The Palace of Dreams

iii. INTERPRETATION

Much sooner than he expected, even before there was any sign of spring—and he’d thought he’d spend spring at least in Selection, and possibly even summer as well—Mark-Alem was transferred to Interpretation.

One day, before the bell rang for the break, he was told the Director-General wanted to see him. “What about?” he asked the messenger—though, thinking he saw a sardonic smile on the man’s face, he immediately regretted it. Clearly you didn’t ask that kind of question in the Tabir Sarrail.

As he went along the corridor he was assailed by all sorts of doubts and surmises. Could he have made some mistake in his work? Could someone have appeared from the depths of the Empire and come knocking at every door, going from office to office and vizier to vizier, claiming that his valuable dream had been thrown in the wastepaper basket? Mark-Alem tried to remember the dreams he’d rejected recently, but couldn’t recall any of them. Perhaps that wasn’t it, though. Perhaps he’d been summoned because of something else. It was nearly always like that. When you were sent for, it was almost invariably for some reason you could never have dreamed of. Was it something to do with breaking the secrecy rule? But he hadn’t seen any of his friends since he’d started working here. As he asked his way through the corridors he felt more and more strongly that he’d been in this part of the Palace before. He thought for a while this might be because all the corridors were identical, but when he finally found himself in the room with the brazier, where the square-faced man sat with his eyes glued to the door, he realized it had been the Director-General’s office he had knocked at on his very first day in the Tabir Sarrail. He’d been so absorbed in his work since then that he’d forgotten it even existed, and even now he had no idea what the square-faced man’s job was in the Palace of Dreams. Was he one of the many assistant directors, or the Director-General himself?

Mark-Alem stood in front of him, almost petrified with apprehension, and waited for the other to speak. But the official continued to contemplate the door, at about the height of the doorknob. Although he was by now familiar with this mannerism, Mark-Alem did wonder for a moment whether the man was waiting for someone else to arrive before he explained why he’d sent for him. But finally the man did tear his eyes away from the door.

“Mark-Alem…” he said in a very low voice.

Mark-Alem broke out in a cold sweat. He didn’t know what attitude to take. Should he say, “At your service,” or use some other polite formula? Or just stand and wait for the ghastly news to be revealed to him? He was now convinced he could only have been summoned about something disagreeable.

“Mark-Alem…” reiterated the other. “As I told you on your first day here, you suit us.”

My God! thought Mark-Alem. That strange phrase… I never thought I’d hear it again….

“You suit us,” the senior official went on, “and that’s why from today you’re being transferred to Interpretation.”

Mark-Alem felt a buzzing in his ears. His eyes shifted involuntarily toward the brazier standing in the middle of the room. The embers were almost buried in ash, and seemed to be wearing a sardonic smile—the kind that appears on some people’s faces accompanied by half-closed eyes. It was these embers that had consumed Mark-Alem’s letter of recommendation on the memorable day of his arrival. They now seemed to be assuming an air of indifference.

“You’re quite right not to show any satisfaction,” said the voice.

And Mark-Alem wondered, How am I reacting?

As a matter of fact he didn’t feel any pleasure, though he knew he ought to be grateful, the more so as he’d been half dead with anxiety up till a few moments ago. He opened his mouth to say something, but the official’s voice interrupted.

“I understand. If you don’t express any pleasure it’s because you’re so conscious of the responsibility attaching to your new duties. Interpretation is rightly known as the nerve center of the Tabir. The salaries there are higher, but the work is more difficult—you’ll often have to do overtime—and above all the responsibility is greater. Nevertheless, you must realize you’re being done a favor. Don’t forget that the road to the heights in the Tabir Sarrail passes through Interpretation.”

For the first time he actually looked at Mark-Alem. Not at his face, but at his midriff—where the door handle would have been if he’d been a door.

The road to the heights in the Tabir passes through Interpretation, thought Mark-Alem to himself. He was about to say he might not be up to the requirements for so difficult a task as deciphering dreams when the other, as if he’d read his thoughts, got in first.

“The interpretation of dreams as practiced in the Tabir Sarrail is difficult, very difficult. It bears no resemblance to ordinary, popular interpretation—a snake a bad omen, a crown a good one, and so on. Nor has it anything in common with all the books on the subject. Interpretation in the Tabir is on a quite different and much higher level. It uses another kind of logic, other symbols and combinations of symbols.”

“That puts it even further beyond me,” Mark-Alem was tempted to say. He’d been frightened enough at the thought of dealing with traditional symbols—it would be far worse if he had to cope with new ones! He finally opened his mouth to speak, but was again interrupted.

“You may be wondering how you’ll ever manage to learn the techniques. Don’t worry, my boy—you will learn, and quite quickly too. Most people start off like you, hesitating and unsure of themselves, but many of them have gone on to become the pride and joy of the department. You’ll master the job in a couple of weeks, three at the most. And then—” here he beckoned, and Mark-Alem took a step forward—“that’ll be it. To try to learn more would be counterproductive; it could encourage you to work too mechanically. For the work in Interpretation is above all creative. It mustn’t carry the analysis of images and symbols too far. The main thing, as in algebra, is to arrive at certain principles. And even they mustn’t be applied too rigidly, or else the true point of the work could be missed. The higher form of interpretation begins where routine ends. What you must concentrate on are the permutations and combinations of symbols. One last tip: All the work that’s done in the Tabir is highly secret, but Interpretation is top top secret. Don’t forget it. And now off you go and start your new job. You’re expected there. Good luck!”

The official’s eyes were already riveted on the door again as Mark-Alem, overwhelmed, went out of it. He wandered the corridors in a state of bewilderment until at last he pulled himself together and remembered he was looking for Interpretation. The corridors were all completely deserted. The morning break must have gone by while he was with the official; he could tell from the characteristic silence that always descended after the interval. He walked on for a long time, hoping to meet someone from whom he could ask the way. But there was no one in sight. Sometimes he would think he heard footsteps ahead of him, around a bend in the corridor, but as soon as he got there the sounds would seem to recede in another direction, perhaps on the floor above, perhaps on that below. What if I roam about like this the whole morning, he thought. They’ll say I turned up late on my very first day. He got more and more worried. He should have asked the way from the assistant director, or the Director-General, or whoever the hell he was!

On he went. The passages seemed alternately familiar and strange. He couldn’t hear so much as a door being opened. He went up a broad staircase to the floor above, then came back again and soon found himself on the floor below. Everywhere he met with the same silence, the same emptiness. He felt it wouldn’t be long before he started screaming. He must now be in one of the remoter wings of the building; the pillars supporting the ceiling looked slightly shorter. Suddenly, just as he was going to turn back, he thought he saw a figure at the next bend in the corridor. He went toward it. A man was stationed in front of a door, and before Mark-Alem could come near he signed to him to stop. Mark-Alem halted.

“What do you want?” said the stranger. “No one’s allowed here.”

“I’m looking for Interpretation. I’ve been going round in circles for an hour.”

The man examined him suspiciously.

“You work in Interpretation and you don’t even know how to get there?”

“I’ve just been transferred there, but I don’t know where it is.”

The other went on scrutinizing him.

“Turn back the way you came,” he finally brought out, “and follow the corridor till you get to the main stairs. Then go up to the next floor and take the passage on the right from the landing. You’ll find Interpretation straight in front of you at the end.”

“Thank you,” said Mark-Alem, turning round.

As he went along he kept repeating, so as not to forget: along the corridor to the main stairs, next floor, passage on the right…

Who can he be, the man who just helped me? he wondered. He looked like a sentry, but what on earth is there to guard in this world of the deaf and dumb? This palace certainly is full of mysteries.

As he approached the stairs he thought he could see a wan light coming down from the glass roof over the stairwell. He breathed a sigh of relief.

He’d been working in Interpretation for nearly three weeks. For the first fortnight he’d been attached to some of the older hands, to be initiated into the secrets of the department. Then one day his boss came and said, “You’ve learned enough now. From tomorrow on you’ll be given a file of your own.”

“So soon?” said Mark-Alem. “Am I really up to working all on my own?”

The boss smiled.

“Don’t worry. That’s how everyone feels at first. But the room supervisor’s over there—if you have any doubts about anything you can consult him.”

Mark-Alem had been working on his file for four days, and his brain had never felt so confused. His work in Selection had been harassing enough, but compared with this it was child’s play. He’d never have dreamed the work in Interpretation could be so diabolical.

He’d been given a file that was supposed to be an easy one—it was marked Law and Order: Corruption. But he sometimes thought: My God, if I lose my head with a file like this, what shall I do when I get one that deals with conspiracies against the State?

The file was stuffed with dreams. Mark-Alem had read about sixty of them, and had set aside a score or so that at first sight he thought he might be able to decipher. But when he went back to them, instead of looking the easiest, they looked the most difficult. So then he selected a few others, but after an hour or two they also had come to seem utterly confused and impenetrable.

It’s quite impossible! he kept telling himself. I shall go mad! Four whole days and I haven’t managed to unscramble one dream.

Every time some elements of a dream began to make sense he would be struck by a doubt, and what had seemed intelligible a moment before became inexplicable again.

The whole thing is pure folly! he thought, burying his face in his hands.

He was obsessed with the fear of making a mistake. Sometimes he was convinced it was impossible to do anything else, and that if anyone got anything right it was purely by chance.

Sometimes he would get frantic with worry. He still hadn’t submitted one decoded dream to his superiors. They probably thought him either incompetent or else excessively timid. How did the others manage? He could see them filling whole pages with their comments. How could they look so calm?

As a matter of fact, every decoder was allowed to leave aside some dreams that he couldn’t unravel himself, and these were sent to the decoders par excellence, the real masters of Interpretation; but of course not everything could be sent to them.

Mark-Alem rubbed at his temples to disperse the blood that seemed to have accumulated there. His head was a flurry of symbols: Hermes’s staff, smoke, the limping bride, snow… They all whirled around in a wild saraband, displacing every perception of the ordinary world. To hell with it, thought Mark-Alem, taking up pen and paper, I’ll give this dream the first explanation that comes into my head, and hope for the best!

It had been dreamed by a pupil at a religious school in the capital. In it two men had found a fallen rainbow. With some difficulty they raised it up and dusted it off, and one of the men repainted it; but the rainbow absolutely refused to come to life again. So the men dropped it and ran away.

Hmmm, thought Mark-Alem, fiddling with his pen. His resolution had already evaporated. But he made himself go on. Without thinking, or rather, rapidly abandoning his first explanation of the dream, he wrote underneath it: “Warning of…” Warning of…

“God, what can this nightmare possibly mean?” he almost cried out. “It’s enough to drive you crazy!” He crossed out what he’d written, and tossed the sheet of paper angrily onto the heap with the other uninterpretable dreams. No, he’d sooner be sacked straightaway than have to be bothered with such drivel! He propped his head in his hands and sat with his eyes half shut.

After a while he heard the reedy voice of the room supervisor:

“What’s the matter, Mark-Alem? Have you got a headache?”

“Yes, a slight one.”

“Never mind—it happens to everyone at first. Do you need anything?”

“No, thanks. But I’ll ask you to explain some things to me in a little while.”

“Oh? Good. I’ve been waiting for you to do that for the past few days.”

“I didn’t want to bother you for nothing.”

“Oh, you don’t have to worry about that. That’s what I’m here for.”

“I’ll have something for you in an hour or so,” said Mark-Alem. “Only…”

“Only what?”

“Only I’m not quite sure… My explanations may be quite wrong, or may not make any sense at all.”

The supervisor smiled.

“I’ll be waiting for you,” he said, and moved away.

Now I’ve got no escape, thought Mark-Alem. Whether I like it or not I’ll have to get on with it the same as all the others. Well, to hell with it—here goes! And he looked for the piece of paper recording a dream in which a group of men in black crossed a ditch and disappeared into a snow-covered plain. Suddenly the meaning of the dream seemed quite clear to him: A group of officials who’d committed some fraud against the State had overcome the obstacles ranged against them and reached the safety of the white plain; this meant the fall of the government.

Mark-Alem swiftly wrote down this explanation, but hadn’t completed the last few words before he thought to himself: But this is practically tantamount to a plot against the State!

He reread his interpretation and was confirmed in the thought that the dream really did relate to some kind of conspiracy. But the file he’d been given was the one concerning law and order and corruption! He was in such despair the pen fell from his nerveless hand. For once he thought he’d managed to produce something, and it turned out to be no good again! But wait a minute, he reflected. Perhaps it isn’t quite as bad as that. After all, there’s not all that much difference between corruption and a conspiracy against the State, since officials are involved in both cases.

Then again—how stupid of him not to have thought of it before!—the classification of the files wasn’t as rigid as all that, and there was no reason why the file on law and order shouldn’t also contain dreams concerning important affairs of State. And hadn’t the staff often been told it was considered commendable for them to search for signs of special significance in places where at first sight there seemed to be nothing out of the ordinary? Yes, he could remember being told that quite plainly. It was even said that many Master-Dreams had come from the most undistinguished of files.

Mark-Alem felt much better now. Before the impulse had time to weaken, he took up four dreams that he’d read several times already and added his own explanation of each of them. He was feeling quite pleased with himself, and getting ready to deal with a fifth dream, when for some unknown reason he looked at the first dream again, and reread the explanation he’d appended to it. He was immediately overcome with doubt. Could I be mistaken? Could the dream have another explanation? he thought. A moment later he was quite sure he’d got it wrong. Beads of cold perspiration broke out on his forehead; he sat staring at the lines he’d written such a short time ago with so much alacrity, which now seemed alien and hostile. What ought he to do?

Then he said to himself, Dash it all, who’s going to attach any importance to this one dream out of all the tens of thousands that are dealt with here? And he was just about to leave it as it was when at the last moment his hand dropped away again. What if someone discovered his mistake? Especially as the dream involved State officials! Government circles might get to know of it somehow, and the worst of it was that everybody might think the accusation applied to themselves or their associates. A search would be made for the person who’d supplied the explanation of the dream, and when they found out it was him they’d say: “Well, well, a fellow called Mark-Alem, a new boy who’s only just started in the Tabir Sarrail, and as soon as he starts decoding his first dream he tries to sling mud at the senior servants of the State. Better keep an eye on that snake in the grass!”

Mark-Alem hastily snatched the page up as if to prevent anyone from reading what he’d written. He absolutely must try to repair his blunder before it was too late. But how? It occurred to him that he might simply do away with the dream altogether, but then he remembered that the cover of each file indicated the number of dreams it contained. To abstract one of them would be enough to get you sent straight to prison as a common thief. Something else, something else—he must think of something else! If he hadn’t been in such a hurry, if he hadn’t dashed the words off so madly, he could now have given the dream a completely different explanation. It was some diabolical impulse that had made him hurl himself upon his own destruction. It was all up with him now. But not so fast, he thought, still gazing at his own writing; perhaps all is not lost yet.

His eyes flew over the words again, and concluded there was still a possible way out. When he’d reread the page for the third time, he was surprised he hadn’t thought of it before. An unexpected sense of relief spread from his temples to his throat and lungs. After all, it was quite usual to make corrections. He would do his in such a way that they wouldn’t call attention to themselves; they’d just look like improvements in accuracy, refinements of style. It would be enough if he merely altered one word. For the umpteenth time he reread the phrase “a group of officials who’d committed some fraud against the State.” Finally, with a shaky hand, he altered it to read “a group of officials who’d prevented some fraud against the State.” He checked it a couple of times. It seemed all right. You could scarcely see the alteration. And even if anyone did notice it they might put it down as the correction of a slip. He breathed a sigh of relief. The business was settled at last…. Mark-Alem, who’d committed a fraud against the State…

He looked about him in terror. What if someone had noticed what he was doing? Nonsense, he told himself. The clerk who was nearest to him, and worked at the same table, was too far away to be able to read the name of his file, let alone what he’d written. A good thing my writing’s so spidery, he thought. Now, after all this agitation, he could take a bit of a rest. What a beastly job!

He cast a covert glance around the rest of the room. The clerks were working peacefully away, crouching over their files. You couldn’t even hear the sound of their pens. Every so often one of them would leave his desk and slip away as quietly as possible to the door. No doubt he was going down to the Archives to consult relevant interpretations made in the past—ages ago, some of them, and by decoders eminent in their art. God! he thought, looking at those dozens of heads bent over their files.

In those files was all the sleep in the world, an ocean of terror on the vast surface of which they tried to find some tiny signs or signals. Hapless wretches that we are! thought Mark-Alem.

He made himself read some more pages, but he could feel that his brain had seized up. Even if his eyes followed the text, his mind was elsewhere. Some soldiers with their faces covered up. Thousands of shoes in a village square, with a wire fixed overhead. More snow, but this time heaped up in big chests, together with a… set of man’s clothes! My mind’s gone completely, he thought, and suddenly, with a strange, almost wistful feeling, he remembered his first dream here in this palace. Three white foxes on the minaret of the local mosque. A nice dream, that, perfectly plain and clear. Where was it now, in all this horrible sea? “Oh, well,” he sighed, and picked up another page. He’d have to decode at least another two before the break. But the bell rang early, it seemed to him, and he shut up his file.

There was the usual bustle downstairs. The basement where they had coffee or salep was the only place where you had the opportunity to exchange a few words with people you knew, or even with people you didn’t. Mark-Alem had been in Selection such a short time he’d met only a few of those who worked there, and he saw them even more rarely in the cafeteria. But even when he did see them they seemed strange and far away, as if they belonged to a distant period of his existence. He preferred to talk to strangers. He hadn’t spent a single satisfactory day in Selection, and perhaps that was why he avoided his former colleagues there.

In Interpretation the days were just as tedious and dreary—apart from today, when at last he’d managed to get somewhere. Maybe that was why, instead of going down to the cafeteria in the usual bitter mood, he now felt comparatively cheerful.

“Where do you work?” he said casually to the man opposite him. He’d found a place free at a table covered with empty cups and glasses.

The other man drew himself up as if in the presence of a superior.

“In the copying office, sir,” he said.

Mark-Alem knew he’d been right. You could tell straightaway that the man was new to the place, as he himself had been a month ago. After taking a sip of coffee:

“Have you been ill?” he asked, surprised at his own temerity. “You’re very pale.”

“No, sir,” the other man answered, putting his glass of salep down for a moment. “But we’ve got a lot of work, and…”

“Yes, of course,” Mark-Alem went on as before, not quite sure where this new nonchalance of his was coming from. “Perhaps this is the high season for dreams?”

“Yes, yes,” said the other, nodding his head so energetically Mark-Alem thought his thin neck would snap if he went on much longer.

“What about you?” said the other man timidly.

“I’m in Interpretation.”

The eyes of his interlocutor widened, and he smiled as if to say, “I thought as much.”

“Drink up—it’ll get cold!” said Mark-Alem, noticing that the other man was too impressed to pick up his glass.

“It’s the first time I’ve met a gentleman from Interpretation,” he said reverently. “What a treat!”

He took up his glass of salep several times, but then put it down again, unable to bring himself to raise it to his lips.

“Have you been working in the Palace long?”

“Two months, sir.”

And after only two months you’re all skin and bones, thought Mark-Alem. Heaven knew what he himself would look like soon….

“We’ve had a terrible lot of work lately,” said the other, finally drinking his salep. “We’ve been having to do several hours’ overtime every day.”

“That’s obvious,” said Mark-Alem.

The other smiled as if to say, “What can I do?”

“It so happens that the solitary rooms are near our offices,” he went on, “so when they need copyists during an interrogation they send for us.”

“Solitary rooms?” said Mark-Alem. “What are they?”

“Don’t you know?” said his companion. Mark-Alem immediately regretted asking the question.

“I’ve never had anything to do with them,” he muttered, “but of course I’ve heard of them.”

“They’re more or less adjacent to our office,” said the copyist.

“Are they in the part of the Palace guarded by sentries?”

“That’s right,” said the other cheerfully. “The guard stands just outside the door. Have you been there, then?”

“Yes, but on other business.”

“Our offices are just nearby. That’s why the people who work there apply to us when they need copyists. Yes, the work is really diabolical. There’s someone there at the moment that they’ve been questioning for forty days on end.”

“What did he do?” asked Mark-Alem, yawning as he spoke so as to make the question seem more casual.

“What do you mean—what did he do? Everyone knows that,” said the other, looking Mark-Alem deep in the eye. “He’s a dreamer.”

“A dreamer? What of it?”

“As you probably know, those are the rooms where dreamers are held whom the Tabir Sarrail has sent for to ask them for further explanations about the dreams they’ve sent in.”

“Oh, yes, I’ve heard about it,” said Mark-Alem. He was on the point of yawning again, but at that moment, for the first time, he noticed the light fade out of the other man’s eyes.

“Perhaps I oughtn’t to have mentioned it, because it’s secret, like everything else here. But seeing you said you worked in Interpretation, I thought you’d know all about it.”

Mark-Alem started to laugh.

“Are you sorry you spoke? Don’t worry. I really do work in Interpretation, and I know much more important secrets than the one you’ve told me about.”

“Of course, of course,” said the other, pulling himself together.

“What’s more,” added Mark-Alem, lowering his voice, “I’m a member of the Quprili family. So you haven’t got anything to worry about….”

“Goodness me,” said the copyist, “I had a presentiment!… Aren’t I lucky you were good enough to talk to me!…”

“And how are things with the dreamer in the solitary room?” interrupted Mark-Alem. “Is there any progress? You’re a copyist, you say?”

“Yes, sir, and I’ve been working there lately. That’s where I’ve just come from. How are things going with him? Well, how can I put it…? So far we’ve filled hundreds of pages with his depositions. Of course he’s completely at sea, but that’s not his fault. He’s only an ordinary sort of chap from a dead-and-alive province on the eastern borders. It can never have entered his mind, when he sent in his dream, that he’d wind up in the Tabir Sarrail.”

“And what’s so important about his dream?”

The other man shrugged.

“I don’t know, myself. At first glance it seems ordinary enough, but there must be something there since they’re making such a fuss about it. It seems Interpretation sent it back for further explanations. But even though they’re taking all this trouble, it isn’t getting any clearer—in fact, it’s only getting more confused.”

“I don’t see what they can expect to get from the dreamer himself.”

“I can’t really explain. I don’t understand it very well myself. They ask him for further details about a few points that seem strange or unusual. Naturally he can’t supply them. It’s such a long time ago since he had the dream…. And anyway, after being shut up here so long, he doesn’t know where he is. He can’t even remember the dream anymore.”

“Does this sort of thing happen often?”

“I don’t think so. Twice or three times a year—not more. Otherwise people would get frightened and think twice about sending in their dreams.”

“Of course. And what are they going to do with him now?”

“They’ll go on questioning him until…” The copyist threw up his hands. “I don’t really know.”

“All very odd,” said Mark-Alem. “So you can’t send your dreams to the Tabir Sarrail with impunity. One fine day you might get a letter telling you to present yourself here.”

The other might have been going to answer, but at this point the bell rang for the end of the break. They said good-bye and went their separate ways.

As he made his way upstairs Mark-Alem couldn’t shake off the thought of what he’d just heard. What were those solitary rooms the copyist had been talking about? At first blush it all seemed absurd and inexplicable, but there must be more to it than that. What was involved was undoubtedly some kind of imprisonment. But for what purpose? The copyist had said it was obvious the prisoner couldn’t remember anything about his dream. That must be the real object of his incarceration: to make him forget it. That wearing interrogation night and day, that interminable report, the pretense of seeking precise details about something that by its very nature cannot be definite—all this, continued until the dream begins to disintegrate and finally disappears completely from the dreamer’s memory, could only be called brainwashing, thought Mark-Alem. Or an undream, in the same way as unreason is the opposite of reason.

The more he thought about it, the more it seemed this was the only explanation. It must be a question of flushing out subversive ideas which for some reason or other the State needed to isolate, as one isolates a plague virus in order to be able to neutralize it.

Mark-Alem had reached the top of the stairs and was now going along the long corridor together with dozens of his fellow workers, who disappeared in small groups through the various doors. The closer he got to the Interpretation rooms, the more the temporary sense of self-assurance he’d had in the cafeteria faded away, as it usually does when it derives from someone else’s sycophancy. In its place came the feeling of suffocation that descended on him at the thought of becoming once again an insignificant clerk in the heart of the gigantic mechanism.

As he approached he could see his desk with his file lying on top of it. Going and sitting down at it was like stationing himself on the shore of universal sleep, on the borders of some dark region that threw up jets of menacing blackness from its unknown depths. “God Almighty protect me,” he sighed.

The weather had grown even more severe. Even though the big tiled stoves were filled with coal and lighted first thing in the morning, the Interpretation rooms were freezing. Sometimes Mark-Alem kept his overcoat on. He couldn’t understand where such extreme cold came from.

“Can’t you guess?” said someone he was having coffee with in the cafeteria one day. “It comes from the files—the same place as all our troubles come from, old boy….”

Mark-Alem pretended not to hear.

“What else can you expect to issue from the realms of sleep?” the other went on. “They’re like the countries of the dead. Poor wretches that we are, having to work on files like that!”

Mark-Alem walked away without answering. Afterward he thought the man might have been a provocateur. Every day he was more convinced that the Tabir Sarrail was full of strange people and secrets of every kind.

The things he’d heard, during this time, about the Tabir and everything that went on there! At first it had seemed as if the people who worked there never spoke about it, but as the days went by and he picked up an odd phrase in the cafeteria, and another in a corridor, or on the way out of the front doors, or coming from the next table, there gradually, unconsciously, began to build up in his mind a large and extraordinary mosaic. Some voices said, for example, that dreams, regarded as private and solitary visions on the part of an individual, belonged to a merely temporary phase in the history of mankind, and that one day they would lose this specificity and become just as available to everyone as other human activities. In the same way as a plant or a fruit remains under the earth for a while before appearing aboveground, so men’s dreams were now buried in sleep; but it didn’t follow that this would always be so. One day dreams would emerge into the light of day and take their rightful place in human thought, experience, and action. As for whether this would be a good thing or a bad, whether it would change the world for the better or the worse—God alone knew.

Others maintained that the Apocalypse itself was simply the day when dreams would be set free from the prison of sleep, that this was the form in which the Resurrection of the Dead, usually depicted in a trite and metaphysical manner, would really take place. Weren’t dreams, after all, messages sent from the dead as harbingers? The immemorial appeal of the dead, their supplication, their lamentation, their protest—whatever you cared to call it—would one day be answered in this way.

Others shared this point of view, but provided it with a completely different explanation. When dreams emerged into the harsh climate of our universe, this argument ran, they would sicken and die. And so the living would break with the anguish of the dead, and thereby with the past as well, and while some might see this as a bad thing, others would see it as a liberation, the advent of a genuinely new world.

Mark-Alem was sick and tired of all this hairsplitting. But what he found still more trying were the long insipid days when no one said anything, nothing happened, and all he had to do was crouch over his file and pass from one sleep to another. It was like being in a fog that every so often seemed about to lift but most of the time remained as thick and gloomy as ever.

It was Friday. They must be quite excited in the Master-Dream officers’ room. The Master-Dream would already have been chosen, and they’d be getting ready to send it off to the Sovereign’s palace. A carriage emblazoned with the imperial arms had been waiting outside for some time, surrounded by guards. The Master-Dream was about to go, but even afterward the section would be in a commotion; the previous tension would persist, or at least people would be curious to know how the dream would be received at the Sultan’s palace. They usually had some account by the following day: The Padishah had been pleased; or the Padishah hadn’t said anything; or, sometimes, the Padishah was dissatisfied. But that happened only rarely; very rarely.

Anyhow, it was livelier in that section than in the others; the days had some pattern to them. The week went by more quickly, looking forward to Friday. In all the other sections there was nothing but boredom, monotony, and dullness.

And yet, thought Mark-Alem, everyone dreamed of working in Interpretation. If they only knew how long the hours seemed here! And as if that weren’t enough, a permanent cloud of apprehension hung over everything. (Ever since the stoves had been lighted, it seemed to Mark-Alem that this constant anxiety gave off a smell of coal.)

He bent over his file and started to read again. By now he was comparatively familiar with the work and had less difficulty in finding meanings for the dreams. In a few days’ time he would have finished off his first file. There were only a few pages left. He read a few boring dreams about such things as black stagnant water, an ailing cockerel stuck in a peat bog, and a case where one of the guests was cured of rheumatism at a dinner attended by giaours.^* What stuff! he thought, laying down his pen. It’s as if they’d saved the worst till the last. He thought of the rooms of the Master-Dream officers as someone in particularly depressing circumstances might think about a house where there was going to be a wedding. He’d never seen these rooms, and didn’t even know what part of the Palace they were in. But he was sure that unlike the other offices, they must have tall windows that reached up to the ceiling, letting in a solemn light that ennobled everyone and everything.

“Ah well…” he sighed, taking up his pen again. He made himself work without stopping until the bell rang to announce the end of the day. There were two pages still left unexamined in his file. He might as well read them now and have done.

All around him arose the racket made by the other clerks as they left their desks and made for the door. But after a little while silence was restored, and the only people left in the room were the people who’d decided to stay on late. Mark-Alem felt oppressed by the emptiness left by the departure of most of his colleagues. He’d felt the same every time he’d worked late, but what could he do? It was regarded as good form to do some voluntary overtime occasionally, not to mention the fact that the staff were sometimes required to stay on. Mark-Alem had resigned himself to sacrificing yet another evening.

Cutting short a breath that had really been a long sigh, he began to read the next to last page. That’s funny, he thought after scanning the first line. Where had he seen this dream before? A plot of wasteland near a bridge with some rubbish, and a musical instrument… He nearly let out an exclamation of surprise. This was the first time he’d come across a dream that he’d examined himself when he was in Selection. He felt as pleased as if he’d met an old acquaintance, and looked around for someone to tell about the coincidence. But there weren’t many people left now, and the nearest one was at least ten yards away.

Still rather thrilled by his little discovery, he read the text of the dream—casually at first, and then more and more carefully. He couldn’t find any particular significance in it. But that didn’t worry him. A lot of dreams didn’t seem to have any meaning at first—they were like smooth cliffs where you couldn’t get a foothold—but a tiny flash of inspiration might reveal a clue. He’d manage to find the key to this dream as he had with others. After all, he had a certain amount of experience now. The wasteland covered with rubbish, the old bridge, the strange musical instrument, and the furious bull—these were all very significant symbols. But he couldn’t make out what it was that linked them together. And in the interpretation of a dream the relationship between the various symbols was usually more important than the symbols themselves.

Mark-Alem arranged them in pairs: the bridge with the bull, and the musical instrument with the patch of wasteland; then the bridge with the instrument, and the wasteland with the bull; and finally the bull with the musical instrument, and the bridge with the wasteland. The last arrangement seemed to yield a certain amount of meaning, but it wasn’t very logical: a bull (unbridled brute force), stirred by some music (treachery, secrecy, propaganda), is trying to destroy the old bridge. If, instead of a bridge, it had been a column or the wall of a citadel, or some other symbol representing the State, the dream might have had a certain amount of meaning; but a bridge didn’t stand for anything like that. Like fountains and roads, it was usually a symbol for something useful to man…. Just a minute though, thought Mark-Alem, suddenly finding himself short of breath. Wasn’t the bridge connected with his family’s own name?… Perhaps this was some sinister omen?

He reread the text and began to breathe more freely again. The bull wasn’t really attacking the bridge at all. It was just rushing around the piece of wasteground.

It’s a dream without any meaning, he thought. The pleasure of having come across it again was succeeded by a feeling of contempt. He remembered now that even when he’d seen it in Selection it had struck him as devoid of significance. He’d have done better to throw it in the wastepaper basket there and then! He dipped his pen in the inkwell and was about to mark the dream “Insoluble,” when his hand remained poised in suspense. What if he left it and came back to it again in the morning? What if he asked the supervisor for advice? Though of course, while you were allowed to ask for advice, they didn’t like you to do so too often. Mark-Alem started to get impatient. The best thing was to get on and have done with the file. He’d spent more than enough time on it already….

He took up the last dream, dealt with it briskly, then went back to the one he’d left in abeyance. He was just hesitating and wondering again whether to mark it “Insoluble,” file it away, and go home, when the head of Interpretation entered the room. He exchanged a few words in a low voice with the supervisor, looked around as if to count those who had stayed on, then whispered something else to the supervisor.

When he had gone:

“You and you,” said the voice of the supervisor.

Mark-Alem looked around.

“And you two over there. And you too, Mark-Alem—you’re all to stay on. The boss has just told me there’s an urgent file that has to be worked out this evening.”

No one said anything.

“While it’s on its way, go down and have something in the cafeteria. We may have to stay on late.”

They trailed out of the room one after the other. Out in the corridor they could hear the turning of keys and the shooting of bolts coming from various directions. The last stragglers were going home.

The cafeteria was particularly depressing at this late hour. The few remaining assistants, their faces drawn with fatigue; the tables pushed aside so that the floor could be swept—it all looked very melancholy. Mark-Alem asked for a salep and a roll, and went to stand at the farthest end of the counter. He didn’t want to be disturbed. He drank his salep calmly and nibbled mechanically at his roll, and when he’d finished he went slowly out again, looking neither left nor right.

He stood as if stunned for a moment when he reached the endless corridor on the ground floor. It wasn’t dark yet, but the shadows were gradually enfolding everything. The last vestiges of daylight came in through a window a long way up from the floor. There was no reason for him to hurry. He could just stroll about rather than go and shut himself up between the repulsive walls of the office before he had to. The corridor was completely deserted, and he suddenly felt quite pleased to be able to walk up and down alone in this vast empty space, with the big window at one end letting in a light that had faded to gray even before it passed through the dust on the windowpanes.

Mark-Alem, having just reached the stretch of corridor below the window, looked up at the rectangle of light as though from the bottom of an abyss. He was just about to go around the corner when suddenly, in this universe of the deaf and dumb, he thought he heard a noise. He stopped and listened. It sounded like footsteps approaching. Perhaps it’s the caretakers checking that the doors are shut, he thought. He was about to go on when more sounds rooted him to the spot. This time they were nearer, and seemed to come from another passage that crossed the main corridor. Mark-Alem flattened himself against the wall and waited. My God, he exclaimed inwardly when he saw a group of people coming out of the side passage carrying on their shoulders a black coffin. They didn’t notice him, and disappeared down a continuation of the passage from which they had come. It must be that dreamer from the provinces, he thought, as the sound of footsteps faded in the distance. He looked about him. He was just where he’d been the day he saw the sentry outside the solitary rooms. My God, he thought again—it must be him!

As he went up the stairs he was filled with ever-increasing anguish. He’d often thought of the unfortunate dreamer, but he’d never thought he’d end up like this! Sometimes he’d even looked for the copyist in the cafeteria to ask what had become of the prisoner—whether he’d been finally freed or was still there. But apparently the poor wretch hadn’t been able to forget his dream completely. Or was it decreed in advance that whoever was summoned to the Tabir Sarrail must meet with a similar end? Monstrous! he thought, surprised at his own sudden indignation. You’re not satisfied with all the rest that you destroy—you have to devour human beings as well!

When he got back to his desk he found a new file on it, which the supervisor had put there while he was away. He looked through it almost with hatred, and found it contained no more than five or six pages. He would have to study all of them that evening. The lamps had already been lighted in the room. It was colder than before; no one had put any coal on the stoves since noon. He started to read the description of the first dream, and after a few lines realized it took up the whole page and, which was very rare, seemed to be continued on the next.

Mark-Alem turned over the page, and saw that the description of the dream didn’t end even there. Nor did it end on the next page. In short, to his amazement, the whole file was devoted to a single dream. He’d never come across such a long account. This must be a very special dream, he thought, and started to skim through it without stopping to look at the name and address of its author. He was going to have to spend the whole night struggling with this lengthy farrago, which was bound to turn out to be indecipherable. What a prospect!

And the dream did indeed prove to be a farrago. Such frenzied stuff was usually given to the most brilliant of the interpreters. It was even said that a long time ago a special file had been opened for this kind of thing both in Selection and in Interpretation. It was called the Frenzy File. But afterward, for reasons never quite satisfactorily explained (the real explanation was said to be the tendency to regard this file as the last straw), the practice was abandoned and such ramblings were allocated to the usual groups of dreams, according to their content. But still the supervisors in the various offices were careful to give such material to the most skillful members of staff. Mark-Alem didn’t know how to take the fact that he’d been allocated a file of this kind. Was it an exaggerated mark of confidence in his abilities on the part of the bosses in Interpretation, or was it some kind of a trick?

Meanwhile, he went on studying the description of the dream more and more feverishly. It really was extraordinary. It started with a gang of scarecrows roving over a treeless plain which was reeking with plague generated by tiger corpses dating from the eleventh century. The whole of the first page was devoted to a description of the progress of these vagabonds, who apparently cursed a volcano called Kartoh, Karetoh, Kartokret, or something of the sort. (Its name crumbled as fast as its west face collapsed.) Meanwhile a fantastic star was shining over the plain. Then the delirious dreamer, who happened to be nearby, tried to sink into the ground, and while doing so came upon a fragment of light, like a diamond buried in the matrix of an ordinary day in universal time—an indissoluble, unbreakable fragment which even fire couldn’t destroy. The brightness of the fragment of light emerging from the mud had dazzled the dreamer. And so, blinded, he had come to in hell.

What an idiot, thought Mark-Alem. He must certainly be out of his mind! But he went on reading. The other part of the text was a description of hell, but a different hell from the one people usually imagine, a hell inhabited not by human beings but by dead States, their bodies stretched out sprawling side by side: empires, emirates, republics, constitutional monarchies, confederations…. Hmmm, thought Mark-Alem. Well, well… Apart from everything else, the dream he’d thought so inoffensive at first sight was dangerous. He turned back the page to see the name of the bold fellow who’d sent it in, and read: Dreamed in the second half of the night of December 18 by guest X—at the Inn of the Two Roberts (pashalik of central Albania).

The wily fellow, he thought with some relief, he cleared out! (For a second he saw in his mind’s eye a coffin covered in black material, now undoubtedly heading for the capital’s main cemetery.) This one saw the danger at the last moment and skedaddled…. Mark-Alem settled down on his chair and went on reading. The States that were dead and gone to hell didn’t suffer the punishments generally thought to be inflicted on men. What’s more, an unusual feature of this particular hell was that its inmates could escape and come back to earth. Thus one fine day some States that had been dead for a long time and reduced to skeletons might slowly arise and reappear in the world. Only, like actors making up for another part in the same play, they had to make a few adjustments: They changed their names, emblems, and flags, though basically they remained exactly the same as before.

Well, well, thought Mark-Alem again. Accustomed as he’d always been from childhood to conversations about the State and about government affairs, he soon guessed the so-called dreamer’s purpose. It was clear to him that apart from the earlier part of it, the dream was a fabrication. He found it strange that it had got through Selection. Or perhaps, because of its provocative aspect, it had been let through for ulterior reasons. But what were they? And why had the dream been sent to him in particular? Especially in this way, as a matter of urgency, to be dealt with after office hours. A chill ran down his spine. Meanwhile, his eyes went on scanning the text: I saw the State of Tamburlaine being painted so as to cover up the bloodstains, for it was getting ready to revive; and farther on I saw the State of Herod, where the same process was under way. That State was said to be returning to earth for the third time, and it would go on reviving again and again indefinitely after seeming to collapse….

Mark-Alem straightened the papers with trembling fingers. The provocation was obvious. But he wasn’t going to fall into the trap. He would show them what he was made of. He would pick up his pen and annotate the dream: “Invented as a provocation against the State for such and such a purpose, and involving the following insinuations.” Yes, that’s what he’d say! According to the person who’d sent in the dream, all modern States, including the Ottoman Empire, were merely old, bloodthirsty institutions buried by time, only to return to earth as specters.

Mark-Alem liked this way of putting it, and was just about to commit it to paper when he was suddenly assailed by doubt. Suppose someone said: “How is it you’re so well informed about such things, Mark-Alem?” He put down his pen. He simply mustn’t expose himself like that. He’d better rephrase his comments in a more restrained fashion. Something like: “Invented, with a suggestion of provocation, its suspect character reinforced by the fact that no name or address is supplied.”

Yes, that’s what he’d put. But anyhow, there was no sense in rushing things. All the clerks who’d been kept on late were still there. Mark-Alem looked round. The pallid light made the room, with its thin scattering of clerks, look even more dismal than usual. It was getting colder and colder. He shouldn’t have taken off his overcoat. How much longer would they have to stay? He noticed that only two of the clerks were writing; the rest, like him, had buried their heads in their hands and were thinking. Had they been given normal dreams, or wild imaginings, like the one assigned to him? Perhaps his was the only one like that? The wild ones were fairly rare, like sharks caught in a net among ordinary fish. Anyhow, it was possible that the other dreams were like his. Think of the sudden irruption of the head of the section, and so late—almost at the end of the usual working day. Something must have happened. Mark-Alem shivered again.

One of the other clerks got up at last, handed in his file to the supervisor, and went out. Mark-Alem picked up his pen, but reminded himself he still had plenty of time, and put it down again. It wouldn’t take him more than a quarter of an hour to write his comment. He could still put it off for a while. His head was full of gloomy thoughts.

Half an hour later, another clerk left. Mark-Alem’s feet were frozen. It occurred to him that if he sat there much longer his hands would get too cold to write, and this finally shook him out of his lethargy. He began his comment. At one point he heard another clerk get up and leave, but he didn’t look up to see who it was. When he’d finished, there were three other people left in the room beside himself and the supervisor. I’ll wait for one more to go, he told himself, and then I’ll get up. For some strange reason he thought of the strangely named Inn of the Two Roberts, where the dream had originated or been fabricated. He tried to imagine the swarthy-faced traveler departing at the crack of dawn with a diabolical grin on his face, having left the sealed envelope in the letter box fixed to the inn door.

His musings were interrupted by the creak of a chair. Another clerk had gone. Now there were only two left besides himself, and he decided it would be best if he, as a newcomer to the section, left last or at least next to last. He waited for one of the others to go. Now I’ll get up, he thought. Perhaps the supervisor was hoping the two who were left would get a move on.

Mark-Alem straightened up and shut his file. It must be very late. To judge by his drawn features, the supervisor was as exhausted as the rest. Mark-Alem went over and handed him his file.

“Good night!” he whispered.

“Good night,” answered the other. “Do you know the way out? It’s late, and all the doors of the Tabir are shut.”

“Really?” It was the first he’d heard of it. “How do we get out then?”

“Through Reception, and then through the courtyard at the back,” said the supervisor. “You won’t have been there before, but you can’t miss it. At this hour only the lights in the corridors leading that way are still on. All you have to do is follow them.”

“Thank you.”

When Mark-Alem got out in the corridor he saw that the supervisor was right; the lamps were lighted on only one side. He made off as instructed, listening to his own footsteps as he went; they sounded different in all that solitude. What if I get lost? he thought two or three times. Perhaps it would have been better if I’d left at the same time as one of the others who know the way. The farther he went the more nervous he felt. Still following the lights, he turned off the main corridor into a side passage, then came out again into another corridor so long he could scarcely see the end of it. The whole place was deserted. The faint glow of the lights faded into the distance. He went down two or three steps into another, very narrow passage with a vaulted ceiling. Here the lights were fewer and even more dim. How long is this going to last? he wondered. At one point he almost expected to see the men carrying the coffin appear around a corner, still wandering through the endless corridors of the vast building. If I keep on walking like this I’ll go crazy, he thought. Perhaps if he just stopped and waited, someone would turn up and show him the way out. Or would it be better to go back to Interpretation and start out afresh with the other two? This last course seemed the wisest, but here again there was a problem. What if he couldn’t find the way back? The devil alone knew if these feeble lights would really lead him there.

Mark-Alem pressed on, his mouth dry despite his attempts to reassure himself. After all, what did it really matter if he did get lost? He wasn’t on some vast plain or in a forest. He was merely inside the Palace. But still the thought of getting lost terrified him. How would he get through the night amid all these walls, these rooms, these cellars full of dreams and wild imaginings? He’d rather be on a frozen plain or in a forest infested with wolves. Yes, a thousand times rather!

He hurried on faster. How long had he been walking now? Suddenly he thought he heard a noise in the distance. Perhaps it’s only an illusion, he told himself. Then, after a little while, the sound of voices burst out again, more clearly this time, though he still couldn’t tell what direction it came from.

Still following the row of lights, he went down another two or three steps and found himself in another corridor, which he deduced must be on the ground floor. The sound of voices faded for a few moments, then returned, nearer. Straining his ears, Mark-Alem walked on as fast as he could for fear of losing what now seemed to him his only hope. But the sound kept coming and going, without ever fading away completely. At one point it seemed close by, but a moment later it was far away again. Mark-Alem was practically running by now, his eyes fixed on the end of the corridor, where a faint square of light came in from outside. Please, God, let it be the back door! he prayed.

And it was. As he approached a little nearer he could see it was a door. He took a deep breath, and his whole body relaxed so suddenly he could scarcely stay upright. He tottered a few more steps in the direction of the door, which channeled into the corridor not only cold air but also the noise he’d heard intermittently before.

When he reached the threshold an extraordinary sight met his eyes. The rear courtyard of the Palace was filled with light from lamps very different from those inside—a murky brightness dimmed by fog in some places, while in others patches of wet glittered on the flagstones. The place was full of men, horses, and wagons, some with their lights on, some with them off, all rushing to and fro in nightmarish confusion. The lurid glow of the lights, together with the whinnying of the horses careering through the mist, produced an almost supernatural spectacle.

Mark-Alem stood rooted to the spot, unable to believe his eyes.

“What is it?” he asked a passerby who was carrying an armful of brooms.

The other turned and looked at him in surprise, but noticing that Mark-Alem wore the badge of the Tabir on his overcoat, answered amiably enough:

“It’s the carriers of dreams, aga—can’t you see?”

Was it really them? Why hadn’t he thought of it? There they were, rushing about in their leather tunics and muddy boots. The wagons, their wheels, too, covered with mud, all had the emblem of the Tabir at the back.

His eye lighted on a lean-to shed to the right of the courtyard; there were lights on inside, and the carriers of dreams were going in and out. That must be Reception, where the staff was said to go on working all around the clock. Mark-Alem started to walk across the slippery flagstones amid the clamor of men and vehicles, some of which were trying to find a place to draw up. He headed without thinking for the Reception shed, meaning to take refuge there. But the uproar inside was even worse than that out in the courtyard. Dozens of dream-carriers stood by the long counters. Some had already completed their business at the delivery windows, while others awaited their turn. Some were drinking coffee or salep, some were eating rolls and delicious-smelling meatballs.

Mark-Alem found himself being jostled by the hefty shoulders of men in leather tunics who gave way casually to let him by, chewing, laughing, and uttering loud oaths.

So these were the famous dream-carriers, whom ever since he was a child he’d imagined as almost divine couriers driving back and forth along the roads of the Empire in their blue wagons. Some were bespattered with mud not only on their boots but almost all over; perhaps they’d had to right an overturned wagon or get a fallen horse to its feet. Their faces showed signs of anxiety, sleeplessness, and physical exhaustion. Their speech, like everything else about them, was as different as it could be from that of the sedentary staff of the Tabir. It was coarse, arrogant, and peppered with vulgar expressions. Mark-Alem, though completely lost in the midst of such an uproar, began to catch a phrase or two here and there. News from all over the Empire was to be heard here. The messengers told about the ups and downs of their journeys, their quarrels with the dim-witted clerks they had to deal with in the provinces, with drunken innkeepers, and with sentries at the roadblocks set up in troubled pashaliks.

A hoarse voice attracted Mark-Alem’s attention. Without turning to look at its owner, he tried to make out what he was saying.

“My horses refused to go on,” said the man. “They whinnied and snorted, but they wouldn’t budge an inch. I was all alone on the steppe on the way out of Yenisehir, a remote little town where I’d collected a few dreams—five in all for a whole month, so you can tell what a dead-and-alive hole it was. So there were my horses, stuck. No matter how I lashed out with the whip they stood rooted to the spot, as they usually do when there’s a death in their path. I looked around. There was nothing there but the empty steppe: no graves, not a sign of any tomb anywhere. I was just wondering what to do when I suddenly thought of the file of dreams I’d picked up in Yenisehir. It struck me it might be because of them the horses were petrified. Aren’t sleep and death close neighbors? So I opened my bag as fast as I could, took out the Yenisehir file, then got down and went and dumped it some distance away on the plain. When I climbed back on the wagon and urged the horses forward, they started up straightaway. Blow me down, I thought, so that was it! I stopped again and went back and collected the file, but as soon as I put it back in the cart the horses started acting up again just as before. What could I do? I’ve transported thousands of dreams, but I’d never had a thing like that happen to me before. So I decided to go back to Yenisehir without the file, which I left out there in the middle of the steppe.

“So then there was a row with the head of the Yenisehir office of the Tabir. I told him, ‘I can’t take your dreams…. Come and see for yourself—my horses refuse to move as soon as I put your file in the wagon.’ So the silly oaf yells, ‘That makes five weeks that no one will take my dreams, and now you want to leave them on my hands too! I’ll complain, I’ll write to Head Office, to the Sheikh-ul-Islam himself!’ ‘Complain as much as you like,’ I said. ‘My horses won’t stir and you needn’t think your five lousy dreams are going to stop me from delivering all the rest.’ You should have heard him then! ‘Oh, yes, of course,’ he said. ‘That’s all you care about our dreams. Naturally you find them crude—you prefer the dreams of artists and courtiers in the capital. But in the highest circles it’s been said it’s our dreams that are the real ones, because they come from the depths of the Empire, not from dandies covered in paint and powder!’ The swine kept on and on—I don’t know how I kept my hands off him!

“Well, I didn’t hit him, but I did give him a piece of my mind, I was so furious at being held up! I told him what I thought of him and his rotten little subprefecture inhabited by a handful of drunks and dodderers whose dreams were so rotten they even frightened the horses! I said that after this, if it was up to me, I wouldn’t let Yenisehir have its dreams examined for at least another ten years! He was so angry he started to foam at the mouth worse than the horses! He said he was going to write a report to the authorities about what I’d said, but I said if he did I’d tell about how he’d insulted the Tabir. ‘What!’ he yelled. ‘Me insult the sacred Tabir Sarrail? How dare you say such a thing!’ ‘Yes, you said it was the haunt of courtiers and painted dandies!’ That was too much for that fool of a yokel, and he started to weep and ask for mercy. ‘Have pity on me, aga, ’ he said. ‘I’ve got a wife and children, don’t do a thing like that….’”

For a while the carrier’s words were drowned in laughter.

“And what happened then?” someone asked.

“Then the subprefect and the imam came on the scene. Someone had told them about the row that was going on. When they heard what it was all about they scratched their heads at first and didn’t know what to do. They didn’t like to force me to take the file, because that would have amounted to keeping me there. For both of them were sure the horses would never leave if the file was up behind them. On the other hand, they couldn’t admit that the dreams sent in by their subprefecture were so evil they prevented the couriers from going about their business. But my time was precious. I was carrying more than a thousand dreams from other regions, and delay might be dangerous. So I told them to come with me to the part of the plain where I’d left the file, to see for themselves.

“They agreed to come; we all piled into the wagon, and I drove them to the place. The file was still there. I picked it up, got into the wagon with it, and whipped up the horses. They started to whinny and lather where they stood, as if the devil had got up behind them. Then I gave the file back to the subprefect and the iman, and the horses set off at a gallop. I did think of making off there and then, leaving the two officials standing there openmouthed with their file in their hands, but I thought that might get me into trouble, so I turned back. ‘Did you see?’ I said. ‘Are you convinced now?’ They were dumbfounded. ‘Allah!’ they muttered. As they tried to think of a way out of the impasse, the head of the local section, terrified that he might be the first to suffer for having allowed such a diabolical letter to be sent to the Tabir at all, decided to get the letters out of the file one by one to identify the cause of the trouble and prevent the others from being implicated. We all approved of this idea, and duly took the dreams out of the bag. It wasn’t difficult to find the culprit and remove it from the file. And then I was able to go on my way.

“That was no dream—it was pure poison!” said someone.

“And what will they do with it now?” asked another. “No wagon will be able to carry it, I suppose?”

“Let it stay where it is,” said the man with the hoarse voice.

“But with that strange power it might be important.…”

“Let it be what it likes,” said the courier. “If it’s made of gold and the horses refuse to carry it, that means it’s not a dream—it’s the devil incarnate! Horns and all!”

“But…”

“There’s no buts about it. If the horses won’t bring it, it’ll just have to be left to rot where it is, in that godforsaken hole of a Yenisehir!”

“No, that’s not right,” said an elderly courier. “I don’t know how they manage things now, but if anything like that happened in my day we fell back on the foot couriers.”

“Were there really foot couriers then?”

“Of course. The horses didn’t often refuse to carry dreams, but it did happen sometimes. And then they made use of foot couriers. There were some good things about the old days.”

“And how long would it take a foot courier to get the dream from there to here?”

“It depends on exactly how far it is, of course. But I think the journey from Yenisehir should take about a year and a half.”

There were two or three whistles of amazement.

“Don’t sound so surprised,” said the old man. “The government can catch a hare with an oxcart!”

They started to talk about something else, and Mark-Alem pressed on a bit farther. There was the same loud chatter everywhere, from the doors to the middle of the room and around the Reception windows, where the couriers handed in their files according to some order, the rules of which were not apparent. One fellow—Mark-Alem heard someone say he’d got drunk at an inn and lost his bag with the files inside—sat apart from all the rest, his eyes red as fire, drinking and grumbling at the same time.

From the courtyard came a constant hubbub of voices mingled with the sound of wheels on the flagstones. Some wagons had just arrived from distant parts; others were setting off again after making their deliveries. The neighing of the horses struck terror into Mark-Alem’s very soul. And this is going to go on until dawn, he thought. Eventually he pushed his way through the crowd and set out for home.

^*Contemptuous term denoting Christians.