The Drunkard's Dream Page #3

"The Drunkard's Dream" is a short story by Joseph Thomas Sheridan Le Fanu, an influential Irish writer known for his contributions to the gothic and supernatural genres. This tale explores themes of intoxication and the surreal, as it follows the experiences of a man who, in a drunken stupor, becomes ensnared in a vivid and nightmarish dreamscape. Through a blend of eerie imagery and psychological depth, Le Fanu delves into the darker aspects of human nature and the consequences of escapism, creating a compelling narrative that reflects the complexities of addiction and the blurred lines between reality and illusion.

• Fiction

								

extreme importunity and impatience to meet me were likely to retard
his recovery more than the mere exhaustion attendant upon a short
conversation could possibly do; perhaps, too, my friend entertained some
hope that if by holy confession his patient's bosom were eased of the
perilous stuff which no doubt oppressed it, his recovery would be more
assured and rapid. It was then, as I have said, upon the fourth day
after my first professional call, that I found myself once more in the
dreary chamber of want and sickness.

The man was in bed, and appeared low and restless. On my entering the
room he raised himself in the bed, and muttered, twice or thrice:

'Thank God! thank God!'

I signed to those of his family who stood by to leave the room, and
took a chair beside the bed. So soon as we were alone, he said, rather
doggedly:

'There's no use in telling me of the sinfulness of bad ways--I know it
all. I know where they lead to--I seen everything about it with my own
eyesight, as plain as I see you.' He rolled himself in the bed, as if
to hide his face in the clothes; and then suddenly raising himself,
he exclaimed with startling vehemence: 'Look, sir! there is no use in
mincing the matter: I'm blasted with the fires of hell; I have been in
hell. What do you think of that? In hell--I'm lost for ever--I have not
a chance. I am damned already--damned--damned!'

The end of this sentence he actually shouted. His vehemence was
perfectly terrific; he threw himself back, and laughed, and sobbed
hysterically. I poured some water into a tea-cup, and gave it to him.
After he had swallowed it, I told him if he had anything to communicate,
to do so as briefly as he could, and in a manner as little agitating
to himself as possible; threatening at the same time, though I had no
intention of doing so, to leave him at once, in case he again gave way
to such passionate excitement.

'It's only foolishness,' he continued, 'for me to try to thank you for
coming to such a villain as myself at all. It's no use for me to wish
good to you, or to bless you; for such as me has no blessings to give.'

I told him that I had but done my duty, and urged him to proceed to the
matter which weighed upon his mind. He then spoke nearly as follows:

'I came in drunk on Friday night last, and got to my bed here; I don't
remember how. Sometime in the night it seemed to me I wakened, and
feeling unasy in myself, I got up out of the bed. I wanted the fresh
air; but I would not make a noise to open the window, for fear I'd waken
the crathurs. It was very dark and throublesome to find the door; but
at last I did get it, and I groped my way out, and went down as asy as I
could. I felt quite sober, and I counted the steps one after another, as
I was going down, that I might not stumble at the bottom.

'When I came to the first landing-place--God be about us always!--the
floor of it sunk under me, and I went down--down--down, till the senses
almost left me. I do not know how long I was falling, but it seemed to
me a great while. When I came rightly to myself at last, I was sitting
near the top of a great table; and I could not see the end of it, if it
had any, it was so far off. And there was men beyond reckoning, sitting
down all along by it, at each side, as far as I could see at all. I
did not know at first was it in the open air; but there was a close
smothering feel in it that was not natural. And there was a kind of
light that my eyesight never saw before, red and unsteady; and I did not
see for a long time where it was coming from, until I looked straight
up, and then I seen that it came from great balls of blood-coloured
fire that were rolling high over head with a sort of rushing, trembling
sound, and I perceived that they shone on the ribs of a great roof of
rock that was arched overhead instead of the sky. When I seen this,
scarce knowing what I did, I got up, and I said, "I have no right to
be here; I must go." And the man that was sitting at my left hand only
smiled, and said, "Sit down again; you can NEVER leave this place." And
his voice was weaker than any child's voice I ever heerd; and when he
was done speaking he smiled again.

'Then I spoke out very loud and bold, and I said, "In the name of God,
let me out of this bad place." And there was a great man that I did not
see before, sitting at the end of the table that I was near; and he was
taller than twelve men, and his face was very proud and terrible to look
at. And he stood up and stretched out his hand before him; and when he
stood up, all that was there, great and small, bowed down with a sighing
sound, and a dread came on my heart, and he looked at me, and I could
not speak. I felt I was his own, to do what he liked with, for I knew at
once who he was; and he said, "If you promise to return, you may depart
for a season;" and the voice he spoke with was terrible and mournful,
and the echoes of it went rolling and swelling down the endless cave,
and mixing with the trembling of the fire overhead; so that when he
sat down there was a sound after him, all through the place, like
the roaring of a furnace, and I said, with all the strength I had, "I
promise to come back--in God's name let me go!"

'And with that I lost the sight and the hearing of all that was there,
and when my senses came to me again, I was sitting in the bed with the
blood all over me, and you and the rest praying around the room.'

Here he paused and wiped away the chill drops of horror which hung upon
his forehead.

I remained silent for some moments. The vision which he had just
described struck my imagination not a little, for this was long
before Vathek and the 'Hall of Eblis' had delighted the world; and the
description which he gave had, as I received it, all the attractions of
novelty beside the impressiveness which always belongs to the narration
of an EYE-WITNESS, whether in the body or in the spirit, of the scenes
which he describes. There was something, too, in the stern horror
with which the man related these things, and in the incongruity of his
description, with the vulgarly received notions of the great place of
punishment, and of its presiding spirit, which struck my mind with awe,
almost with fear. At length he said, with an expression of horrible,
imploring earnestness, which I shall never forget--'Well, sir, is
there any hope; is there any chance at all? or, is my soul pledged and
promised away for ever? is it gone out of my power? must I go back to
the place?'

In answering him, I had no easy task to perform; for however clear
might be my internal conviction of the groundlessness of his tears,
and however strong my scepticism respecting the reality of what he had
described, I nevertheless felt that his impression to the contrary, and
his humility and terror resulting from it, might be made available as
no mean engines in the work of his conversion from prodigacy, and of his
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