She sleeps. And now she wakes each day a little less. And, each day, takes less and less nourishment, as if grudging the least moment of wakefulness, for, from the movement under her eyelids, and the somnolent gestures of her hands and feet, it seems as if her dreams grow more urgent and intense, as if the life she lives in the closed world of dreams is now about to possess her utterly, as if her small, increasingly reluctant awakenings were an interpretation of some more vital existence, so she is loath to spend even those necessary moments of wakefulness with us, wakings strange as her sleeping. Her marvelous fate - a sleep more lifelike than the living, a dream which consumes the world.' And, sir,' concluded Fevers, in a voice that now took on the somber, majestic tones of a great organ, 'we do believe. . . Her dream will be the coming century.' And, oh, God. . . How frequently she weeps!

Nights at the Circus