THE DETECTIVE OF DREAMS
Gene Wolfe
I was writing in my office in the rue Madeleine when Andrée, my
secretary, announced the arrival of Herr D____. I rose, put away my
correspondence, and offered him my hand. He was, I should say, just short of
fifty, had the high, clear complexion characteristic of those who in youth (now
unhappily past for both of us) have found more pleasure in the company of
horses and dogs and the excitement of the chase than in the bottles and bordels
of city life, and wore a beard and mustache of the style popularized by the
late emperor. Accepting my invitation to a chair, he showed me his papers.
"You see," he said, "I am accustomed to acting as
the representative of my government. In this matter I hold no such position,
and it is possible that I feel a trifle lost."
"Many people who come here feel lost," I said. "But
it is my boast that I find most of them again. Your problem, I take it, is
purely a private matter?"
"Not at all. It is a public matter in the truest sense of the
words."
"Yet none of the documents before me - admirably stamped,
sealed, and beribboned though they are - indicates that you are other than a
private gentleman traveling abroad. And you say you do not represent your
government. What am I to think? What is this matter?"
"I act in the public interest," Herr D____ told me.
"My fortune is not great, but I can assure you that in the event of your
success you will be well recompensed; although you are to take it that I alone
am your principal, yet there are substantial resources available to me."
"Perhaps it would be best if you described the problem to
me?"
"You are not averse to travel?"
"No."
"Very well then," he said, and so saying launched into
one of the most astonishing relations - no, the most astonishing relation
- I have ever been privileged to hear. Even I, who had at first hand the
account of the man who found Paulette Renan with the quince seed still lodged
in her throat; who had received Captain Brotte's testimony concerning his finds
amid the antarctic ice; who had heard the history of the woman called Joan
O'Neil, who lived for two years behind a painting of herself in the Louvre,
from her own lips - even I sat like a child while this man spoke.
When he fell silent, I said, "Herr D____, after all you have
told me, I would accept this mission though there were not a sou to be
made from it. Perhaps once in a lifetime one comes across a case that must be
pursued for its own sake; I think I have found mine.
He leaned forward and grasped my hand with a warmth of feeling
that was, I believe, very foreign to his usual nature. "Find and destroy
the Dream-Master," he said, "and you shall sit upon a chair of gold,
if that is your wish, and eat from a table of gold as well. When will you come
to our country?"
"Tomorrow morning," I said. "There are one or two
arangements I must make here before I go."
"I am returning tonight. You may call upon me at any time,
and I will apprise you of new developments." He handed me a card. "I
am always to be found at this address - if not I, then one who is to be
trusted, acting in my behalf."
"I understand."
"This should be sufficient for your initial expenses. You may
call on me should you require more." The cheque he gave me as he turned to
leave represented a comfortable fortune.
I waited until he was nearly out the door before saying, "I
thank you, Herr Baron." To his credit, he did not turn; but I had the
satisfaction of seeing a flush red rising above the precise white line of his
collar before the door closed.
Andrée entered as soon as he had left. "Who was that man?
When you spoke to him - just as he was stepping out of your office - he looked
as if you had struck him with a whip."
"He will recover," I told her. "He is the Baron
H____, of the secret police of K____. D____ was his mother's name. He assumed
that because his own desk is a few hundred kilometers from mine, and because he
does not permit his likeness to appear in the daily papers, I would not know
him; but it was necessary, both for the sake of his opinion of me and my own of
myself, that he should discover that I am not so easily deceived. When he
recovers from his initial irritation, he will retire tonight with greater
confidence in the abilities I will devote to the mission he has entrusted to
me."
"It is typical of you, monsieur," Andrée said kindly,
"that you are concerned that your clients sleep well."
Her pretty cheek tempted me, and I pinched it. "I am
concerned," I replied; "but the Baron will not sleep well."
My train roared out of Paris through meadows sweet with wild
flowers, to penetrate mountain passes in which the danger of avalanches was
only just past. The glitter of rushing water, sprung from on high, was
everywhere; and when the express slowed to climb a grade, the song of water was
everywhere, too, water running and shouting down the gray rocks of the Alps. I
fell asleep that night with the descant of that icy purity sounding through the
plainsong of the rails, and I woke in the station of I____, the old capital of
J____, now a province of K____.
I engaged a porter to convey my trunk to the hotel where I had
made reservations by telegraph the day before, and amused myself for a few
hours by strolling about the city. Here I found the Middle Ages might almost be
said to have remained rather than lingered. The city wall was complete on three
sides, with its merloned towers in repair; and the cobbled streets surely dated
from a period when wheeled traffic of any kind was scarce. As for the buildings
- Puss in Boots and his friends must have loved them dearly: there were bulging
walls and little panes of bull's-eye glass, and overhanging upper floors one
above another until the structures seemed unbalanced as tops. Upon one grey old
pile with narrow windows and massive doors, I found a plaque informing me that
though it had been first built as a church, it had been successively a prison,
a customhouse, a private home, and a school. I investigated further, and
discovered it was now an arcade, having been divided, I should think at about
the time of the first Louis, into a multitude of dank little stalls. Since it
was, as it happened, one of the addresses mentioned by Baron H____, I went in.
Gas flared everywhere, yet the interior could not have been said
to be well lit - each jet was sullen and secretive, as if the proprietor in
whose cubicle it was located wished it to light none but his own wares. These
cubicles were in no order; nor could I find any directory or guide to lead me
to the one I sought. A few customers, who seemed to have visited the place for
years, so that they understood where everything was, drifted from one display
to the next. When they arrived at each, the proprietor came out, silent (so it
seemed to me) as a specter, ready to answer questions or accept a payment; but
I never heard a question asked, or saw any money tendered - the customer would
finger the edge of a kitchen knife, or hold a garment up to her own shoulders,
or turn the pages of some moldering book; and then put the thing down again,
and go away.
At last, when I had tired of peeping into alcoves lined with
booths still gloomier than the ones on the main concourse outside, I stopped at
a leather merchant's and asked the man to direct me to Fräulein A____.
"I do not know her," he said.
"I am told on good authority that her business is conducted
in this building, and that she buys and sells antiques."
"We have several antique dealers here. Herr M____-"
"I am searching for a young woman. Has your Herr M____ a
niece or a cousin?"
"-handles chairs and chests, largely. Herr O____ near the
guildhall-"
"It is within this building."
"-stocks pictures, mostly. A few mirrors. What is it you wish
to buy?"
At this point we were interrupted, mercifully, by a woman from the
next booth. "He wants Fräulein A____. Out of here, and to your left; past
the wigmaker's, then right to the stationer's, then left again. She sells old
lace."
I found the place at last, and sitting at the very back of her
booth Fräulein A____ herself, a
pretty, slender, timid-looking young woman. Her merchandise was spread on two
tables; I pretended to examine it and found that it was not old lace she sold
but old clothing, much of it trimmed with lace. After a few moments she rose
and came out to talk to me, saying, "If you could tell me what you
require? . . ." She was taller than I had anticipated, and her flaxen hair
would have been very attractive if it were ever released from the tight braids
coiled round her head.
"I am only looking. Many of these are beautiful - are they
expensive?"
"Not for what you get. The one you are holding is only fifty
marks."
"That seems like a great deal."
"They are the fine dresses of long ago - for visiting, or
going to the ball. The dresses of wealthy women of aristocratic taste. All are
like new; I will not handle anything else. Look at the seams in that one you
hold, the tiny stitches all done by hand. Those were the work of dressmakers
who created only four or five in a year, and worked twelve and fourteen hours a
day, sewing at the first light, and continuing under the lamp, past midnight."
I said, "I see that you have been crying, Fräulein. Their
lives were indeed miserable, though no doubt there are people today who suffer
equally."
"No doubt there are," the young woman said. "I,
however, am not one of them." And she turned away so that I should not see
her tears.
"I was informed otherwise."
She whirled about to face me. "You know him? Oh, tell him I
am not a wealthy woman, but I will pay whatever I can. Do you really know
him?"
"No." I shook my head. "I was informed by your own
police."
She stared at me. "But you are an outlander. So is he, I
think."
"Ah, we progress. Is there another chair in the rear of your
booth? Your police are not above going outside your own country for help, you
see, and we should have a little talk."
"They are not our police," the young woman said
bitterly, "but I will talk to you. The truth is that I would sooner talk
to you, though you are French. You will not tell them that?"
I assured her that I would not; we borrowed a chair from the
flower stall across the corridor, and she poured forth her story.
"My father died when I was very small. My mother opened this
booth to earn our living - old dresses that had belonged to her own mother were
the core of her original stock. She died two years ago, and since that time I
have taken charge of our business and used it to support myself. Most of my
sales are to collectors and theatrical companies. I do not make a great deal of
money, but I do not require a great deal, and I have managed to save some. I
live alone at Number 877 ____strasse; it is an old house divided into six
apartments, and mine is the gable apartment."
"You are young and charming," I said, "and you tell
me you have a little money saved. I am surprised you are not married."
"Many others have said the same thing."
"And what did you tell them, Fräulein?"
"To take care of their own affairs. They have called me a
man-hater - Frau G____, who has the confections in the next corridor but two,
called me that because I would not receive her son. The truth is that I do not
care for people of either sex, young or old. If I want to live by myself and
keep my own things to myself, is not it my right to do so?"
"I am sure it is; but undoubtedly it has occurred to you that
this person you fear so much may be a rejected suitor who is taking his revenge
on you."
"But how could he enter and control my dreams?"
"I do not know, Fräulein. It is you who say that he does
these things."
"I should remember him, I think, if he had ever called on me.
As it is, I am quite certain I have seen him somewhere, but I cannot recall
where. Still . . ."
"Perhaps you had better describe your dream to me. You have
the same one again and again, as I understand it?"
"Yes. It is like this. I am walking down a dark road. I am
both frightened and pleasurably excited, if you know what I mean. Sometimes I
walk for a long time, sometimes for what seems to be only a few moments. I
think there is moonlight, and once or twice I have noticed stars. Anyway, there
is a high, dark hedge, or perhaps a wall, on my right. There are fields to the
left, I believe. Eventually I reach a gate of iron bars, standing open - it's
not a large gate for wagons or carriages, but a small one, so narrow I can
hardly get through. Have you read the writings of Dr. Freud of Vienna? One of
the women here mentioned once that he had written concerning dreams, and so I
got them from the library, and if I were a man I am sure he would say that
entering that gate meant sexual commerce. Do you think I might have unnatural
leanings?" Her voice had dropped to a whisper.
"Have you ever felt such desires?"
"Oh, no. Quite the reverse."
"Then I doubt it very much," I said. "Go on with
your dream. How do you feel as you pass through the gate?"
"As I did when walking down the road, but more so - more
frightened, and yet happy and excited. Triumphant, in away."
"Go on."
"I am in the garden now. There are fountains playing, and
nightingales singing in the willows. The air smells of lilies, and a cherry
tree in blossom looks like a giantess in her bridal gown. I walk on a straight,
smooth path; I think it must be paved with marble chips, because it is white in
the moonlight. Ahead of me is the Schloss - a great building. There is
music coming from inside."
"What sort of music?"
"Magnificent - joyous, if you know what I am trying to say,
but not the tinklings of a theater orchestra. A great symphony. I have never
been to the opera at Bayreuth; but I think it must be like that - yet a happy,
quick tune."
She paused, and for an instant her smile recovered the remembered
music. "There are pillars, and a grand entrance, with broad steps. I run
up - I am so happy to be there - and throw open the door. It is brightly lit
inside; a wave of golden light, almost like a wave from the ocean, strikes me.
The room is a great hall, with a high ceiling. A long table is set in the
middle and there are hundreds of people seated at it, but one place, the one
nearest me, is empty. I cross to it and sit down; there are beautiful golden
loaves on the table, and bowls of honey with roses floating at their centers,
and crystal carafes of wine, and many other good things I cannot remember when
I awake. Everyone is eating and drinking and talking, and I begin to eat
too."
I said, "It is only a dream, Fräulein. There is no reason to
weep."
"I dream this each night - I have dreamed so every night for
months."
"Go on."
"Then he comes. I am sure he is the one who is causing me to
dream like this because I can see his face clearly, and remember it when the
dream is over. Sometimes it is very vivid for an hour or more after I wake - so
vivid that I have only to close my eyes to see it before me."
"I will ask you to describe him in detail later. For the
present, continue with your dream."
''He is tall, and robed like a king, and there is a strange crown
on his head. He stands beside me, and though he says nothing, I know that the
etiquette of the place demands that I rise and face him. I do this. Sometimes I
am sucking my fingers as I get up from his table."
"He owns the dream palace, then."
"Yes, I am sure of that. It is his castle, his home; he is my
host. I stand and face him, and I am conscious of wanting very much to please
him, but not knowing what it is I should do."
"That must be painful."
"It is. But as I stand there, I become aware of how I am
clothed, and-"
"How are you clothed?"
"As you see me now, In a plain, dark dress - the dress I wear
here at the arcade. But the others - all up and down the hall, all up and down
the table - are wearing the dresses I sell here. These dresses." She held
one up for me to see, a beautiful creation of many layers of lace, with buttons
of polished jet. "I know then that I cannot remain; but the king signals
to the others, and they seize me and push me toward the door."
"You are humiliated then?"
"Yes, but the worst thing is that I am aware that he knows
that I could never drive myself to leave, and he wishes to spare me the
struggle. But outside - some terrible beast has entered the garden. I smell it
- like the hyena cage at the Tiergarten - as the door opens. And then I
wake up."
"It is a harrowing dream."
"You have seen the dresses I sell. Would you credit it that
for weeks I slept in one, and then another, and then another of them?"
"You reaped no benefit from that?"
"No. In the dream I was clad as now. For a time I wore the
dresses always - even here to the stall, and when I bought food at the market.
But it did no good."
"Have you tried sleeping somewhere else?"
"With my cousin who lives on the other side of the city. That
made no difference, I am certain that this man I see is a real man. He is in my
dream, and the cause of it; but he is not sleeping."
"Yet you have never seen him when you are awake?"
She paused, and I saw her bite at her full lower lip. "I am
certain I have."
"Ah!"
"But I cannot remember when. Yet I am sure I have seen him -
that I have passed him in the street."
"Think! Does his face associate itself in your mind with some
particular section of the city?"
She shook her head.
When I left her at last, it was with a description of the
Dream-Master less precise than I had hoped, though still detailed. It tallied
in almost all respects with the one given me by Baron H____; but that proved
nothing, since the baron's description might have been based largely on
Fraäulein A____'s.
The bank of Herr R____ was a private one, as all the greatest
banks in Europe are. It was located in what had once been the town house of
some noble family (their arms, overgrown now with ivy, were still visible above
the door) and bore no identification other than a small brass plate engraved
with the names of Herr R____ and his partners. Within, the atmosphere was more
dignified - even if, perhaps, less tasteful -than it could possibly have been
in the noble family's time. Dark pictures in gilded frames lined the walls, and
the clerks sat at inlaid tables upon chairs upholstered in tapestry. When I
asked for Herr R____, I was told that it would be impossible to see him that
afternoon; I sent in a note with a sidelong allusion to "unquiet
dreams," and within five minutes I was ushered into a luxurious office
that must once have been the bedroom of the head of the household.
Herr R____ was a large man - tall, and heavier (I thought) than
his physician was likely to have approved. He appeared to be about fifty; there
was strength in his wide, fleshy face; his high forehead and capacious cranium
suggested intellect; and his small, dark eyes, forever flickering as they took
in the appearance of my person, the expression of my face, and the position of
my hands and feet, ingenuity.
No pretense was apt to be of service with such a man, and I told
him flatly that I had come as the emissary of Baron H____, that I knew what
troubled him, and that if he would cooperate with me I would help him if I
could.
"I know you, monsieur," he said, "by reputation. A
business with which I am associated employed you three years ago in the matter
of a certain mummy." He named the firm. "I should have thought of you
myself."
"I did not know that you were connected with them."
"I am not, when you leave this room. I do not know what
reward Baron H____ has offered you should you apprehend the man who is
oppressing me, but I will give you, in addition to that, a sum equal to that
you were paid for the mummy. You should be able to retire to the south then,
should you choose, with the rent of a dozen villas."
"I do not choose," I told him, "and I could have
retired long before. But what you just said interests me. You are certain that
your persecutor is a living man?"
"I know men." Herr R____ leaned back in his chair and
stared at the painted ceiling. "As a boy I sold stuffed cabbage-leaf rolls
in the street - did you know that? My mother cooked them over wood she
collected herself where buildings were being demolished, and I sold them from a
little cart for her. I lived to see her with half a score of footmen and the
finest house in Lindau. I never went to school; I learned to add and subtract
in the streets - when I must multiply and divide I have my clerk do it. But I
learned men. Do you think that now, after forty years of practice, I could be
deceived by a phantom? No, he is a man - let me confess it, a stronger man than
I - a man of flesh and blood and brain, a man I have seen somewhere, sometime,
here in this city - and more than once."
"Describe him."
"As tall as I. Younger - perhaps thirty or thirty-five. A
brown, forked beard, so long." (He held his hand about fifteen centimeters
beneath his chin.) "Brown hair. His hair is not yet grey, but I think it
may be thinning a little at the temples."
"Don't you remember?"
"In my dream he wears a garland of roses - I cannot be
sure."
"Is there anything else? Any scars or identifying
marks?"
Herr R____ nodded. "He has hurt his hand. In my dream, when
he holds out his hand for the money, I see blood in it - it is his own, you
understand, as though a recent injury had reopened and was beginning to bleed
again. His hands are long and slender - like a pianist's."
"Perhaps you had better tell me your dream."
"Of course." He paused, and his face clouded, as though
to recount the dream were to return to it. "I am in a great house. I am a
person of importance there, almost as though I were the owner; yet I am not the
owner-"
"Wait," I interrupted. "Does this house have a
banquet hall? Has it a pillared portico, and is it set in a garden?"
For a moment Herr R____'s eyes widened. "Have you also had
such dreams?"
"No" I said. "It is only that I think I have heard
of this house before. Please continue."
"There are many servants - some work in the fields beyond the
garden. I give instructions to them - the details differ each night, you
understand. Sometimes I am concerned with the kitchen, sometimes with the
livestock, sometimes with the draining of a field. We grow wheat, principally,
it seems; but there is a vineyard too, and a kitchen garden. And of course the
house itself must be cleaned and swept and kept in repair. There is no wife;
the owner's mother lives with us, I think, but she does not much concern
herself with the housekeeping - that is up to me. To tell the truth, I have
never actually seen her, though I have the feeling that she is there."
"Does this house resemble the one you bought for your own
mother in Lindau?"
"Only as one large house must resemble another."
"I see. Proceed."
"For a long time each night I continue like that, giving
orders, and sometimes going over the accounts. Then a servant, usually it is a
maid, arrives to tell me that the owner wishes to speak to me. I stand before a
mirror - I can see myself there as plainly as I see you now - and arrange my
clothing. The maid brings rose-scented water and a cloth, and I wipe my face;
then I go in to him.
"He is always in one of the upper rooms, seated at a table
with his own account book spread before him. There is an open window behind
him, and through it I can see the top of a cherry tree in bloom. For a long
time - oh, I suppose ten minutes - I stand before him while he turns over the
pages of his ledger."
"You appear somewhat at a loss, Herr R____ - not a common
condition for you, I believe. What happens then?"
"He says, 'You owe . . .' " Herr R____ paused.
"That is the problem, monsieur, I can never recall the amount. But it is a
large sum. He says, 'And I must require that you make payment at once.'
"I do not have the amount, and I tell him so. He says, 'Then
you must leave my employment.' I fail to my knees at this and beg that he will
retain me, pointing out that if he dismisses me I will have lost my source of
income, and will never be able to make payment. I do not enjoy telling you this,
but I weep. Sometimes I beat the floor with my fists."
"Continue. Is the Dream-Master moved by your pleading?"
"No. He again demands that I pay the entire sum. Several
times I have told him that I am a wealthy man in this world, and that if only
he would permit me to make payment in its currency, I would do so
immediately."
"That is interesting - most of us lack your presence of mind
in our nightmares. What does he say then?"
"Usually he tells me not to be a fool. But once he said,
'That is a dream - you must know it by now. You cannot expect to pay a real
debt with the currency of sleep.' He holds out his hand for the money as he
speaks to me. It is then that I see the blood in his palm."
"You are afraid of him?"
"Oh, very much so. I understand that he has the most complete
power over me. I weep, and at last I throw myself at his feet - with my head
under the table, if you can credit it, crying like an infant.
"Then he stands and pulls me erect, and says, 'You would
never be able to pay all you owe, and you are a false and dishonest servant.
But your debt is forgiven, forever.' And as I watch, he tears a leaf from his
account book and hands it to me."
"Your dream has a happy conclusion, then."
"No. It is not yet over. I thrust the paper into the front of
my shirt and go out, wiping my face on my sleeve. I am conscious that if any of
the other servants should see me, they will know at once what has happened. I
hurry to reach my own counting room; there is a brazier there, and I wish to
burn the page from the owner's book."
"I see."
"But just outside the door of my own room, I meet another
servant - an upper-servant like myself, I think, since he is well dressed. As
it happens, this man owes me a considerable sum of money, and to conceal from
him what I have just endured, I demand that he pay at once." Herr R____
rose from his chair and began to pace the room, looking sometimes at the
painted scenes on the walls, sometimes at the Turkish carpet at his feet.
"I have had reason to demand money like that often, you understand. Here
in this room.
"The man falls to his knees, weeping and begging for
additional time; but I reach down, like this, and seize him by the
throat."
"And then?"
"And then the door of my counting room opens. But it is not
my counting room with my desk and the charcoal brazier, but the owner's own
room. He is standing in the doorway, and behind him I can see the open window,
and the blossoms of the cherry tree."
"What does he say to you?"
"Nothing. He says nothing to me. I release the other man's throat,
and he slinks away."
"You awaken then?"
"How can I explain it? Yes, I wake up. But first we stand
there; and while we do I am conscious of . . . certain sounds."
"If it is too painful for you, you need not say more."
Herr R____ drew a silk handkerchief from his pocket and wiped his
face. "How can I explain?" he said again. "When I hear those
sounds, I am aware that the owner possesses certain other servants, who have
never been under my direction. It is as though I have always known this, but
had no reason to think of it before."
"I understand."
"They are quartered in another part of the house - in the
vaults beneath the wine cellar, I think sometimes. I have never seen them, but
I know – then - that they are hideous, vile and cruel; I know too that he
thinks me but little better than they, and that as he permits me to serve him,
so he allows them to serve him also. I stand - we stand - and listen to them
coming through the house. At last a door at the end of the hall begins to swing
open. There is a hand like the paw of some filthy reptile on the latch."
"Is that the end of the dream?"
"Yes." Herr R____ threw himself into his chair again,
mopping his face.
"You have this experience each night?"
"It differs," he said slowly, "in some
details."
"You have told me that the orders you give the under-servants
vary."
"There is another difference. When the dreams began, I woke
when the hinges of the door at the passage-end creaked. Each night now the
dream endures a moment longer. Perhaps a tenth of a second. Now I see the arm
of the creature who opens that door, nearly to the elbow."
I took the address of his home, which he was glad enough to give
me, and leaving the bank made my way to my hotel.
When I had eaten my roll and drunk my coffee the next morning, I went
to the place indicated by the card given me by Baron H____, and in a few
minutes was sitting with him in a room as bare as those tents from which armies
in the field are cast into battle. "You are ready to begin the case this
morning?" he asked.
"On the contrary. I have already begun; indeed, I am about to
enter a new phase of my investigation. You would not have come to me if your
Dream-Master were not torturing someone other than the people whose names you
gave me. I wish to know the identity of that person, and to interrogate
him."
"I told you that there were many other reports. I-"
"Provided me with a list. They are all of the petite
bourgeoisie, when they are not persons still less important. I believed at
first that it might be because of the urgings of Herr R____ that you engaged
me; but when I had time to reflect on what I know of your methods, I realized
that you would have demanded that he provide my fee had that been the case. So
you are sheltering someone of greater importance, and I wish to speak to
him."
"The Countess-" Baron H____ began.
"Ah!"
"The Countess herself has expressed some desire that you
should be presented to her. The Count opposes it."
"We are speaking, I take it, of the governor of this
province?"
The Baron nodded. "Of Count von V____. He is responsible, you
understand, only to the Queen Regent herself."
"Very well. I wish to bear the Countess, and she wishes to
talk with me. I assure you, Baron, that we will meet; the only question is
whether it will be under your auspices."
The Countess, to whom I was introduced that afternoon, was a woman
in her early twenties, deep-breasted and somber-haired, with skin like milk,
and great dark eyes welling with fear and (I thought) pity, set in a perfect
oval face.
"I am glad you have come, monsieur. For seven weeks now our
good Baron H____ has sought this man for me, but he has not found him."
"If I had known my presence here would please you, Countess,
I would have come long ago, whatever the obstacles. You then, like the others,
are certain it is a real man we seek?"
"I seldom go out, monsieur. My husband feels we are in
constant danger of assassination."
"I believe he is correct."
"But on state occasions we sometimes ride in a glass coach to
the Rathaus. There are uhlans all around us to protect us then. I am
certain that - before the dreams began - I saw the face of this man in the
crowd."
"Very well. Now tell me your dream."
"I am here, at home-"
"In this palace, where we sit now?"
She nodded.
"That is a new feature, then. Continue, please."
"There is to be an execution. In the garden." A fleeting
smile crossed the countess's lovely face. "I need not tell you that that
is not where the executions are held; but it does not seem strange to me when I
dream.
"I have been away, I think, and have only just heard of what
is to take place. I rush into the garden. The man Baron H____ calls the
Dream-Master is there, tied to the trunk of the big cherry tree; a squad of
soldiers faces him, holding their rifles; their officer stands beside them with
his saber drawn, and my husband is watching from a pace or two away. I call out
for them to stop, and my husband turns to look at me. I say: 'You must not do
it, Karl. You must not kill this man.' But I see by his expression that he
believes that I am only a foolish, tender-hearted child. Karl is . . . several
years older than I."
"I am aware of it."
"The Dream-Master turns his head to look at me. People tell
me that my eyes are large - do you think them large, monsieur?"
"Very large, and very beautiful."
"In my dream, quite suddenly, his eyes seem far, far larger
than mine, and far more beautiful; and in them I see reflected the figure of my
husband. Please listen carefully now, because what I am going to say is very
important, though it makes very little sense, I am afraid."
"Anything may happen in a dream, Countess."
"When I see my husband reflected in this man's eyes, I know -
I cannot say how - that it is this reflection, and not the man who stands near
me, who is the real Karl. The man I have thought real is only a reflection of
that reflection. Do you follow what I say?"
I nodded. "I believe so."
"I plead again: 'Do not kill him. Nothing good can come of it
. . .' My husband nods to the officer, the soldiers raise their rifles, and . .
. and . . ."
"You wake. Would you like my handkerchief, Countess? It is of
coarse weave; but it is clean, and much larger than your own."
"Karl is right - I am only a foolish little girl. No,
monsieur, I do not wake - not yet. The soldiers fire. The Dream-Master falls forward,
though his bonds hold him to the tree. And Karl flies to bloody rags beside
me."
On my way back to my hotel, I purchased a map of the city; and
when I reached my room I laid it flat on the table there. There could be no
question of the route of the countess's glass coach - straight down the
Hauptstrasse, the only street in the city wide enough to take a carriage
surrounded by cavalrymen. The most probable route by which Herr R____ might go
from his house to his bank coincided with the Hauptstrasse for several blocks.
The path Fräulein A____ would travel from her flat to the arcade crossed the
Hauptstrasse at a point contained by that interval. I needed to know no more.
Very early the next morning I took up my post at the intersection.
If my man were still alive after the fusillade Count von V____ fired at him
each night, it seemed certain that he would appear at this spot within a few
days, and I am hardened to waiting. I smoked cigarettes while I watched the
citizens of I____ walk up and down before me. When an hour had passed, I bought
a newspaper from a vendor, and stole a few glances at its pages when foot
traffic was light.
Gradually I became aware that I was watched - we boast of reason,
but there are senses over which reason holds no authority. I did not know where
my watcher was, yet I felt his gaze on me, whichever way I turned. So, I
thought, you know me, my friend. Will I too dream now? What has attracted your
attention to a mere foreigner, a stranger, waiting for who-knows-what at this
corner? Have you been talking to Fräulein A____? Or to someone who has spoken
with her?
Without appearing to do so; I looked up and down both streets in
search of another lounger like myself. There was no one - not a drowsing grandfather, not a woman or a child,
not even a dog. Certainly no tall man with a forked beard and piercing eyes.
The windows then - I studied them all, looking for some movement in a dark room
behind a seemingly innocent opening. Nothing.
Only the buildings behind me remained. I crossed to the opposite
side of the Hauptstrasse and looked once more. Then I laughed.
They must have thought me mad, all those dour burghers, for I
fairly doubled over, spitting my cigarette to the sidewalk and clasping my
hands to my waist for fear my belt would burst. The presumption, the impudence,
the brazen insolence of the fellow! The stupidity, the wonderful stupidity of
myself, who had not recognized his old stories! For the remainder of my life
now, I could accept any case with pleasure, pursue the most inept criminal with
zest, knowing that there was always a chance he might outwit such an idiot as
I.
For the Dream-Master had set up His own picture, and full-length
and in the most gorgeous colors, in His window. Choking and spluttering I
saluted it, and then, still filled with laughter, I crossed the street once
more and went inside, where I knew I would find Him. A man awaited me there -
not the one I sought, but one who understood Whom it was I had come for, and
knew as well as I that His capture was beyond any thief-taker's power. I knelt,
and there, though not to the satisfaction I suppose of Baron H____, Fräulein
A____, Herr R____, and the Count and Countess von V____, I destroyed the
Dream-Master as He has been sacrificed so often, devouring His white, wheaten
flesh that we might all possess life without end.
Dear people, dream on.