Читать книгу The Book of Dreams and Ghosts - Andrew Lang - Страница 13

Table of Contents

A lady dreamed that she was sitting at a window, watching the end of an autumn sunset. There came a knock at the front door and a gentleman and lady were ushered in. The gentleman wore an old-fashioned snuff-coloured suit, of the beginning of the century; he was, in fact, an aged uncle, who, during the Napoleonic wars, had been one of the English détenus in France. The lady was very beautiful and wore something like a black Spanish mantilla. The pair carried with them a curiously wrought steel box. Before conversation was begun, the maid (still in the dream) brought in the lady’s chocolate and the figures vanished. When the maid withdrew, the figures reappeared standing by the table. The box was now open, and the old gentleman drew forth some yellow papers, written on in faded ink. These, he said, were lists of securities, which had been in his possession, when he went abroad in 18--, and in France became engaged to his beautiful companion.

“The securities,” he said, “are now in the strong box of Messrs. ---;” another rap at the door, and the actual maid entered with real hot water. It was time to get up. The whole dream had its origin in the first rap, heard by the dreamer and dramatised into the arrival of visitors. Probably it did not last for more than two or three seconds of real time. The maid’s second knock just prevented the revelation of the name of “Messrs. ---,” who, like the lady in the mantilla, were probably non-existent people. {13}

Thus dream dramatises on the impulse of some faint, hardly perceived real sensation. And thus either mere empty fancies (as in the case of the lost securities) or actual knowledge which we may have once possessed but have totally forgotten, or conclusions which have passed through our brains as unheeded guesses, may in a dream be, as it were, “revealed” through the lips of a character in the brain’s theatre—that character may, in fact, be alive, or dead, or merely fantastical. A very good case is given with this explanation (lost knowledge revived in a dramatic dream about a dead man) by Sir Walter Scott in a note to The Antiquary. Familiar as the story is it may be offered here, for a reason which will presently be obvious.