Page:Complete Works of Count Tolstoy - 13.djvu/104

 was written by me three years ago. Those parts will be printed.

Now, the other day as I looked over and returned to that train of thought and to those feelings which were in me when I passed through all that, I had a dream. This dream expressed to me in concise form what I had lived through and described, and so I think that for those who have understood me the description of this dream will refresh and collect into one all that has been at such a length told in these pages. Here is the dream.

I see that I am lying on my bed. I feel neither well nor ill: I am lying on my back. But I begin to think whether it is right for me to lie down; my legs somehow do not feel comfortable: either I have not enough space to stretch them or the bed is not even,—in any case I feel uncomfortable; I move my legs and at the same time begin to consider how and on what I am lying, which has never occurred to me before. I examine my bed, and I see that I am lying on plaited rope strips that are attached to the side pieces of the bed. My feet are lying on one such strip, my thighs on another,—my legs are just uncomfortable. For some reason I know that these strips may be moved, and with the motion of my legs I push away the extreme strip under my feet, thinking that it will be more comfortable that way. But I have pushed it away too far, and I try to fetch it back with a motion of my legs, when the strip under my thighs slips away,