"I'm going to sleep." And half an hour later the thought that it was time
to go to sleep would awaken me; I would try to put away the book which, I
imagined, was still in my hands, and to blow out the light; I had been
thinking all the time, while I was asleep, of what I had just been
reading, but my thoughts had run into a channel of their own, until I
myself seemed actually to have become the subject of my book: a church, a
quartet, the rivalry between Francois I and Charles V. This impression
would persist for some moments after I was awake; it did not disturb my
mind, but it lay like scales upon my eyes and prevented them from
registering the fact that the candle was no longer burning. Then it would
begin to seem unintelligible, as the thoughts of a former existence must
be to a reincarnate spirit; the subject of my book would separate itself
from me, leaving me free to choose whether I would form part of it or no;
and at the same time my sight would return and I would be astonished to
find myself in a state of darkness, pleasant and restful enough for the
eyes, and even more, perhaps, for my mind, to which it appeared
incomprehensible, without a cause, a matter dark indeed.

I would ask myself what o'clock it could be; I could hear the whistling of
trains, which, now nearer and now farther off, punctuating the distance
like the note of a bird in a forest, shewed me in perspective the deserted
countryside through which a traveller would be hurrying towards the
nearest station: the path that he followed being fixed for ever in his
memory by the general excitement due to being in a strange place, to doing
unusual things, to the last words of conversation, to farewells exchanged
beneath an unfamiliar lamp which echoed still in his ears amid the silence
of the night; and to the delightful prospect of being once again at home.

I would lay my cheeks gently against the comfortable cheeks of my pillow,
as plump and blooming as the cheeks of babyhood. Or I would strike a match