“R. is my uncle.” What does that mean. I have had only one uncle, my
uncle Joseph.[AF] His story, to be sure, was a sad one. He had yielded
to the temptation, more than thirty years before, of engaging in
dealings which the law punishes severely, and which on that occasion
also it had visited with punishment. My father, who thereupon became
grey from grief in a few days, always used to say that Uncle Joseph was
never a wicked man, but that he was indeed a simpleton; so he expressed
himself. If, then, friend R. is my uncle Joseph, that is equivalent to
saying: “R. is a simpleton.” Hardly credible and very unpleasant! But
there is that face which I see in the dream, with its long features and
its yellow beard. My uncle actually had such a face—long and surrounded
by a handsome blond beard. My friend R. was quite dark, but when
dark-haired persons begin to grow grey, they pay for the glory of their
youthful years. Their black beard undergoes an unpleasant change of
color, each hair separately; first it becomes reddish brown, then
yellowish brown, and then at last definitely grey. The beard of my
friend R. is now in this stage, as is my own moreover, a fact which I
notice with regret. The face which I see in the dream is at once that of
my friend R. and that of my uncle. It is like a composite photograph of
Galton, who, in order to emphasise family resemblances, had several
faces photographed on the same plate. No doubt is thus possible, I am
really of the opinion that my friend R. is a simpleton—like my uncle
Joseph.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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