I stood in my library, with the handle of the masked door in my hand.
Had I come to myself out of a vision ?--or lost myself by going back to one?
Which was the real--what I now saw, or what I had just ceased to see?
Could both be real, interpenetrating yet unmingling?
I threw myself on a couch, and fell asleep.
In the library was one small window to the east, through which, at this time of the year, the first rays of the sun shone upon a mirror whence they were reflected on the masked door: when I woke, there they shone, and thither they drew my eyes.

With the feeling that behind it must lie the boundless chamber I had left by that door, I sprang to my feet, and opened it.

The light, like an eager hound, shot before me into the closet, and pounced upon the gilded edges of a large book.
"What idiot," I cried, "has put that book in the shelf the wrong way ?" But the gilded edges, reflecting the light a second time, flung it on a nest of drawers in a dark corner, and I saw that one of them was half open.
"More meddling!" I cried, and went to close the drawer.
It contained old papers, and seemed more than full, for it would not close.

Taking the topmost one out, I perceived that it was in my father's writing and of some length.

The words on which first my eyes fell, at once made me eager to learn what it contained.