He fell asleep and dreamed he was in a brightly lighted hall. Men were cheering. Music played and people were yelling his name. In the dream he was going to make a speech. The brightly lighted hall grew larger and the crowd reached as far as he could see. But he didn't come out to make the speech. Instead a woman in a gaudy dress came out. Her face was white with powder and heavily painted. Her eyes were sunken. In the dream he shuddered because the great crowd would rave indignantly at the substitute who had come out to make the speech for him. But instead, a tremendous cheer went up at the sight of this woman and everybody yelled, "Basine ... Basine.... There he is. Hooray for Basine!" They mistook the woman for him. The woman began to make his speech. The one he had prepared. She spoke in a tired, hollow voice but the crowd continued to cheer. Where was he in the dream? There was no Basine in the dream. He kept wondering about this. There was no Basine but the crowd thought this woman in the gaudy dress with the painted face was Basine and they cheered her for him, calling her, "Basine...." while he, hiding somewhere, the dream didn't say where, listened to the woman and the cheers and the shouts of his name. He was saying to himself with a feeling of horror, "I know that woman they think is me. It's that woman Keegan and I met once. Keegan and I met her, by God!" He was going to stop something but the dream went away. 11 The city grows and keeps on growing. People vanish. Buildings spring up to take their places. The streets become full of vast, intricate activities. People have vanished but these activities keep on growing. The city shakes with noises. A cloud of noises rises from the street and bursts slowly into names. Everywhere one turns, doors and windows chatter with names. Names run up and down the faces of buildings. Gilt names slant downward, porcelain names curve like lopsided grins. Names fly from banners, hang from long wires, lean down from rooftops. The city is plastered with names. Tired men stop and blink. They mutter to themselves in the street, "Lets see, where am I?" Their eyes stare at an inanimate dance of names. Names fall out of the sky. An alphabet face with eyebrows, nose, lips and hair made of names winks and sticks out its tongue. These are not the names of people but of activities. As the city grows the names pile up and reach higher. Names of things to eat, wear, see, feel, smell, dream of and die for--they become too many to see and far too many to read. They drift up and down the faces of the buildings and scamper over the pavements like a lunatic writing.