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 'Tete 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.
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