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That morning, as he conversed with the Princess Melissa, he tried to explain to her something even more strange than sleep–the dreams that come to one in sleep. The two walked alone through the forest together.

“Tell me,” said the Princess, “do you think that I also could sleep and have a dream? I know it is bizarre and morbid, but I long passionately and above all things to have this strange experience.”

“So far as I can judge,” said her companion, “you are constructed precisely as the women of the rest of the world, where sleep is a nightly event. I may be wrong, but I should imagine that if the initial impulse could be given to you, you also would sleep.”

The Princess clasped her hands in ecstasy. “How perfectly splendid!” she said. “But then how am I to get the initial impulse?”

“What,” asked the man, “is that glow of red amid the yellow in the field yonder?”

“That is where poppies grow among ripening corn. But what have they to do with the initial impulse?”

“They are it,” said the stranger; “by means of those poppies I could prepare for you the secret of sleep. But there would be a risk.”

“You told me just now that in a dream it seemed to you that you were sitting in a boat with an elephant, drinking tea, and the elephant had on a small white coat with a rose in its buttonhole. That seemed as real to you in the dream as it seems now that you are walking with me on the edge of the forest?”

“Quite as real, absolutely real.”

“Then for such a miraculous experience as that, who would not run any risk? Come, we will go and gather poppies.”

For the next few days the stranger was shut up in his apartments in the palace, making the sleep-producing drug of which he knew. He had to test it many times, that he might be assured that the Princess ran no risk. And during these days the Princess Melissa gathered dry bracken and carried it to the ruined temple that stood in the heart of the forest. For it was there that she meant to yield to her great adventure.

The man continued to sleep at nights, always before a good audience. For the wonderful story had been bruited abroad, and all the people in the land were eager to see. One night he slept for a charity in which the King was interested. Money was turned away at the doors, and the thing was a great financial success. But one newspaper of the island complained of the morbid character of the exhibition. “We cannot,” wrote the editor, “approve that this poor sufferer should be made to earn money by what is doubtless his disease.”

The time came at last on a hot afternoon in July. The Princess drank the potion that was given her and lay down on the bed of bracken. The stranger watched by her side.

“It is going to fail. I am not asleep,” said the Princess; “I do not see elephants or boats or anything but what is really here.”

“Close your eyes,” said the stranger; “relax your muscles, breathe regularly, and count every breath you take up to ten. Then begin to count again.”

“It is no use,” said the Princess wearily.

But in a few minutes she was fast asleep.

The Princess was young. Two years before she had fallen in love with a man whom she could not marry, and the man had fallen in love with her. There had been no scandal, such was the discretion that they used, but there had been material for a scandal. The matter was all over now, for the man in his wisdom had gone away.

When the Princess awoke, she sighed deeply.

“You have slept?” said the man.

“I have.”

“You have dreamed?”

“I have.”

“Tell me your dream.”

“I cannot tell you my dream, but I have been to Paradise.”

“Les yeux gris vont au Paradis,” quoted the man.