By Michel Leiris (1901–90), from Nights as Day, Days as Night, a chronicle of the author’s dreams between 1923 and 1961. The book was published last month by Spurl Editions. Translated from the French by Richard Sieburth.

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A beautiful American woman, a writer or an artist, makes an appointment to meet me in a huge, ultramodern luxury hotel. I suspect she is affiliated with some secret society that is out to get me but I decide to meet her nonetheless. I am shown into a sitting room that connects to a smaller room through two…