”Through the Gates of the Silver Key”(46)その１

　He knew that there had been a Randolph Carter of Boston, yet could not be sure whether he―the fragment or facet of an earthly entity beyond the Ultimate Gate―had been that one or some other. His self had been annihilated; and yet he―if indeed there could, in view of that utter nullity of individual existence, be such a thing as he―was equally aware of being in some inconceivable way a legion of selves. It was as though his body had been suddenly transformed into one of those many-limbed and many-headed effigies sculptured in Indian temples, and he contemplated the aggregation in a bewildered attempt to discern which was the original and which the additions―if indeed (supremely monstrous thought) there were any original as distinguished from other embodiments.