Presently they began to waltz together to an
old, familiar tune, with their enormous keys dangling at their sides;
and they looked so funny that I laughed and applauded. But soon I
perceived that their crooked faces were not really funny; indeed, they
were fatal and terrible in the extreme, and I was soon conscious that
these deadly dwarfs were trying to waltz between me and the avenue gate
for which I was bound--to cut me off, that they might run me into the
prison, where it was their custom to hang people of a Monday morning.
In an agony of terror I made a rush for the avenue gate, and there stood
the Duchess of Towers, with mild surprise in her eyes and a kind
smile--a heavenly vision of strength and reality.
"You are not dreaming true!" she said. "Don't be afraid--those little
people don't exist! Give me your hand and come in here."
And as I did so she waved the troglodytes away, and they vanished; and
I felt that this was no longer a dream, but something else--some strange
thing that had happened to me, some new life that I had woke up to.
For at the touch of her hand my consciousness, my sense of being I,
myself, which hitherto in my dream (as in all previous dreams up to
then) had been only partial, intermittent, and vague, suddenly blazed
into full, consistent, practical activity--just as it is in life, when
one is well awake and much interested in what is going on--only with
perceptions far keener and more alert.
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