Gazing upon a pool of reflecting quicksilver. The day lies tranquil; yet the ripples do play about themselves upon that metallic lake. Each crossing of those ripples doth cast some portion of my frame into sight. A gleam of a nose, or of mine own pupil, or some other limb. Each fragment seemeth as though it should bend and alter; yet all return their semblance unwarped, without any distortion of measure.

As I retire from my scrutiny of the pool, my eye wandereth to the outer banks of that water, where grey ash and heaps of bone border the shore. Behind me I perceive a change, though the weather abideth unaltered. I turn not, for fear that by turning I should lose that presence which I do sense. And, as I wend into the dunes, there come from behind me the very whispers of my mother.

I sit beside a hearth, beneath a kettle hung o’er the flames. Around me rise walls; above me there yawns an endless vault, studded with stars. I behold even meteoric showers sweeping across that firmament, stretching from one confined horizon to the other. The square of sky visible thus through the aperture lends me solace; the empty kettle lends me none.

A lesson of anguish is visited upon me whilst I lie in untroubled sleep. I draw a knife and, with stern resolve, sever my fingers one by one, until naught remains but my pushing thumb, which I at last lay upon the earth with my palm. With these ingredients now at hand, I cast them swiftly into the pot, and the kettle is presently replenished.

Anon the fragments commence to shift and cohere, to meld and to moulder into a pottage the hue of pond-water, viscous and sluggish. The mass swells, boils, and rises to the brim. It bubbles and bubbles, and then the bubbles cease at once, leaving a smooth and tranquil surface. The stew rims the vessel, held by the tension of its skin.

Gazing into the pot, I discern the square reflection of the stars—and beyond that, a marvel: each wall seems absent, so that the meteor-showers are mirrored from one side of the kettle’s inwards to the other. It is at this juncture that I climb into the pot myself; and thereupon the dream is ended.