Page:Tales of the Unexpected (1924).djvu/144

 '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