secrets,--standing and waiting, and swooning with longing--yet not
crossing the threshold; and always meditating as to what there was
yonder ahead of me--and always waiting and longing ... or falling into
slumber. If the poetic vein had throbbed in me I should, in all
probability, have taken to writing verses; if I had felt an inclination
to religious devoutness I might have become a monk; but there was
nothing of the sort about me, and I continued to dream--and to wait.




III


I have just mentioned that I sometimes fell asleep under the inspiration
of obscure thoughts and reveries. On the whole, I slept a great deal,
and dreams played a prominent part in my life; I beheld visions almost
every night. I did not forget them, I attributed to them significance, I
regarded them as prophetic, I strove to divine their secret import. Some
of them were repeated from time to time, which always seemed to me
wonderful and strange. I was particularly perturbed by one dream. It
seems to me that I am walking along a narrow, badly-paved street in an
ancient town, between many-storied houses of stone, with sharp-pointed
roofs. I am seeking my father who is not dead, but is, for some reason,
hiding from us, and is living in one of those houses. And so I enter a
low, dark gate, traverse a long courtyard encumbered with beams and
planks, and finally make my way into a small chamber with two circular
windows. In the middle of the room stands my father, clad in a
dressing-gown and smoking a pipe. He does not in the least resemble my
real father: he is tall, thin, black-haired, he has a hooked nose,