Dreams

by Guy de Maupassant

　　

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They had just dined together, five old friends, a writer, a doctor andthree rich bachelors without any profession.They had talked about everything, and a feeling of lassitude came overthem, that feeling which precedes and leads to the departure of guestsafter festive gatherings. One of those present, who had for the lastfive minutes been gazing silently at the surging boulevard dotted withgas-lamps, with its rattling vehicles, said suddenly:"When you've nothing to do from morning till night, the days are long.""And the nights too," assented the guest who sat next to him. "I sleepvery little; pleasures fatigue me; conversation is monotonous. Never doI come across a new idea, and I feel, before talking to any one, aviolent longing to say nothing and to listen to nothing. I don't knowwhat to do with my evenings."The third idler remarked:"I would pay a great deal for anything that would help me to pass justtwo pleasant hours every day."The writer, who had just thrown his overcoat across his arm, turned roundto them, and said:"The man who could discover a new vice and introduce it among his fellowcreatures, even if it were to shorten their lives, would render a greaterservice to humanity than the man who found the means of securing to themeternal salvation and eternal youth."The doctor burst out laughing, and, while he chewed his cigar, he said:"Yes, but it is not so easy to discover it. Men have however crudely,been seeking for--and working for the object you refer to since thebeginning of the world. The men who came first reached perfection atonce in this way. We are hardly equal to them."One of the three idlers murmured:"What a pity!"Then, after a minute's pause, he added:"If we could only sleep, sleep well, without feeling hot or cold, sleepwith that perfect unconsciousness we experience on nights when we arethoroughly fatigued, sleep without dreams.""Why without dreams?" asked the guest sitting next to him.The other replied:"Because dreams are not always pleasant; they are always fantastic,improbable, disconnected; and because when we are asleep we cannot havethe sort of dreams we like. We ought to dream waking.""And what's to prevent you?" asked the writer.The doctor flung away the end of his cigar."My dear fellow, in order to dream when you are awake, you need greatpower and great exercise of will, and when you try to do it, greatweariness is the result. Now, real dreaming, that journey of ourthoughts through delightful visions, is assuredly the sweetest experiencein the world; but it must come naturally, it must not be provoked in apainful, manner, and must be accompanied by absolute bodily comfort.This power of dreaming I can give you, provided you promise that you willnot abuse it."The writer shrugged his shoulders:"Ah! yes, I know--hasheesh, opium, green tea--artificial paradises.I have read Baudelaire, and I even tasted the famous drug, which made mevery sick."But the doctor, without stirring from his seat, said:"No; ether, nothing but ether; and I would suggest that you literary menshould use it sometimes."The three rich bachelors drew closer to the doctor.One of them said:"Explain to us the effects of it."And the doctor replied:"Let us put aside big words, shall we not? I am not talking of medicineor morality; I am talking of pleasure. You give yourselves up every dayto excesses which consume your lives. I want to indicate to you a newsensation, possible only to intelligent men--let us say even veryintelligent men--dangerous, like everything else that overexcites ourorgans, but exquisite. I might add that you would require a certainpreparation, that is to say, practice, to feel in all their completenessthe singular effects of ether."They are different from the effects of hasheesh, of opium, or morphia,and they cease as soon as the absorption of the drug is interrupted,while the other generators of day dreams continue their action for hours."I am now going to try to analyze these feelings as clearly as possible.But the thing is not easy, so facile, so delicate, so almostimperceptible, are these sensations."It was when I was attacked by violent neuralgia that I made use of thisremedy, which since then I have, perhaps, slightly abused."I had acute pains in my head and neck, and an intolerable heat of theskin, a feverish restlessness. I took up a large bottle of ether, and,lying down, I began to inhale it slowly."At the end of some minutes I thought I heard a vague murmur, which erelong became a sort of humming, and it seemed to me that all the interiorof my body had become light, light as air, that it was dissolving intovapor."Then came a sort of torpor, a sleepy sensation of comfort, in spite ofthe pains which still continued, but which had ceased to make themselvesfelt. It was one of those sensations which we are willing to endure andnot any of those frightful wrenches against which our tortured bodyprotests."Soon the strange and delightful sense of emptiness which I felt in mychest extended to my limbs, which, in their turn, became light, as lightas if the flesh and the bones had been melted and the skin only wereleft, the skin necessary to enable me to realize the sweetness of living,of bathing in this sensation of well-being. Then I perceived that I wasno longer suffering. The pain had gone, melted away, evaporated. And Iheard voices, four voices, two dialogues, without understanding what wassaid. At one time there were only indistinct sounds, at another time aword reached my ear. But I recognized that this was only the humming Ihad heard before, but emphasized. I was not asleep; I was not awake; Icomprehended, I felt, I reasoned with the utmost clearness and depth,with extraordinary energy and intellectual pleasure, with a singularintoxication arising from this separation of my mental faculties."It was not like the dreams caused by hasheesh or the somewhat sicklyvisions that come from opium; it was an amazing acuteness of reasoning, anew way of seeing, judging and appreciating the things of life, and withthe certainty, the absolute consciousness that this was the true way."And the old image of the Scriptures suddenly came back to my mind.It seemed to me that I had tasted of the Tree of Knowledge, that all themysteries were unveiled, so much did I find myself under the sway of anew, strange and irrefutable logic. And arguments, reasonings, proofsrose up in a heap before my brain only to be immediately displaced bysome stronger proof, reasoning, argument. My head had, in fact, become abattleground of ideas. I was a superior being, armed with invincibleintelligence, and I experienced a huge delight at the manifestation of mypower."It lasted a long, long time. I still kept inhaling the ether from myflagon. Suddenly I perceived that it was empty."The four men exclaimed at the same time:"Doctor, a prescription at once for a liter of ether!"But the doctor, putting on his hat, replied:"As to that, certainly not; go and let some one else poison you!"And he left them.Ladies and gentlemen, what is your opinion on the subject?

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