Let us light the candles and turn out the electric light. The soft, golden glow of candles is more restful, and conducive to deeper thought. It is in harmony with the darkness outside and will attune us to the relaxation of nature at night. I love semi-darkness. I will only light the silver candelabra on the table and this funny old lantern hanging here at the corner. Its silent shadow will talk to us of the past, when its pale light was used to illumine the steps of those who ventured in the streets after sunset. Even I can remember the time when the streets of Stamboul were not lighted. Electricity is a very recent innovation and in my childhood there were so few and such feeble oil lamps in the streets that every one who went out at night was accompanied by a servant who carried a lantern like this, a folding lantern with a round chiselled silver bottom and a round chiselled silver top, its sides made of oiled parchment or goatskin pleated horizontally so that it could fold when not in use. The servant would walk just a few steps before you, holding the lantern low on the ground so that its dim light would illumine your steps. It was an event for me to go out after sunset and the few occasions when I did have remained engraved in my memory as great adventures, somewhat terrifying and most exciting. I remember how I used to hang on to the hand of my mother. I was abashed by the darkness surrounding us, by the mystery of the night and its solitude. I remember how I would strain my ears to hear the familiar rustle of my mother's wide silk skirt, how I would ask her any question that came into my mind just for the sake of hearing her musical soft voice coming from the darkness above, in modulated tones, I remember how fascinated I would be by the yellowish dancing light of the swinging lantern, which would project big shadows all around us and when one of the street dogs, so common at that time, would wake up and run away from our path, I would squeeze my mother's hand and nestle nearer to her so that I could feel her silk dress against my cheek and now this lantern hangs in our drawing-room, not any more for a useful purpose in this age of electricity, but as an artistic ornament, a symbol of the past, a symbol of the darkness of bygone years. Its yellowish glow illumines the head of my wife who sits right under it. It surrounds her hair with a halo of ancient light. The cycle of thoughts continues, running after the cycle of time in a sequence of flashes followed by long periods of darkness!