The Dreams by Naguib Mahfouz
Dream 130
I was awakened by voices calling to me—heedless of the racket they made—from the belly of the night.
Instantly, I knew some were old girlfriends from the days of my youth, reminding me of trysts I had missed. So I threw on my robe and ran out into the street.
But I found it empty, blanketed by silence.
Dream 131
We meet in this corner of the forest, and our lives are songs inspired by folk ballads. Our sky is all clouds of fine, perfumed smoke.
Meanwhile, it’s as though we are sleeping or simply not very attentive. One day our peace and quiet was shattered by the sounds of strange singing with mad rhythms, raising a raging tumult. Confused, some of us wanted to silence it, even by force, though others urged that it be handled with thoughtfulness and wisdom.
In any case, it woke those who were sleeping, and put the heedless on alert.
Dream 132
She and I were going out as usual to one of our favorite nightclubs when I excused myself to stop briefly to buy some cigarettes.
When I returned, I didn’t find her; I assumed that she’d gone to the agreed place before me. But when I got there, she was nowhere around.
So I went from club to club in search of her. I am still looking for her.
Dream 133
A prize worth a hundred pounds—I had never known more money than my tiny official salary. I hoped it would be first step on the path to prosperity.
After all, how many of my colleagues had started out at zero to become rich bigshots in the end? I asked some of them how to do this, but they told me not to ask about the way, for that was known to all.
Instead, they advised, “Ask about the person, and the time.”
Dream 134
We meet as always on the Agricultural Road, reciting poetry and singing as we please until the time steals away. The sun has set without our even noticing.
We only remember it when, as darkness closes in, the baying of jackals assails us from every side.
Dream 135
Longing to see my family, I was instantly transported to our old home. But to my horror, I found it drowning in darkness, as though it had been destroyed by gloom.
I called out to scold them, to each man and woman by name—but no one replied. I kept on appealing to them in vain until I cried.
Dream 136
My sister’s dead body was stretched out on the bed. My girlfriend was with me, both of us very moved by the event.
Suddenly a beautiful young girl sat crosslegged on the bed, chanting dirges in a haunting voice. Then time sped forward and there was a corpse in her place—the cadaver of my lover, while my sister and I grieved by her side.
Meanwhile, the young girl appeared in her stead, wailing mournfully of woe.
Dream 137
Such a fabulous garden, with no beginning or end. Purity trickles from the sky above it, the earth hidden beneath its trees. We sit under one of them as we eat and drink.
Then a voice tells us that singers and dancers are coming—they’re coming our way! Another voice warns us not to listen to the sayings and proverbs that disparage time itself and days gone by.
And it says as well that these trees, whose fruits are infused with goodness and pleasure, are entrusted to our charge.
Dream 138
I was walking down a long street steeped in history, paying no mind to anything around me, when suddenly a hand tapped on my shoulder. I turned around to find a fantastically beautiful, stylishly dressed woman standing in front of me.
Astounded, I smiled at her, and she smiled back, before hurrying off toward an elegant green house. I made up my mind to follow her.
Yet when I looked around to be sure that all was safe, troops from State Security had spread throughout the neighborhood, blocking the road, letting no one move an inch.
But my eyes remained trained on the elegant green house.
Dream 139
An exhibition famed for its single painting in which the image changes whenever a viewer approaches it.
First it looked to me like a magnificent forest, but when I drew another step closer, the woods disappeared, replaced by a naked woman with many obvious attractions.
One more step, and the lady was gone. Instead, there was a raging battle in which every type of weapon, from stones to the latest gadgets, came to hand.
Dream 140
The woman had many charms; one look at her and I was already chasing her. Then her husband grabbed me, swearing he would take me to the police station, when a man from our neighborhood, famed for advocating absolute freedom, came into the room.
I fled after learning an unforgettable lesson—one that would take solid form whenever I met a woman. Yet I found myself face to face with the ravishing lady again.
I started to run away—and she kissed me, smiling, and took me by the arm. “My husband,” she assured me, “has now embraced the call for absolute freedom.”
Dream 141
Our dear old neighborhood. I’m rambling around it, my mind flooded with memories.
Then it occurs to me that I should live in our former place until the housing crisis eases.
But after only one day I see it’s simply not suitable for life in modern times.
Dream 142
This empty plot of land is my sole inheritance. I call it “the ruin,” because it has been neglected for so long.
After making a bit of money, I thought of building on it. Yet I made no progress, due to what I knew about the prevalence of fraud and financial corruption.
Finally, I asked a wise woman who lived next to me, “Is there an honest person left in the world?”
She answered that he existed indeed—but endless courage and resolve were needed in the ceaseless quest to find him.
Dream 143
Hearing an unfamiliar voice, I hurried over to the stairwell to find a strange man who aroused my suspicion.
I called to the doorman to take a look at the stranger. He calmly informed me that this person was a civil servant carrying out his official duty.
That was, he explained, to take individuals out of overcrowded buildings and to transfer them to places which have more room. I objected—for this, I said, was to tear people away from their own families, only to put them somewhere they would not be welcome.
But the doorman insisted that such was the law, and one could only obey and comply.
Dream 144
Peering into the shadowy past, I saw my sweetheart’s luminous face, though she’d been dead for fifty years. I asked her about the letter I’d sent her a week ago.
She said that she found it filled with affection. But she noted that the script of the person who’d written it revealed he was struck with the fear of life—especially of love and marriage.
“I was afflicted with the same fear,” she added, “and changed my mind about going to you.
“To save myself,” she concluded, “I decided to flee instead.”
Dream 145
Such a grand festival—all the top people from the government were there. The festival’s head summoned me and presented me with a ball, which he said was the event’s official prize.
The ball was made of solid gold. Congratulations rained down on me, and when I had recovered, I announced my desire to donate the gift to charity. So some men came with a saw and began cutting the ball up in order to divide it.
But when the saw bit into the ball’s core, the place went up in a huge, earth-shaking explosion, as bits of humans, animals, plants, and inanimate things flew everywhere through the air.
Dream 146
The enemy was triumphant. Yet before he’d cease fighting, he demanded that the golden statue of the nation’s reawakening, kept in the storehouse of historic treasures, be surrendered forthwith.
So a group of us went to fetch the storehouse key from the strongbox. But when we removed the box’s lid, a terrifying serpent rose up before us, threatening anyone who drew near
As we hastily retreated, I concealed my joy—praying for the snake’s safety, and his success in guarding the key.
Dream 147
I was called to an important meeting of the building’s residents, where they drew my attention to a decision issued against me, that I must vacate my flat.
I appealed to their sense of justice and of mercy until the building’s owner said to me that the meeting hadn’t been held to seek justice and mercy. Rather it was to insure that the decision was applied as the law decrees.
Dream 148
The competition between trains to Alexandria and autos on the Agricultural Road grew more and more intense.
Finally, the directors of the railroad met and decided to create a special car for uproar, with women and complete liberty of behavior. There would also be a salon in every wagon dedicated to drinking, singing, and dancing.
So I kept on drinking, singing, and dancing, waiting for the chance to slip away to the rumpus room of delights.
Dream 149
Revolution gripped the city and the king was slain while defending his capital. Immediately there was a banquet held in honor of the revolution’s commanders.
The queen invited their chief to her private wing, where she greeted him, completely naked, revealing all she had.
Dream 150
The crisis kept going from bad to worse, until the great merchant was on the brink of bankruptcy. He couldn’t find anyone to loan him money among his own class, which the crisis had destroyed.
But then a man who sells licorice-drinks on the street lent it to him without interest. When the time came to repay him, the crisis reached its peak, to the point that the merchant thought of taking his own life. At that moment, the refreshments peddler saved him with another loan, telling him to consider both amounts as a dowry for his daughter.
They say that the merchant had finally found a solution to his problem. Meanwhile, the drinks seller said to himself that he, too, had found a remedy for his own emergency, whose existence he’d never confided to anyone.
Dream 151
Under the tree we would sit with him, for evenings of both enjoyment and learning, when once he excused himself in order to take his medicine. He went up to his flat—but didn’t come back.
When one of us went to check on him, he found the apartment locked up tight from the outside. So began a fruitless search for him in all his haunts, as anxiety gripped us all equally—those who loved him, and those who hated him, and those who were indifferent to him as well.
Meanwhile, at our mosque, the imam led the Prayer for the Absent on the soul of the one who was no longer seen.
Dream 152
Arriving at the famous establishment on its golden jubilee, I found the grand reception hall jammed with people from all professions and with dogs of every breed.
The one who invited me stopped to say hello and thank me for coming, and we began to reminisce about memories that one can never forget, when a savage dog attacked him. The beast might have killed us all if a brave man had not saved us. He threw himself into the fray—and for the first time ever, a man bit a dog. He kept on biting until he’d sucked all the viciousness out of him.
The dog’s canine nature changed and the behavior of dogs toward people in general was transformed. They sat side by side in peace, chewing candied treats.
And when the event was over, they all stood up and sang “My Country, My Country”—our nation’s anthem—together.
Dream 153
There I was in a sailboat with the cream of our nation’s elite. With water surrounding us on every side, my heart pounded—I didn’t know how to swim.
The waves arose from a profound silence that warned of a coming explosion. The members of the upper crust threw themselves overboard, and began to tread water with vim and agility.
Watching them, I grew more and more alarmed as I remembered the huge amount of time lost in amusements. Only a fraction of that would have been enough to learn how to swim—not to mention lifesaving, as well.
Dream 154
Crashing waves of humanity propelled my friend the lady broadcaster and myself along until we stopped in a small square facing a wall of people: not even a needle could have passed through it. Glancing around, I saw the sweet shop in which I regularly took breakfast on the other side of the square. But we could not move.
I remarked to my friend that her program on the victory would be delayed a short while.
“In any case,” she replied, “I have a disturbing piece of news: that Makram Ebeid, the great struggler for freedom, has died in the crowd.”
My heart shuddered with sadness for the death of the hero. Meanwhile, a waiter from the confectioner’s shop saw me. Putting some pastries in a paper bag, he then stood on top of a chair and threw it over the heads of the throng. I grabbed it frantically and opened it, but my friend’s hand beat me to it as she whispered apologetically, “I was about to perish from hunger.”
At this, I stretched my own hand inside the bag—but all I found were some foreign-style pickles.
Dream 155
I was informed that my noble mentor, Shaykh Mustafa Abd al-Raziq, had caught a slight cold. I decided to visit him, but instead found him standing in front of my door, tears streaming down his cheeks. He regarded me with his wise expression as he wept.
“Master,” I told him, “it’s nothing more than a minor illness; there’s no reason to cry.”
But he answered, “I’m not weeping for myself.”
Then I understood: the lament was for us all. So I seized the chance to ask him, “What should we do, then, about humanity as a whole?”
“You have a lot of pharmacies full to the brim with all sorts of medications,” he replied, “not to mention the deadly popular remedies.”
Dream 156
Finally the calm, mild-tempered cat got angry. The winds of rage blew, throwing off sparks that started fires wherever they fell.
Finding no one to address but the winds, I told them we had peaceful means that we were now ready to try.
But they told me the time for that had passed—as the gusts continued to roar, and the sparks to fly.
Dream 157
According to the medical report, I only had a few weeks to live. First I was struck by sadness—then by a wave of recklessness. I began to eat food that the doctors had forbidden me to touch for years. And I finally committed myself to my girlfriend “S,” asking her to marry me.
“You’ll lose a great, innocent friendship,” she told me, astonished, “while getting nothing in return.” But I pressed her anyway until she gave in.
Two days later, a doctor friend said that a world-famous specialist would be visiting Egypt, and they had booked a place for me with him: Congratulations! I was consumed with joy from head to foot—until I remembered the deadly food that I had devoured, and the marriage to which I had tied myself without really wanting it.
My ecstasy turned to vexation and concern.
Dream 158
The minister charged me with inspecting the ministry’s fine arts warehouse to prepare for an exhibition. Taking a team of helpers with me to clean up the dust and kill off the pests, I spied a large painting draped in a cloth.
Pulling the drape away, a portrait of Sa’d Zaghlul, seated on his prime minister’s chair, his hands clasped around the head of his cane, stared at me. Moved by the neglect of the leader in whose school of patriotism I had been raised, it seemed to me that the picture was alive. Sa’d’s eyes winked, his hands shifted on his walking stick, and he gleamed all over with a matchless magnificence.
In a flash, there appeared throngs of people from the pasha’s generation, all lining up to greet him, and to complain of the oppression that they have endured. Instantly I forgot the minister’s orders, and the job I’d come to do.
Instead, I queued with the largest group of those coming to pay their respects—at whose head was Mustafa al-Nahhas.
Dream 159
Some of the Harafish were summoned by Ustaz Sa’d al-Din Wahba. We went to him, and he welcomed us warmly, showing us a petition he planned to present to the higher authorities, to purge the organization of deviant elements.
He invited us to sign it—and we did so with enthusiasm. And at daybreak the next morning, our homes were broken into by “the visitors of dawn”—who drove us away blindfolded to the unknown.
Dream 160