Part 14 (1/2)

Whenever another woman stepped across my path in life, threatening to endanger the soundness of my union with Lucia, she would dream of a large, wild horse that frightened her or bore down upon her. Sometimes it was white, sometimes brown, sometimes black, - there also would be two or three of them; they menaced and frightened her, but did her no harm. She always faithfully and unsuspectingly reported to me when she had again dreamt of horses, without having the least idea that for me this was a stern and covert warning.

For it never failed, whenever I had fallen into serious temptation - which, after the peaceful and secluded years at Como, was quite inevitable on our numerous journeys - she would very soon come to me with her innocent story that she had again been worried by the troublesome horses.

And as I know that not only she, but my mother too sometimes, as well as other women I have known, have been warned in this strange way, I would advise you, dear reader, to pay attention to this. It may have been a strange chance and coincidence; it may also be peculiarly proper to me and the persons a.s.sociated with me, - but it may also have a more universal meaning, and no wonder, if we take into consideration the presumable slight cooperation of the men, that the women have not yet ascertained this meaning. But we should make reservations before sowing suspicion between the innocent!

After my first vision of Emmy I lived in a peculiar state of outward calm and inward happiness. To Lucia I was kind, tender and solicitous, but I did not feel myself her husband, nor could I approach her as such without a sense of guilt. At Como the temptations besetting my life as a youth had vanished. The close application to study, the simple, rural life, the absence of temptation, the pure, serene atmosphere of the little domestic circle - all this had given me support and kept me out of difficulties.

And when I travelled with Lucia the strange fact revealed itself that, mindful of Emmy's love and her appearance to me, I charged myself with sin and baseness for what everyone considered just and lawful. The temptation against which I fought and to which, bitterly ashamed, I nevertheless repeatedly yielded, now no longer went out from hapless prost.i.tutes, but from the beautiful and amiable woman whom I had made my wife. It would all have sounded very queer to other people, but once for all it was so, my spirit responded to life in its own original way and would not be forced. It was of no avail that I told myself how differently the world judged, and I was just as unhappy when I had yielded to Lucia's charms as when I had succ.u.mbed to the intrigues of a strange woman. But nevertheless one as well as the other occurred, for the incongruous relations in my heart and life were not ordered and the wild l.u.s.ts remained untamed. While all who knew me accounted me lucky on account of my marriage, I led for many long years a hard and tortured life. My love and devotion to my wife and children were forced and strained, and I grieved bitterly that so much beauty and loveliness did not attract my natural interest. My task was a giant task that often seemed too mighty for me, and what I attained was nothing unusual, nothing but what everyone expected as self-understood. I was called a good husband and father, but no one knew the enormous effort it cost me, and how far I still fell short, and no one would have believed me or showed me sympathetic understanding.

When I had succeeded in summoning my father in the night and thus knew that I possessed this power, the nights in which I penetrated to the clear dream-sphere became all the more important to me.

And when I had seen Emmy in the common dream-sphere, in the sphere of the dead, but without being myself clearly conscious, my first thought that morning was to call her as soon as the sphere of clear perception should open before me. And with great suspense I awaited such a night, and morning after morning was disappointed and vexed that this clarity had not come. For as I said before, sometimes this perception eludes me for months and the dreams are on the ordinary confused, insignificant order. Then all at once some inexplainable cause summons forth the good, happy and clear moments of perception three or four nights in succession.

But at last, after all, came the blessed night in which my project was completely realized.

It was after a most tiring and not very pleasant day. A long mountain excursion in the rain. I dreamed that I walked in the street among a crowd of people. Beside me walked a little friend of my youth. Suddenly it shot through my mind like a ray of light that I would call some one, I would summon Emmy. Hastily I said to my comrade: ”I beg your pardon, but I must look for some one, Emmy Tenders!” I did indeed think meanwhile that I was giving publicity to something very intimate, but the matter was too important, I had to say the name. Then I ran through the crowd searching and calling: ”Emmy! Emmy!” Meanwhile, I thought that I should be heard calling in my sleep, that Lucia would hear me. I pa.s.sed by trees and verdure, observing everything sharply and distinctly. Busily absorbed in my quest I murmured to myself: ”Yes! I see it distinctly - autumn sun on elm leaves - small green apples. I can remember their position, but I must have Emmy, - Emmy!”

Then I saw a closed door, and I pointed to it with my finger, saying: She is there! if I open this door I shall see her!

I opened the door and saw - a slaughter house. Pieces of meat, a floor streaming with blood, men slaughtering, a disgusting stench - horrible!

a demon trick to hinder me.

Profound disappointment. Well-nigh despair. I sobbed convulsively, calling ”Emmy!” Meanwhile, again the thought: ”I shall find the marks of my tears on waking.”

I saw a piece of paper and wrote upon it with my finger dipped in blood: ”I was here in my dream”; with a vague hope that this might serve as proof, one of the half-considered ideas that one sometimes has in these dreams.

Then, deeply grieved, I felt myself waking up. But I fell asleep again directly. And then I thought: ”I shall go to her country,” and I ran hurriedly as though I knew the way. I considered meanwhile: ”How shall I get there? She is in India. I don't know the way and yet I am going there.”

Then I felt myself soar and I saw a sea foaming beneath me as in the wake of a big s.h.i.+p, and I saw the gulls flying around above it, preying upon the refuse.

After that a luxuriantly wooded mountain and on its slope a house. I hurriedly flew down and went into the house. I heard knocking and thought: ”There she is.”

I saw a door on which it said: ”Waiting room,” and it opened slowly. A figure emerged from it.

”Can it be she? She does not resemble her. And it so often happens that people are quite different in dreams. How can that give me a.s.surance?”

I came up closely. She had wound her thick blonde hair in braids around her head and upon it rested a wreath of myrtle and orange blossoms. I saw distinctly the small, s.h.i.+ny dark green leaves and the little reddish twigs - and I smelled the sweet fragrance of the orange blossoms. I looked at her and they were her eyes - very serious as though absorbed in her own deep thoughts.

Then I folded her in my arms and I knew positively that it was she and I called out pa.s.sionately: ”Are you there? How sweet of you that you came after all!” It was very happy - happier than any moment of my waking life has ever been.

I woke up, no longer sad, but very serious, and also, for the first time after such a dream, a trifle tired.

I did not find any marks of tears and I asked Lucia whether she had heard me cry or speak or making a noise in my sleep.

”No,” she said. ”You were lying still and tranquilly sleeping, I believe. I was awake early. I again had such a disquieting dream about that white horse. It was a splendid creature with a heavy full mane, a long white tail and red glittering eyes. I stood close beside him and he would not let me pa.s.s. I was frightened to death, but when I kept quiet he did not harm me.”

XVIII

Very few people, you, dear reader, excepted, will find anything important or curious in these records. The lay philistine will consider them an idle play of the imagination for his amus.e.m.e.nt, and speedily forget them. The philistine scholar will smilingly utter a few words of authority, whereby he will consider the matter explained and settled.

There is such a one, his book is lying before me, who pretends to have solved the entire mystery of dreams. Mind it well - the entire mystery.