Dream Tales and Prose Poems Read online

  'But what next? We cannot live together, can we? Then must I die so as to be with her? Is it not for that she has come; and is it not so she means to take me captive?

  'Well; what then? If I must die, let me die. Death has no terrors for me now. It cannot, then, annihilate me? On the contrary, only thus and there can I be happy … as I have not been happy in life, as she has not…. We are both pure! Oh, that kiss!'

  * * * * *

  Platonida Ivanovna was incessantly coming into Aratov's room. She did not worry him with questions; she merely looked at him, muttered, sighed, and went out again. But he refused his dinner too: this was really too dreadful. The old lady set off to an acquaintance of hers, a district doctor, in whom she placed some confidence, simply because he did not drink and had a German wife. Aratov was surprised when she brought him in to see him; but Platonida Ivanovna so earnestly implored her darling Yashenka to allow Paramon Paramonitch (that was the doctor's name) to examine him—if only for her sake—that Aratov consented. Paramon Paramonitch felt his pulse, looked at his tongue, asked a question, and announced at last that it was absolutely necessary for him to 'auscultate' him. Aratov was in such an amiable frame of mind that he agreed to this too. The doctor delicately uncovered his chest, delicately tapped, listened, hummed and hawed, prescribed some drops and a mixture, and, above all, advised him to keep quiet and avoid any excitement. 'I dare say!' thought Aratov; 'that idea's a little too late, my good friend!' 'What is wrong with Yasha?' queried Platonida Ivanovna, as she slipped a three-rouble note into Paramon Paramonitch's hand in the doorway. The district doctor, who like all modern physicians—especially those who wear a government uniform—was fond of showing off with scientific terms, announced that her nephew's diagnosis showed all the symptoms of neurotic cardialgia, and there were febrile symptoms also. 'Speak plainer, my dear sir; do,' cut in Platonida Ivanovna; 'don't terrify me with your Latin; you're not in your surgery!' 'His heart's not right,' the doctor explained; 'and, well—there's a little fever too' … and he repeated his advice as to perfect quiet and absence of excitement. 'But there's no danger, is there?' Platonida Ivanovna inquired severely ('You dare rush off into Latin again,' she implied.) 'No need to anticipate any at present!'

  The doctor went away … and Platonida Ivanovna grieved…. She sent to the surgery, though, for the medicine, which Aratov would not take, in spite of her entreaties. He refused any herb-tea too. 'And why are you so uneasy, dear?' he said to her; 'I assure you, I'm at this moment the sanest and happiest man in the whole world!' Platonida Ivanovna could only shake her head. Towards evening he grew rather feverish; and still he insisted that she should not stay in his room, but should go to sleep in her own. Platonida Ivanovna obeyed; but she did not undress, and did not lie down. She sat in an arm-chair, and was all the while listening and murmuring her prayers.

  She was just beginning to doze, when suddenly she was awakened by a terrible piercing shriek. She jumped up, rushed into Aratov's room, and as on the night before, found him lying on the floor.

  But he did not come to himself as on the previous night, in spite of all they could do. He fell the same night into a high fever, complicated by failure of the heart.

  A few days later he passed away.

  A strange circumstance attended his second fainting-fit. When they lifted him up and laid him on his bed, in his clenched right hand they found a small tress of a woman's dark hair. Where did this lock of hair come from? Anna Semyonovna had such a lock of hair left by Clara; but what could induce her to give Aratov a relic so precious to her? Could she have put it somewhere in the diary, and not have noticed it when she lent the book?

  In the delirium that preceded his death, Aratov spoke of himself as Romeo … after the poison; spoke of marriage, completed and perfect; of his knowing now what rapture meant. Most terrible of all for Platosha was the minute when Aratov, coming a little to himself, and seeing her beside his bed, said to her, 'Aunt, what are you crying for?—because I must die? But don't you know that love is stronger than death?… Death! death! where is thy sting? You should not weep, but rejoice, even as I rejoice….'

  And once more on the face of the dying man shone out the rapturous smile, which gave the poor old woman such cruel pain.

  PHANTOMS

  'One instant … and the fairy tale is over, And once again the actual fills the soul …'—A. FET.

  I

  For a long time I could not get to sleep, and kept turning from side to side. 'Confound this foolishness about table-turning!' I thought. 'It simply upsets one's nerves.'… Drowsiness began to overtake me at last….

  Suddenly it seemed to me as though there were the faint and plaintive sound of a harp-string in the room.

  I raised my head. The moon was low in the sky, and looked me straight in the face. White as chalk lay its light upon the floor…. The strange sound was distinctly repeated.

  I leaned on my elbow. A faint feeling of awe plucked at my heart. A minute passed, another…. Somewhere, far away, a cock crowed; another answered still more remote.

  I let my head sink back on the pillow. 'See what one can work oneself up to,' I thought again,… 'there's a singing in my ears.'

  After a little while I fell asleep—or I thought I fell asleep. I had an extraordinary dream. I fancied I was lying in my room, in my bed—and was not asleep, could not even close my eyes. And again I heard the sound…. I turned over…. The moonlight on the floor began softly to lift, to rise up, to round off slightly above…. Before me; impalpable as mist, a white woman was standing motionless.

  'Who are you?' I asked with an effort.

  A voice made answer, like the rustle of leaves: 'It is I … I … I … I have come for you.'

  'For me? But who are you?'

  'Come by night to the edge of the wood where there stands an old oak-tree.

  I will be there.'

  I tried to look closely into the face of the mysterious woman—and suddenly I gave an involuntary shudder: there was a chilly breath upon me. And then I was not lying down, but sitting up in my bed; and where, as I fancied, the phantom had stood, the moonlight lay in a long streak of white upon the floor.

  II

  The day passed somehow. I tried, I remember, to read, to work … everything was a failure. The night came. My heart was throbbing within me, as though it expected something. I lay down, and turned with my face to the wall.

  'Why did you not come?' sounded a distinct whisper in the room.

  I looked round quickly.

  Again she … again the mysterious phantom. Motionless eyes in a motionless face, and a gaze full of sadness.

  'Come!' I heard the whisper again.

  'I will come,' I replied with instinctive horror. The phantom bent slowly forward, and undulating faintly like smoke, melted away altogether. And again the moon shone white and untroubled on the smooth floor.

  III

  I passed the day in unrest. At supper I drank almost a whole bottle of wine, and all but went out on to the steps; but I turned back and flung myself into my bed. My blood was pulsing painfully.

  Again the sound was heard…. I started, but did not look round. All at once I felt that some one had tight hold of me from behind, and was whispering in my very ear: 'Come, come, come.'… Trembling with terror, I moaned out: 'I will come!' and sat up.

  A woman stood stooping close to my very pillow. She smiled dimly and vanished. I had time, though, to make out her face. It seemed to me I had seen her before—but where, when? I got up late, and spent the whole day wandering about the country. I went to the old oak at the edge of the forest, and looked carefully all around.

  Towards evening I sat at the open window in my study. My old housekeeper set a cup of tea before me, but I did not touch it…. I kept asking myself in bewilderment: 'Am not I going out of my mind?' The sun had just set: and not the sky alone was flushed with red; the whole atmosphere was suddenly filled with an almost unnatural purple. The leaves and grass never stirred, stiff as
though freshly coated with varnish. In their stony rigidity, in the vivid sharpness of their outlines, in this combination of intense brightness and death-like stillness, there was something weird and mysterious. A rather large grey bird suddenly flew up without a sound and settled on the very window sill…. I looked at it, and it looked at me sideways with its round, dark eye. 'Were you sent to remind me, then?' I wondered.

  At once the bird fluttered its soft wings, and without a sound—as before—flew away. I sat a long time still at the window, but I was no longer a prey to uncertainty. I had, as it were, come within the enchanted circle, and I was borne along by an irresistible though gentle force, as a boat is borne along by the current long before it reaches the waterfall. I started up at last. The purple had long vanished from the air, the colours were darkened, and the enchanted silence was broken. There was the flutter of a gust of wind, the moon came out brighter and brighter in the sky that was growing bluer, and soon the leaves of the trees were weaving patterns of black and silver in her cold beams. My old housekeeper came into the study with a lighted candle, but there was a draught from the window and the flame went out. I could restrain myself no longer. I jumped up, clapped on my cap, and set off to the corner of the forest, to the old oak-tree.

  IV

  This oak had, many years before, been struck by lightning; the top of the tree had been shattered, and was withered up, but there was still life left in it for centuries to come. As I was coming up to it, a cloud passed over the moon: it was very dark under its thick branches. At first I noticed nothing special; but I glanced on one side, and my heart fairly failed me—a white figure was standing motionless beside a tall bush between the oak and the forest. My hair stood upright on my head, but I plucked up my courage and went towards the forest.

  Yes, it was she, my visitor of the night. As I approached her, the moon shone out again. She seemed all, as it were, spun out of half-transparent, milky mist,—through her face I could see a branch faintly stirring in the wind; only the hair and eyes were a little dark, and on one of the fingers of her clasped hands a slender ring shone with a gleam of pale gold. I stood still before her, and tried to speak; but the voice died away in my throat, though it was no longer fear exactly I felt. Her eyes were turned upon me; their gaze expressed neither distress nor delight, but a sort of lifeless attention. I waited to see whether she would utter a word, but she remained motionless and speechless, and still gazed at me with her deathly intent eyes. Dread came over me again.

  'I have come!' I cried at last with an effort. My voice sounded muffled and strange to me.

  'I love you,' I heard her whisper.

  'You love me!' I repeated in amazement.

  'Give yourself up to me, 'was whispered me again in reply.

  'Give myself up to you! But you are a phantom; you have no body even.' A strange animation came upon me. 'What are you—smoke, air, vapour? Give myself up to you! Answer me first, Who are you? Have you lived upon the earth? Whence have you come?'

  'Give yourself up to me. I will do you no harm. Only say two words: "Take me."'

  I looked at her. 'What is she saying?' I thought. 'What does it all mean?

  And how can she take me? Shall I try?'

  'Very well,' I said, and unexpectedly loudly, as though some one had given me a push from behind; 'take me!'

  I had hardly uttered these words when the mysterious figure, with a sort of inward laugh, which set her face quivering for an instant, bent forward, and stretched out her arms wide apart…. I tried to dart away, but I was already in her power. She seized me, my body rose a foot from the ground, and we both floated smoothly and not too swiftly over the wet, still grass.

  V

  At first I felt giddy, and instinctively I closed my eyes…. A minute later I opened them again. We were floating as before; but the forest was now nowhere to be seen. Under us stretched a plain, spotted here and there with dark patches. With horror I felt that we had risen to a fearful height.

  'I am lost; I am in the power of Satan,' flashed through me like lightning. Till that instant the idea of a temptation of the evil one, of the possibility of perdition, had never entered my head. We still whirled on, and seemed to be mounting higher and higher.

  'Where will you take me?' I moaned at last.

  'Where you like,' my companion answered. She clung close to me; her face was almost resting upon my face. But I was scarcely conscious of her touch.

  'Let me sink down to the earth, I am giddy at this height.'

  'Very well; only shut your eyes and hold your breath.'

  I obeyed, and at once felt that I was falling like a stone flung from the hand … the air whistled in my ears. When I could think again, we were floating smoothly once more just above the earth, so that we caught our feet in the tops of the tall grass.

  'Put me on my feet,' I began. 'What pleasure is there in flying? I'm not a bird.'

  'I thought you would like it. We have no other pastime.'

  'You? Then what are you?'

  There was no answer.

  'You don't dare to tell me that?'

  The plaintive sound which had awakened me the first night quivered in my ears. Meanwhile we were still, scarcely perceptibly, moving in the damp night air.

  'Let me go!' I said. My companion moved slowly away, and I found myself on my feet. She stopped before me and again folded her hands. I grew more composed and looked into her face; as before it expressed submissive sadness.

  'Where are we?' I asked. I did not recognise the country about me.

  'Far from your home, but you can be there in an instant.'

  'How can that be done? by trusting myself to you again?'

  'I have done you no harm and will do you none. Let us fly till dawn, that is all. I can bear you away wherever you fancy—to the ends of the earth. Give yourself up to me! Say only: "Take me!"'

  'Well … take me!'

  She again pressed close to me, again my feet left the earth—and we were flying.

  VI

  'Which way?' she asked me.

  'Straight on, keep straight on.'

  'But here is a forest.'

  'Lift us over the forest, only slower.'

  We darted upwards like a wild snipe flying up into a birch-tree, and again flew on in a straight line. Instead of grass, we caught glimpses of tree-tops just under our feet. It was strange to see the forest from above, its bristling back lighted up by the moon. It looked like some huge slumbering wild beast, and accompanied us with a vast unceasing murmur, like some inarticulate roar. In one place we crossed a small glade; intensely black was the jagged streak of shadow along one side of it. Now and then there was the plaintive cry of a hare below us; above us the owl hooted, plaintively too; there was a scent in the air of mushrooms, buds, and dawn-flowers; the moon fairly flooded everything on all sides with its cold, hard light; the Pleiades gleamed just over our heads. And now the forest was left behind; a streak of fog stretched out across the open country; it was the river. We flew along one of its banks, above the bushes, still and weighed down with moisture. The river's waters at one moment glimmered with a flash of blue, at another flowed on in darkness, as it were, in wrath. Here and there a delicate mist moved strangely over the water, and the water-lilies' cups shone white in maiden pomp with every petal open to its full, as though they knew their safety out of reach. I longed to pick one of them, and behold, I found myself at once on the river's surface…. The damp air struck me an angry blow in the face, just as I broke the thick stalk of a great flower. We began to fly across from bank to bank, like the water-fowl we were continually waking up and chasing before us. More than once we chanced to swoop down on a family of wild ducks, settled in a circle on an open spot among the reeds, but they did not stir; at most one of them would thrust out its neck from under its wing, stare at us, and anxiously poke its beak away again in its fluffy feathers, and another faintly quacked, while its body twitched a little all over. We startled one heron; it flew up out of a willow b
ush, brandishing its legs and fluttering its wings with clumsy eagerness: it struck me as remarkably like a German. There was not the splash of a fish to be heard, they too were asleep. I began to get used to the sensation of flying, and even to find a pleasure in it; any one will understand me, who has experienced flying in dreams. I proceeded to scrutinise with close attention the strange being, by whose good offices such unlikely adventures had befallen me.

  VII

  She was a woman with a small un-Russian face. Greyish-white, half-transparent, with scarcely marked shades, she reminded one of the alabaster figures on a vase lighted up within, and again her face seemed familiar to me.

  'Can I speak with you?' I asked.

  'Speak.'

  'I see a ring on your finger; you have lived then on the earth, you have been married?'

  I waited … There was no answer.

  'What is your name, or, at least, what was it?'

  'Call me Alice.'

  'Alice! That's an English name! Are you an Englishwoman? Did you know me in former days?'

  'No.'

  'Why is it then you have come to me?'

  'I love you.'

  'And are you content?'

  'Yes; we float, we whirl together in the fresh air.'

  'Alice!' I said all at once, 'you are perhaps a sinful, condemned soul?'