And as I slept I dreamed my dream. The sun was looking very grave, and the moon reflected his concern. They were not satisfied with me. At length the sun shook his head; that is, his whole self oscillated on an axis, and the moon thereupon shook herself in response. Then they nodded to each other as much as to say, “That is entirely my own opinion.” At last they began to talk; not as men converse, but both at once, yet each listening while each spoke. I heard no word, but their lips moved most busily; their eyebrows went up and down; their eyelids winked and winked, and their cheeks puckered and relaxed incessantly. There was an absolute storm of expression upon their faces; their very noses twisted and curled. It seemed as if, in the agony of their talk, their countenances would go to pieces. For the stars, they darted about hither and thither, gathered into groups, dispersed, and formed new groups, and having no faces yet, but being a sort of celestial tadpoles, indicated by their motions alone that they took an active interest in the questions agitating their parents. Some of them kept darting up and down the ladder of rays, like phosphorescent sparks in the sea foam. I could bear it no longer, and awoke. I was in darkness, but not in my own bed. When I proceeded to turn, I found myself hemmed in on all sides. I could not stretch my arms, and there was hardly room for my body between my feet and my head. I was dreadfully frightened at first, and felt as if I were being slowly stifled. As my brain awoke, I recalled the horrible school, the horrible schoolmistress, and the most horrible dog, over whose defeat, however, I rejoiced with the pride of a dragon-slayer. Next I thought it would be well to look abroad and reconnoitre once more. I drew away the straw from the entrance to my lair; but what was my dismay to find that even when my hand went out into space no light came through the opening. What could it mean? Surely I had not grown blind while I lay asleep. Hurriedly I shot out the remainder of the stopper of straw, and crept from the hole. In the great barn there was but the dullest glimmer of light; I had almost said the clumsiest reduction of darkness. I tumbled at one of the doors rather than ran to it. I found it fast, but this one I knew was fastened on the inside by a wooden bolt or bar, which I could draw back. The open door revealed the dark night. Before me was the cornyard, as we called it, full of ricks. Huge and very positive although dim, they rose betwixt me and the sky. Between their tops I saw only stars and darkness. I turned and looked back into the barn. It appeared a horrible cave filled with darkness. I remembered there were rats in it. I dared not enter it again, even to go out at the opposite door: I forgot how soundly and peacefully I had slept in it. I stepped out into the night with the grass of the corn-yard under my feet, the awful vault of heaven over my head, and those shadowy ricks around me.