and the leaping fires and shifting shadows in my tortured brain drove me down and down , along the stairs of degradation , uncaring until at last i found surcease in yin shatu 's temple of dreams , where i slew my red dreams in other dreams -- the dreams of hashish whereby a woman may descend to the lower pits of the reddest hells or soar into those unnamable heights where the stars are diamond pinpoints beneath her feet .