As I looked more intently I saw that I was _not_
being mocked; I was being worshipped, adulated, flattered; I had become a
god--for party purposes perhaps--and this was my day, given in my honour,
for national celebration. And I saw, by the insight given me, that they
were praising me _for having put their money on the wrong horse!_
Year by year the celebration had gone on, until they had so got into the
habit that they could not leave off! All my achievements, all my policies,
all my statecraft were in the dust; but the worship of me had become a
national habit--so foolish and meaningless, that nothing, nothing but some
vast calamity--some great social upheaval, was ever going to stop it.
DOCTOR. My dear lord, it is I who must stop it now. You mustn't go on.
STATESMAN. I have done, Doctor. There I have given you the essentials of
my dream; material depressing enough for the mind of an old man, enfeebled
by indisposition, at the end of a long day's work. But I tell you, Doctor,
that nothing therein which stands explainable fills me with such repulsion
and aversion as that one thing which I cannot explain--why, why primroses?
DOCTOR. A remarkable dream, my lord; rendered more vivid--or, as you say,
"real"--by your present disturbed state of health. As to that part of it
which you find so inexplicable, I can at least point toward where the
explanation lies. It reduces itself to this: primroses had become
associated for you--in a way which you have forgotten--with something you
wished to avoid.
Pages:
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
26
27
28
29
30
31
32
33
34
35
36
37
38
39
40
41
42
43