both have the same purpose, the same nature, and that perhaps in time, as
their methods become perfect, they are destined to become one vast
prodigious force which now it is difficult even to imagine.... "Karelin's
Dream" has suggested to me similar thoughts, and to-day I willingly believe
Buckle, who saw in Hamlet's musings on the dust of Alexander the Great,
Shakespeare's knowledge of the law of the transmutation of substance--
i.e., the power of the artist to run ahead of the men of science....
Sleep is a subjective phenomenon, and the inner aspect of it one can only
observe in oneself. But since the process of dreaming is the same in all
men, every reader can, I think, judge Karelin by his own standards, and
every critic is bound to be subjective. From my own personal experience
this is how I can formulate my impression.

In the first place the sensation of cold is given by you with remarkable
subtlety. When at night the quilt falls off I begin to dream of huge
slippery stones, of cold autumnal water, naked banks--and all this dim,
misty, without a patch of blue sky; sad and dejected like one who has lost
his way, I look at the stones and feel that for some reason I cannot avoid
crossing a deep river; I see then small tugs that drag huge barges,
floating beams.... All this is infinitely grey, damp, and dismal. When I
run from the river I come across the fallen cemetery gates, funerals, my
school-teachers.... And all the time I am cold through and through with
that oppressive nightmare-like cold which is impossible in waking life, and
which is only felt by those who are asleep. The first pages of "Karelin's
Dream" vividly brought it to my memory--especially the first half of page
five, where you speak of the cold and loneliness of the grave.

I think that had I been born in Petersburg and constantly lived there, I
should always dream of the banks of the Neva, the Senate Square, the
massive monuments.