Dreams, February 7-8, 1904

Dream

February 7-8, 1904 (written when waking up in the morning, came after an effort of memory and with some difficulty).

Always a station. I don't know in which city. Benoist sits in a position parallel to mine in a waiting room. I'm in the station itself, at the entrance, and I see him through a wall. The priests come to talk to him.

The scene changes a little. Benoist is out. The two priests have disappeared. Benoist or one of his friends shouts near the edge of the Seine: “Down with the Jews. Long live the generals!” I then shout (or only intend to shout) "Long live the Jews! Down with the generals!" At this moment a general arrives. It seems to me that it was the father of the one who shouted. The crowd cheers him. Several generals follow him. We give them a standing ovation. At this moment, the scene appears to take place in front of the Chamber of Deputies. Then there is an argument. I don't know why — everything happened in semi-darkness. The visual images were not very clear. It is impossible for me to note exactly what happened next in the dream.

Explanations

The day before, returning from Meudon, quite tired, I heard a military bell which struck me keenly, a little before entering Paris.
Why a station? I don't know anything about it. However, I now remember having encountered, on returning from Meudon along the banks of the Seine and close to entering Paris, a prodigious number of stations. I followed the railway path for a long time. For a moment I walked down the lane. This worried me a little.
Priests who come to talk to Benoist. A fact already noticed in reality.
Why did I think of Benoist?
The generals. Memories, basically, of the Dreyfus affair, no doubt. A brochure from La Patrie Française that was given to me last night perhaps helped to make me think of it; perhaps it was also she who made me think of Benoist, whose father is a nationalist deputy in the Chamber.
Hence the idea of the Chamber of Deputies.

Thus three memories relating to intervals of ten to fifteen minutes seem to have guided me; α) noted stations and railway tracks. β) the military bell. ɣ) the brochure of the French Homeland.

The idea of the argument seems to me to come from a short story by Conan Doyle (A Scandal in Hungary), read the day before last night. Everything seems to have happened the same way. The Dreyfus affair perhaps made me think of an argument and that was the clearest one I remember.

The feelings were not very strong in this dream. The argument itself left me, unusually, almost indifferent. And I no longer remember whether or not I shouted: Down with the generals. The images were not very clear.

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February 7-8, 1904 (written upon waking up in the morning. Difficult recall of memories).

(It seems to me, as soon as I write it, that there is a memory of a dream which dates back three or four days. The very night I had it, I had thought of writing it down, without doing so — Perhaps the same dream presented itself that night, but I do not believe it.)

I'm in a living room, the Betruie living room, I think. There are five or six people, mostly young girls, ladies. Someone (Mr. Betruie?) said to me: “Now, go and stand aside, in this gallery, people will say good things about your eyes.” I knew it in advance, even before B. spoke to me, I knew what he was going to tell me. So I'm going to stand aside in a small black gallery, on a bench.
I listen to the conversation.
(Here a very long void.)
The B. lounge always. Many young people playing a game, combination of ping-pong and cup and ball. They break everything a bit. They make a mess of the buffets.

I had excellent memories of the Bétruie. I really liked a young Russian girl I saw there. I thought, I think, that she must find my eyes pretty. I was left with a feeling of unfinished business from all this. I haven't seen the Betruies since that day. I had pretty much promised the girl I would send her an address and I didn't.

Towards the end, there is obviously a memory of what happens at home when we play ping-pong.