Forms Assumed by Suffering during Sleep — Les Misérables

Three o'clock in the morning has just struck. He has been walking for five hours, almost without a stop, when he lets himself drop into his chair. He falls asleep and has a dream he later writes down, one of the papers in his own hand. On the envelope: The Dream I had that Night. It bears no relation to the situation except by its painful character, and the history of the night would be incomplete without it.

He is in a vast gloomy plain where there is no grass, neither daylight nor night. He walks with the brother of his childish years, the brother he hardly remembers. They speak of a neighbour who always worked with her window open, and they feel cold because of that window. A man passes, entirely nude, the hue of ashes, on a horse the colour of earth. His skull and the veins on it are visible. In his hand a switch as supple as a vine-shoot and as heavy as iron. He says nothing. The brother says, let us take the hollow road, then is gone. A village that must be Romainville. Behind every angle, every door, every tree, a silent man. He asks where he is. No one answers. He leaves the town; the crowd overtakes him, earthen faces, walking faster than he, making no noise. The first man says: Whither are you going? Do you not know that you have been dead this long time? He opens his mouth to reply, and perceives that there is no one near him.

He wakes icy cold. A dawn wind rattles the open window. The fire is out. The candle is nearing its end. Still no stars. Below him, two red stars lengthen and shorten. His thoughts are still half in the dream: there are no stars in the sky; they are on earth now. A second sound rouses him. The stars are the lanterns of a tilbury harnessed to a small white horse. Who is coming so early? A light tap. He shudders and cries, Who is there? The old portress: it is just five o'clock; the cabriolet is here. What cabriolet? What tilbury? Did not the mayor order a tilbury? No. Scaufflaire's coachman. That name is a flash of lightning across his face. He rolls burning wax between his fingers. The old woman waits. What am I to say? Say that it is well, and that I am coming down.