Tagore’s reading strikes at all dead matter with a piercing gaze, establishing history as a dynamic, something to be created not just to be consumed. In this way, he captures history as a ‘vision’ and not as a factative account of the past. This ‘vision’ is like a flash of lightning in terrible darkness, it illuminates everything around you for a brief second and then everything is back to black again. What you see in that brief second is all that matters.