noon
I wait for ... a horrible , incorporeal wonder . I am a firm enemy of ghosts and specters and such things . I find these appearances are not sensible or funny ; I want to have nothing to do with them . And yet I could prevent the fact that , shortly before noon , the form of an ancient woman , with austere facial features , appeared to me . I was unpleasantly moved by it . Even more so , when it later occurred to me that it had possibly been my mother . It is not less unreasonable to deny ghosts than it is unreasonable to acknowledge wonders .