Quite the opposite. I mean that when we passed into that place that it became all we knew. We knew our names and our purpose there—to claim it—, but not where we had come from or what might have occurred to us before we arrived.

[Clean slates with which to make fools of themselves, he does not say, though it's clear from the stiff line of his put on smile and the grim not-really-humor that he harbors some revulsion over or resentment for the experience.]

You've had such dreams, haven't you? Where you are yourself, but then again are not.