Alan clung to the balcony rail, with Lea beside him. Her hand was on his arm as though to steady him. Occasionally she met his glance and smiled; or gestured to indicate the gray shifting wonders of the scene around them.
Alan noticed now that in this constricted area where the tower was set, there seemed few changes. These vast structures, of a material the engineers of this age may fatuously have termed indestructible, were enduring over larger periods. They melted away occasionally and others took their places. But the form was about the same.
As though now mankind here were resting. The peak of civilization here, and perhaps upon all the earth, was reached. Man resting upon the summit of his achievements. But in nature there is no rest! A thousand years, here upon civilization's summit. And then—a little step backward! Mankind, softened by ceasing to advance, turning decadent. A little backward step.
As though this city here were a symbol of it, Alan could see the decline. A rift in the street—and it was not rebuilt. Another rift. A leprous slash—a hole that gave Alan a wide extent of vista to the east.
Doubtless, upon an earth so unified by transportation as this age must have been, it was not only New York decaying—but also a decadence of all mankind over all the world. Alan saw it here. By what might have been the year 5000 A.D., the shadows of the vast city lay in ruins around the tower. Broken buildings, crumbling visibly as Alan stared at them. Fallen roof—the whole ramified and multiform structure everywhere lowering as nature pulled it down. It lay piled in shadowy mangled fragments.
There were trees now! Vegetation springing up. A wild, neglected growth. A forest growing in the ruins of the city, where the occasional broken spires still stood like headstones; and then melted down.
The forest grew around the tower; the city was almost buried. Lea plucked at Alan. She murmured something.
"Shall we go down?" he said.
She smiled. She said, quite distinctly, "Yes."
She led him down the ladder. He felt more secure now. There was no sense of movement of the tower; the ladder-steps were firm and solid. Alan saw the forest melting. A sylvan landscape seemed coming.