This whole matter interested me deeply， and likewise compelled my sympathy for these homeless ones. And it all seeming real， and I not knowing it was a dream， I mentioned to one shrouded wanderer an idea that had entered my head to publish an account of this curious and very sorrowful exodus， but said also that I could not describe it truthfully， and just as it occurred， without seeming to trifle with a grave subject and exhibit an irreverence for the dead that would shock and distress their surviving friends. But this bland and stately remnant of a former citizen leaned him far over my gate and whispered in my ear， and said：
"Do not let that disturb you. The community that can stand such graveyards as those we are emigrating from can stand anything a body can say about the neglected and forsaken dead that lie in them."
At that very moment a cock crowed， and the weird procession vanished and left not a shred or a bone behind. I awoke， and found myself lying with my head out of the bed and "sagging" downward considerably—a position favorable to dreaming dreams with morals in them， maybe， but not poetry.
NOTE.—The reader is assured that if the cemeteries in his town are kept in good order， this Dream is not leveled at his town at all， but is leveled particularly and venomously at the next town.
前天夜裏，我做了一個古怪的夢。夢裏的我坐在門前的台階上（我也不知道這是哪個城市）沉思，時間可能是夜裏12點或1點。天氣溫和宜人，四周寂靜無聲。除了遠處偶爾傳來的幾聲悠遠的狗叫，以及更遠處若有若無的狗吠回應外，再也聽不到任何聲音，四周一片死寂。不久，我聽到大街上傳來一陣類似骨頭摩擦的哢哢聲，我以為那是小夜曲演奏會上響板的聲音。不一會兒，一個高大的骷髏，戴著布帽，半裹著發黴的裹屍布——裹屍布的碎片和脫線在其軀體周圍吊著——邁著莊重的步伐，從我麵前走過，很快便消失在星光朦朧的夜幕裏。