The Dream Page #5

"The Dream" is a novella by Russian author Ivan Turgenev, exploring the themes of love, loss, and the complexity of human emotions. The story follows a man who experiences a vivid dream that deeply reflects his inner desires and regrets. Through this dream, Turgenev delves into the psyche of the protagonist, revealing the tensions between idealism and reality. The work is notable for its lyrical prose and poignant insights into the nature of dreams and their impact on our waking lives. Turgenev's exploration of the characters' emotional landscapes makes "The Dream" a significant contribution to the existential literature of the 19th century.

								


"But has he been living here long?"

"No, not long; about a week. Now he is not here at all."

"But what was the family name of that baron?"

The maid-servant stared at me.

"Don't you know his name? We simply called him the baron. Hey, there!
Piótr!" she cried, perceiving that I was pushing my way in.--"come
hither: some stranger or other is asking all sorts of questions."

From the house there presented itself the shambling figure of a robust
labourer.

"What's the matter? What's wanted?" he inquired in a hoarse voice,--and
having listened to me with a surly mien, he repeated what the
maid-servant had said.

"But who does live here?" I said.

"Our master."

"And who is he?"

"A carpenter. They are all carpenters in this street."

"Can he be seen?"

"Impossible now, he is asleep."

"And cannot I go into the house?"

"No; go your way."

"Well, and can I see your master a little later?"

"Why not? Certainly. He can always be seen.... That's his business as a
dealer. Only, go your way now. See how early it is."

"Well, and how about that negro?" I suddenly asked.

The labourer stared in amazement, first at me, then at the maid-servant.

"What negro?" he said at last.--"Go away, sir. You can come back later.
Talk with the master."

I went out into the street. The gate was instantly banged behind me,
heavily and sharply, without squeaking this time.

I took good note of the street and house and went away, but not home.--I
felt something in the nature of disenchantment. Everything which had
happened to me was so strange, so remarkable--and yet, how stupidly it
had been ended! I had been convinced that I should behold in that house
the room which was familiar to me--and in the middle of it my father,
the baron, in a dressing-gown and with a pipe.... And instead of that,
the master of the house was a carpenter, and one might visit him as much
as one pleased,--and order furniture of him if one wished!

But my father had gone to America! And what was left for me to do
now?... Tell my mother everything, or conceal forever the very memory of
that meeting? I was absolutely unable to reconcile myself to the thought
that such a senseless, such a commonplace ending should be tacked on to
such a supernatural, mysterious beginning!

I did not wish to return home, and walked straight ahead, following my
nose, out of the town.

XIV

I walked along with drooping head, without a thought, almost without
sensation, but wholly engrossed in myself.--A measured, dull and angry
roar drew me out of my torpor. I raised my head: it was the sea roaring
and booming fifty paces from me. Greatly agitated by the nocturnal
storm, the sea was a mass of white-caps to the very horizon, and steep
crests of long breakers were rolling in regularly and breaking on the
flat shore, I approached it, and walked along the very line left by the
ebb and flow on the yellow, ribbed sand, strewn with fragments of
trailing seawrack, bits of shells, serpent-like ribbons of eel-grass.
Sharp-winged gulls with pitiful cry, borne on the wind from the distant
aerial depths, soared white as snow against the grey, cloudy sky,
swooped down abruptly, and as though skipping from wave to wave,
departed again and vanished like silvery flecks in the strips of
swirling foam. Some of them, I noticed, circled persistently around a
large isolated boulder which rose aloft in the midst of the monotonous
expanse of sandy shores. Coarse seaweed grew in uneven tufts on one side
of the rock; and at the point where its tangled stems emerged from the
yellow salt-marsh, there was something black, and long, and arched, and
not very large.... I began to look more intently.... Some dark object
was lying there--lying motionless beside the stone.... That object
became constantly clearer and more distinct the nearer I approached....

I was only thirty paces from the rock now.... Why, that was the outline
of a human body! It was a corpse; it was a drowned man, cast up by the
sea! I went clear up to the rock.

It was the corpse of the baron, my father! I stopped short, as though
rooted to the spot. Then only did I understand that ever since daybreak
I had been guided by some unknown forces--that I was in their
power,--and for the space of several minutes there was nothing in my
soul save the ceaseless crashing of the sea, and a dumb terror in the
presence of the Fate which held me in its grip....

XV

He was lying on his back, bent a little to one side, with his left arm
thrown above his head ... the right was turned under his bent body. The
sticky slime had sucked in the tips of his feet, shod in tall sailor's
boots; the short blue pea-jacket, all impregnated with sea-salt, had not
unbuttoned; a red scarf encircled his neck in a hard knot. The swarthy
face, turned skyward, seemed to be laughing; from beneath the upturned
upper lip small close-set teeth were visible; the dim pupils of the
half-closed eyes were hardly to be distinguished from the darkened
whites; covered with bubbles of foam the dirt-encrusted hair spread out
over the ground and laid bare the smooth forehead with the purplish line
of the scar; the narrow nose rose up like a sharp, white streak between
the sunken cheeks. The storm of the past night had done its work.... He
had not beheld America! The man who had insulted my mother, who had
marred her life, my father--yes! my father, I could cherish no doubt as
to that--lay stretched out helpless in the mud at my feet. I experienced
a sense of satisfied vengeance, and compassion, and repulsion, and
terror most of all ... of twofold terror; terror of what I had seen, and
of what had come to pass. That evil, that criminal element of which I
have already spoken, those incomprehensible spasms rose up within
me ... stifled me.

"Aha!" I thought to myself: "so that is why I am what I am.... That is
where blood tells!" I stood beside the corpse and gazed and waited, to
see whether those dead pupils would not stir, whether those benumbed
lips would not quiver. No! everything was motionless; the very seaweed,
among which the surf had cast him, seemed to have congealed; even the
gulls had flown away--there was not a fragment anywhere, not a plank or
any broken rigging. There was emptiness everywhere ... only he--and
I--and the foaming sea in the distance. I cast a glance behind me; the
same emptiness was there; a chain of hillocks on the horizon ... that
was all!

I dreaded to leave that unfortunate man in that loneliness, in the ooze
of the shore, to be devoured by fishes and birds; an inward voice told
me that I ought to hunt up some men and call them thither, if not to
aid--that was out of the question--at least for the purpose of laying
him out, of bearing him beneath an inhabited roof.... But indescribable
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