CHAPTER I
TIDINGS FROM EGYPT
That curtain of oblivion without rent or seam sinks again upon thevisions of this past of mine. It falls, as it were, on the last of thescenes in the dreadful chamber of the pit, to rise once more far fromByzantium.
I am blind and can see nothing, for the power which enables me todisinter what lies buried beneath the weight and wreck of so many agestells me no more than those things that once my senses knew. What I didnot hear then I do not hear now; what I did not see then I do not seenow. Thus it comes about that of Lesbos itself, of the shape of itsmountains or the colour of its seas I can tell nothing more than Iwas told, because my sight never dwelt on them in any life that I canremember.