She dreamt she saw the Polish Rider passing slowly by and he was weeping and she called out to him, but he turned his head away. She dreamt that she was drowning in the pool of tears.

It was like a comedy by Shakespeare. All the ends of the story were being bound up in a good way.

This then was love, to look and look until one exists no more, this was the love which was the same as death.

Clement, usually a fluent speaker in any situation, could hear his voice assuming a pompous and affected tone, not unlike that which many actors use (wrongly in Clement's view) when playing Polonius.

Was it here, after all, that everything broke down and descended into a roaring shaft of shattered masks and crumpled rose petals and bloody feathers?