Angelica—Do not frighten me! That cannot be. I will not believe it. He has gone to The World Above and I am glad he has!
Jean—But now, Angelica, if there were a world above, how did we happen to be in The Darker Realm, instead of in that one? We must have come from that world to this?
Angelica—Oh! Think of that! (She clasps her hands in an ecstacy.) And do you remember ought about it, dear Jean?
Jean—(Very sadly.) I only remember old Jacques.
Angelica—I, at any rate, must have come from some world above, for I think I remember, or rather, I feel dimly a remembering like to a faint breathing as sweet as an—as an “everlasting spring,” Jean. (Angelica sits musing and Jean gazes upon her. A pause. Then he says, tenderly:)
Jean—But why don’t you tell me what it was you saw?
Angelica—(Starting up again excitedly) O, words could not tell it! Jean, heart of man could not dream of the wonder of it!
Jean—But what was it? What was it, to deserve all this?
Angelica—I’ll try to tell. As I came by the Little Cross of Miracles, I looked up through the flue and at the top I saw that there was an opening—an opening out, Jean! At first I could not look, it pierced and pricked my eyes like sharpest knives; but after a while, I had to look; and through the opening I saw a face, a face, Jean!—the face of a maiden like myself, with eyes looking down at me with looks of curiosity, and oh, Jean!—of love; and they shone like lamps! But her hair looked like the gold of my ring, and around her neck her dress was like the red dartings in the opal; and then, oh, she looked down with a gaze that turned from curiosity and love to sorrow and almost to horror! And then she moved back and went away! Yet, as she arose, I saw her form for one brief moment. Her movements were like the shadows of the light upon the water where it flows beneath the bridge by our hut in the Court of Blind Alleys. And all the colors of the opal were upon her and around her, and beyond her a most clear and shining blue, that dazzled and hurt my eyes so that I could not look upon it at all. And I saw a wall, not dark like these around here, but colored like the opal when it is asleep; and there were things like these (laying her hand on one of the outreaching fungi), only finer and all in masses, much more beautiful and of a color like—but I cannot tell you what it was like; it was like nothing that we have here, but it was soft and comforting. I could have looked at it always, and never I am sure would I have had to rest my eyes for aching. (Turning suddenly to Jean) Do you not believe it now?
Jean—What, that this vision of yours was anything but a dream?