'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?'
'No, to come—to come.'
'The year three thousand, for example?'
'I don't know what year it was. I did when I was asleep, when I was dreaming, that is, but not now—not now that I am awake. There's a lot of things I
