Dream Tales and Prose Poems Read online

  My companion's head bent towards me. 'I don't understand you,' she murmured.

  'I adjure you in God's name….' I was beginning.

  'What are you saying?' she put in in perplexity. 'I don't understand.'

  I fancied that the arm that lay like a chilly girdle about my waist softly trembled….

  'Don't be afraid,' said Alice, 'don't be afraid, my dear one!' Her face turned and moved towards my face…. I felt on my lips a strange sensation, like the faintest prick of a soft and delicate sting…. Leeches might prick so in mild and drowsy mood.

  VIII

  I glanced downwards. We had now risen again to a considerable height. We were flying over some provincial town I did not know, situated on the side of a wide slope. Churches rose up high among the dark mass of wooden roofs and orchards; a long bridge stood out black at the bend of a river; everything was hushed, buried in slumber. The very crosses and cupolas seemed to gleam with a silent brilliance; silently stood the tall posts of the wells beside the round tops of the willows; silently the straight whitish road darted arrow-like into one end of the town, and silently it ran out again at the opposite end on to the dark waste of monotonous fields.

  'What town is this?' I asked.

  'X….'

  'X … in Y … province?'

  'Yes.'

  'I'm a long distance indeed from home!'

  'Distance is not for us.'

  'Really?' I was fired by a sudden recklessness. 'Then take me to South

  America!

  'To America I cannot. It's daylight there by now.' 'And we are night-birds.

  Well, anywhere, where you can, only far, far away.'

  'Shut your eyes and hold your breath,' answered Alice, and we flew along with the speed of a whirlwind. With a deafening noise the air rushed into my ears. We stopped, but the noise did not cease. On the contrary, it changed into a sort of menacing roar, the roll of thunder…

  'Now you can open your eyes,' said Alice.

  IX

  I obeyed … Good God, where was I?

  Overhead, ponderous, smoke-like storm-clouds; they huddled, they moved on like a herd of furious monsters … and there below, another monster; a raging, yes, raging, sea … The white foam gleamed with spasmodic fury, and surged up in hillocks upon it, and hurling up shaggy billows, it beat with a sullen roar against a huge cliff, black as pitch. The howling of the tempest, the chilling gasp of the storm-rocked abyss, the weighty splash of the breakers, in which from time to time one fancied something like a wail, like distant cannon-shots, like a bell ringing—the tearing crunch and grind of the shingle on the beach, the sudden shriek of an unseen gull, on the murky horizon the disabled hulk of a ship—on every side death, death and horror…. Giddiness overcame me, and I shut my eyes again with a sinking heart….

  'What is this? Where are we?'

  'On the south coast of the Isle of Wight opposite the Blackgang cliff where ships are so often wrecked,' said Alice, speaking this time with peculiar distinctness, and as it seemed to me with a certain malignant pleasure….

  'Take me away, away from here … home! home!' I shrank up, hid my face in my hands … I felt that we were moving faster than before; the wind now was not roaring or moaning, it whistled in my hair, in my clothes … I caught my breath …

  'Stand on your feet now,' I heard Alice's voice saying. I tried to master myself, to regain consciousness … I felt the earth under the soles of my feet, and I heard nothing, as though everything had swooned away about me … only in my temples the blood throbbed irregularly, and my head was still giddy with a faint ringing in my ears. I drew myself up and opened my eyes.

  X

  We were on the bank of my pond. Straight before me there were glimpses through the pointed leaves of the willows of its broad surface with threads of fluffy mist clinging here and there upon it. To the right a field of rye shone dimly; on the left stood up my orchard trees, tall, rigid, drenched it seemed in dew … The breath of the morning was already upon them. Across the pure grey sky stretched like streaks of smoke, two or three slanting clouds; they had a yellowish tinge, the first faint glow of dawn fell on them; one could not say whence it came; the eye could not detect on the horizon, which was gradually growing lighter, the spot where the sun was to rise. The stars had disappeared; nothing was astir yet, though everything was already on the point of awakening in the enchanted stillness of the morning twilight.

  'Morning! see, it is morning!' cried Alice in my ear. 'Farewell till to-morrow.'

  I turned round … Lightly rising from the earth, she floated by, and suddenly she raised both hands above her head. The head and hands and shoulders glowed for an instant with warm, corporeal light; living sparks gleamed in the dark eyes; a smile of mysterious tenderness stirred the reddening lips…. A lovely woman had suddenly arisen before me…. But as though dropping into a swoon, she fell back instantly and melted away like vapour.

  I remained passive.

  When I recovered myself and looked round me, it seemed to me that the corporeal, pale-rosy colour that had flitted over the figure of my phantom had not yet vanished, and was enfolding me, diffused in the air…. It was the flush of dawn. All at once I was conscious of extreme fatigue and turned homewards. As I passed the poultry-yard, I heard the first morning cackling of the geese (no birds wake earlier than they do); along the roof at the end of each beam sat a rook, and they were all busily and silently pluming themselves, standing out in sharp outline against the milky sky. From time to time they all rose at once, and after a short flight, settled again in a row, without uttering a caw…. From the wood close by came twice repeated the drowsy, fresh chuck-chuck of the black-cock, beginning to fly into the dewy grass, overgrown by brambles…. With a faint tremor all over me I made my way to my bed, and soon fell into a sound sleep.

  XI

  The next night, as I was approaching the old oak, Alice moved to meet me, as if I were an old friend. I was not afraid of her as I had been the day before, I was almost rejoiced at seeing her; I did not even attempt to comprehend what was happening to me; I was simply longing to fly farther to interesting places.

  Alice's arm again twined about me, and we took flight again.

  'Let us go to Italy,' I whispered in her ear.

  'Wherever you wish, my dear one,' she answered solemnly and slowly, and slowly and solemnly she turned her face towards me. It struck me as less transparent than on the eve; more womanlike and more imposing; it recalled to me the being I had had a glimpse of in the early dawn at parting.

  'This night is a great night,' Alice went on. 'It comes rarely—when seven times thirteen …'

  At this point I could not catch a few words.

  'To-night we can see what is hidden at other times.'

  'Alice!' I implored, 'but who are you, tell me at last?'

  Silently she lifted her long white hand. In the dark sky, where her finger was pointing, a comet flashed, a reddish streak among the tiny stars.

  'How am I to understand you?' I began, 'Or, as that comet floats between the planets and the sun, do you float among men … or what?'

  But Alice's hand was suddenly passed before my eyes…. It was as though a white mist from the damp valley had fallen on me….

  'To Italy! to Italy!' I heard her whisper. 'This night is a great night!'

  XII

  The mist cleared away from before my eyes, and I saw below me an immense plain. But already, by the mere breath of the warm soft air upon my cheeks, I could tell I was not in Russia; and the plain, too, was not like our Russian plains. It was a vast dark expanse, apparently desert and not overgrown with grass; here and there over its whole extent gleamed pools of water, like broken pieces of looking-glass; in the distance could be dimly descried a noiseless motionless sea. Great stars shone bright in the spaces between the big beautiful clouds; the murmur of thousands, subdued but never-ceasing, rose on all sides, and very strange was this shrill but drowsy chorus, this voice of the darkness and the desert�
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  'The Pontine marshes,' said Alice. 'Do you hear the frogs? do you smell the sulphur?'

  'The Pontine marshes….' I repeated, and a sense of grandeur and of desolation came upon me. 'But why have you brought me here, to this gloomy forsaken place? Let us fly to Rome instead.'

  'Rome is near,' answered Alice…. 'Prepare yourself!'

  We sank lower, and flew along an ancient Roman road. A bullock slowly lifted from the slimy mud its shaggy monstrous head, with short tufts of bristles between its crooked backward-bent horns. It turned the whites of its dull malignant eyes askance, and sniffed a heavy snorting breath into its wet nostrils, as though scenting us.

  'Rome, Rome is near…' whispered Alice. 'Look, look in front….'

  I raised my eyes.

  What was the blur of black on the edge of the night sky? Were these the lofty arches of an immense bridge? What river did it span? Why was it broken down in parts? No, it was not a bridge, it was an ancient aqueduct. All around was the holy ground of the Campagna, and there, in the distance, the Albanian hills, and their peaks and the grey ridge of the old aqueduct gleamed dimly in the beams of the rising moon….

  We suddenly darted upwards, and floated in the air before a deserted ruin. No one could have said what it had been: sepulchre, palace, or castle…. Dark ivy encircled it all over in its deadly clasp, and below gaped yawning a half-ruined vault. A heavy underground smell rose in my face from this heap of tiny closely-fitted stones, whence the granite facing of the wall had long crumbled away.

  'Here,' Alice pronounced, and she raised her hand: 'Here! call aloud three times running the name of the mighty Roman!'

  'What will happen?'

  'You will see.'

  I wondered. 'Divus Caius Julius Caesar!' I cried suddenly; 'Divus Caius

  Julius Caesar!' I repeated deliberately; 'Caesar!'

  XIII

  The last echoes of my voice had hardly died away, when I heard….

  It is difficult to say what I did hear. At first there reached me a confused din the ear could scarcely catch, the endlessly-repeated clamour of the blare of trumpets, and the clapping of hands. It seemed that somewhere, immensely far away, at some fathomless depth, a multitude innumerable was suddenly astir, and was rising up, rising up in agitation, calling to one another, faintly, as if muffled in sleep, the suffocating sleep of ages. Then the air began moving in dark currents over the ruin…. Shades began flitting before me, myriads of shades, millions of outlines, the rounded curves of helmets, the long straight lines of lances; the moonbeams were broken into momentary gleams of blue upon these helmets and lances, and all this army, this multitude, came closer and closer, and grew, in more and more rapid movement…. An indescribable force, a force fit to set the whole world moving, could be felt in it; but not one figure stood out clearly…. And suddenly I fancied a sort of tremor ran all round, as if it were the rush and rolling apart of some huge waves…. 'Caesar, Caesar venit!' sounded voices, like the leaves of a forest when a storm has suddenly broken upon it … a muffled shout thundered through the multitude, and a pale stern head, in a wreath of laurel, with downcast eyelids, the head of the emperor, began slowly to rise out of the ruin….

  There is no word in the tongue of man to express the horror which clutched at my heart…. I felt that were that head to raise its eyes, to part its lips, I must perish on the spot! 'Alice!' I moaned, 'I won't, I can't, I don't want Rome, coarse, terrible Rome…. Away, away from here!'

  'Coward!' she whispered, and away we flew. I just had time to hear behind me the iron voice of the legions, like a peal of thunder … then all was darkness.

  XIV

  'Look round,' Alice said to me, 'and don't fear.'

  I obeyed—and, I remember, my first impression was so sweet that I could only sigh. A sort of smoky-grey, silvery-soft, half-light, half-mist, enveloped me on all sides. At first I made out nothing: I was dazzled by this azure brilliance; but little by little began to emerge the outlines of beautiful mountains and forests; a lake lay at my feet, with stars quivering in its depths, and the musical plash of waves. The fragrance of orange flowers met me with a rush, and with it—and also as it were with a rush—came floating the pure powerful notes of a woman's young voice. This fragrance, this music, fairly drew me downwards, and I began to sink … to sink down towards a magnificent marble palace, which stood, invitingly white, in the midst of a wood of cypress. The music flowed out from its wide open windows, the waves of the lake, flecked with the pollen of flowers, splashed upon its walls, and just opposite, all clothed in the dark green of orange flowers and laurels, enveloped in shining mist, and studded with statues, slender columns, and the porticoes of temples, a lofty round island rose out of the water….

  'Isola Bella!' said Alice…. 'Lago Maggiore….'

  I murmured only 'Ah!' and continued to drop. The woman's voice sounded louder and clearer in the palace; I was irresistibly drawn towards it…. I wanted to look at the face of the singer, who, in such music, gave voice to such a night. We stood still before the window.

  In the centre of a room, furnished in the style of Pompeii, and more like an ancient temple than a modern drawing-room, surrounded by Greek statues, Etruscan vases, rare plants, and precious stuffs, lighted up by the soft radiance of two lamps enclosed in crystal globes, a young woman was sitting at the piano. Her head slightly bowed and her eyes half-closed, she sang an Italian melody; she sang and smiled, and at the same time her face wore an expression of gravity, almost of sternness … a token of perfect rapture! She smiled … and Praxiteles' Faun, indolent, youthful as she, effeminate, and voluptuous, seemed to smile back at her from a corner, under the branches of an oleander, across the delicate smoke that curled upwards from a bronze censer on an antique tripod. The beautiful singer was alone. Spell-bound by the music, her beauty, the splendour and sweet fragrance of the night, moved to the heart by the picture of this youthful, serene, and untroubled happiness, I utterly forgot my companion, I forgot the strange way in which I had become a witness of this life, so remote, so completely apart from me, and I was on the point of tapping at the window, of speaking….

  I was set trembling all over by a violent shock—just as though I had touched a galvanic battery. I looked round…. The face of Alice was—for all its transparency—dark and menacing; there was a dull glow of anger in her eyes, which were suddenly wide and round….

  'Away!' she murmured wrathfully, and again whirling and darkness and giddiness…. Only this time not the shout of legions, but the voice of the singer, breaking on a high note, lingered in my ears….

  We stopped. The high note, the same note was still ringing and did not cease to ring in my ears, though I was breathing quite a different air, a different scent … a breeze was blowing upon me, fresh and invigorating, as though from a great river, and there was a smell of hay, smoke and hemp. The long-drawn-out note was followed by a second, and a third, but with an expression so unmistakable, a trill so familiar, so peculiarly our own, that I said to myself at once: 'That's a Russian singing a Russian song!' and at that very instant everything grew clear about me.

  XV

  We found ourselves on a flat riverside plain. To the left, newly-mown meadows, with rows of huge hayricks, stretched endlessly till they were lost in the distance; to the right extended the smooth surface of a vast mighty river, till it too was lost in the distance. Not far from the bank, big dark barges slowly rocked at anchor, slightly tilting their slender masts, like pointing fingers. From one of these barges came floating up to me the sounds of a liquid voice, and a fire was burning in it, throwing a long red light that danced and quivered on the water. Here and there, both on the river and in the fields, other lights were glimmering, whether close at hand or far away, the eye could not distinguish; they shrank together, then suddenly lengthened out into great blurs of light; grasshoppers innumerable kept up an unceasing churr, persistent as the frogs of the Pontine marshes; and across the cloudless, but dark lowering sky floated from t
ime to time the cries of unseen birds.

  'Are we in Russia?' I asked of Alice.

  'It is the Volga,' she answered.

  We flew along the river-bank. 'Why did you tear me away from there, from that lovely country?' I began. 'Were you envious, or was it jealousy in you?'

  The lips of Alice faintly stirred, and again there was a menacing light in her eyes…. But her whole face grew stony again at once.

  'I want to go home,' I said.

  'Wait a little, wait a little,' answered Alice. 'To-night is a great night.

  It will not soon return. You may be a spectator…. Wait a little.'

  And we suddenly flew across the Volga in a slanting direction, keeping close to the water's surface, with the low impetuous flight of swallows before a storm. The broad waves murmured heavily below us, the sharp river breeze beat upon us with its strong cold wing … the high right bank began soon to rise up before us in the half-darkness. Steep mountains appeared with great ravines between. We came near to them.

  'Shout: "Lads, to the barges!"' Alice whispered to me. I remembered the terror I had suffered at the apparition of the Roman phantoms. I felt weary and strangely heavy, as though my heart were ebbing away within me. I wished not to utter the fatal words; I knew beforehand that in response to them there would appear, as in the wolves' valley of the Freischütz, some monstrous thing; but my lips parted against my will, and in a weak forced voice I shouted, also against my will: 'Lads, to the barges!'

  XVI

  At first all was silence, even as it was at the Roman ruins, but suddenly I heard close to my very ear a coarse bargeman's laugh, and with a moan something dropped into the water and a gurgling sound followed…. I looked round: no one was anywhere to be seen, but from the bank the echo came bounding back, and at once from all sides rose a deafening din. There was a medley of everything in this chaos of sound: shouting and whining, furious abuse and laughter, laughter above everything; the plash of oars and the cleaving of hatchets, a crash as of the smashing of doors and chests, the grating of rigging and wheels, and the neighing of horses, and the clang of the alarm bell and the clink of chains, the roar and crackle of fire, drunken songs and quick, gnashing chatter, weeping inconsolable, plaintive despairing prayers, and shouts of command, the dying gasp and the reckless whistle, the guffaw and the thud of the dance…. 'Kill them! Hang them! Drown them! rip them up! bravo! bravo! don't spare them!' could be heard distinctly; I could even hear the hurried breathing of men panting. And meanwhile all around, as far as the eye could reach, nothing could be seen, nothing was changed; the river rolled by mysteriously, almost sullenly, the very bank seemed more deserted and desolate—and that was all.