"Well now, truly, sir", said Colombo, "This is very curious. For
I do not remember seeing you among the crew nor were you ever at
the court, and on the whole", said Colombo, "your red hair and
your sneering grin interrupt my dreams, and dreams", said
Colombo, "are all that I have left."

"For know you, sir", continued he to the stranger who did not
speak, "that on this earth man has been able to endure only by
playing the ape to his dreams. And in every generation", said
Colombo, "there have been those who dreamed of beautiful things
and in every age there have been those who caught some glimpse of
that perfect beauty which the Greeks call Helen, and to have seen
Helen", said Colombo, "is to have been touched with divine and
unbearable madness."

And it became strangely quiet in the cabin as Colombo continued:

"And those authors who wrote perfectly of beautiful dreams", said
he, "will, perchance, endure, and those who saw only men as they
are, will perish--for so has it been in the past and so will it
be in the future. All of which", said Colombo, "is a rather
tiresome and pedantic excuse for the fact that I am about to read
you my own poem."

And Colombo read to the stranger the dream of the land of
Colombo's imagining, and when he had finished the stranger smiled
and shook his head sadly.

"Come, now," said Colombo, somewhat hurt. "Do not, I pray you,