Of my origins, I know only the stories my mother told me; and she did not speak often of the past. When I was small, she would, when allowed to come to my bedside, tell me softly of her nation; but when I was seven or eight years of age, she spake no more of it, and if I asked, told me that I was fast becoming a man, and men have no need of mothers’ tales.

My mother was a princess of the Egba people in the Empire of Oyo, in western Africa. She told me of the royal throne where she sate, crowned, while her father dispensed law to the people of that country: her throne a single orchid, grown vast through the influence of the tropical heat and rain. Enthralled by her description, I saw her issue forth from the palace in panoply, trumpets crying fanfares, she being drawn upon a chariot by the exertions of panthers, her serene features shaded by umbrellas of bright damask. There, in Oyo, she lived in blissful state with her brothers and sisters, the royal family; and there, in the palace of orchids, she fell in love with a prince from a neighboring state when he came to pay respects to her father.

The marriage of princess and prince, both struck with love, would have proceeded unhindered — for my grandfather the King approved the match — had a prince of another kingdom not jealously desired my mother. He — a cocksure brute much given to womanizing and the lion-hunt — nursed a grievance in his heart, and would not let it go. He went in to the King, my grandfather, and demanded that my mother break off the engagement with her paramour. The King laughed him to scorn, and told him to leave the court immediately.

Leave the court, the criminal brute did — and removed home to his warrior-kingdom, and rallied his army, and returned to assault the palace of orchids, which swiftly fell, knowing only the fruits of peace before this time.

My mother was snatched from my father; they were parted amidst smoke and the weeping of women; and she was dragged away. My father was slain. The rival brought her before him, and demanded she offer her hand in marriage. She refused, and said she would sooner die than submit to his loathsome caresses. He kept her for some weeks, and then, seeing that she would not capitulate, sent her off to the coast in exile.

She was conducted by her captors to the kingdom of Dahomey, and embarked from the quays of Whydah; thereafter being held for some months at the fortress of B—, off the coast, with no hope for communication with her grieving people. When I asked her what that castle was like, she told me that it smelled always of spices, and the salt of the wind. It was full of flowers always — flowers in the garden, in the windows, on the tables. She walked there in the round courtyard with the Governor’s wife, who used her with great kindness, knowing the nobility of her blood.

Once, when she heard me play the violin, she said she reckoned that I was musical because I grew in the womb while she sate in the courtyard on the Isle of B—, listening to the Governor’s daughters play the harpsichord. He greatly missed the salons of Paris, and would ask them to play the music of Couperin, Rameau, and Royer in memory of his homeland. Weakly did the court tunes tinkle out above the crashing of surf on the basalt rocks at the castle’s foundations.

It happened at about this time that the English took the Isle of B—, and my mother was taken on an English ship — the Incontrovertible, Captain Julian McFergus, Master — and brought to the shore of America. It was not an easy passage, for she was pregnant; and notwithstanding her state, the sailors clamored to commit the most indecent and inhuman violence upon her person; in which design they were only halted by the sword of Captain McFergus. For which, each night when I said my prayers, my mother always asked that I remember this same McFergus, and pray that he was well, and still walked in the ways of righteousness.

Having arrived in America, she found she did not fancy the southern ports to which she was taken — Savannah, Charleston, and New-York — and so, finally, she reached Boston. Mr. Gitney — that is, 03-01 — reading of her arrival in the papers, went to the dock to greet her, and being impressed with her bearing and mental acuity, offered her a place in his home. He asked only, as a special favor, that I be brought up according to various philosophical principles, chief among which was the need for thorough tutelage in the Classics and in all the achievements of Europe.

My mother was, at this time, some thirteen years of age, big with child, and in little state to refuse.

So began our curious life in the College of Lucidity.