Afterword

Abstract

Last night I dreamt about the house again. The recurrent dream house that is, a confabulation of all the houses I have occupied throughout my life, or have occupied me, as a book occupies one. It contains rooms haunted by memories of actual rooms, annexes, antechambers, and inner sanctums: rooms translated from the real world, marvellously strange in their familiarity. Sometimes I find myself in an Aladdin’s cave of books, books not to be found in any known catalogue, but discovered by me time after time in dream after dream year after year. I open them in satisfied amazement. Last night I found myself in a basement, though any house I have lived in has been devoid of such a feature; but I know it of old. An earthen floor, a few sticks of furniture, a gaping zigzag crack running down the brick chimneybreast. I had been here before many times and knew what to do. I climbed the ladder to the other room before I woke. I remembered Mangan had been on my mind before I fell asleep.