The Dreams

Dream 17

The quarters of Gamaliya and Abbasiya passed before me, yet I seemed to be walking in only one place.

I imagined that someone was tailing me. I turned to look behind me, but the rain poured down more intensely than it had in years — so I scurried back to my home. I wanted to take off my clothes, but then had the uncanny feeling that a strange man was hiding in my house. His audacity infuriated me — so I screamed at him to give himself up. The door to the foyer opened and there appeared a man whose equal in size and strength I had never before seen. “Give yourself up,” he said, in a quietly sarcastic voice.

A sense of feebleness and fear gripped me: I was certain that one blow from his elephant-sized hand would flatten me completely. Then he ordered me to give up my wallet and my overcoat. The overcoat was more important to me — yet I hesitated but a little before handing him both items. He shoved me, and I hit the ground. When I regained my feet, he had disappeared — and I wondered if I should call out to raise an alarm.

But what had happened was contemptible and shameful, and would make me an object of jokes and ridicule — so I did nothing.

I thought about going to the police station, but one of my friends was an officer from the detective bureau. Hence the scandal would spread one way or another.

I decided upon silence, but this didn’t save me from worry.

I dreaded that I would run into the thief somewhere while he was walking happily about in my coat, and with my money.