THE DREAM CIRCEAN
haste, less speed!’ I said to myself. ‘I will walk deliberately
down to the boulevard, turn east, and so I cannot possibly
miss the Carrefour de l’Odéon’—out of which, as I knew of
old, the Rue des Quatre Vents leads. Indeed, I remembered
the carrefour from that night. I had passed through it.
I remembered hesitating as to which turning to take. For, as
you know, the carrefour is a triangle, one road leading from
the apex, four (with two minor variations just off the carrefour)
from the base.
“ Following this plan, I came, sure enough, in three minutes
or so into the Rue des Quatre Vents. It is not a long street,
as you know, and I thought that I remembered perfectly that
the house faced the tiny Rue St. Grégoire, which leads back
to the Boulevard St. Germain. Indeed, it was down that
obscure alley that Jean andI had gone in our fight. I remem-
bered how I had expected to meet somebody on issuing into
the boulevard; and then . . . I must have been very busy
fighting: I could not remember anything at all of the fight
between that issue and the place of Jean’s feint and flight.
“Well, here I was: the house should have been in front
of me—and it was not. I walked up and down the street;
there was no house of the kind, no railings. No residential
house. Yet I could not believe myself mistaken. I pinched
myself; I was awake. Further, the pinching demonstrated
the existence of a sword and dagger in my hands. I was
bleeding, too; my left arm twice grazed. I took out my
watch; four o'clock. Since I left the bridge—ah! when
had I left the bridge? I could not tell—yes,I could. At
moon-set. The moon was nine days old.
“No; everything was real. I examined the sword and
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