In Claudia’s dream, he doesn’t stammer, and he says something else:

“Most people live as if they’re walking backward toward a cliff. They know that behind them there’s an abyss they could fall into any moment, but they pretend to ignore it and keep looking at the scenery. But I don’t walk. You created me in the abyss of nonexistence.”

In both dreams, Tolstoy responds, screaming:

“That’s completely untrue.”

And Sergei replies calmly:

“Only subconscious action is productive, and the individual who plays a role in historical events never understands this. If he tries to understand, he’s punished with sterility.”

“Enough, Sergei, enough! Stop quoting me! Be reasonable….”

The old man watches them in silence for a few moments, then he says, looking first at Claudia, then at Sergei:

“Don’t you realize? Just as the French were called to renew the world in 1790, we Russians are being called to do so in 1905.”

“I disagree,” Sergei says. “If it were the case that human beings were governed by reason, there would be no such thing as life.”

“So what? So what! Stop quoting me back to myself!” Tolstoy tries to contain an outburst of rage, repeating the following words as quietly as he can in his agitated state: “They’re making me despise myself. This is sinful, to get angry at my very own work. I’m destroying the bonds of love. And the wound bleeds….” Once again, Tolstoy takes a few giant strides in the room that has grown ever larger in both dreams. And he says aloud, though much more calmly, “Because you and I, Sergei, are joined only by a bond of love. That’s all. Which is why our relations are so volatile. The wound bleeds, it bleeds….”

As he pronounces these last words, in both Sergei’s dream and Claudia’s, Tolstoy turns into something like a fox, and immediately thereafter into something like a hedgehog, changing shape and size from one animal to another.

That’s when Claudia awakens, the final words of her dream echoing: “The wound bleeds, it bleeds….”

Sergei continues sleeping; his dreams veer off into other characters and absurd scenarios that he won’t remember (like a fox hunt in which the horses are ridden by hedgehogs), obliterating his encounter with his author. His dream becomes more straightforward and easy to follow. Then it vanishes in smoke.

35. Between the Dream and the Battleship Potemkin

35. Between the Dream and the Battleship Potemkin

While Sergei’s dream begins to fragment into different images, far away in the Black Sea, on board the Battleship Potemkin, an ill-tempered, disrespectful officer whose name no one wants to recall sparks a fire. There are several versions of this story.

According to the popular one, the officer who lit the match was walking among the hammocks where his men were sleeping, completely disregarding the crew’s precious personal space. Rudely, he disrupted their sleep.