"Assuredly!... Listen, good Baku, to this dream of mine!--
"I was standing in some great white-walled room, where lamps were
burning; but I cast no shadow on the naked floor of that room,--and
there, upon an iron bed, I saw my own dead body. How I had come to die,
and when I had died, I could not remember. Women were sitting near the
bed,--six or seven,--and I did not know any of them. They were neither
young nor old, and all were dressed in black: watchers I took them to
be. They sat motionless and silent: there was no sound in the place;
and I somehow felt that the hour was late.
"In the same moment I became aware of something nameless in the
atmosphere of the room,-a heaviness that weighed upon the will,--some
viewless numbing power that was slowly growing. Then the watchers began
to watch each other, stealthily; and I knew that they were afraid.
Soundlessly one rose up, and left the room. Another followed; then
another. So, one by one, and lightly as shadows, they all went out. I
was left alone with the corpse of myself.
"The lamps still burned clearly; but the terror in the air was
thickening. The watchers had stolen away almost as soon as they began
to feel it. But I believed that there was yet time to escape;--I
thought that I could safely delay a moment longer. A monstrous
curiosity obliged me to remain: I wanted to look at my own body,
to examine it closely.... I approached it. I observed it. And I
wondered--because it seemed to me very long,--unnaturally long....
"Then I thought that I saw one eyelid quiver. But the appearance of
motion might have been caused by the trembling of a lamp-flame. I
stooped to look--slowly, and very cautiously, because I was afraid that
the eyes might open.
"'It is Myself,' I thought, as I bent down,--'and yet, it is growing
queer!'... The face appeared to be lengthening.... 'It is not Myself,'
I thought again, as I stooped still lower,--'and yet, it cannot be any
other!' And I became much more afraid, unspeakably afraid, that the
eyes would open....
"_They_ opened!--horribly they opened!--and that thing sprang,--sprang
from the bed at me, and fastened upon me,--moaning, and gnawing, and
rending! Oh! with what madness of terror did I strive against it! But
the eyes of it, and the moans of it, and the touch of it, sickened;
and all my being seemed about to burst asunder in frenzy of loathing,
when--I knew not how--
I found in my hand an axe. And I struck with the axe;--I clove, I
crushed, I brayed the Moaner,--until there lay before me only a
shapeless, hideous, reeking mass,--the abominable ruin of Myself....
"--_Baku kuraë! Baku kuraë! Baku kuraë!_ Devour, O Baku! devour the
dream!" "Nay!" made answer the Baku. "I never eat lucky dreams. That
is a very lucky dream,--a most fortunate dream.... The axe--yes! the
Axe of the Excellent Law, by which the monster of Self is utterly
destroyed!... The best kind of a dream! My friend, _I_ believe in the
teaching of the Buddha."
And the Baku went out of the window. I looked after him;--and I beheld
him fleeing over the miles of moonlit roofs,--passing, from house-top
to house-top, with amazing soundless leaps,--like a great cat....