Sleep no more.

Turn down the lights.

Sink back in your chair and don't look into the shadows.

In the shadows, there may be moving things.

Tonight, it may be, you will sleep no more.

No. sleep no more. I'm going to get well, Mary Ann.

I'm not going to die.

I feel disappointed.

No, no, it's not true.

It's not.

Now, though he couldn't see her face through the hot blur of fever,

he could hear her crying, sobbing and shaking,

with her fist pressed tight against her teeth.

Such a fool.

On the eighth morning,

Norius woke full of strange fiery brilliance,

as if all his flesh were glass not yet cooled from the furnace.

He knew the fever was worse, close to its crisis,

and yet it no longer had the quality of darkness and mists.

Everything was sharp and clear.

The red of his necktie hanging in the corner of the bureau mirror was aflame.

He could hear the minutest stirrings down in the kitchen,

...