"Thus have I revisited in sleep every place I have ever lived in, and
especially this, the beloved spot where I first as a little girl
knew _you_!"
That night when we met again in our common dream I was looking at the
boys from Saindou's school going to their _premiere communion_, and
thinking very much of you, as I had seen you, when awake, a few hours
before, looking out of the window at the 'Tete Noire;' when you suddenly
appeared in great seeming trouble and walking like a tipsy man; and my
vision was disturbed by the shadow of a prison--alas! alas!--and two
little jailers jingling their keys and trying to hem you in.
My emotion at seeing you again so soon was so great that I nearly woke.
But I rescued you from your imaginary terrors and held you by the hand.
You remember all the rest.
I could not understand why you should be in my dream, as I had almost
always dreamed true--that is, about things that _had_ been in my
life--not about things that _might_ be; nor could I account for the
solidity of your hand, nor understand why you didn't fade away when I
took it, and blur the dream. It was a most perplexing mystery that
troubled many hours of both my waking and sleeping life. Then came that
meeting with you at Cray, and part of the mystery was accounted for, for
you were my old friend Gogo, after all. But it is still a mystery, an
awful mystery, that two people should meet as we are meeting now in one
and the same dream--should dovetail so accurately into each other's
brains. What a link between us two, Mr. Ibbetson, already linked by
such memories!
After meeting you at Cray I felt that I must never meet you again,
either waking or dreaming. The discovery that you were Gogo, after all,
combined with the preoccupation which as a mere stranger you had already
caused me for so long, created such a disturbance in my spirit
that--that--there, you must try and imagine it for yourself.
Even before that revelation at Cray I had often known you were here in
my dream, and I had carefully avoided you ... though little dreaming
you were here in your own dream too! Often from that little
dormer-window up there I have seen you wandering about the park and
avenue in seeming search of _me_, and wondered why and how you came. You
drove me into attics and servants' bedrooms to conceal myself from you.
It was quite a game of hide-and-seek--_cache-cache_, as we used to
call it.
But after our meeting at Cray I felt there must be no more
_cache-cache_; I avoided coming here at all; you drove me away
altogether.
Now try to imagine what I felt when the news of your terrible quarrel
with Mr. Ibbetson burst upon the world. I was beside myself! I came here
night after night; I looked for you everywhere--in the park, in the Bois
de Boulogne, at the Mare d'Auteuil, at St. Cloud--in every place I could
think of! And now here you are at last--at last!
Hush! Don't speak yet! I have soon done!
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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