The Dreams

Dream 40

In the early evening I was returning to my house wrapped in a coat and scarf, when a young boy and an extraordinarily lovely and miserable girl cut across my path. They asked me for a bit of God’s charity, so I searched in my pocket for some change. Not finding any, I pulled out a five-pound note and asked the boy to go to the nearest kiosk and buy me a piece of chocolate — and to keep whatever was left over.

The boy had no sooner left my sight when the girl began to weep, confessing that her brother treated her with great harshness and forced her to do bad things, and that every day these became more and more deviant and evil. She beseeched God to rescue her from her ordeal.

I felt moved and embarrassed, but then realized that the boy was not coming back. I saw how stupid I was to have placed any trust in him — and thought of how my family would accuse me of good-natured recklessness. Yet I did not leave his sister to him, but took her to my house to begin a new life with my family. Her situation so improved that she seemed more like one of us than our servant.

Then one day a policeman came, accompanied by the girl’s brother, who grabbed her on sight. I found that I was wanted at the police station — where I was faced with a charge of raping the girl and keeping her in my home by force. I was shocked by what confronted me, and asked the girl to speak. She cried and accused me of crimes I had never even imagined. The official report recorded every word as the world grew black before my eyes.

Despite my firmly rooted faith, the danger of my position did not escape me.