I became anxious for Saturday to come. Until then I was persecuted by dreams, even when I was awake; I’ll not recount them here so as not to lengthen this part of the book. I’ll just tell one, and in as few words as I can; or rather I’ll put two in, because one had its origin in the other, unless the two are halves of a single whole. All this is obscure, lady reader, but the fault lies with your sex, perturbing the adolescence of a poor seminarist in this way. If it wasn’t for you, this book would perhaps be no more than a parish sermon, if I’d become a priest, or a pastoral letter, if a bishop, or an encyclical, if I’d become Pope, as Uncle Cosme had recommended: “Off you go lad; come back Pope!” Ah, why didn’t I fulfil this desire? After Napoleon, lieutenant and Emperor, in this century all destinies are possible.
As for the dream, it was this. As I was spying on the local beaux, I saw one of them chatting with my young friend next to the window. I ran to the place, and he fled; I came up to Capitu, but she was not alone, she had her father next to her, drying his eyes and looking at a miserable lottery ticket. Since all this was unclear to me, I was going to ask for an explanation, when he gave it of his own accord; the beau had come to give him the list of the lottery prizes, and the ticket had come out blank. Its number was 4004. He told me that this symmetry in the figures was mysterious and beautiful, and that probably the wheel had gone wrong; it was impossible that he hadn’t got the big prize. While he was talking, Capitu was giving me all the big and little prizes in the world with her eyes. The biggest of all would be given with the mouth. And here the second part of the dream comes in. Pádua disappeared, along with his hopes for the ticket. Capitu leaned out, I quickly glanced up and down the street: it was deserted. I took her hands, mumbled something or other, and woke up alone in the dormitory.
The interest of what you have just read lies not in the matter of the dream, but in the efforts I made to see if I could go back to sleep and follow it up. Never in the world can you imagine with what energy and obstinacy I tried to shut my eyes as tightly as possible, to forget everything and go to sleep, but I couldn’t. The very effort of doing so made me unable to sleep until dawn. About that time, I managed to doze off, but then neither beaux, nor lottery tickets, nor big or small prizes—nothing at all came to visit me. I dreamed no more that night, and I was no good at lessons the next day.