At the head of the party is a man I do not recognize at first. Completely bald, his pate gleams with sweat as he leads the others through the trees. Baffled, I watch his progress for a while until at last it comes to me. Even though I have had this dream dozens of times before, on every fresh occasion I am astonished by the realization. It is the Somnambulist, stripped at last of his sideboards and wig, of the props and make-believe of his life with Moon, come at last into the cleansing light of revelation. His skin is untanned and, as ever, he says nothing.
At length, the party emerges at the edge of the forest on a small promontory some feet from the ground. They look down and see below them the great expanse of the Susquehanna, its thick blue ribbon coiling through the landscape, framed on either side by lush, glorious swathes of perfect green, unpeopled, fertile, poised for Pantisocracy.
The Somnambulist gazes upon this sliver of Eden and smiles. Then he opens his mouth and — to my everlasting surprise and joy — he speaks. His voice sounds nothing like what I had expected.
“Well, then,” he says. “Where do we start?”
Table of Contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
The Somnambulist: A Novel Page 32