had in some
way become rooted to the earth. And he felt that this was not a dream.
The old man's features moved, and his lips began to project towards him,
as though he wanted to suck him in. With a yell of despair he jumped
back--and awoke.

"Was it a dream?" With his heart throbbing to bursting, he felt about
him with both hands. Yes, he was lying in bed, and in precisely the
position in which he had fallen asleep. Before him stood the screen.
The moonlight flooded the room. Through the crack of the screen, the
portrait was visible, covered with the sheet, as it should be, just as
he had covered it. And so that, too, was a dream? But his clenched fist
still felt as though something had been held in it. The throbbing of
his heart was violent, almost terrible; the weight upon his breast
intolerable. He fixed his eyes upon the crack, and stared steadfastly
at the sheet. And lo! he saw plainly the sheet begin to open, as though
hands were pushing from underneath, and trying to throw it off. "Lord
God, what is it!" he shrieked, crossing himself in despair--and awoke.

And was this, too, a dream? He sprang from his bed, half-mad, and could
not comprehend what had happened to him. Was it the oppression of a
nightmare, the raving of fever, or an actual apparition? Striving to
calm, as far as possible, his mental tumult, and stay the wildly rushing
blood, which beat with straining pulses in every vein, he went to the
window and opened it. The cool breeze revived him. The moonlight lay on
the roofs and the white walls of the houses, though small clouds passed
frequently across the sky. All was still: from time to time there struck
the ear the distant rumble of a carriage. He put his head out of the
window, and gazed for some time. Already the signs of approaching dawn
were spreading over the sky. At last he felt drowsy, shut to the window,
stepped back, lay down in bed, and quickly fell, like one exhausted,
into a deep sleep.

He awoke late, and with the disagreeable feeling of a man who has been
half-suffocated with coal-gas: his head ached painfully. The room was
dim: an unpleasant moisture pervaded the air, and penetrated the cracks
of his windows. Dissatisfied and depressed as a wet cock, he seated
himself on his dilapidated divan, not knowing what to do, what to set
about, and at length remembered the whole of his dream. As he recalled
it, the dream presented itself to his mind as so oppressively real that
he even began