Volume VIII Part 30 (1/2)

DREAMS

It was after a dinner of friends, of old friends There were five of them, a writer, a doctor, and three rich bachelors without any profession

They had talked about everything, and a feeling of lassitude ca of lassitude which precedes and leads to the departure of guests after festive gatherings One of those present, who had for the last fiveboulevard starred with gas-la with vehicles, said suddenly:

”When you've nothing to do frohts, too,” assented the guest who sat next to hiue me; conversation is monotonous

Never do I co to anyone, a violent longing to say nothing and listen to nothing I don't knohat to do with s”

And the third idler re that would enable me to pass merely two pleasant hours every day”

Then the writer, who had just thrown his overcoat across his arm, turned round to them and said:

”Thehis fellow-creatures, even though it were to shorten their lives, would render a greater service to hu to them eternal salvation and eternal youth”

The doctor burst out laughing, and, while he chewed his cigar, he said:

”Yes, but 'tis not so easy as that to discover it Men have, however crudely, been seeking for and working for the object you refer to since the beginning of the world The men who came first reached perfection at once in this way We are hardly equal to them”

One of the three idlers murmured:

”'Tis a pity!”

Then, after a minute's pause, he added:

”If we could only sleep, sleep ithout feeling hot or cold, sleep with that perfect unconsciousness we experience on nights e are thoroughly fatigued, sleep without drea next to him

The other replied:

”Because dreams are not always pleasant, and they are always fantastic, improbable, disconnected, and because e are asleep we cannot have the sort of dreams we like We require to be ae drea so?” asked the writer

The doctor flung away the end of his cigar

”My dear fellow, in order to dreareat exercise of will, and when you try to do it, great weariness is the result Now, real dreahtful visions, is assuredly the sweetest experience in the world; but it must come naturally, it must not be provoked in a painful manner, and must be acco I can give you provided you proed his shoulders:

”Ah! yes, I know--haschich, opiureen tea--artificial paradises I have read Baudelaire, and I even tasted the fa, whichfro but ether, and I would suggest that you literary ht to use it sometimes”