Demian took a deep breath. Someone knocked at the door. The aged servant brought in tea.
“Take a cup, Sinclair, do. I don’t think it was by chance you saw the bird.”
“Chance? Does one see such things by chance?”
“Well, no. It means something. Do you know what?”
“No. I only feel, it means a violent shock, the approach of fate. I think it will affect all of us.”
He walked violently up and down.
“The approach of fate!” he exclaimed loudly. “I dreamed the same thing myself last night, and my mother yesterday had a premonition, portending the same thing. I dreamed I was going up a ladder, placed against a tree trunk or a tower. When I reached the top I saw the whole country. It was a wide plain, with towns and villages burning. I cannot yet relate everything, because it isn’t all quite clear to me.”
“Do you interpret the dream as affecting you?” I asked.
“Me? Naturally. No one dreams of what does not concern him. But it does not concern me alone, you are right. I distinguish tolerably well between the dreams which indicate agitation of my own soul, and the others, the rare ones, which bear on the fate of all humanity. I have seldom had such dreams, and never one of which I can say that it was a prophecy, and that it has been fulfilled. The interpretations are too uncertain. But this I know for a certainty, I have dreamed of something which does not concern me alone. For the dream belongs to others, former ones I have had; this is the continuation. These are the dreams, Sinclair, in which I had the premonitions which I have already mentioned to you. We know that the world is absolutely rotten, but that is no reason to prophesy its ruin, or to make a prophecy of a like nature. But for several years past I have had dreams, from which I conclude, or feel, or what you will, which, then, give me the feeling that the break-up of an old world is drawing near. At first they were simply faint presentiments, but since they have become more and more significant. Even now I know nothing more than that something big and terrible is approaching, which will concern me. Sinclair, we shall go through the experiences of which we have so often talked. The world is about to renew itself. It smacks of death. Nothing new comes without death. It is more terrible than I had thought.”
Frightened, I looked at him fixedly.