contracted, but always the horror of those immeasurable vastnesses still
ahead of him continued dominant and inevitable. At other times sums of
figures came moving toward him from every direction, and the farther
away from him they were, the more enormous they grew, until his mind no
longer could take them in, and his heart quaked at the thought that
sooner or later one of them would reach him in its original
awe-inspiring immensity.

He tried once to tell his mother about those dreams, but found it
impossible to express what he wished to describe. Not long afterwards he
was aroused in the middle of the night by his mother calling him by
name. Her voice betrayed worry.

"What's the matter, Keith," she asked when at last he woke up
sufficiently to answer her call. "Were you dreaming?"

"I don't know," replied the boy, and at that moment he didn't know.

"I thought first you were crying," explained the mother, "and then I
heard that you were counting something."

"He was probably repeating his multiplication table," muttered the
father. "I wish he would learn his lessons in the daytime, so that we
could sleep in peace at night."

The next morning Keith had forgotten all about it but his mother
reminded him of what had happened during the night in order to find out
whether he had any bad dreams. Keith shook his head. Then a thought
flashed through his mind.