Just at that time I began again to dream a great deal, as I had constantly done when a child. It seemed to me that for years I had had no more dreams. Now they came again, quite a new kind of pictures, and often and often the painted image appeared therein, living and speaking, friendly or inimical, with the features sometimes twisted into a grimace, sometimes infinitely beautiful, harmonious and noble.

And one morning, as I awoke out of such a dream, I suddenly realized who was the original of the picture, I recognized it. It gazed at me in such a fabulously well-known way, and seemed to be calling my name. It seemed to know me, like a mother, seemed to love me as if since the beginning of time. With beating heart I stared at the paper, at the thick brown hair, at the half-womanly mouth, the strong forehead with the wonderful brightness (it had dried that way of itself) and more and more I felt in me the knowledge, the certainty of having somewhere met the original of the picture.