“The Ten Nights of Dreams”
is composed by chapters and tells about the dream, the dreams of Gods of
Kamakura Period, portrays future. Soseki wrote it piece by piece, the short stories describe the Meiji Era in Japan
During the first
night the character find himself in a bedroom we may presume, by the bed of a
dying woman, she looks strange, she doesn't look like a dying person, for that reason
the man asks her question to “be sure” she will be passing away, indeed, she
confirms she is going to die, she is not a humble lying on her bed of death,
she is argumentative and she has requests, the man has to bury her in the grave
he dig himself by the shell of the oyster, moreover, the fragment of the
falling star became a tombstone of her grave, the last one is almost impossible to
handle, the man has to wait one hundred years, after that turning point the
woman returns and see the man once again. The man waited, looked at signs,
heard the sounds, waited for that precised moment and it finally came, the a
white lily was budding and blooming, the man kissed it and knew he eventually
met the woman again.
In the second
dream, the man meets the monk, the monk preachers him, scolds for not being
able to achieve a spiritual sophistication, the enlightenment and became a
samurai. His mind is simply too distracted, too preoccupied by trivia, monk is disappointed
and discouraged. The man promises it will change, that he will reach the
spiritual freedom and he will be enlightened man again, he will meets the expectation
of his master. He meditated, contemplated, eventually, he reached the point
where he decided to end his life he took the dagger and waits for the moment
to stab himself, emotions whirled in his head, from anger to sorrow, from
sorrow to bitter disillusionment, we do not know exactly how much time passed
by, but, the dreamer seemed to be awoken by the sound of the clock, he looks
around, he looks at his hand and sees the dagger.
In the third
dream the man is in the woods, he is not alone, he is carrying the child, he is
not sure if the chills is his or not, but, he is his guardian now;
“…
there is six-years old on my back…
…
the child is blind ‘oh, from time immemorial’,
He goes one with a child, follows the path he has to
go, the child sees the symbol, the a cedar three and the man recalled a thing
so obvious;
“…he had killed a blind man at the bottom of the same
cedar tree 100 years ago…”
In the fourth dream the man
is a child, the child who observes the old man, who is drinking sake, he twisted
the towel and ensured children that if they look at it long enough, the towel, eventually becomes a snake, it never happened, though, the men disappeared into
the river, instead, what was left were children and a young girl bringing the
water.
In the fifth dream the man
found himself captured and defeated, he is about to chose his fate which means
a death or life, he chose death. Shortly before the execution he want to see a
woman, so does happen, he sees her on a horse, profound and gracious. Suddenly she
speeds a horse and the horse collapses and throws both it and woman forward into
a hole, the nymph of perversity - Amanoyaku made a sacrifice, the dreamer was
sure he dies due to the fact that he regarded the woman of his arch-enemy.
During the sixth dream the
man hears sound of carving, he feels the strange notion as if he wasn't in
Meiji Era but Kamakura one, which is not possible, the sculpture that is
created is mythical and believed to belong to the woods not as a human work of
art. Nio doesn't exist, all what was found was a vacuum space.
In the seventh dream the man
found himself on the ship, he doesn't know whom the ship belongs to, where the
ship heads forward, he is lost and confused without no chance to get off and
restart his spiritual journey again. Lonely and frustrated, he is terrified, we
may only think of what more; the ship, the vast sea, the loneliness, the tranquility … . Eventually the dreamer becomes more and more depressed he decided to jump
into the sea, shortly after he regrets immediately.
In the eighth dream the ethereal,
our hero is at the barbers’ he wants his hair being cut, so does happen, while
sitting he is looking at the mirror in which reflection he sees
geisha (without make-up, plain and
simplistic, he sees her true colors), he sees lots of strange things, apart
goldfish vendor, he is intrigued by the woman – an “accountant”, he presumed,
but at the end it all appeared as blurred vision, the woman doesn't exist at
all, when the barber finished, the
dreamer leaves the shop, he sees the merchant he was asked for, he realizes he stands still, doesn't move, he is stocked.
In the ninth dream the man
witnesses the world completely different form the one he had been risen,
unsettled, strange and a bit hostile. He encounters mother with a child who is
waiting for her husband, her child everyday enquirers when the father returns. It comes out that the father has been killed, the
woman who spoke hundred prayers did it for nothing, the prayers were futile and
brought nothing but sadness and anguish.
In the final dream, the
tenth one, the man meets Shōtarō
who is regarded as the most handsome man, the stylish one, he is wearing the
Panama hat. Shōtarō adores women, he loves their faces, he adores
looking at them, if there is no woman around he looks and admires fruits. Out
of the blue, he meet, woman which is out of ordinary, perfect with certain “qualities”,
the woman tempts him to do certain things, he obediently listens to her, once
she asked him to jump out of the cliff, he
declines, She explains him that he will be licked by pigs if he doesn't obey,
he doesn't believe, suddenly pigs started appearing, he knocked them down one
by one, eventually is licked by one, bad luck, he collapses and falls down off
the cliff. The conclusion the author draws is one; do not stare at women too
long and too much, otherwise You get lost.
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