THAT NIGHT, the dwarf came into my dream again, and again I knew it was a dream. He was sitting on a log in the middle of the clearing in the forest, smoking a cigarette. This time he had neither record player nor records. There were signs of weariness in his face that made him look a little more advanced in years than he had when I first saw him—though in no way could he be taken for someone who had been born before the revolution. He looked perhaps two or three years older than me, but it was hard to tell. That’s the way it is with dwarfs.

For lack of anything better to do, I strolled around the dwarf, looked up at the sky, and finally sat down beside him. The sky was gray and overcast, and black clouds were drifting westward. It might have begun to rain at any time. The dwarf had probably put away the records and player to keep them from being rained on.

“Hi,” I said to the dwarf.

“Hi,” he answered.

“Not dancing today?” I asked.

“No, not today,” he said.

When he wasn’t dancing, the dwarf was a feeble, sad-looking creature. You would never guess that he had once been a proud figure of authority in the royal palace.

“You look a little sick,” I said.

“I am,” he replied. “It can be very cold in the forest. When you live alone for a long time, different things start to affect your health.”

“That’s terrible,” I said.

“I need energy. I need a new source of energy flowing in my veins—energy that will enable me to dance and dance, to get wet in the rain without catching cold, to run through the fields and hills. That’s what I need.”

“Gosh,” I said.

We sat on the log for a long time, saying nothing. From far overhead, I heard the wind in the branches. Flitting among the trunks of the trees, a huge butterfly would appear and disappear.

“Anyhow,” he said, “you wanted me to do something for you.”

“I did?” I had no idea what he was talking about.

The dwarf picked up a branch and drew a star on the ground. “The girl,” he said. “You want the girl, don’t you?”

He meant the pretty new girl in Stage 8. I was amazed that he knew so much. Of course, this was a dream, so anything could happen.

“Sure, I want her. But I can’t ask you to help me get her. I’ll have to do it myself.”

“You can’t.”

“What makes you so sure?”

“I know,” he said. “Go ahead and get angry, but the fact is you can’t do it yourself.”