M’lord,

I should have liked to have added to the above that this ‘invented life’, which man calls human existence, is conceived and born in dreams, and that reality does not exist except in opposition to the dream, just as dream is dream only in comparison with reality. They are the ink and the paper for the same piece of writing. And if now this invented life, this created reality, comes alive and truly exists in space and time, then the more orthodox view of reality (daylight, the tedium of work, dying) must therefore be a dream. Do I dream I’m alive or do I live as if I’m a-dream?

The mess in which I now find myself – my reason for turning to you – has outlines at times so vague that I must ask myself if it is a-dream or reality. One thing, however, is as clear as daylight: without any doubt, it did happen. ‘Happen’ is my private attempt at synthesizing the otherwise irreconcilable opposites of reality and dream: it is in truth the common denominator. For what is ‘happen’? Does it depend upon the evidence of witnesses? Just say for argument’s sake that I have stubbed my toe somewhere and nobody saw it, and after an hour or more I no longer feel it: did it then still take place? Happening is the heritage of a feeling. In this sense I can assure you that what I intend to describe here truly did happen to me. I furthermore include a duly signed statement from a witness – who will only emerge later in this writing. (That is if I can lay my hand on the statement.)