Original artwork, not a still
The Long Dark Tea-Time of the Soul • 1988
You would probably not say that he was sleeping the sleep of the just, unless you meant the just asleep, but it was certainly the sleep of someone who was not fooling about when he climbed into bed at night and turned off the light.
Behind the line
What it means
Our interpretation.
The passage starts to connect deep sleep with moral innocence, then immediately withdraws the implication. A pun reduces the sleep of the just to being merely asleep. The elaborate qualification makes the man’s wholehearted commitment to sleeping funny without granting him any particular virtue.
Context reviewed
