“What he could bear in the waking world he could not by night and he sat awake for fear the dream would return.”

“He purchased that great canvas also bearing the likeness to his beloved, for he could not bear another to look upon what he dreamed each night...but as he now had enjoyed the quite singular pleasure of his wife's true form revealed to him, he knew he would have [it] returned... At one time he had thought it quite impossible, but now he understood how truly inadequate the vision cast by his mind's eye had been.”

“He really had been through death, but he had returned because he could not bear the solitude.”

“Her entire being was like a wonderful yet horrible dream he wasn’t sure he could or would want to wake up from.”

“It was then as he discovered that death could elude him that the fear of death returned.”

“The ground was so far below him, he could barely make it out through the grey mists that whirled around him, but he could feel how fast he was falling, and he knew what was waiting for him down there. Even in dreams, you could not fall forever. He would wake up in the instant before he hit the ground, he knew. You always woke in the instant before you hit the ground.”