All this happened in the House in my presence, as clearly as I have written it down.
I will not hope that the dream will be realized, but it is certainly peculiar. I dreamt it after six hours of quiet sleep, so it could not have been directly produced by our conversation.
Enfin, I could not but tell you of this curious occurrence.
Your
BISMARCK TO EMPEROR WILLIAM I.
I thank your Majesty most respectfully for the gracious letter. I quite believe that the dream owed its origin, not exactly to my report, but to the general impression obtained during the last few days from Puttkamer's[1] oral report, the newspaper articles, and my report. The pictures we have in our minds when awake do not reappear in the mirror of our dreams until our mental faculties have been well rested by sleep. Your Majesty's communication encourages me to relate a dream I had in the troublous days of the spring of 1863. I dreamt, and I told my dream at once to my wife and to others the next morning, that I was riding along a narrow Alpine path, to the right an abyss, and to the left rocks; the path became narrower and narrower, until at last my horse refused to take another step, and there was no room either to turn or to dismount. I then struck the smooth rocky wall with my riding whip in my left hand, and invoked God; the whip became interminably long, and the wall of rock collapsed like a scene in the theatre, opening up a wide pathway, with a view over hills and forests such as one sees in Bohemia. I also caught sight of Prussian troops, with their banners, and, still in my dreams, wondered how I could best report this
- ↑ Minister for the Interior, and Vice-President of the Ministry of State.
