The Bride of Dreams

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Believe nothing beyond experience, dear reader. But God and Christ are
more experience than the superman, even though they be presumptions.
Your father and your mother, too, are but presumptions, deduced from
experiences, aroused by what their skin and their eyes seem to imply
and to conceal for you.

Thus I presumed that the dead also have their sphere, and that when the
dream-body of living, sleeping man enters there, he cannot grasp the
difference between this sphere and his own and therefore always retains
the illusion that the dead are still alive.

Now I had very often before this dreamed of my father. First that I was
still sailing with him on our last expedition. But this belonged to the
terror-dream of which I spoke before, which at the beginning regularly
repeated itself.

This dream I consider nothing but the painful echo in the deeper chasms
of my soul, of the violent shock that my waking body had sustained.
Beyond this I attach to it no deeper significance.

But then came a dream of wholly different character, in a perceptibly
different sphere, in which I walked with my father while he put his arm
around my shoulders and cried. It seemed to me as though he was trying
his best to show me the marks of tenderness which he knew I was fond of
and of which he was usually so sparing.

I did not remember that he was dead and I walked by his side somewhat
embarrassed, as the child that unexpectedly gets more than it has asked
for. So as also to do something on my part to please him, I caught a
fine butterfly with curious blue arabesques on his wings, and I
pronounced a Latin word to let him see that I knew the species. The
word I no longer remember and moreover it was only dream Latin, that is
to say: nonsense. But my good intention was apparently evident to him,
and pointing to the wondrous design on the wings he said something
about "plasmodic" or some such word, just as nonsensical as my name for
the species. But in the dream there is a wholly different relation
between word and spirit, and one can construe sensible meanings out of
nonsense and also interchange thoughts without words, - and I knew very
well at the time and also on awaking that my father wanted to make me
think about the way in which this butterfly decoration was formed.

Then I woke and it took me a long time to realize fully that my father
was dead. And this realization suddenly struck me like a cold
whirlwind, making me shiver from head to foot.

The first hours after waking I was sure that it was he who had communed
with me, that he felt remorse for his rage at me in the last moments of
his life, and therefore cried and was unusually tender toward me. I
also thought his pointing to the ornamented wings of the butterfly
important and full of meaning, albeit not yet clear to me.

But the impressions of the day are so different from those of the
night, the two are so hostile, that they alternately seek to supplant
one another as absolutely as possible, as though by turns one had been
in the company of a religious devotee and an atheist, of a poet and a
dull philistine, of a spendthrift and a miser. No man so firm in
character but undergoes this influence. And it still regularly befalls
even me, after so many years, that at the end of day I face the night
with its wonders with critical unbelieving expectancy. Even when
falling asleep I cannot realize the coming transition, and only the
next morning I again know how everything was, and am surprised that I
could ever doubt and forget it, just as we see again the face of one we
love and are surprised that the image in our memory could have faded so
completely.

The mightiest and most prodigious fallacy of men in this age, that
cripples their aspirations, and like a deadly frost bends low and kills
the tender blossoms of their young growing wisdom, erecting cruel steep
walls between heart and heart, between group and group - is the fallacy
that in this struggle between belief and unbelief a verdict can be
reached through something that they call Reason and that bears as its
weapon the True Word. But reason rules only in the realm of
imagination, in the realm of word, of language, of scheme and symbol.
In the realm of actual experience Reason is not what we call Reason,
and only the young person and the childish nation, as that of ancient
Athens, confuse reason and see in the "Logos" the actual, and in the
logical the truth, expecting that patient reasoning must indeed lead to
the truth. But did not father Plato himself get nearest the truth where
his logos is most illogical?

XV

It was really she! It was in a long lane bordered on both sides by dark
spruce and beeches decked out in the golden brown tints of autumn. The
sunbeams, distinctly bluish in the fine mist, slantingly penetrated the
dark spruce, and fell in golden radiance upon the pale green moss, and
the blue ether and the brown and green foliage shone in a brilliance of
hue suggesting the brown and blue lustre of the opal. I had already
seen her approaching from a distance, her white bare feet noiselessly
pressing the soft moss. I gazed intently at her face; at the young
fresh complexion; the softly waved lustrous blonde hair with the
little, fine loose hairs standing out around her head, shimmering in
the sunlight like a halo; at the amber tints in the shadows of her
finely modelled ear.

It was she, and she laid her finger on her lips as though I should
listen. But I heard nothing. I saw distinctly how the round spots of
sunlight glided over her face and her hair and the shadows of the
foliage fell upon her breast and shoulders draped in white.

While I gazed at her, wondering what she would say, my thoughts carried
on their subtle play. The subtle play from which they so seldom rest,
night or day. I thought: "How will the life after death be? Shall we
perceive, see, hear, smell, taste, touch then too? Surely the
perception can never be as positive as now - here. As clearly as I now
see these trees and her dear face - now, now while I am alive and awake
- so clearly I cannot perceive after death, without a body and sense."

While I was thinking this, she had come close up to me and I spoke
calmly:

"Is it you, Emmy?"

Then I looked at her, somewhat doubtfully, as though there were
something unusual about her, and she whisperingly replied:

"Not yet entirely."

These strange words did not surprise me. At the moment I understood
very well what she meant to say with them, and I asked:

"Will you stay?"

Then I wanted to fold her in my arms. But I saw her shake her head and,
with the slender fingers on her mouth, again motion as though I should
listen. Then I heard sounds as of a wildly galloping beast, a trampling
of hoofs that resounded hollowly on the wooded path. And all at once I
remembered a heavy responsibility that rested upon me, and I knew that
this trampling gallop was connected with it. It was to fetch me or to
drive away Emmy, to put an end to this great serene happiness. And I
felt a horrible, choking fear rising in me, while the sounds came
nearer and nearer.

But Emmy smiled - a tender gracious smile and said:

"I shall come again."

Then, at the very end of the straight lane, where the alternating
brownish red beeches and blackish green spruce appeared very small, and
the light green mossy path gleamed up and narrowing met the sky, I saw
the galloping beast approaching. It was black, a horse or a bull - I
could not distinguish which - but it came nearer and nearer and my fear
rose to terror. Then all at once, sideways through the row of trees,
the pale face of my father appeared, and he walked toward Emmy as
though to shield her, saying:

"It is too late!"

After this that strange transition took place, which is like a chaotic
mingling of two spheres of life, a rolling together of space and light,
one moment oppressing, then again relieving, as the sensation of the
diver who, turning around under water, loses the consciousness of up
and down until he regains his balance, air and daylight, the transition
from dreaming to waking.

I had dreamt and only now actually woke. And meanwhile, only a moment
ago, I had thought that there could never be such clear and distinct
perceptions in the life without the body and senses, as those which now
after all turned out to belong to the dream - to the life without body
and senses. I was astonished and perplexed as on so many a morning on
waking.

But then came a yet more dazzling, more overwhelming memory - Emmy! I
had seen her as positively as I had ever seen her, her glance still
lived in my eyes, her voice in my ears. It was Emmy - and we had wanted
to clasp each other in our arms, we had tasted each other's love.

I opened my eyes and looked about the world in which I had awakened. I
saw the cold, soulless luxury of a hotel apartment, mirrored wardrobes,
thick red carpets. Out doors, bells were pealing, carts were rattling,
and whips were cracking. Another bed stood next to mine and in it I saw
dark, glossy hair - spread out dishevelled on the white cushion in the
disarray of morning. It was my wife - Lucia.

A violent agitation seized me. My thoughts and feelings were stirred to
commotion like a bee-hive which someone has knocked against. Vainly I
sought to restore harmony and peace in myself by calm reflection.

My strongest feeling was one of guilt, terrible, inexpiable guilt. Much
graver guilt than had ever oppressed me after my youthful errings.
Guilt toward this gentle, dark-haired woman, who lay sleeping by my
side, and whom I had permitted to become my wife. For after all it was
deceit - Emmy still existed. I had seen her and spoken to her, and we
loved each other, as I should never be able to love this other.

Emmy still existed - but where and how?

Then another memory came back to me which made me shiver with nervous
fright. I had not only seen Emmy, but also my father with her. And I
knew what this meant. Might her appearing to me so distinctly this
night be an instance of the oft-propounded correspondence of death and
the manifestation of the spirit?

In my anxiety I got up quietly, dressed and went out.

The air was keen and sparklingly fresh, the smoke from the houses rose
up in straight columns. We were at Lucerne and the winter, which had
already forsaken Italy, was here bidding a last farewell. A thin layer
of snow covered the roofs and the mountains, and the transparent bright
emerald green of the lake, the light brown of the antique wood work on
the bridges, towers and houses, and the soft tender white of the snow
formed a cool and noble harmony.

I roved about in the woods and mountains and only returned toward
afternoon - my spiritual balance restored, but more than ever estranged
from the human world.

I sent a telegram to Emmy's family in London: "Wire address Mrs. Emmy
Truant." And toward night came the reply: "Mrs. Truant died fever Simla
January."

Not this night, but three months ago she had died. I attached no
significance, as so many do, to the fact that the point of time did not
correspond exactly. I knew that it had been she, and the certainty of
her death made me calm. It was as though she was now really mine, and
would ever remain mine.

I showed Lucia the message, thereby explaining my sad and introspective
mood. She willingly forgave me and did not ask me more than I wished to
tell, just as she had always met me with the utmost discretion in my,
to her inexplainable, humors.

But if perchance she had hoped that my heart would now feel itself
free, that my entire love would now be bestowed on her, she was
miserably deceived. The effect was exactly the reverse. I only now
fully realized what I had done, and only now felt it as a great wrong.
I felt that I had a wife, but it was not the one who slept by my side
and who bore my name. A fervent passionate desire went out toward the
being whose fair image I had seen so clearly, whom I had wished to
embrace with unutterable tenderness, and whose voice and whose presence
had procured for me bliss such as the day had never brought me, and the
clear, cold daylight could not dispel. I longed for the night all day
long, - and with bitter certainty I felt that I should never be able to
offer more to the poor woman, whom I had taken into my arms as my wife,
than a friendly mask, an assumed appearance of loyalty and tenderness.

And the feeling of guilt, which in another might perhaps have been
lulled by the news of her death, began to burn on my conscience with
greater intensity than ever. I abused myself as a coward, a weakling,
an adulterer, for something that no man on earth would ever have
imputed to me as guilt.

But even then, while I writhed with pain, I knew that my free judgment
never would have condemned as guilty one who had acted as I, thus -
that remorse and the distressing consciousness of sin are not the
logical and just consequence of a deed realized as bad and pernicious,
but that it is the sad effect of a law, salutary for humanity as a
whole, but often baneful and unjust for the individual, to which we
must submit with love and patience for the sake of the sacred character
of this law and out of respect to the sublime will of its Maker.

XVI

In order actively to carry out a thing in the dream world, I must
resolve upon it betimes and definitely determine upon the plan. During
the actual dream the time is usually too short, the incidents pass too
fleetingly. Sometimes I soar on in swift flight so that everything
rushes by me without my being able to delay the pace. It is usually
after one of these happy dreams with full consciousness, that I plan
out, that very morning before getting up, what I shall do the next time
in my dream. And then, every evening before falling asleep, it is once
more distinctly formulated and stamped upon the memory, so that like a
ready tool it will be at hand during the moments of observation - just
as astronomical instruments during an eclipse of the sun.

Thus I had determined on calling some one in my dream. And the first
one I selected for this purpose was my father.

I had seen him many times in my dreams, but never with full
consciousness, never with the memory that he was dead, never in the
sphere of light and happiness.

I made up my mind to call him night after night, as soon as I should
awaken in the sphere of observation. For it is an awakening just as
much as our awakening in the morning, but the body sleeps on.

And I succeeded. One night I was dreaming in the usual way in the
demon-sphere and they played one, of their familiar dismal pranks. We
were acting a farce, some friends of my youth and I, and the stage was
a cemetery and all the actors had grinning skulls. Then, firmly
regarding one of these acting apparitions, I said: "There is no death,"
as though to resist this obtruding horror. The head grinned mockingly
and, with a sarcastic expression, pointed to all the skulls and bones
round about. But I repeated, now with fixed determination and in a loud
voice: "There is no death!" and behold! the eyes of the being before me
faded, the whole apparition vanished - and I felt it was by my will.
Then I gained full consciousness, the complete remembrance of my
day-life and waking sensibilities, and blithely and thoroughly
conscious I rose into the sphere of knowledge and joy. Then hastily and
animatedly I spoke to myself, and I felt my mouth, my breath, my whole
body, the animæ corpus; and yet I knew that my day body lay sleeping
and silent and did not stir. Hastily I spoke: "I am there! I am there!
What is it that I wanted? I wanted to see my father. Oh yes! my father!
I wanted to see my father!"

Then I saw a sunny, green landscape spread out before me, a little
house, low and small. "He is inside," said I. "Here I shall find him."
I ran through many rooms and did not see him, but I continued my search
from room to room. And when I saw the last room empty too, I made an
additional room. And behold! I saw him sitting there.

This time he looked exactly like my father as I had known him, only
much younger than when he left me. He wore a dark blue suit, top boots
and a felt hat. The expression on his face was mild, and his eyes shone
clear and bright.

"Father!" said I; "Father!" and with a beseeching gesture I walked
toward him. I heard him say: "Good day, Vico mio!" And it was his
voice, even more than it was his face.

Then I gave him my hand and he took it. He tried to press my hand and
it seemed to cost him physical exertion.

I said, "Have you forgiven me?"

It was a warm, glorious sensation; I saw that he tried his best and he
looked at me mildly.

He murmured something, but I could not understand it or I have
forgotten it. Thereupon, with the utmost effort to express myself
clearly and with sincerest fervor, I asked: "Can you give me advice? I
seek for the best. Tell me what I must do, counsel me!"

But he said nothing.

Then an old question arose in me, unexpectedly and without my having
resolved anything about it:

"Father," I said, "what is Christ?"

Then I heard him say:

"Ask the butterfly."

And I understood that he meant the butterfly in the last dream with the
blue decorated wings. I asked:

"Can you tell me nothing?"

Then he shook his head very gently and everything in my dream vanished;
I saw only his head shaking "no" - and with that I awoke. The day was
dawning, and I lay thinking over everything and impressing it on my
memory.

I felt absolutely certain that I had spoken with him.

I went to sleep again and dreamed, as frequently happens after a dream
of this kind, that I related my dream, but without knowing that I was
sleeping.

That morning I was extraordinarily refreshed and happy. And the whole
day the sound of his voice was in my ears, with the words: "Good day,
Vico mio!" And repeatedly I tried to recall the exact tones.

I had this dream some time before the first appearance of Emmy, and had
asked for advice, because at the time I was still in conflict with
myself whether I should take Lucia for my wife.

XVII

"How is it that they wired you so late that your little friend had
died, so many months after?" Lucia asked me, some days after we had
left Lucerne.

"Because I, myself, had only then wired to inquire about her."

Lucia looked at we silently and thoughtfully for a while, and then said
with a kindly unsuspecting earnestness, full of delicate chastity:

"Oh, then I understand. Then she appeared to you in a vision, didn't
she?"

I nodded and Lucia questioned me no further.

She had remained a strict Catholic and had retained much of the lavish
popular superstition of my country. She attached importance to amulets,
to trinkets blessed by the Pope, to the offering of candies to saints.

Regarding dreams she held a creed, elaborated in every detail, the
accuracy of which she continued to maintain, although I never heard
from her a single striking proof. To dream of flowers, of water, of
money, of blood - it all meant something, but it was always equally
vaguely asserted, equally inaccurately observed, and with equally
little foundation accounted proved. For me it was absolutely worthless
and I carefully guarded against contradicting her in these things and
making her a partner of my own experiences.

But it was strange and remarkable that a certain dream to which she
herself attached no significance and whereof her dream-lore made no
mention, always repeated itself in connection with a certain experience
of mine in my night and day life.

Whenever another woman stepped across my path in life, threatening to
endanger the soundness of my union with Lucia, she would dream of a
large, wild horse that frightened her or bore down upon her. Sometimes
it was white, sometimes brown, sometimes black, - there also would be
two or three of them; they menaced and frightened her, but did her no
harm. She always faithfully and unsuspectingly reported to me when she
had again dreamt of horses, without having the least idea that for me
this was a stern and covert warning.

For it never failed, whenever I had fallen into serious temptation -
which, after the peaceful and secluded years at Como, was quite
inevitable on our numerous journeys - she would very soon come to me
with her innocent story that she had again been worried by the
troublesome horses.

And as I know that not only she, but my mother too sometimes, as well
as other women I have known, have been warned in this strange way, I
would advise you, dear reader, to pay attention to this. It may have
been a strange chance and coincidence; it may also be peculiarly proper
to me and the persons associated with me, - but it may also have a more
universal meaning, and no wonder, if we take into consideration the
presumable slight coöperation of the men, that the women have not yet
ascertained this meaning. But we should make reservations before sowing
suspicion between the innocent!

After my first vision of Emmy I lived in a peculiar state of outward
calm and inward happiness. To Lucia I was kind, tender and solicitous,
but I did not feel myself her husband, nor could I approach her as such
without a sense of guilt. At Como the temptations besetting my life as
a youth had vanished. The close application to study, the simple, rural
life, the absence of temptation, the pure, serene atmosphere of the
little domestic circle - all this had given me support and kept me out
of difficulties.

And when I travelled with Lucia the strange fact revealed itself that,
mindful of Emmy's love and her appearance to me, I charged myself with
sin and baseness for what everyone considered just and lawful. The
temptation against which I fought and to which, bitterly ashamed, I
nevertheless repeatedly yielded, now no longer went out from hapless
prostitutes, but from the beautiful and amiable woman whom I had made
my wife. It would all have sounded very queer to other people, but once
for all it was so, my spirit responded to life in its own original way
and would not be forced. It was of no avail that I told myself how
differently the world judged, and I was just as unhappy when I had
yielded to Lucia's charms as when I had succumbed to the intrigues of a
strange woman. But nevertheless one as well as the other occurred, for
the incongruous relations in my heart and life were not ordered and the
wild lusts remained untamed. While all who knew me accounted me lucky
on account of my marriage, I led for many long years a hard and
tortured life. My love and devotion to my wife and children were forced
and strained, and I grieved bitterly that so much beauty and loveliness
did not attract my natural interest. My task was a giant task that
often seemed too mighty for me, and what I attained was nothing
unusual, nothing but what everyone expected as self-understood. I was
called a good husband and father, but no one knew the enormous effort
it cost me, and how far I still fell short, and no one would have
believed me or showed me sympathetic understanding.

When I had succeeded in summoning my father in the night and thus knew
that I possessed this power, the nights in which I penetrated to the
clear dream-sphere became all the more important to me.

And when I had seen Emmy in the common dream-sphere, in the sphere of
the dead, but without being myself clearly conscious, my first thought
that morning was to call her as soon as the sphere of clear perception
should open before me. And with great suspense I awaited such a night,
and morning after morning was disappointed and vexed that this clarity
had not come. For as I said before, sometimes this perception eludes me
for months and the dreams are on the ordinary confused, insignificant
order. Then all at once some inexplainable cause summons forth the
good, happy and clear moments of perception three or four nights in
succession.

But at last, after all, came the blessed night in which my project was
completely realized.

It was after a most tiring and not very pleasant day. A long mountain
excursion in the rain. I dreamed that I walked in the street among a
crowd of people. Beside me walked a little friend of my youth. Suddenly
it shot through my mind like a ray of light that I would call some one,
I would summon Emmy. Hastily I said to my comrade: "I beg your pardon,
but I must look for some one, Emmy Tenders!" I did indeed think
meanwhile that I was giving publicity to something very intimate, but
the matter was too important, I had to say the name. Then I ran through
the crowd searching and calling: "Emmy! Emmy!" Meanwhile, I thought
that I should be heard calling in my sleep, that Lucia would hear me. I
passed by trees and verdure, observing everything sharply and
distinctly. Busily absorbed in my quest I murmured to myself: "Yes! I
see it distinctly - autumn sun on elm leaves - small green apples. I
can remember their position, but I must have Emmy, - Emmy!"

Then I saw a closed door, and I pointed to it with my finger, saying:
She is there! if I open this door I shall see her!

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