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The Sick Gentleman’s Last Visit
by
“I left no crime untouched, no infamy untasted. With refined tortures I murdered innocent old people, I poisoned the waters of entire cities, I set fire to the hair of hundreds of women. Grown wild through my death-wish, I tore apart with my teeth the children I met on the way. At night I sought the company of monstrous dark giants forgotten by mankind. I took part in the incredible villanies of trolls, demo
ns and ghosts. I threw myself from the top of a mountain into a broken and naked valley surrounded by caverns of white bones. Witches taught me the shrieks of wild beasts that at night put fear into the hearts of the bravest men. But it seems that he who dreams me isn’t frightened by those things which make ordinary men tremble. Perhaps he enjoys watching horrible sights, perhaps he doesn’t care or perhaps it doesn’t affect him. Until this day I have not been able to wake him, so I must drag on with this ignoble life, wretched and unreal.
“Who will free me from my dreamer? When will the dawn come that will put an end to his work? When will the bell toll, the cock crow, the voice call that will wake him? I have been waiting so long for my day of freedom! I have been waiting so eagerly for the end of this foolish dream in which I play so monotonous a part!
“What I am doing now is my last attempt. I am telling my dreamer that I am a dream. I want him to dream that he is dreaming. That is something that happens to men, doesn’t it? And don’t they wake, once they realize they are dreaming? That’s why I have come to see you and that’s why I have told you everything. I hope he who has created me understands that at this at this very minute I do not exist as a real man, for as soon as he does I shall cease to exist, even as an unreal image. Do you think I will succeed? Do you think that by repeating it and shouting it I will manage to awaken my invisible master?”
And while he was saying these words, the Sick Gentleman tossed and turned in the armchair, pulling off and putting on the glove of his left hand, staring at me with eyes that seemed to grow more and more vacant. It was as if he expected something terrible and marvellous to happen at any minute. His face took on an agonized expression. From time to time he would stare at his own body as if expecting it to dissolve into thin air, and he would nervously pass a hand across his damp forehead.
“Do you believe all this to be true?” he asked me.”Or do you think I’m lying? But why can’t I disappear, why can’t I be free of it all? Is it that I’m part of an everlasting dream, the dream of an immortal sleeper, of an eternal dreamer? Help me get rid of this terrible notion! Console me, find me some plan, some way to escape from this horror! I beg you, help me! Will no one pity this poor, bored apparition?”
As I remained silent, he stared at me once again and then stood up. He seemed to me taller than before, and once again I noticed his almost diaphanous skin. One could see he was suffering terribly. His whole body seemed convulsed: he looked like an animal trying to escape from a net. The soft gloved hand shook mine, for the last time. Murmuring something very gently he left my room, and only one person has seen him since.