The Night Circus
by Erin Morgenstern
Contents
The Pool of Tears
Overview
An unnamed visitor enters a tent called the Pool of Tears, carrying a black stone as instructed, and discovers a glowing pool filled with identical stones. The tent’s stillness draws out buried grief and fresh pain until the stone feels weighted with those memories. Dropping it into the pool brings a palpable sense of release, showing how the circus invites audiences to shed emotional burdens.
Summary
A sign outside a circus tent instructs visitors to take a smooth black stone from a small box before entering.
Inside, the tent is dark and still, with open black umbrellas covering the ceiling and their curved handles hanging down. In the center sits a shallow pool contained by a black stone wall and ringed with white gravel, the air tinged with ocean salt.
Looking into the pool, the visitor sees a shifting glow rising through the water from hundreds of identical black stones resting on the bottom. The light throws rippling reflections that make the whole tent feel submerged.
Sitting by the pool and turning the stone in hand, the visitor is overcome by melancholy as old and new sorrows surface—disappointments, heartbreak, loneliness. The stone feels heavier until it is dropped into the glowing water, and the visitor feels lighter, as if releasing more than a simple rock.
Who Appears
- Circus patron (unnamed)Second-person visitor who releases remembered grief by dropping a black stone into the pool.