Page:The Novels of Ivan Turgenev (volume X).djvu/217

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THE DREAM

eyes upon me. ... I uttered an involuntary 'Ah!' . . .

The man was the father I had been looking for, the father I had beheld in my dream!

There was no possibility of mistake — the resemblance was too striking. The very coat even, that wrapped his spare limbs in its long skirts, in hue and cut, recalled the dressing-gown in which my father had appeared in the dream.

'Am I not asleep now?' I wondered. . . . No. ... It was daytime, about me crowds of people were bustling, the sun was shining brightly in the blue sky, and before me was no phantom, but a living man.

I went up to an empty table, asked for a pot of beer and a newspaper, and sat down not far off from this enigmatical being.

V

Putting the sheet of newspaper on a level with my face, I continued my scrutiny of the stranger. He scarcely stirred at all, only from time to time raising his bowed head. He was obviously expecting some one. I gazed and gazed. . . . Sometimes I fancied I must have

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