* * * * *
Soon after midnight there was a sudden and very visible increase in the
conflagration. On all hands I began to see blazing structures soar, with
grand hurrahs, on high. In fives and tens, in twenties and thirties, all
between me and the remote limit of my vision, they leapt, they lingered
long, they fell. My spirit more and more felt, and danced--deeper
mysteries of sensation, sweeter thrills. I sipped exquisitely, I drew
out enjoyment leisurely. Anon, when some more expansive angel of flame
would arise from the Pit with steady aspiration, and linger with
outspread arms, and burst, I would lift a little from the chair, leaning
forward to clap, as at some famous acting; or I would call to them in
shouts of cheer, giving them the names of Woman. For now I seemed to see
nothing but some bellowing pandemonic universe through crimson glasses,
and the air was wildly hot, and my eye-balls like theirs that walk
staring in the inner midst of burning fiery furnaces, and my skin itched
with a fierce and prickly itch.
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