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He closed the book when the lines began to double and lay back against the pillow. The bed was a high old frame, the canopy hanging from four posts, a wooden rod along the headboard carrying the back curtain. The room was still. He listened to the lamp’s small hiss and closed his eyes.

The hiss changed into the scrape and rattle of cart wheels on stone. He was standing at a street corner, and the cart passed close enough that he stepped back against a wall. The street was crowded. Men and women moved quickly along the narrow pavement, almost all of them wearing tricolour cockades in their hats. Placards pasted to the wall carried printed notices, but he did not stop to read them. Two National Guardsmen walked behind the cart, muskets sloped on their shoulders. Several passers-by glanced at him and then away. Maury waited until the guards had passed, then walked the other way. He had somewhere to reach. He could not have named the street or the house, but the purpose was in him, immediate and clear.

At a corner near a public fountain, a guard held up a hand. “Your papers, citizen.”

Maury stopped. He reached into his coat and found folded papers against his breast. He did not remember putting them there. He handed them to the guard. The guard unfolded them, frowned, and looked from the page to Maury’s face.

“You are Maury?”

“Yes.”

“This certificate says you are employed by the Committee of Public Safety.”

“That is a mistake,” Maury said.

The guard called to a second man, who took the papers and read them. “Where do you live?”

Maury tried to answer. He knew his name. He knew his work, the titles of books he had read, the smell of paper and old leather. But he could not recall the house where he slept or the street outside it.

“I am a scholar,” he said. “I arrived recently. There has been a mistake.”

“You arrived recently,” the second guard said, “but you cannot say from where. You know your name, but not your residence. You carry a committee pass but say you are a scholar.” He folded the papers and took Maury by the arm. “The tribunal will sort out your memory.”

“I have committed no crime.”

“Then this will be quick,” the guard said.

They put him in a line of prisoners. The line moved along the middle of the street while people pressed against the walls to watch. Beside him walked an older man whose grey hair had come loose from its ribbon. He saw Maury glance at the guards.

“You are still trying to understand it,” the older man said. “That stopped helping me on Tuesday.”

“I was arrested by mistake,” Maury said.

“Everyone in this line was arrested by mistake. The mistake is the law now. It walks in a uniform and carries a list.”

Maury watched a woman at a window close her shutter. “I will explain myself to the judge.”

“Save your words. The judges don’t hear words. They hear a name on a list. If the name is yours, the defense is already written.”

They were taken through a stone arch into a courtyard and then down steps into a long room with a high, barred window. The cell was crowded. Maury found a space against the damp wall and sat. His mouth was dry. A guard came at intervals to call names, and each time the whole room stilled. The light at the window moved slowly across the stone, white to grey. He rehearsed what he would say: I am Alfred Maury, a scholar. I have committed no crime. But beyond that the words dissolved. The street, the house, the reason for his journey, all of it was gone. He was thirsty. He asked the older man how long they would wait.

“Until the cart is full,” the man said. “Then a little longer, for ceremony.”

Later, a guard spoke his name. He was led upstairs to a room where three judges sat behind a plain table. The hearing lasted only a few minutes. The judge in the centre asked his name, his occupation, his residence. Maury answered what he could.

“You cannot remember where you live,” the judge said.

“No, citizen.”

“But you carry a pass issued by the Committee. Why do you carry it?”

“I do not know.”

“You do not know why you carry your own pass. You do not know where you live. You know only your name. That is convenient for a man who wishes to leave his past behind.” The judge made a mark on the paper before him. “The tribunal condemns you to death.”

The words came without anger. A guard took Maury’s arm and turned him toward the door.

He was returned to the prisoners only long enough to be tied with the others. They were taken into the courtyard and made to climb into a tumbril. The cart had high iron wheels and no shelter. Eight prisoners stood pressed together, hands bound. The older man stood next to him again. The cart moved out into the street.

The crowd had gathered along the route. A woman selling bread paused beside her stall, her hands white with flour. A child was lifted onto a man’s shoulders for a better view. Some spectators jeered. Many watched silently. Maury looked at a woman near a corner, and she turned away. He tried to understand how an ordinary morning had become his last. The wheels jolted over the uneven stones. The older man watched the rooftops.

“At least the driver knows the way,” he said.

Maury could not answer.

The guillotine stood at the far side of a square. Its platform was raised, two high posts supporting a heavy crosspiece. The blade hung above it. The cart stopped. Guards took the prisoners down one by one. The crowd pressed against a line of soldiers. Maury said to the guard beside him, “I am innocent.”

The guard kept his eyes on the back of the prisoner ahead. They led him up the steps. The executioner took his elbow. Maury saw the plank, the hinged wooden restraint, the basket, the sun on the edge of the blade. His hands were bound. He said again, “There has been a mistake.”

The executioner said, “Bend forward.” His voice was tired.

They forced him down. The wooden restraint closed around his neck. He heard a metallic clack, then the sliding sound of the blade. Something struck the back of his neck.

He opened his eyes. The room was dark and close. The bed curtains sagged to one side, spilling across his shoulder. For several seconds he expected the square around him, the crowd, the bright blade. He tried to lift his hands and found them free. He touched his neck. No wound. A wooden rod lay across the pillow, one end pressing at the base of his skull. He sat up. The canopy had partly collapsed above him, its back curtain hanging at a slant.

He picked up the rod and held it. The blow at his neck had been this piece of wood. He sat with it across his knees while the room settled around him. The arrest, the hours in the cell, the short trial, the cart, the steps, the face of the executioner, all of it remained whole in his memory. The rod had fallen. In the time of that fall, his mind had built a long day and carried him through it.

He turned the rod over in his hands. It was smooth and cool. A few inches away lay the book he had been reading. Outside, the street was quiet. The long day remained inside him, minute and complete, beneath the damaged canopy.

This story is based on a true account included in Andrew Lang’s The Book of Dreams and Ghosts. You can read the original account in the free Project Gutenberg edition. And if you are interested in fresh and modern content about dreams that came true, you can find them in my book “Dreams That Wake You Up”, a collection of real dreams and real outcomes, directly from my clients, printed with their consent.

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