Mysterious the sway of the masters of the night! Of what unsubjugated region of myself had they taken possession? Did they occupy the realm where dreams are born and bred? Had they seized the spot where the most contrary desires mingle - the one to kill and the one to love, the one to make suffer and the one to adore, the phantasms born of water and fire, blood and death, in a perpetual maelstrom like the one I had seen with my own eyes in the course of the night seances at the hands of the 'ngangas'? There must be a hidden relationship, I thought, a secret pact, between the 'ngangas' and myself. Nothing else could have explained the fascination I felt when I was among them. Since childhood I had always wanted to reach other cultural worlds - to get as far away as I could from my own roots. And now that I had done so, I had the feeling of having arrived in a familiar land. From the book
