"The lamps still burned clearly; but the terror in the air was thickening. The watchers had stolen away almost as soon as they began to feel it. But I believed that there was yet time to escape;—I thought that I could safely delay a moment longer. A monstrous curiosity obliged me to remain: I wanted to look at my own body, to examine it closely.... I approached it. I observed it. And I wondered—because it seemed to me very long,—unnaturally long....
"Then I thought that I saw one eyelid quiver. But the appearance of motion might have been caused by the trembling of a lamp-flame. I stooped to look—slowly, and very cautiously, because I was afraid that the eyes might open.
"'It is Myself,' I thought, as I bent down,—'and yet, it is growing queer!'... The face appeared to be lengthening.... 'It is not Myself,' I thought again, as I stooped still lower,—'and yet, it cannot be any other!' And I became much more afraid, unspeakably afraid, that the eyes would open....
"They opened!—horribly they opened!—and that thing sprang,—sprang from the bed at me, and fastened upon me,—moaning, and gnawing, and rending! Oh! with what madness of terror did I strive against it! But the eyes of it, and the moans of it, and the touch of it, sickened; and all my being seemed about to burst asunder in frenzy of loathing, when—I knew not how—
I found in my hand an axe. And I struck with the axe;—I clove, I crushed, I brayed the Moaner,—until there lay before me only a shapeless, hideous, reeking mass,—the abominable ruin of Myself....
"—Baku kuraë! Baku kuraë! Baku kuraë! Devour, O Baku! devour the dream!" "Nay!" made answer the Baku. "I never eat lucky dreams. That is a very lucky dream,—a most fortunate dream.... The axe—yes! the Axe of the Excellent Law, by which the monster of Self is utterly destroyed!... The best kind of a dream! My friend, I believe in the teaching of the Buddha."
And the Baku went out of the window. I looked after him;—and I beheld him fleeing over the miles of moonlit roofs,—passing, from house-top to house-top, with amazing soundless leaps,—like a great cat....
