The Dreams

Dream 15

A great hallway along which offices were arrayed. A government department, or perhaps a commercial agency. The employees were either sitting quietly at their desks, or moving about between their offices.

They were made up of both sexes, obviously working well together, lightly and openly flirting with each other. I seemed to be one of the newer functionaries here, with a suitably low salary, a fact that I felt profoundly. Yet this didn’t prevent me from asking for the hand of a beautiful young lady of higher rank, who had worked here longer than me. In the event, she thanked me, but declined my request.

“We lack what we’d need for a happy life,” she explained.

This pierced me with a wound in the seam of my psyche.

From that day onward, I grew wary of broaching any such subject with my female colleagues, though I was attracted to more than one of them. I felt the bitter suffering of loneliness and dejection. Then a new girl joined our service — and for the first time, I found myself in a superior position. I was an auditor, while she was a typist: my salary was twice as large as hers. She was not good looking, and, even worse, people gossiped about her immoral behavior. Out of despair, I decided to break through my isolation — so I flirted with her. She flirted back. So happy was I that I lost my head and asked her to marry me.

“I’m sorry,” she replied.

Not believing my ears, I pressed on, “There’s nothing wrong with my salary, especially when added with yours.”

“Money doesn’t concern me,” she said.

I thought of asking what did matter to her, but she’d already walked away.