ing
we smell, recalls a scene we cannot remember at first, but which
sometimes comes back after a little while. Almost every one has felt now
and then that a fragment of present conversation is not new to him, and
that he has performed certain actions already, though he cannot remember
when. With some people these broken recollections are so frequent and
vivid as to lead to all sorts of theories to explain them, such as the
possibility of former existences on earth, or the more materialistic
probability that memories are transmitted from parents and ancestors
from the direct ascending lines.

One theory has been neglected. At such times we may be remembering
vaguely, or even with some distinctness, parts of dreams of which we had
no recollection on waking, but which, nevertheless, made their
impressions on the brain that produced them, while we were asleep.
Unconscious ratiocination is certainly not a myth; and if, by it, we can
produce our own forgotten actions, and even find objects we have lost,
by doing over again exactly what we were doing when the thing we seek
was last in our hands, sure that the rest of the action will repeat
itself spontaneously, we should not be going much farther if we repeated
both actions and words unconsciously remembered out of dreams. Much that
seems very mysterious in our sensations may be explained in that way,
and the explanation has the advantage of being simpler than that
afforded by the theory of atavism, and more orthodox than that offered
by the believers in the transmigration of souls.

Cecilia Palladio had no need of it, for she did not forget the one dream
that pleased her best, and she was never puzzled by uncertain
recollections of any other. Her life had begun in it, and had turned
upon it always, and after she had parted with it by an act of will, she
had retained the fullest remembrance of its details.

She left the place where she had paused near the entrance, and slowly
walked up the long court, by the dry excavated basins; she ascended the
low steps to the raised floor beyond, and stood still before the door of
her own room, the second on the left. She had meant to go in and look at
it quietly, but since she had taken refuge there when she ran away from
Lamberti, iron gates had been placed at the entrances of all the six
rooms, and they were locked. In hers a quantity of fragments of
sculptured marble and broken earthen vessels were laid side by side on
the floor, o