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He woke early in Switzerland, in a room at the back of his friends’ house. The morning had not yet warmed. A grey light lay across the foot of the bed, and the wall opposite him stood in shadow. From below, a shutter tapped against its frame.

Hodson knew at once where he was. He had been a fortnight with friends above the lake, and he had slept heavily. Now he lay still, deciding whether to get up or to wait for the first movements of the household. The wall opposite was plain plaster, pale grey, with a hairline crack running from the ceiling to the picture rail. As he looked at the crack, a section of the wall below it was gone. He did not see it change. It was simply not there. In its place he saw a room he did not know, lit by a lamp or a low window. The light in that room seemed older than the morning light on his own bed.

Eleanor Grey stood in the centre of the other room. She was a woman he knew from Scotland, a married woman whose husband he saw occasionally in Perth. She had not been in Hodson’s mind. She wore a dark travelling coat, unfastened, and she was speaking to a man whose back was turned to Hodson. Her face was flushed, and she made a small, quick movement with one hand. The man stood close to her, so close that his shoulder partly hid her from view. Their heads were near each other. Eleanor’s lips parted and closed, and the man answered, but Hodson could not hear a word. Their conversation had the pressed, urgent manner of people who believed they were alone.

Hodson did not have time to wonder. The view was gone. The wall opposite was once more unbroken, and the hairline crack ran through it as before.

He sat up and put his feet on the floor. He touched the edge of the bedside table. The wood was cool. The glass of the water jug was smooth and damp. He looked at his own hand and then at the window, where the shutters still tapped. The room was ordinary, and he was awake. He had just decided that the thing must have been some waking dream when the section of wall was gone again.

The same room stood beyond it. Eleanor had not moved. The man had turned, so that Hodson could see his face. It was an unfamiliar face, lean and narrow, with a dark moustache. Through the left side of the moustache, from just below the nose to the edge of the upper lip, ran a deep white scar. It was smooth and bloodless, a clean line that divided the hair. The skin around it was not red or raised. The man’s eyes were on Eleanor, not on Hodson, and he appeared unaware that anyone could see him.

Then the view vanished again. This time it did not return. Hodson sat on the edge of the bed, looking at the wall, until a bell sounded somewhere inside the house.

At breakfast he did not speak of it until after his hostess had poured the coffee. The dining room was bright and ordinary, with two small flower pictures above the sideboard. His host had opened a newspaper and set it aside.

After he had buttered a piece of bread, Hodson said, “I had a strange experience before I rose. I should like to tell you while it is clear.”

They listened without interruption while he described the other room, Eleanor Grey, the man with his back turned, and the scar.

When he had finished, his host said, “You were asleep. One can dream with one’s eyes open in a strange bed.”

His hostess asked, “Have you seen a photograph of Mrs Grey recently, or heard anything of her? The mind can mix a face from memory with anything.”

“I have not thought of her in weeks,” Hodson said. “But I cannot swear to every unconscious train of thought.”

“A white scar through the moustache?” his host repeated.

“Through the left side,” Hodson said. “It divided the hair cleanly.”

His host took a pencil from his waistcoat and wrote on the back of an envelope. “White scar through dark moustache, left side. Mrs E. Grey with him.” He laid the envelope beside his plate. “There. If the man ever appears, you will at least know you did not invent the detail afterward.”

“That his face should appear is not likely,” Hodson said. “It was probably a brief hallucination.” He finished his coffee, and when his hostess asked whether he would like more, he said yes. He did not mention the matter again.

By the time he returned to Scotland, the morning in Switzerland had receded. He had put the envelope away in his desk and seldom thought of it.

The train from Edinburgh ran into Perth in a bank of steam. Porters pushed trolleys along the platform, and a voice repeated the stops for Aberdeen. Hodson stepped down into the smell of coal smoke and wet wool. He had twenty-five minutes before his connection, so he walked along the platform, past arriving passengers and racks of luggage, until he saw Eleanor Grey beside the bookstall.

She stood with a paper-wrapped parcel in one hand and a newspaper in the other, looking at the rows of novels. He crossed to her.

“Mrs Grey.”

She turned. “Dr. Hodson.” Her eyes went past him at once, scanning the platform. “I did not know you had returned.”

“I came back a fortnight ago. Are you travelling north?”

“Yes.” She looked down at the newspaper. “I am waiting for a friend.”

“I trust you are well.”

“Quite well, thank you.” Her attention shifted beyond him again, and she did not ask after his holiday.

Hodson was about to remark on the crowd when a man came up from the direction of the ticket office. He stepped close to Eleanor and then, noticing Hodson, drew back enough to stand beside her.

Eleanor said, “Dr. Hodson, Captain James Fraser.”

The captain shook hands. His grip was brief and dry. “How do you do.”

Hodson looked at him. A dark moustache covered his upper lip, and through its left side ran a peculiar white scar. He knew the scar before he knew why. The line through the hair, the lean face, the way the man held his head while looking from Eleanor to him; Hodson had seen all of it before. Then the memory came whole. The grey wall with its missing section, Eleanor speaking silently, the man first turned away and then facing him, the white mark dividing the dark hair exactly as it divided it now.

He did not know how long he stood there. Captain Fraser was still waiting, his hand half-lowered. Hodson said, “Forgive me. You reminded me of someone.”

Fraser said, “A common enough face,” and let it pass.

Since his return, Hodson had heard that Eleanor had left her husband while he was abroad. The man was said to be an officer. He had not given the gossip much thought. Now the officer stood before him, and Eleanor would not meet his eye.

“Are you travelling far?” Eleanor asked. Her voice was carefully polite now.

“My connection leaves in twenty minutes,” Hodson said.

“We are waiting for the Aberdeen train,” Fraser said. “It is due shortly after yours.”

“Then I will not keep you from your papers,” Hodson said, with a small glance at the bookstall.

Eleanor said, “I have not chosen anything.” She turned and laid the newspaper back on the shelf.

Fraser said, “Good day, Dr. Hodson. I hope your journey is quick.”

“And yours.”

Hodson looked at Eleanor. She lifted her hand. “Goodbye, Dr. Hodson.”

He bowed slightly. “Goodbye, Mrs Grey.” He said nothing about Switzerland. There was nothing to say.

At the end of the platform he looked back once. Eleanor and Fraser stood close together beside the bookstall. She had not opened the newspaper; his hand was beneath her elbow again. Neither looked after him.

Hodson found his compartment and sat by the window. The train pulled away. The platform, the porters, and the bookstall passed from view. He could still picture the pale line through Fraser’s moustache exactly as it had appeared on the bedroom wall in Switzerland.

This story is based on a true account included in Andrew Lang’s The Book of Dreams and Ghosts. You can read the original account in the free Project Gutenberg edition. And if you are interested in fresh and modern content about dreams that came true, you can find them in my book “Dreams That Wake You Up”, a collection of real dreams and real outcomes, directly from my clients, printed with their consent.

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