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."
