It comes from another world, which, like the stars that originally sent out the light we see hesitating in the sky above us these nights, may be or is already gone. It is possible to reconstruct the facts of this world - the furniture, the clothing, the ornaments on the mantelpiece, the jugs and basins, and even the chamber pots in the bedrooms, but not the emotions, not with the same exactness. So much that is now known and felt must be excluded.

I had become a visitant from outer space, a time-traveller come back from the future, bearing news of a great disaster.