I am feeling blue again. I know that I need a change, and this morning I told Arthur definitely that I was going.
To my surprise he made no objection. In fact, he murmured a word of assent and smiled. He smiled as he smiled in the library that morning when he pointed at the Aster Tripolium. And I don’t like that smile. Anyway, it is settled. I shall go next week, Thursday, the 19th.
October 13.—I had a strange dream last night. Or was it a dream? It was so vivid.... All day long I have been seeing it over and over again.
In my dream I thought that I was lying there in my bed. The moon was shining brightly into the room, so that each piece of furniture stood out distinctly. The bureau is so placed that when I am lying on my back, with my head high on the pillow, I can see full into the mirror.
I thought I was lying in this manner and staring into the mirror. In this way I saw the bolted door in the far corner of the room. I tried to keep my mind off it, to think of something else, but it drew my eyes like a magnet.
It seemed to me that someone was in the room, a vague figure that I could not recognize. It approached the door and caught at the bolts. It dragged at them and struggled, but in vain—they would not give way.
Then it turned and showed me its agonized face. It was Arthur! I recognized his reddish-brown dressing-gown.
I sat up in bed and cried to him, but he was gone. I ran to his room, and there he was, stretched out in the moonlight asleep. It must have been a dream.