Pagina 134 di 1294

He finished eating it as he walked away. It was a long while

since he had taken vodka and it had an effect upon him at once,

though he only drank a wineglassful. His legs felt suddenly heavy

and a great drowsiness came upon him. He turned homewards, but

reaching Petrovsky Ostrov he stopped completely exhausted, turned

off the road into the bushes, sank down upon the grass and

instantly fell asleep.

In a morbid condition of the brain, dreams often have a singular

actuality, vividness, and extraordinary semblance of reality. At

times monstrous images are created, but the setting and the whole

picture are so truth-like and filled with details so delicate, so

unexpectedly, but so artistically consistent, that the dreamer,

were he an artist like Pushkin or Turgenev even, could never have

invented them in the waking state. Such sick dreams always remain

long in the memory and make a powerful impression on the

overwrought and deranged nervous system.