When night fell and slumber draped its mantle over the face of the earth, I left my bed and walked toward the sea, saying to myself, “The sea sleeps not. And in the wakefulness of the sea is a balm for the spirit that does not rest.”

I arrived at the shore, where the mists had rolled down from the mountain peaks and enveloped that locale the way a grey veil cloaks the face of a beautiful girl. I stood staring at the armies of waves, listening to their jubilant shouts, contemplating the eternal, clandestine powers that lay behind them—the powers that race with storms, rage alongside volcanoes, smile with the mouths of roses, and lilt with brooks.

After a little while I looked around to find three apparitions sitting on a nearby boulder, the mists concealing yet not concealing them. I walked slowly toward them, as if some force in their being attracted me and subdued my will.

When I had come within a few footsteps of them, I halted and stood staring at them fixedly, as though sorcery pervaded that place, blunting my determination and awakening the imagination latent in my spirit.

At that very moment one of the three arose and, in a voice that seemed to issue from the depths of the sea, he said, “Life without love is like a tree without blossoms or fruit. Love without beauty is like flowers without fragrance and fruit without seeds … Life, love, and beauty—three persons in one substance, independent, absolute, accepting no change or separation.” Having spoken these words, he sat down again in the same place.

The second phantom stood and, in a voice like the roar of floodwaters, he said, “Life without rebellion is like the seasons without spring. Rebellion without truth is like spring in a bleak, arid desert … Life, rebellion, and truth—three persons in one substance, accepting no separation or alteration.”

The third specter now gained his feet and, in a voice like a thunderclap, he said, “Life without liberty is like a body without spirit. Liberty without thought is like a disturbed spirit … Life, liberty, and thought—three persons in one substance, eternal, never-ending, and unceasing.”

All three apparitions now arose, and with horrifying voices they said unanimously, “Love and what generates it. Rebellion and what creates it. Liberty and what nourishes it. Three manifestations of God. And God is the conscience of the rational world.”

A silence fell then, replete with the rustling of unseen wings and the trembling of ethereal bodies. I closed my eyes, listening to the echo of the words I had heard.

When I opened them and looked again, I saw only the sea, wrapped in a shroud of mist. I drew near to the boulder where the three apparitions had been sitting, and descried only a column of incense rising into the sky.