Dream Story

by Arthur Schnitzler

He felt as though the dead man were joining in their silence, not because he could no longer talk, but deliberately and out of sheer malice.

My way lies forward, even were it to my death.

Curious how, seduced by words, again and again one labels and condemns people, destinies and streets through sheer idle force of habit.

‘As sure as I am of my sense that neither the reality of a single night nor even of a person’s entire life can be equated with the full truth about his innermost being.’ ‘And no dream,’ he sighed quietly, ‘is altogether a dream.’