Then the choir began to chant the “Dies irae.” . . . The chanting affected me like a narcotic. I went completely to sleep. Or perhaps, rather than slumber, I fell into an exhausted, agitated doze, bent double, like an infant still in its mother’s womb. And in that fog of the soul, finding myself as if in a region not of this world, I had a vision, or dream, if you prefer to call it that.
