Part 42

“Ah!” he said, and seemed for a moment to collect his thoughts.

“Your dreams don't mix with your memories?” he asked abruptly. “You don't find yourself in doubt; did this happen or did it not?”

“Hardly ever. Except just for a momentary hesitation now and then. I suppose few people do.”

“Does HE say--” he indicated the book.

“Says it happens at times and gives the usual explanation about intensity of impression and the like to account for its not happening as a rule. I suppose you know something of these theories--”

“Very little--except that they are wrong.”

His emaciated hand played with the strap of the window for a time. I prepared to resume reading, and that seemed to precipitate his next remark. He leant forward almost as though he would touch me.

“Isn't there something called consecutive dreaming--that goes on night after night?”

“I believe there is. There are cases given in most books on mental trouble.”

“Mental trouble! Yes. I dare say there are. It's the right place for them. But what I mean--” He looked at his bony knuckles. “Is that sort of thing always dreaming? IS it dreaming? Or is it something else? Mightn't it be something else?”

I should have snubbed his persistent conversation but for the drawn anxiety of his face. I remember now the look of his faded eyes and the lids red-stained--perhaps you know that look.

“I'm not just arguing about a matter of opinion,” he said. “The thing's killing me.”

“Dreams?”

“If you call them dreams. Night after night. Vivid!--so vivid... this--” (he indicated the landscape that went streaming by the window) “seems unreal in comparison! I can scarcely remember who I am, what business I am on....”

He paused. “Even now--”

“The dream is always the same--do you mean?” I asked.

“It's over.”

“You mean?”

“I died.”

“Died?”

“Smashed and killed, and now, so much of me as that dream was, is dead. Dead for ever. I dreamt I was another man, you know, living in a different part of the world and in a different time. I dreamt that night after night. Night after night I woke into that other life. Fresh scenes and fresh happenings--until I came upon the last--”

“When you died?”

“When I died.”

“And since then--”

“No,” he said. “Thank God! That was the end of the dream....”

It was clear I was in for this dream. And after all, I had an hour before me, the light was fading fast, and Fortnum-Roscoe has a dreary way with him. “Living in a different time,” I said: “do you mean in some different age?”

“Yes.”

“Past?”