Note 15 — Part I. Concluded.

The reader, who wishes at all to understand the course of these Confessions, ought not to pass over this dream-legend. There is no great wonder that a vision, which occupied my waking thoughts in those years, should re-appear in my dreams. It was in fact a legend recurring in sleep, most of which I had myself silently written or sculptured in my daylight reveries. But its importance to the present Confessions is this—that it rehearses or prefigures their course. This first part belongs to Madonna. The third belongs to the "Mater Suspiriorum," and will be entitled The Pariah Worlds. The fourth, which terminates the work, belongs to the "Mater Tenebrarum," and will be entitled The Kingdom of Darkness. As to the second, it is an interpolation requisite to the effect of the others; and will be explained in its proper place.