Part 18 (1/2)
”No.”
”Very good. That is all I need to know. I am at your service. What is the matter?”
”If we lived in the Middle Ages,” said Lamberti, ”I should say that I was possessed by the devil, or haunted.” He stopped and laughed oddly.
”Why not say so now?” asked the doctor. ”The names of things do not matter in the least. Let us say that you are haunted, if that describes what troubles you. Very good. What haunts you?”
”A young girl,” Lamberti answered, after a moment's pause.
”Do you mean that you see, or think you see, the apparition of a young girl who is dead?”
”She is alive, but I have only met her once. That is the strange thing about it, or, at least, the beginning of the strange thing. Of course it is perfectly absurd, but when I first saw her, the only time we met, I had the sensation of recognising some one I had not seen for many years.
As she is only just eighteen, that is impossible.”
”Excuse me, my dear sir, nothing is impossible. Every one is absent-minded sometimes. You may have seen the young lady in the street, or at the theatre. You may have stared at her quite unconsciously while you were thinking of something else, and her features may have so impressed themselves upon your memory, without your knowing it, that you actually recognised her when you met her in a drawing-room.”
”I daresay,” admitted Lamberti, indifferently. ”But that is no reason why I should dream of her every night.”
”I am not sure. It might be a reason. Such things happen.”
”And every night when I wake from the dream, I hear some one close the door of my room softly, as if she were just going out. I always lock my door at night.”
”Perhaps it sometimes shakes a little in the frame.”
”It began at home. But I have been stopping in the country nearly a fortnight, and the same thing has happened every night.”
”You dream it. One may get the habit of dreaming the same dream every time one sleeps.”
”It is not always the same dream, though the door is always closed softly when she goes away. But there is something else. I was wrong in saying that I only met the lady once. I should have said that I have spoken with her only once. This is how it happened.”
Lamberti told the doctor the story of his meeting Cecilia at the house of the Vestals. The specialist listened attentively, for he was already convinced that Lamberti was a man of solid reason and practical good sense, probably the victim of a series of coincidences that had made a strong impression on his mind. When Lamberti paused, there was a moment's silence.
”What do you yourself think was the cause of the lady's fright?” asked the doctor at last.
”I believe that she had dreamed the same dream,” Lamberti answered without hesitation.
”What makes you believe anything so improbable?”
”Well--I hardly know. It is an impression. It was all so amazingly real, you see, and when our eyes met, she looked as if she knew exactly what would happen if she did not run away--exactly what had happened in the dream.”
”That was on the morning after you had first dreamt it, you say. Of course it helped very much to strengthen the impression the dream had made, and it is not at all surprising that the dream should have come again. You know as well as I, that a dream which seems to last hours really pa.s.ses in a second, perhaps in no time at all. The slightest sound in your room which suggested the closing of a door would be enough to bring it all back before you were awake, and the sound might still be audible to you.”
”Possibly. Whatever it is, I wish to get rid of it.”
”It may be merely coincidence,” the doctor said. ”I think it is. But I do not exclude the theory that two people who have made a very strong impression one on another, may be the subjects of some sort of mutual thought transference. We know very little about those things. Some queer cases come under my observation, but my patients are never sound and sane men like you. What I should like to know is, why did the lady run away?”
”That is probably the one thing I can never find out,” Lamberti answered.
”There is a very simple way. Ask her.” The doctor smiled. ”Is it so very hard?” he enquired, as Lamberti looked at him in surprise. ”I take it for granted that you can find some opportunity of seeing her in a drawing-room, where she cannot fly from you, and will not do anything to attract attention. What could be more natural than that you should ask her quite frankly why she was so frightened the other day? I do not see how she could possibly be offended. Do you? When you ask her, you need not seem too serious, as if you attached a great deal of importance to what she had done.”