“Here,” he said, “let me help you to your feet.” He bent down and put his gloved hands behind my shoulders and under my arms. He smelled of black soap. “On the count of three,” he said, “un, deux, trois.” I was lifted to my feet and the stranger released his grip slowly so that I might bear the weight of my body. I felt a sharp pain in my left ankle and let out a strangled cry. The stranger had to catch me to stop me from falling again. “You are injured, sir, and your wounds must be treated. Allow me to take you back to my mistress’s quarters so that you may receive the rest and medical attention you require.”

Naturally, my first inclination was to refuse him, to insist on continuing to the tavern. But a wave of weariness descended upon me, and all I wanted to do was sleep. “Yes,” I said, swaying on my feet until I sank into his arms, “rest and attention. That is precisely what I need.”

Go here.

A Touching Reunion

EVER SINCE I WAS a young man, I have been prone to bouts of a kind of nocturnal dementia, awoken by the terrors of my dreams, finding myself sitting upright in the dark, my entire body moist with perspiration. As soon as I open my eyes, the offending dream invariably retreats, leaving only the subtlest traces—the white sand of a distant tropic, a great volcano, a storm-tossed sea, overripe flowers, a ship under full sail … And, above all, eyes. Eyes the color of obsidian, eyes I have dreamed of so often I can see them with perfect clarity even when I am awake. Normally this occurs while sleeping in my own bed and, quickly recognizing my familiar surrounds, I can pull myself together, light a candle, perhaps open a book or write until I am lulled back into the arms of Morpheus. In a bygone time, I would have found Jeanne lying beside me, her beguiling black eyes open, awoken by my commotion, and she would have asked me what I had dreamed, and once I’d told her, she would have interpreted my visions according to some far-fetched, pagan mythology of her own devising, in which she and I were the reincarnated souls of an ancient bird-god, until I would once again sink into sleep.