Seated on a stone, he seemed to fall into deep thought.

His past rose before him like a long black film, rosy at first, then shadowy with spots of blood, then black, black, gray, and then light, ever lighter.

The end could not be seen, hidden as it was by a cloud through which shone lights and the hues of dawn.
Thirteen years before to the day, almost to the hour, his mother had died there in the deepest distress, on a glorious night when the moon shone brightly and the Christians of the world were engaged in rejoicing.

Wounded and limping, he had reached there in pursuit of her--she mad and terrified, fleeing from her son as from a ghost.

There she had died, and there had come a stranger who had commanded him to build a funeral pyre.