summoned up all his powers of persuasion. I gave him one crown and he threw in a pair of nail-scissors as well.
New arrivals tried to exploit this to their advantage, but soon discovered they had been counting their chickens before they were hatched. The Dream fate was implacable: the wealth they had accumulated simply vanished into thin air. These smart Alecks found themselves paying exorbitant prices for the most basic necessities or they were inundated with parcels ‘to be paid for on delivery’. If they did not accept them, then much worse troubles came, for example illnesses and the doctors charged extortionate fees. Creditors who had never lent them anything would appear, demanding their money. And it was no use protesting, they brought their witnesses with them. Thus everything balanced out and in the end no one emerged with either gain or loss. There was no bargaining with the invisible bookkeeper who kept the accounts. As soon as I had grasped this strange state of affairs, everything was fine.
Only a fortnight after we had arrived a servant in livery turned up on our doorstep. His master–he mentioned some fine-sounding name–was waiting most impatiently for the drawings he had paid for, he said, and he had come to collect them. What could I do? I wrapped up five of my best pieces and wrote a polite letter of excuse into the bargain. What happened to the things I have no idea.
Every day I went to the coffee house diagonally opposite. When I came back one day my wife showed me a huge basket full of magnificent vegetables, asparagus, cauliflower, fine fruits; there were even two partridges in it.
‘All this came from the market. Guess what it cost’, she said jubilantly.
‘How much?’
‘Only twenty kreuzers for the lot.’
At that I confessed that I had had to pay five crowns for a box of matches in the café.
Sometimes you had hundreds in your pocket, at others nothing. And we managed perfectly well without money. You just had to pretend you were handing something over. Occasionally you could even risk taking something for nothing. It always amounted to the same in the end.
Here fantasies were simply reality. The incredible thing was the way the same illusion would appear in several minds at once. The people talked themselves into believing the things they imagined.
I will give a typical example. A man with a good position woke up one morning convinced he was destitute. His wife wept, his friends sympathised. In no time at all the bailiff came to impound their possessions, which were auctioned off, and a new owner was already moving in almost before the few items they had left had been taken to a wretched, bare hovel. A month later it was all forgotten; there were happy as well as unhappy turns of fortune.
The upper classes naturally lived in ostentatious luxury. The obverse of this was their misfortune, which was just as conspicuous, with the result that class envy was not a particular problem. People went about their business, they had their pleasures and their problems. As long as things were reasonable they were content. Dreamlanders everywhere loved their country and their city. I worked away happily as illustrator for the Dream Mirror and attempted, without success for the moment, to visit my old friend Patera.
It was always impossible, and always for a different reason. Once I was told the Master was so overburdened with business that no one was being allowed to see him; another time he was away. It was as if some malign spirit were determined to frustrate me. Then I heard that tickets for audiences could be obtained at the Archive, so I went there. I felt a pang of guilt as I passed beneath the coats of arms on the gate, like a nuisance come to disturb the officials’ peace and quiet. The porter was asleep. I decided to find my way on my own and entered a spacious ante-room where there were some ten or twelve messengers.
For a good quarter of an hour it was as if I were invisible. Not
New arrivals tried to exploit this to their advantage, but soon discovered they had been counting their chickens before they were hatched. The Dream fate was implacable: the wealth they had accumulated simply vanished into thin air. These smart Alecks found themselves paying exorbitant prices for the most basic necessities or they were inundated with parcels ‘to be paid for on delivery’. If they did not accept them, then much worse troubles came, for example illnesses and the doctors charged extortionate fees. Creditors who had never lent them anything would appear, demanding their money. And it was no use protesting, they brought their witnesses with them. Thus everything balanced out and in the end no one emerged with either gain or loss. There was no bargaining with the invisible bookkeeper who kept the accounts. As soon as I had grasped this strange state of affairs, everything was fine.
Only a fortnight after we had arrived a servant in livery turned up on our doorstep. His master–he mentioned some fine-sounding name–was waiting most impatiently for the drawings he had paid for, he said, and he had come to collect them. What could I do? I wrapped up five of my best pieces and wrote a polite letter of excuse into the bargain. What happened to the things I have no idea.
Every day I went to the coffee house diagonally opposite. When I came back one day my wife showed me a huge basket full of magnificent vegetables, asparagus, cauliflower, fine fruits; there were even two partridges in it.
‘All this came from the market. Guess what it cost’, she said jubilantly.
‘How much?’
‘Only twenty kreuzers for the lot.’
At that I confessed that I had had to pay five crowns for a box of matches in the café.
Sometimes you had hundreds in your pocket, at others nothing. And we managed perfectly well without money. You just had to pretend you were handing something over. Occasionally you could even risk taking something for nothing. It always amounted to the same in the end.
Here fantasies were simply reality. The incredible thing was the way the same illusion would appear in several minds at once. The people talked themselves into believing the things they imagined.
I will give a typical example. A man with a good position woke up one morning convinced he was destitute. His wife wept, his friends sympathised. In no time at all the bailiff came to impound their possessions, which were auctioned off, and a new owner was already moving in almost before the few items they had left had been taken to a wretched, bare hovel. A month later it was all forgotten; there were happy as well as unhappy turns of fortune.
The upper classes naturally lived in ostentatious luxury. The obverse of this was their misfortune, which was just as conspicuous, with the result that class envy was not a particular problem. People went about their business, they had their pleasures and their problems. As long as things were reasonable they were content. Dreamlanders everywhere loved their country and their city. I worked away happily as illustrator for the Dream Mirror and attempted, without success for the moment, to visit my old friend Patera.
It was always impossible, and always for a different reason. Once I was told the Master was so overburdened with business that no one was being allowed to see him; another time he was away. It was as if some malign spirit were determined to frustrate me. Then I heard that tickets for audiences could be obtained at the Archive, so I went there. I felt a pang of guilt as I passed beneath the coats of arms on the gate, like a nuisance come to disturb the officials’ peace and quiet. The porter was asleep. I decided to find my way on my own and entered a spacious ante-room where there were some ten or twelve messengers.
For a good quarter of an hour it was as if I were invisible. Not
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