and general
all-round stupendous stupidity of myself, the primitive.

And one thing more, before I end this digression. Have you ever dreamed
that you dreamed? Dogs dream, horses dream, all animals dream. In
Big-Tooth's day the half-men dreamed, and when the dreams were bad they
howled in their sleep. Now I, the modern, have lain down with Big-Tooth
and dreamed his dreams.

This is getting almost beyond the grip of the intellect, I know; but I
do know that I have done this thing. And let me tell you that the
flying and crawling dreams of Big-Tooth were as vivid to him as the
falling-through-space dream is to you.

For Big-Tooth also had an other-self, and when he slept that other-self
dreamed back into the past, back to the winged reptiles and the clash
and the onset of dragons, and beyond that to the scurrying, rodent-like
life of the tiny mammals, and far remoter still, to the shore-slime of
the primeval sea. I cannot, I dare not, say more. It is all too vague
and complicated and awful. I can only hint of those vast and terrific
vistas through which I have peered hazily at the progression of life,
not upward from the ape to man, but upward from the worm.

And now to return to my tale. I, Big-Tooth, knew not the Swift One as a
creature of finer facial and bodily symmetry, with long-lashed eyes and
a bridge to her nose and down-opening nostrils that made toward beauty.
I knew her only as the mild-eyed young female who made soft sounds and
did not fight. I liked to play with her, I knew not why, to seek food
in her company, and to go bird-nesting with her. And I must confess she
taught me things about tree-climbing. She was very wise, very strong,
and no clinging skirts impeded her movements.

It was about this time that a slight defection arose on the part of
Lop-Ear. He got into the habit of wandering off in the direction of the
tree where my mother lived. He had taken a liking to my vicious sister,
and the Chatterer had come to tolerate him. Also, there were several
other young people, progeny of the monogamic couples that lived in the
neighborhood, and Lop-Ear played with these young people.

I could never get the Swift One to join with them. Whenever I visited
them she dropped behind and disappeared. I remember once making a strong
effort to persuade her. But she cast backward, anxious glances, then
retreated, calling to me from a tree. So it was that I did not make a
practice of accompanying Lop-Ear when he w