He yells at his wife to stop. But, as so often happens in dreams, he has no voice. So they continue, without words, without problems, the shade of the trees always stretching before them. They encounter no obstacles along the way. Although he kept anticipating accidents, they had none. This perhaps was the most disturbing part of the dream.
Now, it is the middle of the night, his wife still asleep. Though for him, since he had just returned from a trip abroad it felt like morning. He has the impulse to get up, to start the day. He still belongs to the daily rhythm of another country, which he had already left, where the sky is already blue.
He can’t manage to fall asleep; the dream weighs too heavily on his mind. He fears that there are other absences, other things would disappear. He wants to make sure the floor under his bed has not vanished, that the four walls are still there.
His wife is still there, to his left, as in the dream. He sees her bare arms, her features highlighted by the full moon.
Remnants of supper are still on the table. The wife had prepared a festive meal in honor of his return. He had had no appetite; the happy noises around the table had annoyed him. At that hour, after a long journey, he had just wanted to go to bed.
Instead, he had remained seated at the table, recounting for his guests, his dear friends, all his experiences abroad: the land he had visited, his rented apartment, the city’s uniqueness. He spoke of the people and their personalities and described his work. And at a certain point, to satisfy one guest’s curiosity, he said a few words in that foreign tongue he had learned, feeling at that moment a stranger in his own house.