An eccentric scientist lies dead in his coffin reflecting on the past and his last experiment--collecting random incidents from human history and finding the underlying pattern that connects them. His reveries lead him t...An eccentric scientist lies dead in his coffin reflecting on the past and his last experiment--collecting random incidents from human history and finding the underlying pattern that connects them. His reveries lead him to tell two other tales--one of a doomed lighthouse keeper on a swedish island and the other of a rivalry among renaissance artists--and finally he tells a startling tale from his own youth.