of life's summers, their rapid flight and the incomputable ages of
the sun. But other elements still more mysterious, that it would be
impossible for me to explain even vaguely, entered therein.

I wish to add to the history of this ray of sunshine the sequel that is
intimately connected with it. Years passed; I became a man, and after
having been among many people and experienced many adventures I lived
for an autumn and winter in an isolated house in an unfrequented part
of Stamboul. It was there that every evening at approximately the same
hour, a ray of sunlight came in through the window and fell obliquely on
the wall and lit up the niche (hollowed out of the stone wall) in which
I had placed an Athenian vase. And I never saw that ray of sunlight
without thinking of the one I had seen upon that Sunday of long ago;
nor without having the same, precisely the same sad emotion, scarcely
diminished by time, and always full of the same mystery. And when I
had to leave Turkey, when I was obliged to quit my dangerous but adored
lodgings in Stamboul, with all my busy and hurried preparations for
departure there was mingled this strange regret: never more should I see
the oblique ray of sunshine come into the stairway window and fall upon
the niche in the wall where the Greek vase stood.

Perhaps under all of this there may have been, if not recollections of
a previous personal experience, at least the reflected inchoate thoughts
of ancestors which I am unable in any clearer way to bring out of
darkness. But enough! I must say no more, for I again find myself in the
land of vague fancy, gliding phantoms and illusive nothings.

For this almost unintelligible chapter there is no excuse that I can
offer, save that I have written it with the greatest frankness and
sincerity.