When he tried to focus on what it was that elicited his longing he began to make out a certain face, an enigmatic female face, immemorial, and somehow also an image of himself, a broad face, s'fumato like a Leonardo, deeply familiar, a face he'd stared at in a night mirror many years ago, looking for himself and his transfiguration. What he was remembering was his mother's face as it filled his vision in the dawn of awareness, bending over him, not distinct from him, infinitely consoling.