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12
SÖNYA KOVALÉVSKY
to dream of " black death," or of the " wer-wolf," or
"the twelve-headed dragon"; and this dream always
produces in me the same unaceouutable,
soul-oppressing fear which I experienced at the age of five years
as I listened to nurse’s tales.
About this period of my life, something strange
began to take place in me: a feeling of involuntary
distress, of anguish, began to come over me at times.
I have a vivid recollection of this feeling. It
generally fell upon me if I were left alone in the room at
the approach of twilight. I would be playing with
my toys, thinking of nothing. All at once I would
look up and see behind me a sharp, black strip of
shadow, creeping out from under the bed, or from
the corner. A sensation would seize upon me as if
some strange presence had crept into the room; and
this new, unfamiliar presence would suddenly clutch
my heart so painfully, that I flew headlong in search
of nurse, whose proximity usually had the power to
soothe me. It sometimes happened, however, that
this torturing sensation did not pass off for a long
while, for the space of several hours.
I believe that many nervous children experience
something similar. In such cases, it is usually
asserted that the child is afraid of darkness, but this
expression is entirely inaccurate. In the first place,
the sensation experienced in these circumstances is
very complicated, and much more nearly resembles
anguish than fear; in the second place, it is not
evoked by the darkness itself, or by any fancies
therewith connected, but precisely by the feeling of
the oncoming darkness. I remember, also, that a
very similar feeling came over me in my childhood,
under entirely different circumstances; for example,
if,, during my walks, I suddenly espied before me a big,
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