"No; there are five. Look again!" and there were five; and the whole
house was exactly, down to its minutest detail, as it had been once upon
a time. I could see Thérèse through one of the windows, making my bed.
"That's better," said the duchess; "you will soon do it--it's very
easy--_ce n'est que le premier pas!_ My father taught me; you must
always sleep on your back with your arms above your head, your hands
clasped under it and your feet crossed, the right one over the left,
unless you are left-handed; and you must never for a moment cease
thinking of where you want to be in your dream till you are asleep and
get there; and you must never forget in your dream where and what you
were when awake. You must join the dream on to reality. Don't forget.
And now I will say good-bye; but before I go give me both hands and look
round everywhere as far as your eyes can see."
It was hard to look away from her; her face drew my eyes, and through
them all my heart; but I did as she told me, and took in the whole
familiar scene, even to the distant woods of Ville d'Avray, a glimpse
of which was visible through an opening in the trees; even to the smoke
of a train making its way to Versailles, miles off; and the old
telegraph, working its black arms on the top of Mont Valérien.
[Illustration: "It was hard to look away from her."]
"Is it all right?" she asked. "That's well. Henceforward, whenever you
come here, you will be safe as far as your sight can reach--from this
spot--all through my introduction. See what it is to have a friend at
court! No more little dancing jailers! And then you can gradually get
farther by yourself.
"Out there, through that park, leads to the Bois de Boulogne--there's a
gap in the hedge you can get through; but mind and make everything plain
in front of you--_true_, before you go a step farther, or else you'll
have to wake and begin it all over again. You have only to will it, and
think of yourself as awake, and it will come--on condition, of course,
that you have been there before. And mind, also, you must take care how
you touch things or people--you may hear, and see, and smell; but you
mustn't touch, nor pick flowers or leaves, nor move things about. It
blurs the dream, like breathing on a window-pane. I don't know why, but
it does. You must remember that everything here is dead and gone by.
With you and me it is different; we're alive and real--that is, _I_ am;
and there would seem to be no mistake about your being real too, Mr.
Ibbetson, by the grasp of your hands. But you're _not_; and why you are
here, and what business you have in this, my particular dream, I cannot
understand; no living person has ever come into it before. I can't make
it out. I suppose it's because I saw your reality this afternoon,
looking out of the window at the 'Tête Noire,' and you are just a stray
figment of my overtired brain--a very agreeable figment, I admit; but
you don't exist here just now--you can't possibly; you are somewhere
else, Mr. Ibbetson; dancing at Mabille, perhaps, or fast asleep
somewhere, and dreaming of French churches and palaces, and public
fountains, like a good young British architect--otherwise I shouldn't
talk to you like this, you may be sure!
"Never mind. I am very glad to dream that I have been of use to you, and
you are very welcome here, if it amuses you to come--especially as you
are only a false dream of mine, for what else _can_ you be? And now I
must leave you, so good-bye."
She disengaged her hands, and laughed her angelic laugh, and then
turned towards the park. I watched her tall, straight figure and blowing
skirts, and saw her follow some ladies and children into a thicket that
I remembered well, and she was soon out of sight.
I felt as if all warmth had gone out of my life; as if a joy had taken
flight; as if a precious something had withdrawn itself from my
possession, and the gap in my periphery had closed again.
Long I stood in thought, with my eyes fixed on the spot where she had
disappeared; and I felt inclined to follow, but then considered this
would not have been discreet. For although she was only a false dream of
mine, a mere recollection of the exciting and eventful day, a stray
figment of my overtired and excited brain--a _more_ than agreeable
figment (what else _could_ she be!)--she was also a great lady, and had
treated me, a perfect stranger and a perfect nobody, with singular
courtesy and kindness; which I repaid, it is true, with a love so deep
and strong that my very life was hers, to do what she liked with, and
always had been since I first saw her, and always would be as long as
there was breath in my body! But this did not constitute an acquaintance
without a proper introduction, even in France--even in a dream. Even in
dreams one must be polite, even to stray figments of one's tired,
sleeping brain.
And then what business had _she_, in _this_, _my_ particular dream--as
she herself had asked of me?
But _was_ it a dream? I remembered my lodgings at Pentonville, that I
had left yesterday morning. I remembered what I was--why I came to
Paris; I remembered the very bedroom at the Paris hotel where I was now
fast asleep, its loudly-ticking clock, and all the meagre furniture. And
here was I, broad awake and conscious, in the middle of an old avenue
that had long ceased to exist--that had been built over by a huge brick
edifice covered with newly-painted trellis-work. I saw it, this edifice,
myself, only twelve hours ago. And yet here was everything as it had
been when I was a child; and all through the agency of this solid
phantom of a lovely young English duchess, whose warm gloved hands I had
only this minute been holding in mine! The scent of her gloves was still
in my palm. I looked at my watch; it marked twenty-three minutes to
twelve. All this had happened in less than three-quarters of an hour!
Pondering over all this in hopeless bewilderment, I turned my steps
towards my old home, and, to my surprise, was just able to look over the
garden wall, which I had once thought about ten feet high.
Under the old apple-tree in full bloom sat my mother, darning small
socks; with her flaxen side-curls (as it was her fashion to wear them)
half-concealing her face. My emotion and astonishment were immense. My
heart beat fast. I felt its pulse in my temples, and my breath
was short.
At a little green table that I remembered well sat a small boy, rather
quaintly dressed in a by-gone fashion, with a frill round his wide
shirt-collar, and his golden hair cut quite close at the top, and rather
long at the sides and back. It was Gogo Pasquier. He seemed a very nice
little boy. He had pen and ink and copy-book before him, and a
gilt-edged volume bound in red morocco. I knew it at a glance; it was
_Elegant Extracts_. The dog Médor lay asleep in the shade. The bees
were droning among the nasturtiums and convolvulus.
A little girl ran up the avenue from the porter's lodge and pushed the
garden gate, which rang the bell as it opened, and she went into the
garden, and I followed her; but she took no notice of me, nor did the
others. It was Mimsey Seraskier.