“There are dreams,” he said, “and dreams.”
That sort of proposition I never dispute.
“I suppose--” he hesitated. “Do you ever dream? I mean vividly.”
“I dream very little,” I answered. “I doubt if I have three vivid dreams
in a year.”
“Ah!” he said, and seemed for a moment to collect his thoughts.
“Your dreams don't mix with your memories?” he asked abruptly. “You
don't find yourself in doubt; did this happen or did it not?”
“Hardly ever. Except just for a momentary hesitation now and then. I
suppose few people do.”
“Does HE say--” he indicated the book.
“Says it happens at times and gives the usual explanation about
intensity of impression and the like to account for its not happening as
a rule. I suppose you know something of these theories--”
“Very little--except that they are wrong.”
His emaciated hand played with the strap of the window for a time. I
prepared to resume reading, and that seemed to precipitate his next
remark. He leant forward almost as though he would touch me.
“Isn't there something called consecutive dreaming--that goes on night
after night?”
“I believe there is. There are cases given in most books on mental
trouble.”
“Mental trouble! Yes. I dare say there are. It's the right place for
them. But what I mean--” He looked at his bony knuckles. “Is that sort
of thing always dreaming? IS it dreaming? Or is it something else?
Mightn't it be something else?”
I should have snubbed his persistent conversation but for the drawn
anxiety of his face. I remember now the look of his faded eyes and the
lids red-stained--perhaps you know that look.
“I'm not just arguing about a matter of opinion,” he said. “The thing's
killing me.”
“Dreams?”
“If you call them dreams. Night after night. Vivid!--so vivid... this--”
(he indicated the landscape that went streaming by the window) “seems
unreal in comparison! I can scarcely remember who I am, what business I
am on....”
He paused. “Even now--”
“The dream is always the same--do you mean?” I asked.
“It's over.”
“You mean?”
“I died.”
“Died?”
“Smashed and killed, and now, so much of me as that dream was, is
dead. Dead for ever. I dreamt I was another man, you know, living in a
different part of the world and in a different time. I dreamt that night
after night. Night after night I woke into that other life. Fresh scenes
and fresh happenings--until I came upon the last--”
“When you died?”
“When I died.”
“And since then--”
“No,” he said. “Thank God! That was the end of the dream....”
It was clear I was in for this dream. And after all, I had an hour
before me, the light was fading fast, and Fortnum-Roscoe has a dreary
way with him. “Living in a different time,” I said: “do you mean in some
different age?”
“Yes.”
“Past?”
“No, to come--to come.”
“The year three thousand, for example?”
“I don't know what year it was. I did when I was asleep, when I was
dreaming, that is, but not now--not now that I am awake. There's a lot
of things I have forgotten since I woke out of these dreams, though I
knew them at the time when I was--I suppose it was dreaming. They called
the year differently from our way of calling the year.... What DID they
call it?” He put his hand to his forehead. “No,” said he, “I forget.”
He sat smiling weakly. For a moment I feared he did not mean to tell
me his dream. As a rule I hate people who tell their dreams, but this
struck me differently. I proffered assistance even. “It began--” I
suggested.
“It was vivid from the first. I seemed to wake up in it suddenly. And
it's curious that in these dreams I am speaking of I never remembered
this life I am living now. It seemed as if the dream life was enough
while it lasted. Perhaps--But I will tell you how I find myself when I
do my best to recall it all. I don't remember anything dearly until I
found myself sitting in a sort of loggia looking out over the sea. I
had been dozing, and suddenly I woke up--fresh and vivid--not a bit
dream-like--because the girl had stopped fanning me.”
“The girl?”
“Yes, the girl. You must not interrupt or you will put me out.”
He stopped abruptly. “You won't think I'm mad?” he said.
“No,” I answered; “you've been dreaming. Tell me your dream.”
“I woke up, I say, because the girl had stopped fanning me. I was not
surprised to find myself there or anything of that sort, you understand.
I did not feel I had fallen into it suddenly. I simply took it up at
that point. Whatever memory I had of THIS life, this nineteenth-century
life, faded as I woke, vanished like a dream. I knew all about myself,
knew that my name was no longer Cooper but Hedon, and all about my
position in the world. I've forgotten a lot since I woke--there's a want
of connection--but it was all quite clear and matter of fact then.”
He hesitated again, gripping the window strap, putting his face forward
and looking up at me appealingly.
“This seems bosh to you?”
“No, no!” I cried. “Go on. Tell me what this loggia was like.”
“It was not really a loggia--I don't know what to call it. It faced
south. It was small. It was all in shadow except the semicircle above
the balcony that showed the sky and sea and the corner where the
girl stood. I was on a couch--it was a metal couch with light striped
cushions-and the girl was leaning over the balcony with her back to me.
The light of the sunrise fell on her ear and cheek. Her pretty white
neck and the little curls that nestled there, and her white shoulder
were in the sun, and all the grace of her body was in the cool blue
shadow. She was dressed--how can I describe it? It was easy and flowing.
And altogether there she stood, so that it came to me how beautiful and
desirable she was, as though I had never seen her before. And when at
last I sighed and raised myself upon my arm she turned her face to me--”
He stopped.
“I have lived three-and-fifty years in this world. I have had mother,
sisters, friends, wife, and daughters--all their faces, the play of
their faces, I know. But the face of this girl--it is much more real to
me. I can bring it back into memory so that I see it again--I could draw
it or paint it. And after all--”
He stopped--but I said nothing.
“The face of a dream--the face of a dream. She was beautiful. Not that
beauty which is terrible, cold, and worshipful, like the beauty of
a saint; nor that beauty that stirs fierce passions; but a sort of
radiation, sweet lips that softened into smiles, and grave grey eyes.
And she moved gracefully, she seemed to have part with all pleasant and
gracious things--”
He stopped, and his face was downcast and hidden. Then he looked up
at me and went on, making no further attempt to disguise his absolute
belief in the reality of his story.
“You see, I had thrown up my plans and ambitions, thrown up all I had
ever worked for or desired for her sake. I had been a master man away
there in the north, with influence and property and a great reputation,
but none of it had seemed worth having beside her. I had come to the
place, this city of sunny pleasures, with her, and left all those things
to wreck and ruin just to save a remnant at least of my life. While I
had been in love with her before I knew that she had any care for me,
before I had imagined that she would dare--that we should dare, all my
life had seemed vain and hollow, dust and ashes. It WAS dust and ashes.
Night after night and through the long days I had longed and desired--my
soul had beaten against the thing forbidden!
“But it is impossible for one man to tell another just these things.
It's emotion, it's a tint, a light that comes and goes. Only while it's
there, everything changes, everything. The thing is I came away and left
them in their Crisis to do what they could.”
“Left whom?” I asked, puzzled.
“The people up in the north there. You see--in this dream, anyhow--I
had been a big man, the sort of man men come to trust in, to group
themselves about. Millions of men who had never seen me were ready to
do things and risk things because of their confidence in me. I had
been playing that game for years, that big laborious game, that vague,
monstrous political game amidst intrigues and betrayals, speech and
agitation. It was a vast weltering world, and at last I had a sort of
leadership against the Gang--you know it was called the Gang--a sort of
compromise of scoundrelly projects and base ambitions and vast public
emotional stupidities and catchwords--the Gang that kept the world noisy
and blind year by year, and all the while that it was drifting, drifting
towards infinite disaster. But I can't expect you to understand the
shades and complications of the year--the year something or other ahead.
I had it all down to the smallest details--in my dream. I suppose I had
been dreaming of it before I awoke, and the fading outline of some queer
new development I had imagined still hung about me as I rubbed my eyes.
It was some grubby affair that made me thank God for the sunlight. I
sat up on the couch and remained looking at the woman and
rejoicing--rejoicing that I had come away out of all that tumult and
folly and violence before it was too late. After all, I thought, this is
life--love and beauty, desire and delight, are they not worth all those
dismal struggles for vague, gigantic ends? And I blamed myself for
having ever sought to be a leader when I might have given my days to
love. But then, thought I, if I had not spent my early days sternly and
austerely, I might have wasted myself upon vain and worthless women, and
at the thought all my being went out in love and tenderness to my dear
mistress, my dear lady, who had come at last and compelled me--compelled
me by her invincible charm for me--to lay that life aside.
“'You are worth it,' I said, speaking without intending her to hear;
'you are worth it, my dearest one; worth pride and praise and all
things. Love! to have YOU is worth them all together.' And at the murmur
of my voice she turned about.
“'Come and see,' she cried--I can hear her now--'come and see the
sunrise upon Monte Solaro.'
“I remember how I sprang to my feet and joined her at the balcony. She
put a white hand upon my shoulder and pointed towards great masses of
limestone, flushing, as it were, into life. I looked. But first I noted
the sunlight on her face caressing the lines of her cheeks and neck. How
can I describe to you the scene we had before us? We were at Capri--”
“I have been there,” I said. “I have clambered up Monte Solaro and drunk
vero Capri--muddy stuff like cider--at the summit.”
“Ah!” said the man with the white face; “then perhaps you can tell
me--you will know if this was indeed Capri. For in this life I have
never been there. Let me describe it. We were in a little room, one of a
vast multitude of little rooms, very cool and sunny, hollowed out of the
limestone of a sort of cape, very high above the sea. The whole island,
you know, was one enormous hotel, complex beyond explaining, and on the
other side there were miles of floating hotels, and huge floating stages
to which the flying machines came. They called it a pleasure city. Of
course, there was none of that in your time rather, I should say, IS
none of that NOW. Of course. Now!--yes.
“Well, this room of ours was at the extremity of the cape, so that one
could see east and west. Eastward was a great cliff--a thousand feet
high perhaps--coldly grey except for one bright edge of gold, and beyond
it the Isle of the Sirens, and a falling coast that faded and passed
into the hot sunrise. And when one turned to the west, distinct and near
was a little bay, a little beach still in shadow. And out of that shadow
rose Solaro straight and tall, flushed and golden crested, like a beauty
throned, and the white moon was floating behind her in the sky. And
before us from east to west stretched the many-tinted sea all dotted
with little sailing boats.
“To the eastward, of course, these little boats were grey and very
minute and clear, but to the westward they were little boats of
gold--shining gold--almost like little flames. And just below us was a
rock with an arch worn through it. The blue sea-water broke to green and
foam all round the rock, and a galley came gliding out of the arch.”
“I know that rock,” I said. “I was nearly drowned there. It is called
the Faraglioni.”
“I Faraglioni? Yes, she called it that,” answered the man with the white
face. “There was some story--but that--”
He put his hand to his forehead again. “No,” he said, “I forget that
story.”
“Well, that is the first thing I remember, the first dream I had, that
little shaded room and the beautiful air and sky and that dear lady of
mine, with her shining arms and her graceful robe, and how we sat
and talked in half whispers to one another. We talked in whispers not
because there was any one to hear, but because there was still such a
freshness of mind between us that our thoughts were a little frightened,
I think, to find themselves at last in words. And so they went softly.
“Presently we were hungry and we went from our apartment, going by
a strange passage with a moving floor, until we came to the great
breakfast room--there was a fountain and music. A pleasant and joyful
place it was, with its sunlight and splashing, and the murmur of plucked
strings. And we sat and ate and smiled at one another, and I would not
heed a man who was watching me from a table near by.
“And afterwards we went on to the dancing-hall. But I cannot describe
that hall. The place was enormous--larger than any building you have
ever seen--and in one place there was the old gate of Capri, caught into
the wall of a gallery high overhead. Light girders, stems and threads
of gold, burst from the pillars like fountains, streamed like an Aurora
across the roof and interlaced, like--like conjuring tricks. All about
the great circle for the dancers there were beautiful figures, strange
dragons, and intricate and wonderful grotesques bearing lights. The
place was inundated with artificial light that shamed the newborn day.
And as we went through the throng the people turned about and looked at
us, for all through the world my name and face were known, and how I had
suddenly thrown up pride and struggle to come to this place. And they
looked also at the lady beside me, though half the story of how at last
she had come to me was unknown or mistold. And few of the men who were
there, I know, but judged me a happy man, in spite of all the shame and
dishonour that had come upon my name.
“The air was full of music, full of harmonious scents, full of the
rhythm of beautiful motions. Thousands of beautiful people swarmed about
the hall, crowded the galleries, sat in a myriad recesses; they were
dressed in splendid colours and crowned with flowers; thousands danced
about the great circle beneath the white images of the ancient gods, and
glorious processions of youths and maidens came and went. We two danced,
not the dreary monotonies of your days--of this time, I mean--but
dances that were beautiful, intoxicating. And even now I can see my lady
dancing--dancing joyously. She danced, you know, with a serious face;
she danced with a serious dignity, and yet she was smiling at me and
caressing me--smiling and caressing with her eyes.
“The music was different,” he murmured. “It went--I cannot describe it;
but it was infinitely richer and more varied than any music that has
ever come to me awake.
“And then--it was when we had done dancing--a man came to speak to
me. He was a lean, resolute man, very soberly clad for that place, and
already I had marked his face watching me in the breakfasting hall, and
afterwards as we went along the passage I had avoided his eye. But now,
as we sat in a little alcove, smiling at the pleasure of all the people
who went to and fro across the shining floor, he came and touched me,
and spoke to me so that I was forced to listen. And he asked that he
might speak to me for a little time apart.
“'No,' I said. 'I have no secrets from this lady. What do you want to
tell me?'
“He said it was a trivial matter, or at least a dry matter, for a lady
to hear.
“'Perhaps for me to hear,' said I.
“He glanced at her, as though almost he would appeal to her. Then he
asked me suddenly if I had heard of a great and avenging declaration
that Evesham had made. Now, Evesham had always before been the man next
to myself in the leadership of that great party in the north. He was a
forcible, hard and tactless man, and only I had been able to control and
soften him. It was on his account even more than my own, I think, that
the others had been so dismayed at my retreat. So this question about
what he had done reawakened my old interest in the life I had put aside
just for a moment.
“'I have taken no heed of any news for many days,' I said. 'What has
Evesham been saying?'
“And with that the man began, nothing loath, and I must confess even I
was struck by Evesham's reckless folly in the wild and threatening words
he had used. And this messenger they had sent to me not only told me of
Evesham's speech, but went on to ask counsel and to point out what
need they had of me. While he talked, my lady sat a little forward and
watched his face and mine.
“My old habits of scheming and organising reasserted themselves. I could
even see myself suddenly returning to the north, and all the dramatic
effect of it. All that this man said witnessed to the disorder of the
party indeed, but not to its damage. I should go back stronger than I
had come. And then I thought of my lady. You see--how can I tell you?
There were certain peculiarities of our relationship--as things are I
need not tell you about that--which would render her presence with me
impossible. I should have had to leave her; indeed, I should have had to
renounce her clearly and openly, if I was to do all that I could do in
the north. And the man knew THAT, even as he talked to her and me, knew
it as well as she did, that my steps to duty were--first, separation,
then abandonment. At the touch of that thought my dream of a return
was shattered. I turned on the man suddenly, as he was imagining his
eloquence was gaining ground with me.
“'What have I to do with these things now?' I said. 'I have done with
them. Do you think I am coquetting with your people in coming here?'
“'No,' he said; 'but--'
“'Why cannot you leave me alone? I have done with these things. I have
ceased to be anything but a private man.'
“'Yes,' he answered. 'But have you thought?--this talk of war, these
reckless challenges, these wild aggressions--'
“I stood up.
“'No,' I cried. 'I won't hear you. I took count of all those things, I
weighed them--and I have come away.'
“He seemed to consider the possibility of persistence. He looked from me
to where the lady sat regarding us.
“'War,' he said, as if he were speaking to himself, and then turned
slowly from me and walked away. I stood, caught in the whirl of thoughts
his appeal had set going.
“I heard my lady's voice.
“'Dear,' she said; 'but if they have need of you--'
“She did not finish her sentence, she let it rest there. I turned to her
sweet face, and the balance of my mood swayed and reeled.
“'They want me only to do the thing they dare not do themselves,' I
said. 'If they distrust Evesham they must settle with him themselves.'
“She looked at me doubtfully.
“'But war--' she said.
“I saw a doubt on her face that I had seen before, a doubt of herself
and me, the first shadow of the discovery that, seen strongly and
completely, must drive us apart for ever.
“Now, I was an older mind than hers, and I could sway her to this belief
or that.
“'My dear one,' I said, 'you must not trouble over these things. There
will be no war. Certainly there will be no war. The age of wars is past.
Trust me to know the justice of this case. They have no right upon me,
dearest, and no one has a right upon me. I have been free to choose my
life, and I have chosen this.'
“'But WAR--' she said.
“I sat down beside her. I put an arm behind her and took her hand in
mine. I set myself to drive that doubt away--I set myself to fill her
mind with pleasant things again. I lied to her, and in lying to her I
lied also to myself. And she was only too ready to believe me, only too
ready to forget.
“Very soon the shadow had gone again, and we were hastening to our
bathing-place in the Grotta del Bovo Marino, where it was our custom to
bathe every day. We swam and splashed one another, and in that buoyant
water I seemed to become something lighter and stronger than a man. And
at last we came out dripping and rejoicing and raced among the rocks.
And then I put on a dry bathing-dress, and we sat to bask in the sun,
and presently I nodded, resting my head against her knee, and she put
her hand upon my hair and stroked it softly and I dozed. And behold! as
it were with the snapping of the string of a violin, I was awakening,
and I was in my own bed in Liverpool, in the life of to-day.
“Only for a time I could not believe that all these vivid moments had
been no more than the substance of a dream.
“In truth, I could not believe it a dream for all the sobering reality
of things about me. I bathed and dressed as it were by habit, and as I
shaved I argued why I of all men should leave the woman I loved to go
back to fantastic politics in the hard and strenuous north. Even if
Evesham did force the world back to war, what was that to me? I was a
man, with the heart of a man, and why should I feel the responsibility
of a deity for the way the world might go?
“You know that is not quite the way I think about affairs, about my real
affairs. I am a solicitor, you know, with a point of view.
“The vision was so real, you must understand, so utterly unlike a dream
that I kept perpetually recalling little irrelevant details; even the
ornament of a book-cover that lay on my wife's sewing-machine in the
breakfast-room recalled with the utmost vividness the gilt line that ran
about the seat in the alcove where I had talked with the messenger from
my deserted party. Have you ever heard of a dream that had a quality
like that?”
“Like--?”
“So that afterwards you remembered little details you had forgotten.”