I hardly know how to speak of it without myself appearing to have lost my reason; and I really should not dare to do so if a thousand others had not witnessed the same grotesque phantasmagoria and above all if this crazy vision--it is the only possible adjective--had not happened to be precisely the determining cause which set the public in the track of truth. A thousand witnesses, I said, but I admit, a thousand witnesses who subsequently differed in their evidence, thanks to the inconsistency of the impressions received and also to the rapidity with which they succeeded one another. And I myself, what did I see, after all? Animated shapes. Yes, that and nothing more. Living shapes. Every visible thing has a shape. A rock, a pyramid, a scaffolding round a house has a shape; but you cannot say that they are alive. Now _this_ thing was alive. _This_ thing bore perhaps no closer relation to the shape of a live being than to the shape of a rock, a pyramid or a scaffolding. Nevertheless there was no doubt that _this_ thing acted in the manner of a being which lives, moves, follows this or that direction, obeys individual motives and attains a chosen goal. I will not attempt to describe these shapes. How indeed could I do so, considering that they all differed from one another _and that they even differed from themselves_ within the space of a second! Imagine a sack of coal (the comparison is forced upon one by the black and lumpy appearance of the Shapes), imagine a sack of coal swelling into the body of an ox, only to shrink at once to the proportions of the body of a dog, and next to grow thicker or to draw itself out lengthwise. Imagine this mass, which has no more consistency than a jellyfish, now again putting forth three little tentacles, resembling hands. Lastly, imagine the picture of a town, a town which is not horizontal but perpendicular, with streets standing up like ladders and, along these arteries, the Shapes rising like balloons. This is the first vision; and, right at the top of the town, the Shapes come crowding from every side, gathering upon a vast horizontal space, where they swarm like ants. I receive the impression--and it is the general impression--that the space is a public square. A mound marks its centre. Shapes are standing there motionless. Others approach by means of successive dilations and contractions, which appear to constitute their method of advancing. And in this way, on the passage of a group of no great dimensions, which seems to be carrying a lifeless Shape, the multitude of the living Shapes falls back.