]
The heart's desire--the heart's regret! I flattered
myself that I had pretty well sounded the uttermost
depths of both on that eventful Sunday!
Part Four
[Illustration]
I got back to my hotel in the Rue de la Michodiere.
Prostrate with emotion and fatigue, the tarantella still jingling in my
ears, and that haunting, beloved face, with its ineffable smile still
printed on the retina of my closed eyes, I fell asleep.
And then I dreamed a dream, and the first phase of my real, inner life
began!
All the events of the day, distorted and exaggerated and jumbled
together after the usual manner of dreams, wove themselves into a kind
of nightmare and oppression. I was on my way to my old abode: everything
that I met or saw was grotesque and impossible, yet had now the strange,
vague charm of association and reminiscence, now the distressing sense
of change and loss and desolation.
As I got near to the avenue gate, instead of the school on my left there
was a prison; and at the door a little thick-set jailer, three feet high
and much deformed, and a little deformed jaileress no bigger than
himself, were cunningly watching me out of the corners of their eyes,
and toothlessly smiling.
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