Dreamt I was walking along in the dark and suddenly there were dogs all round me, but I wasn’t scared and I walked on. Suddenly a little dog sank its teeth in my left thigh and wouldn’t let go. I tried to strangle it. But as soon as I yanked it away, another dog, a bigger one, leapt up and grabbed at my chest. I yanked this one away too, but then came a third one, bigger still, and he began to bite me. I lifted it off the ground, and the more I lifted the bigger and heavier it became. Then suddenly Brother A came up, took me by the arm, led me away and brought me to a building which you could only enter across a narrow plank. I stepped on to it but the plank bent and gave way, and then I found myself scrabbling up a wall which I just managed to get my hands on to. I made a huge effort and dragged my body up so that my legs dangled down on one side and my body on the other. I looked round and saw Brother A standing on the wall pointing to a great avenue and garden, and in the garden there was a huge, beautiful building. Then I woke up. O Lord, Great Architect of All Creation, help me to tear away these dogs, my evil passions, and especially the last one, the one that compounds the strength of all the others, and help me to enter into the temple of virtue which appeared to me as a vision in my dream.
Dreamt that Osip Bazdeyev was sitting in my house and I was very pleased to see him and wanted him to feel at home. But I kept chatting away constantly with other people, and all at once I realized this couldn’t be to his liking and I wanted to get close to him and embrace him. But the moment I approached him I saw that his face had changed and had grown young, and he spoke to me softly, very softly, telling me something from the teachings of our order, but so softly that I couldn’t hear. Then we all left the room, and something strange happened. We were either sitting or lying on the floor. He was telling me something. But I wanted to demonstrate what a sensitive person I was, so I wasn’t listening. I began to picture the state of my own inner being, and the grace of God sanctifying me. And tears came into my eyes, and I was pleased to see he noticed. But he glanced at me in annoyance, jumped to his feet and broke off our conversation. I cowered away and asked him whether what he had been saying applied to me. He didn’t answer, but he gave me a friendly look, and then all of a sudden we found ourselves in my bedroom, where there was a big double bed. He lay down on one edge, and I lay down too, burning with a desire to hug him. And in my dream he asked me, ‘Tell me the truth, what is your worst temptation? Do you know what it is? I think you do.’ Embarrassed by this question, I answered that idleness was my worst temptation. He shook his head in disbelief. And even more embarrassed, I told him that although I was living here with my wife, it was not like man and wife together. His response was that I had no right to deprive my wife of my embraces, and gave me to understand that this was my duty. I was just telling him that this was all very embarrassing when suddenly everything disappeared. And when I woke I had in my mind a biblical text: ‘And the life was the light of men; and the light shineth in darkness; and the darkness comprehended it not.’
Osip Alexeyevich’s face had looked young and radiant. That day I received a letter from my benefactor in which he wrote about responsibilities within marriage.
