m
brought back a whole new group of vivid impressions, strange and yet in
a sense more familiar than my memories of Melbourne. They opened up to
me a different life in which I seemed to have participated by chance,
and a life which had, at first sight, no point of contact with the
reality to which I had returned....

A Chance Strain from Grieg

I recalled waking up in another place, on a long slope of green hill
that overlooked a valley. It was dawn again. The sun was just rising
over the crest of the hill behind me, and it threw long shadows across
the grass from the tall, slender trees along the summit. Down in the
valley a broad, clean river of clear water followed the curve of the
hill until it disappeared from sight. There were other hills beyond the
river, all with the same long, simple slope of grass; and, beyond the
hills, there were the tops of blue mountains, swathed in white morning
mist.

It was a strange place. Its strangeness consisted in a subtle appearance
of order and care, as though a gardener or an army of gardeners had
arranged and tended the whole vast sweep of landscape for years. It was
uncultivated and deserted as waste land, but as well trimmed, in spite
of its spaciousness, as a lawn.

The morning was very warm. I was not conscious of any chill in the air.
I was clothed only in short trousers, such as athletes wear, and a short
belted tunic without sleeves and loose--both of them indescribably soft
and comfortable.

I was aware of the strangeness of my awakening, but I seemed to have no
definite recollection of falling asleep. I felt that I had come there
during my sleep under unusual circumstances and from a very different
life, but the thought didn't disturb me or trouble my mind in any way.
My chief emotion was a curious feeling of expectancy. I knew that I was
about to have some new and curious experience, something not trivial,
and I was eager to meet it.

I lay there for awhile, drinking in the beauty of the morning, and
breathing an air of miraculous purity and freshness. Finally I stood up,
light and conscious of a sudden grace, aware for the first time, in its
departure, of the awkwardness and weight which ordinarily attend our
movements on earth. It was as if some of the earth's gravity had been
lost.

For a while I examined the valley, but I saw no sign of life there. Then
I turned and went slowly up the hill, the sunlight falling warmly on my
body, and my feet sink