me, without the sense of movement), the
interior of the lighted drawing room at home, and his mother nodding
in her chair; he directed his attention to Maggie, and perceived her
passing across the landing toward the head of the stairs with a candle
in her hand. It was this sight that brought him to a further
discovery, to the effect that time also was of very nearly no
importance either; for he perceived that by bending his attention upon
her he could restrain her, so to speak, in her movement. There she
stood, one foot outstretched, the candle flame leaning motionless
backward; and he knew too that it was not she who was thus restrained,
but that it was the intensity and directness of his thought that
fixed, so to say, in terms of eternity, that instant of time....

So it went on; or, rather, so it was with him. He pleased himself by
contemplating the London streets outside, the darkness of the garden
in some square, the interior of the Oratory where a few figures
kneeled--all seen beyond the movements of light and shadow in this
clear invisible radiance that was to his perception as common light to
common eyes. The world of which he had had experience--for he found
himself unable to see that which he had never experienced--lay before
his will like a movable map: this or that person or place had but to
be desired, and it was present.

And then came the return; and the Horror....

He began in this way.

He understood that he wished to awake, or, rather, to be reunited with
the body that lay there in deep sleep before the fire. He observed it
for a moment or two, interested and pleased, the face sunk a little on
the hand, the feet lightly crossed on the fender. He looked at his own
profile, the straight nose, the parted lips through which the breath
came evenly. He attempted even to touch the face, wondering with
gentle pleasure what would be the result....

Then, suddenly, an impulse came to him to enter the body, and with the
impulse the process, it seemed, began.

That process was not unlike that of falling asleep. In an instant
perception was gone; the lighted room was gone, and that obedient
world which he had contemplated just now. Yet self-consciousness for a
while remained; he still had the power of perceiving his own
personality, though this dwindled every moment down to that same gulf
of nothingness through which he had found his way.

But at the very instant in which consciousness was passing there met