This chapter's epigraph is from a poem by Edgar Allan Poe, entitled "Poinsettia," which was published in The New York Times in 1883. Poe's poem is about a young man who learns to read and write by reading aloud from a book. The young man, who is a lachter , reads aloud from the book, and he realizes that the young man is Edgar's ancestor, the Marquis de Lafayette. He realizes that he is the Marquis's father, and that the Marquis has been trained by him to read aloud from books. The Marquis, however, is not his father's son; he is his own son, and the Marquis does not know him. He does not understand why the Marquis would want him to learn to read from books, but he does know that he has been taught to read by the Marquis. He also realizes that his father is a future god who will always return to his master.