The unnamed narrator dreams of her beloved past home: “Last night I dreamt I went to Manderley again. It seemed to me I stood by the iron gate leading to the drive, and for a while I could not enter, for the way was barred to me” (1). In her dream, the narrator suddenly possesses supernatural powers, passing like a spirit through the padlocked gate down the twisting drive towards the residence. As she advances, she becomes aware that the drive has changed from what she had previously known. The way is now narrow and unkempt, overgrown by nature. Menacing woods have crowded the borders of the drive; its surface is choked with grass. Shrubs that were landmarks of culture and grace during her habitation there are now monstrously high. The drive twists and turns for miles longer than she had remembered.

Then the great house looms. The narrator halts, with tears in her eyes and a thumping heart: “There was Manderley, our Manderley, secretive and silent as it had always been, the grey stone shining in the moonlight of my dream, the mullioned windows reflecting the green lawns and the terrace” (2). Even the passage of time cannot mar the symmetry of Manderley’s walls.