convalescence, a joyful life in the country
air, a life of reading, a life of pleasant dreams, a life into which
entered his friendship with St Aubyn, his days with Lubin in the
garden, his encounters with Mr Buskin, and those strange experiences
that had reached him from another world. That other world was coming
very near to him now, and he was coming very near to it! And all these
recollections formed one marvellous panorama, one great simultaneous
whole, with no appearance of succession, but just as though it had
happened all at once. Austin seemed to be past reasoning; he had
advanced to a stage where thinking and speculating were things gone by
for ever, and his perceptions were wholly passive. There was his
life, spread out in consciousness before him; and meanwhile he was
undergoing a change.

He looked up, and saw a dim, violet cloud hanging horizontally over
him. It was in shape like a human form; his own form. At that moment a
great tremor, a sort of convulsive thrill, passed through him as he
lay, jarring every nerve, and awaking him, at that supreme crisis, to
the existence of his body. A sense of confusion followed; and then he
seemed to pass out of his own head, and found himself poised in the
air immediately over the place where he had just been lying. He saw
the violet cloud no more, though whether he had coalesced with it, or
the cloud itself had become disintegrated, he could not tell; then, by
a sort of instinct, he assumed an erect position, and saw that he was
balanced, somehow, a little distance from the bed, looking down upon
it. And on the bed, connected with him by a faintly luminous cord, lay
the white, still, beautiful form of a dead boy. "And that was my
body!" he cried, in awestruck wonder, though his words caused no
vibration in the air.

He looked at himself, and saw that he was glorious, encircled by a
radiant fire-mist. And he was throbbing and pulsating with life, able
to move hither and thither without effort, free from lameness, free
from weight, strong, vigorous, full of energy, poised like a bird in
the pure air of heaven, ready to take his flight in any conceivable
direction at the faintest motion of his own will. Then the
resplendence that enveloped him extended, until the whole room was
full of it; and in the midst of it there stood a very sweet and
gracious figure, robed in white drapery, and with eyes of intensest
love, more beautiful to look at than anything that Austin had