Eastern shop. Many persons, with eyes so bright and still that I knew
them for more than human, came in and tried me on their faces, but at
last flung me into a corner with a little laughter; but all this
passed in a moment, for when I awoke my hand was still upon the
handle. I opened the door, and found myself in a marvellous passage,
along whose sides were many divinities wrought in a mosaic, not less
beautiful than the mosaic in the Baptistery at Ravenna, but of a less
severe beauty; the predominant colour of each divinity, which was
surely a symbolic colour, being repeated in the lamps that hung from
the ceiling, a curiously-scented lamp before every divinity. I passed
on, marvelling exceedingly how these enthusiasts could have created
all this beauty in so remote a place, and half persuaded to believe
in a material alchemy, by the sight of so much hidden wealth; the
censer filling the air, as I passed, with smoke of ever-changing
colour.

I stopped before a door, on whose bronze panels were wrought great
waves in whose shadow were faint suggestions of terrible faces. Those
beyond it seemed to have heard our steps, for a voice cried: 'Is the
work of the Incorruptible Fire at an end?' and immediately Michael
Robartes answered: 'The perfect gold has come from the
_atbanor_.' The door swung open, and we were in a great circular
room, and among men and women who were dancing slowly in crimson
robes. Upon the ceiling was an immense rose wrought in mosaic; and
about the walls, also in mosaic, was a battle of gods and angels, the
gods glimmering like rubies and sapphires, and the angels of the one
greyness, because, as Michael Robartes whispered, they had renounced
their divinity, and turned from the unfolding of their separate
hearts, out of love for a God of humility and sorrow. Pillars
supported the roof and made a kind of circular cloister, each pillar