Before the clock struck midnight he had a remarkable, a menacing dream.
It seemed to him that he was in a sumptuous country-house of which he was the owner. He had recently purchased the house, and all the estates attached to it. And he kept thinking: "It is well, now it is well, but disaster is coming!" Beside him was hovering a tiny little man, his manager; this man kept making obeisances, and trying to demonstrate to Arátoff how admirably everything about his house and estate was arranged.—"Please, please look," he kept reiterating, grinning at every word, "how everything is flourishing about you! Here are horses … what magnificent horses!" And Arátoff saw a row of huge horses. They were standing with their backs to him, in stalls; they had wonderful manes and tails … but as soon as Arátoff walked past them the horses turned their heads toward him and viciously displayed their teeth.
"It is well," thought Arátoff, "but disaster is coming!"
"Please, please," repeated his manager again; "please come into the garden; see what splendid apples we have!"
The apples really were splendid, red, and round; but as soon as Arátoff looked at them, they began to shrivel and fall…. "Disaster is coming!" he thought.
"And here is the lake," murmurs the manager: "how blue and smooth it is! And here is a little golden boat!… Would you like to have a sail in it?… It moves of itself."
"I will not get into it!" thought Arátoff; "a disaster is coming!" and nevertheless he did seat himself in the boat. On the bottom, writhing, lay a little creature resembling an ape; in its paws it was holding a phial filled with a dark liquid.
"Pray do not feel alarmed," shouted the manager from the shore…. "That is nothing! That is death! A prosperous journey!"
The boat darted swiftly onward … but suddenly a hurricane arose, not like the one of the day before, soft and noiseless—no; it is a black, terrible, howling hurricane!—Everything is in confusion round about;—and amid the swirling gloom Arátoff beholds Clara in theatrical costume: she is raising the phial to her lips, a distant "Bravo! bravo!" is audible, and a coarse voice shouts in Arátoff's ear:
"Ah! And didst thou think that all this would end in a comedy?—No! it is a tragedy! a tragedy!"