How the Sphere, Having in Vain Tried Words, Resorted to Deeds

It was in vain. I brought my hardest right angle into violent collision
with the Stranger, pressing on him with a force sufficient to have
destroyed any ordinary Circle: but I could feel him slowly and
unarrestably slipping from my contact; no edging to the right nor to the
left, but moving somehow out of the world, and vanishing to nothing.
Soon there was a blank. But still I heard the intruder's voice.

Sphere. Why will you refuse to listen to reason? I had hoped to find
in you⁠---as being a man of sense and an accomplished mathematician⁠---a
fit apostle for the Gospel of the Three Dimensions, which I am allowed
to preach once only in a thousand years: but now I know not how to
convince you. Stay, I have it. Deeds, and not words, shall proclaim the
truth. Listen, my friend.

I have told you I can see from my position in Space the inside of all
things that you consider closed. For example, I see in yonder cupboard
near which you are standing, several of what you call boxes (but like
everything else in Flatland, they have no tops nor bottoms) full of
money; I see also two tablets of accounts. I am about to descend into
that cupboard and to bring you one of those tablets. I saw you lock the
cupboard half an hour ago, and I know you have the key in your
possession. But I descend from Space; the doors, you see, remain
unmoved. Now I am in the cupboard and am taking the tablet. Now I have
it. Now I ascend with it.

I rushed to the closet and dashed the door open. One of the tablets was
gone. With a mocking laugh, the Stranger appeared in the other corner of
the room, and at the same time the tablet appeared upon the floor. I
took it up. There could be no doubt⁠---it was the missing tablet.

I groaned with horror, doubting whether I was not out of my senses; but
the Stranger continued: "Surely you must now see that my explanation,
and no other, suits the phenomena. What you call Solid things are really
superficial; what you call Space is really nothing but a great Plane. I
am in Space, and look down upon the insides of the things of which you
only see the outsides. You could leave this Plane yourself, if you could
but summon up the necessary volition. A slight upward or downward motion
would enable you to see all that I can see.

"The higher I mount, and the further I go from your Plane, the more I
can see, though of course I see it on a smaller scale. For example, I am
ascending; now I can see your neighbour the Hexagon and his family in
their several apartments; now I see the inside of the Theatre, ten doors
off, from which the audience is only just departing; and on the other
side a Circle in his study, sitting at his books. Now I shall come back
to you. And, as a crowning proof, what do you say to my giving you a
touch, just the least touch, in your stomach? It will not seriously
injure you, and the slight pain you may suffer cannot be compared with
the mental benefit you will receive."

Before I could utter a word of remonstrance, I felt a shooting pain in
my inside, and a demoniacal laugh seemed to issue from within me. A
moment afterwards the sharp agony had ceased, leaving nothing but a dull
ache behind, and the Stranger began to reappear, saying, as he gradually
increased in size, "There, I have not hurt you much, have I? If you are
not convinced now, I don't know what will convince you. What say you?"

My resolution was taken. It seemed intolerable that I should endure
existence subject to the arbitrary visitations of a magician who could
thus play tricks with one's very stomach. If only I could in any way
manage to pin him against the wall till help came!

Once more I dashed my hardest angle against him, at the same time
alarming the whole household by my cries for aid. I believe, at the
moment of my onset, the Stranger had sunk below our Plane, and really
found difficulty in rising. In any case he remained motionless, while I,
hearing, as I thought, the sound of some help approaching, pressed
against him with redoubled vigour, and continued to shout for
assistance.

A convulsive shudder ran through the Sphere. "This must not be," I
thought I heard him say: "either he must listen to reason, or I must
have recourse to the last resource of civilization." Then, addressing me
in a louder tone, he hurriedly exclaimed, "Listen: no stranger must
witness what you have witnessed. Send your wife back at once, before she
enters the apartment. The Gospel of Three Dimensions must not be thus
frustrated. Not thus must the fruits of one thousand years of waiting be
thrown away. I hear her coming. Back! back! Away from me, or you must go
with me⁠---whither you know not⁠---into the Land of Three Dimensions!"

"Fool! Madman! Irregular!" I exclaimed; "never will I release thee; thou
shalt pay the penalty of thine impostures."

"Ha! Is it come to this?" thundered the Stranger: "then meet your fate:
out of your Plane you go. Once, twice, thrice! 'Tis done!"