Perhaps the closest analogues to Enchanted Night may be found in two tales by Millhauser from his collection The Knife Thrower and Other Stones. In "Clair de Lune," a fifteenyear-old insomniac feels compelled to escape the oppressive atmosphere of his bedroom. Like Laura, he intuitively follows a course set by a seemingly sentient moon.

Although he imagines himself on a rope swing in the backyard of a schoolmate he barely knows (much like Janet with her unnamed lover in the novella), the speaker of "Clair de Lune" eventually finds himself engaged in a game of Wiffle ball that seems subversive as a secret ritual, primitive as a fertility rite. He recognizes his playmates as girls he has glimpsed at school but, somehow, they are transfigured; even their gender seems uncertain under the strangely radiant moon. Cast as "a night of revelations," this effervescent evening is imbued...