
which she had begun by muttering, insensibly changed to "Nothingness,
nothingness!" and at last she spoke it aloud.

Gorgo stood spellbound as she gazed at her grandmother. What had come
over her? What was the meaning of this glaring eye, this gasping breath,
this awful expression in her face, this convulsive action of her hands?
Was she mad? And what did she mean by "Nothingness, nothingness..."
repeated in a sort of hollow cry?

Terrified beyond bearing she laid her hand on Dalnia's shoulder, saying:
"Mother, mother! wake up! What do you mean by saying 'nothingness,
nothingness' in that dreadful way?"

Dainia collected her scattered wits, shivered with cold and then said,
dully at first, but with a growing cheerfulness that made Gorgo's blood
run cold: "Did I say 'nothingness'? Did I speak of the great void, my
child? You are quick of hearing. Nothingness--well, you have learnt to
think; are you capable of defining the meaning of the word--a monster
that has neither head nor tail, neither front nor back--can you, I say,
define the idea of nothingness?"

"What do you mean, mother?" said Gorgo with growing alarm.

"No, she does not know, she does not understand," muttered the old woman
with a dreary smile. "And yet Melampus told me, only yesterday, that you
understood his lesson on conic sections better t