Without Dogma: A Novel of Modern PolandSienkiewicz, Henryk
General
Without Dogma: A Novel of Modern Poland
Sienkiewicz, Henryk
Poland -- Fiction
I went at once to Angeli, but when I arrived at his studio it was
six o'clock and the studio was closed. Aniela will be rested, and
to-morrow I will go with her. I have changed my idea. I do not want
her in a ball-dress, showing her arms and shoulders; I will have her
as she is every day, and as I love her most.
In the evening Doctor Chwastowski came to see us. He looks very well,
and as strong as a giant.
26 August.
I had a very nasty dream. I begin with it the description of the day.
I am not one to attach any meaning to dreams, and I am convinced
that a healthy brain could not produce such stuff. Sleeplessness has
troubled me now for some time, but yesterday I had scarcely closed my
eyes when I fell into a heavy sleep. I do not know at what time I had
that dream; it must have been towards morning, for when I awoke it
was broad daylight, and I could not have dreamed long. I saw a great
quantity of cockchafers and black beetles crawl from under the
mattress and along the sides of the bed. They were as big as
matchboxes. Presently I saw them crawling up the wall. Strange how
realistic dreams can be; I distinctly heard the rustling of their
feet on the paper. Raising my eyes I noticed big clusters of beetles
hanging from the ceiling; but they were of a different kind,
much larger, with black and white spots. On some of them I could
distinguish the white belly, with two rows of feet on either side
which looked like ribs. In my dream they seemed quite in their place,
and yet horrible. They filled me with loathing, but I was neither
astonished nor afraid. Only after I had awoke the loathing became
unbearable and changed into a kind of fear,--fear of death. It was the
first time I had that sensation, and that fear of death took such a
form. "Who knows," I thought, "what hideous shapes are awaiting me in
the darkness, on the other side of life?" Later on I remembered that I
had seen some similar beetles in an entomological collection, but
at the time they seemed to me something unnatural, belonging to an
intangible after-life. I jumped up and raised the blind, and the sight
of daylight calmed me at once. The streets were already alive with the
traffic of the early morning,--vegetable carts drawn by dogs, servants
going to market, and laborers to their work. The sight of the normal
human life is the best remedy against phantasms like these. I feel now
an immense necessity for light and life. The final conclusion of all
this is that I am not well. My tragedy undermines me like a cancer. I
see white threads in my hair; this might have come in the course of
nature; but my face, especially in the morning, has a waxen hue, and
my hands are getting transparent. I am not getting thin, it is rather
the opposite, but I am conscious of anæmia as I am conscious of my
psychical state, and I feel that my vital powers are passing through a
crisis, and that some calamity is threatening me.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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