in the dream

i found that i was sitting with magritte in his studio while he painted and that as his back was facing me he began chatting about king cambyses, and so, he's telling me all kinds of things, about the tales of the lost army sent to destroy the oracle of amun in the oasis of siwa, a later propaganda by darius he explains, the stories of cambyses' madness supposedly brought on by the killing of the sacred bull of apis which leads him to commit many other crimes, killing his brother and his sister, and then, how at last he loses his empire and dies from a wound in the thigh, at the same place where he had wounded the sacred animal, probably also legend, or propaganda, etc, either by herodotus or some earlier proto-historian, and all the while he is painting a wonderfully detailed portrait of cousin itt, and so suddenly i feel a bit faint, a bit anxious, a bit paranoid. the portrait is from that episode where cousin itt decides to become an actor, (but he looks like a beatnik wearing a beret) and then suddenly contracts an 'illness' and loses his illegibility which to the other addamses is in fact just his charming manner of speaking.. in fact he begins to speak in perfect shakespearean english.. so then i start to see a symbolism, and the door that opens is on cousin itt as a symbol of lies, narratology, and history all combined as in 'a shaggy dog story', and tho the idiomatic match is imperfect, in the dream, it makes complete sense, and i am kind of starting to reel, to ask myself loosely rambling existential questions etc, losing it a bit really when magritte finally turns, perhaps sensing my trepidation, and he speaks: is something wrong? but his face! his face! his face is a miniature image of his suited back turned away from me! and in the middle is a little cut out cube where his mouth should be, and hovering inside is a little bowler hat that whirls round and round every time he speaks.. i say, is something wrong with you mr. quarles? hat whirling mouth. hat whirling mouth, tiny sports jacket back face and tiny back of head. that's when i notice that i am completely covered in hair, that i am all naked except for the floor length hair growing longer even as i discover it! calm yourself my friend, you are no doomed psamtik, here, and he goes over to a table, to a lovely hollow bronze bull sculpture with a ladle hung by its side, and he takes a little bronze cup and ladles something dark and red into it.. here! have some bull's blood!