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Then she looked at me. I thought that she was looking at me for the first time. But then, when she turned around behind the lampand I kept feeling her slippery and oily look in back of me, overmy shoulder, I understood that it was I who was looking at herfor the first time. I lit a cigarette. I took a drag on theharsh, strong smoke, before spinning in the chair, balancing onone of the rear legs. After that I saw her there, as if she'dbeen standing beside the lamp looking at me every night. For afew brief minutes that's all we did: look at each other. I lookedfrom the chair, balancing on one of the rear legs. She stood,with a long and quiet hand on the lamp, looking at me. I saw hereyelids lighted up as on every night. It was then that Iremembered the usual thing, when I said to her: "Eyes of a bluedog." Without taking her hand off the lamp she said to me: "That.We'll never forget that." She left the orbit, sighing: "Eyes of ablue dog. I've written it everywhere."

I saw her walk over to the dressing table. I watched her appearin the circular glass of the mirror looking at me now at the endof a back and forth of mathematical light. I watched her keep onlooking at me with her great hot-coal eyes: looking at me whileshe opened the little box covered with pink mother of pearl. Isaw her powder her nose. When she finished, she closed the box,stood up again, and walked over to the lamp once more, saying:"I'm afraid that someone is dreaming about this room andrevealing my secrets." And over the flame she held the same longand tremulous hand that she had been warming before sitting downat the mirror. And she said: "You don't feel the cold." And Isaid to her: "Sometimes." And she said to me: "You must feel itnow." And then I understood why I couldn't have been alone in theseat. It was the cold that had been giving me the certainty of mysolitude. "Now I feel it," I said. "And it's strange because thenight is quiet. Maybe the sheet fell off." She didn't answer.Again she began to move toward the mirror and I turned again inthe chair, keeping my back to her. Without seeing her, I knewwhat she was doing. I knew that she was sitting in front of themirror again, seeing my back, which had had time to reach thedepths of the mirror and be caught by her look, which had alsohad just enough time to reach the depths and return--before thehand had time to start the second turn--until her lips wereanointed now with crimson, from the first turn of her hand infront of the mirror. I saw, opposite me, the smooth wall, whichwas like another blind mirror in which I couldn't see her--sitting behind me--but could imagine her where she probably wasas if a mirror had been hung in place of the wall. "I see you," Itold her. And on the wall I saw what was as if she had raised hereyes and had seen me with my back turned toward her from thechair, in the depths of the mirror, my face turned toward thewall. Then I saw her lower he eyes again and remain with her eyesalways on her brassiere, not talking. And I said to her again: "Isee you." And she raised her eyes from her brassiere again."That's impossible," she said. I asked her why. And she, with hereyes quiet and on her brassiere again: "Because your face isturned toward the wall." Then I spun the chair around. I had thecigarette clenched in my mouth. When I stayed facing the mirrorshe was back by the lamp. Now she had her hands open over theflame, like the two wings of a hen, toasting herself, and withher face shaded by her own fingers. "I think I'm going to catchcold," she said. "This must be a city of ice." She turned herface to profile and her skin, from copper to red, suddenly becamesad. "Do something about it," she said. And she began to getundressed, item by item, starting at the top with the brassiere.I told her: "I'm going to turn back to the wall." She said: "No.In any case, you'll see me the way you did when your back wasturned." And no sooner had she said it than she was almostcompletely undressed, with the flame licking her long copperskin. "I've always wanted to see you like that, with the skin ofyour belly full of deep pits, as if you'd been beaten." Andbefore I realized that my words had become clumsy at the sight ofher nakedness she became motionless, warming herself on the globeof the lamp, and she said: "Sometimes I think I'm made of metal."She was silent for an instant. The position of her hands over theflame varied slightly. I said: "Sometimes in other dreams, I'vethought you were only a little bronze statue in the corner ofsome museum. Maybe that's why you're cold." And she said:"Sometimes, when I sleep on my heart, I can feel my body growinghollow and my skin is like plate. Then, when the blood beatsinside me, it's as if someone were calling by knocking on mystomach and I can feel my own copper sound in the bed. It's like--what do you call it--laminated metal." She drew closer to thelamp. "I would have liked to hear you," I said. And she said: "Ifwe find each other sometime, put your ear to my ribs when I sleepon the left side and you'll hear me echoing. I've always wantedyou to do it sometime." I heard her breathe heavily as shetalked. And she said that for years she'd done nothing different.Her life had been dedicated to finding me in reality, throughthat identifying phrase: "Eyes of a blue dog." And she went alongthe street saying it aloud, as a way of telling the only personwho could have understood her:

"I'm the one who comes into your dreams every night and tellsyou: 'Eyes of a blue dog.'" And she said that she went intorestaurants and before ordering said to the waiters: "Eyes of ablue dog." But the waiters bowed reverently, without rememberingever having said that in their dreams. Then she would write onthe napkins and scratch on the varnish of the tables with aknife: "Eyes of a blue dog." And on the steamed-up windows ofhotels, stations, all public buildings, she would write with herforefinger: "Eyes of a blue dog." She said that once she wentinto a drugstore and noticed the same smell that she had smelledin her room one night after having dreamed about me. "He must benear," she thought, seeing the clean, new tiles of the drugstore.Then she went over to the clerk and said to him: "I always dreamabout a man who says to me: 'Eyes of a blue dog.'" And she saidthe clerk had looked at her eyes and told her: "As a matter offact, miss, you do have eyes like that." And she said to him: "Ihave to find the man who told me those very words in my dreams."And the clerk started to laugh and moved to the other end of thecounter. She kept on seeing the clean tile and smelling the odor.And she opened her purse and on the tiles with her crimsonlipstick, she wrote in red letters: "Eyes of a blue dog." Theclerk came back from where he had been. He told her: Madam, youhave dirtied the tiles." He gave her a damp cloth, saying: "Cleanit up." And she said, still by the lamp, that she had spent thewhole afternoon on all fours, washing the tiles and saying: "Eyesof a blue dog," until people gathered at the door and said shewas crazy.

Now, when she finished speaking, I remained in the corner,sitting, rocking in the chair. "Every day I try to remember thephrase with which I am to find you," I said. "Now I don't thinkI'll forget it tomorrow. Still, I've always said the same thingand when I wake up I've always forgotten what the words I canfind you with are." And she said: "You invented them yourself onthe first day." And I said to her: "I invented them because I sawyour eyes of ash. But I never remember the next morning." Andshe, with clenched fists, beside the lamp, breathed deeply: "Ifyou could at least remember now what city I've been writing itin."

Her tightened teeth gleamed over the flame. "I'd like to touchyou now," I said. She raised the face that had been looking atthe light; she raised her look, burning, roasting, too, just likeher, like her hands, and I felt that she saw me, in the cornerwhere I was sitting, rocking in the chair. "You'd never told methat," she said. "I tell you now and it's the truth," I said.>From the other side of the lamp she asked for a cigarette. Thebutt had disappeared between my fingers. I'd forgotten I wassmoking. She said: "I don't know why I can't remember where Iwrote it." And I said to her: "For the same reason that tomorrowI won't be able to remember the words." And she said sadly: "No.It's just that sometimes I think that I've dreamed that too." Istood up and walked toward the lamp. She was a little beyond, andI kept on walking with the cigarettes and matches in my hand,which would not go beyond the lamp. I held the cigarette out toher. She squeezed it between her lips and leaned over to reachthe flame before I had time to light the match. "In some city inthe world, on all the walls, those words have to appear inwriting: 'Eyes of a blue dog," I said. "If I remembered themtomorrow I could find you." She raised her head again and now thelighted coal was between her lips. "Eyes of a blue dog," shesighed, remembered, with the cigarette drooping over her chin andone eye half closed. The she sucked in the smoke with thecigarette between her fingers and exclaimed: "This is somethingelse now. I'm warming up." And she said it with her voice alittle lukewarm and fleeting, as if she hadn't really said it,but as if she had written it on a piece of paper and had broughtthe paper close to the flame while I read: "I'm warming," and shehad continued with the paper between her thumb and forefinger,turning it around as it was being consumed and I had just read ".. . up," before the paper was completely consumed and dropped allwrinkled to the floor, diminished, converted into light ash dust."That's better," I said. "Sometimes it frightens me to see youthat way. Trembling beside a lamp."

We had been seeing each other for several years. Sometimes, whenwe were already together, somebody would drop a spoon outside andwe would wake up. Little by little we'd been coming to understandthat our friendship was subordinated to things, to the simplestof happenings. Our meetings always ended that way, with the fallof a spoon early in the morning.

Now, next to the lamp, she was looking at me. I remembered thatshe had also looked at me in that way in the past, from thatremote dream where I made the chair spin on its back legs andremained facing a strange woman with ashen eyes. It was in thatdream that I asked her for the first time: "Who are you?" And shesaid to me: "I don't remember." I said to her: "But I think we'veseen each other before." And she said, indifferently: "I think Idreamed about you once, about this same room." And I told her:"That's it. I'm beginning to remember now." And she said: "Howstrange. It's certain that we've met in other dreams."

She took two drags on the cigarette. I was still standing, facingthe lamp, when suddenly I kept looking at her. I looked her upand down and she was still copper; no longer hard and cold metal,but yellow, soft, malleable copper. "I'd like to touch you," Isaid again. And she said: "You'll ruin everything." I said: "Itdoesn't matter now. All we have to do is turn the pillow in orderto meet again." And I held my hand out over the lamp. She didn'tmove. "You'll ruin everything," she said again before I couldtouch her. "Maybe, if you come around behind the lamp, we'd wakeup frightened in who knows what part of the world." But Iinsisted: "It doesn't matter." And she said: "If we turned overthe pillow, we'd meet again. But when you wake up you'll haveforgotten." I began to move toward the corner. She stayed behind,warming her hands over the flame. And I still wasn't beside thechair when I heard her say behind me: "When I wake up atmidnight, I keep turning in bed, with the fringe of the pillowburning my knee, and repeating until dawn: 'Eyes of a blue dog.'"

Then I remained with my face toward the wall. "It's alreadydawning," I said without looking at her. "When it struck two Iwas awake and that was a long time back." I went to the door.When I had the knob in my hand, I heard her voice again, thesame, invariable. "Don't open that door," she said. "The hallwayis full of difficult dreams." And I asked her: "How do you know?"And she told me: "Because I was there a moment ago and I had tocome back when I discovered I was sleeping on my heart." I hadthe door half opened. I moved it a little and a cold, thinkbreeze brought me the fresh smell of vegetable earth, dampfields. She spoke again. I gave the turn, still moving the door,mounted on silent hinges, and I told her: "I don't think there'sany hallway outside here. I'm getting the smell of country." Andshe, a little distant, told me: "I know that better than you.What's happening is that there's a woman outside dreaming aboutthe country." She crossed her arms over the flame. She continuedspeaking: "It's that woman who always wanted to have a house inthe country and was never able to leave the city." I rememberedhaving seen the woman in some previous dream, but I knew, withthe door ajar now, that within half an hour I would have to godown for breakfast. And I said: "In any case, I have to leavehere in order to wake up."

Outside the wind fluttered for an instant, then remained quiet,and the breathing of someone sleeping who had just turned over inbed could be heard. The wind from the fields had ceased. Therewere no more smells. "Tomorrow I'll recognize you from that," Isaid. "I'll recognize you when on the street I see a womanwriting 'Eyes of a blue dog' on the walls." And she, with a sadsmile--which was already a smile of surrender to the impossible,the unreachable--said: "Yet you won't remember anything duringthe day." And she put her hands back over the lamp, her featuresdarkened by a bitter cloud. "You're the only man who doesn'tremember anything of what he's dreamed after he wakes up."