B886 <=> B888 (BTG XLI The bokharian dervish, p. 887)

“I already well knew before this, that although these strange three-brained beings there have again learned to utilize such sources from cosmic formations for their, as they say, ‘lighting,’ yet these means for this lighting of theirs are obtained by them with the aid of very complicated adaptations and these adaptations are accessible only where there is a large group of them.

“And suddenly here was this lighting, so far from any such group, and particularly in the absence around the place of any signs by which, among contemporary beings, such possibilities are in general accompanied.

“And when I saw the aforementioned vibrometer for measuring the ‘degree of the vivifyingness of vibrations,’ the impulse of astonishment in me, as I have already said, increased to the highest degree.

“I was yet the more astonished because concerning this I also already knew very well that at that period there, nowhere did there exist such apparatuses by means of which it is possible to count any vibrations whatever, and therefore I again wondered – from where could this venerable old man dwelling in these wild mountains so far from the beings composing contemporary civilization, have obtained such apparatuses?

“Notwithstanding this interest of mine, I did not venture to ask the venerable Hadji-Asvatz-Troov for an explanation just then; I did not venture to ask him, because it was to be feared that such a digressive question might change the course of the conversation which had begun and from which I expected the elucidation of the chief question which interested me.

“In this section of the cave were many other apparatuses as yet unknown to me, among which stood one very strange apparatus to which were attached several what are called ‘masks,’ from which something like pipes, made of the throat of cows, went somewhere up to the ceiling of the cave.