The street was full of people--familiar forms and faces and voices,
chatting together and looking down the road after the yellow omnibus;
old attitudes, old tricks of gait and manner, old forgotten French
ways of speech--all as it was long ago. Nobody noticed us, and we
walked up the now deserted avenue.
The happiness, the enchantment of it all! Could it be that I was dead,
that I had died suddenly in my sleep, at the hotel in the Rue de la
Michodiere? Could it be that the Duchess of Towers was dead too--had
been killed by some accident on her way from St. Cloud to Paris? and
that, both having died, so near each other, we had begun our eternal
after-life in this heavenly fashion?
That was too good to be true, I reflected; some instinct told me that
this was not death, but transcendent earthly life--and also, alas!
that it would not endure forever!
I was deeply conscious of every feature in her face, every movement of
her body, every detail of her dress,--more so than I could have been
in actual life,--and said to myself, "Whatever this is, it is no
dream." But I felt there was about me the unspeakable elation which
can come to us only in our waking moments when we are at our very
best; and then only feebly, in comparison with this, and to many of us
never. It never had to me, since that morning when I had found the
little wheelbarrow.
I was also conscious, however, that the avenue itself had a slight
touch of the dream in it. It was no longer quite right, and was
getting out of drawing and perspective, so to speak. I had lost my
stay--the touch of her hand.
"Are you still dreaming true, Mr. Ibbetson?"
"I am afraid not quite," I replied.
"You must try by yourself a little--try hard. Look at this house; what
is written on the portico?"