Dim figures are seated low, against the walls, swaying to and fro.

No sound is in the room, except a moan or a sigh from the shadowy figures; but a child is walking softly around and around the Shape on the floor, in quiet curiosity.
The Shape is the body of my grandfather laid out for burial.

The child is myself--myself asking questions of Death.
I was four years old when my mother's father died.

Do I really remember the little scene?
Perhaps I heard it described by some fond relative, as I heard other anecdotes of my infancy, and unconsciously incorporated it with my genuine recollections.

It is so suitable a scene for a beginning: the darkness, the mystery, the impenetrability.
My share in it, too, is characteristic enough, if I really studied that Shape by the lighted candles, as I have always pretended to myself.