“An extraordinary golden light, delicate, radiant, transparent, suddenly flooded the room, softly but clearly outlining its walls, gleaming equipment, and the figure of my teacher himself. And, at the same moment, I felt on my face and hands something like a warm breath of air. This phenomenon lasted no more than a second or a second and a half. Then heavy darkness concealed everything from my eyes.

‘Lights, please!’ exclaimed Lord Charlesbury and once more I saw him emerging from the door of the glass chamber. His face was pale, but illuminated by joy and pride.

. . . ‘You saw that marvelous, steady, caressing light. Now do you belive in my project?‘

‘Yes,’ I answered heatedly, with profound conviction. ‘I believe in it and I bow before an invention of great genius.’”

—Alexander Kuprin, from Liquid Sunshine, 1913. Translated from the Russian by Lelant Fetzer in 1980.