جميعنا, في جزء ما من أنفسنا, نعيش وراء الزمن. ربما أننا لا نعي عمرنا إلا في لحظات استثنائية, وأننا معظم الوقت أشخاص بلا أعمار. - Milan Kundera

The meaning did not precede the dream; the dream preceded the meaning. So the way to read the tale is to let the imagination carry one along. Not, above all, as a rebus to be decoded.

The girl was grateful to the young man for every bit of flattery; she wanted to linger for a moment in its warmth and so she said, 'You're very good at lying.'

'Do I look like a liar?'

'You look like you enjoy lying to women,' said the girl, and into her words there crept unawares a touch of the old anxiety, because she really did believe that her young man enjoyed lying to women.

He suddenly recalled from Plato's Symposium: People were hermaphrodites until God split them in two, and now all the halves wander the world over seeking one another. Love is the longing for the half of ourselves we have lost.