“I am in the garden now. There are fountains playing, and nightingales singing in the willows. The air smells of lilies, and a cherry tree in blossom looks like a giantess in her bridal gown. I walk on a straight, smooth path; I think it must be paved with marble chips, because it is white in the moonlight. Ahead of me is the
“What sort of music?”
“Magnificent—joyous, if you know what I am trying to say, but not the tinklings of a theater orchestra. A great symphony. I have never been to the opera at Bayreuth, but I think it must be like that—yet a happy, quick tune.”
She paused, and for an instant her smile recovered the remembered music. “There are pillars, and a grand entrance, with broad steps. I run up—I am so happy to be there—and throw open the door. It is brightly lit inside; a wave of golden light, almost like a wave from the ocean, strikes me. The room is a great hall, with a high ceiling. A long table is set in the middle and there are hundreds of people seated at it, but one place, the one nearest me, is empty. I cross to it and sit down; there are beautiful golden loaves on the table, and bowls of honey with roses floating at their centers, and crystal carafes of wine, and many other good things I cannot remember when I awake. Everyone is eating and drinking and talking, and I begin to eat too.”
I said, “It is only a dream, fraulein. There is no reason to weep.”
“I dream this each night—I have dreamed so every night for months.”
“Go on.”
“Then he comes. I am sure he is the one who is causing me to dream like this because I can see his face clearly, and remember it when the dream is over. Sometimes it is very vivid for an hour or more after I wake—so vivid that I have only to close my eyes to see it before me.”
“I will ask you to describe him in detail later. For the present, continue with your dream.”
“He is tall, and robed like a king, and there is a strange crown on his head. He stands beside me, and though he says nothing, I know that the etiquette of the place demands that I rise and face him. I do this. Sometimes I am sucking my fingers as I get up from his table.”
“He owns the dream palace, then.”
“Yes, I am sure of that. It is his castle, his home; he is my host. I stand and face him, and I am conscious of wanting very much to please him, but not knowing what it is I should do.”
“That must be painful.”
“It is. But as I stand there, I become aware of how I am clothed, and—”
“How are you clothed?”
“As you see me now. In a plain, dark dress—the dress I wear here at the arcade. But the others—all up and down the hall, all up and down the table—are wearing the dresses I sell here. These dresses.” She held one up for me to see, a beautiful creation of many layers of lace, with buttons of polished jet. “I know then that I cannot remain; but the king signals to the others, and they seize me and push me toward the door.”
“You are humiliated then?”
“Yes, but the worst thing is that I am aware that he knows that I could never drive myself to leave, and he wishes to spare me the struggle. But outside—some terrible beast has entered the garden. I smell it—like the hyena cage at the Tiergarten—as the door opens. And then I wake up.”
“It is a harrowing dream.”
“You have seen the dresses I sell. Would you credit it that for weeks I slept in one, and then another, and then another of them?”
“You reaped no benefit from that?”
“No. In the dream I was clad as now. For a time I wore the dresses always—even here to the stall, and when I bought food at the market. But it did no good.”
“Have you tried sleeping somewhere else?”
“With my cousin who lives on the other side of the city. That made no difference. I am certain that this man I see is a real man. He is in my dream, and the cause of it, but he is not sleeping.”
“Yet you have never seen him when you are awake?”
She paused, and I saw her bite at her full lower lip. “I am certain I have.”
“Ah!”
“But I cannot remember when. Yet I am sure I have seen him—that I have passed him in the street.”
“Think! Does his face associate itself in your mind with some particular section of the city?”
She shook her head.
When I left her at last, it was with a description of the Dream-Master less precise than I had hoped, though still detailed. It tallied in almost all respects with the one given me by Baron H——, but that proved nothing, since the baron’s description might have been based largely on Fraulein A——’s.
T
he bank of Herr R——was a private one, as all the greatest banks in Europe are. It was located in what had once been the town house of some noble family (their arms, overgrown now with ivy, were still visible above the door) and bore no identification other than a small brass plate engraved with the names of Herr R——and his partners. Within, the atmosphere was more dignified—even if, perhaps, less tasteful—than it could possibly have been in the noble family’s time. Dark pictures in gilded frames lined the walls, and the clerks sat at inlaid tables upon chairs upholstered in tapestry. When I asked for Herr R——, I was told that it would be impossible to see him that afternoon; I sent in a note with a sidelong allusion to “unquiet dreams,” and within five minutes I was ushered into a luxurious office that must once have been the bedroom of the head of the household.
Herr R——was a large man—tall, and heavier (I thought) than his physician was likely to have approved. He appeared to be about fifty; there was strength in his wide, fleshy face; his high forehead and capacious cranium
