Given the thematic importance of dreams and dreaming in the novel, it is not surprising to find Millhauser using a variety of techniques to create mystery, obscurity, and even confusion. For instance, he creates a certain amount of obscurity by offering the reader crucial "absences" at key narrative moments. When Martin proposes to Caroline, we do not actually read of the event itself, merely of events surrounding it.

Martin actually asks Emmeline rather than Caroline, and he does this by, in part, asking her to try the engagement ring on—but Millhauser never mentions the ring itself.

Instead, we are left to guess what it is that Martin takes out of "the blue velvet box" to offer to Emmeline. So rather than the proposal to Caroline we get a proposal to Emmeline, and rather than a direct proposal to Emmeline we get a complicated game with the...