The dream lord, my revelation, my protections

June 26.

            Better.  Having no victuals to eat, took my gun, but found myself very weak.  However, I kill’d a she-goat and, with much difficulty, got it home and broiled some of it and ate.  I would fain have stewed it and made some broth, but had no pot.

June 27.

            The ague again, so violent I lay a-bed all day and neither ate nor drank.  I was ready to perish for thirst, so weak I had not strength to stand up or to get myself any water to drink.

            Prayed to God again, but was light-headed.  When I was not, I was so ignorant I knew not what to say.  I suppose I did nothing else for two or three hours till, the fit wearing off, I fell asleep and did not wake till far in the night.  When I awoke, I found myself much refreshed but weak and exceeding thirsty.  However, as I had no water in my whole habitation, I was forced to lie till morning, and went to sleep again.  In this second sleep I had this terrible dream.

           I thought I was sitting on the ground on the outside of my wall, where I sat when the storm blew after the earthquake, and I saw a thing rise from the sea beneath a great black cloud and light upon the shore.  He, for I somehow knew it to be male, was all over as dark as pitch and projected from him a terrible wrongness, so I could but just bear to look towards him.  His countenance was most inexpressibly dreadful, impossible for words to describe, with a beard of thick ropes of flesh, like those of a cuttel fish, and cold eyes that bit at the skin like winter wind.  When he stepped upon the shore with his broad feet the island trembled, just as it had done before in the earthquake, and all the air looked, to my apprehension, as if it had been fill’d with flashes of fire. 

            He had no sooner lighted upon the shore but his wrongness spread out across the island as ripples spread across a pool of water, and every hill became changed and every stone black and unnatural.  He moved forward towards me, and he did tower so high he looked down upon me and seem'd to cover leagues with each step.  When he came to a rising ground, still enormous at some distance, he spoke to me, or I heard a voice so terrible it is impossible to express the terror of it.  All I can say I understood was this...

My fourth voyage, the unlock'd door, shipwrecked

            ...Alas, amidst these many words and crises, I was suddenly aware of the beast straining for freedom, so quiet had it slipped upon me on this first night of the moon, and was bid to ask the captain to lock me in my cabin before the "fits" came onto me again.  The captain ask'd if I was madden'd, for we fancied the ship would break in pieces every minute, and some told us she was broken already.  To lock me away thus would condemn me to death, or so he believ'd.  However, there was no room to debate, thus he order'd the mate of our vessel to imprison me as I requested and such was our fate seal'd, for the kind hearted captain planned in secret with the mate to rescue me against my wishes.  The mate was not to lock the door, for once the other long-boat was in the sea they would rush upon me, bind me against the violence of my "fits," and carry me to salvation.

            I knew none of this, but only that the beast was mere moments from rising up.  I pull'd off my own shoes and coats before I observ'd to my horror the door was as yet still unlock'd.  I cried out for the mate to fasten the hasp, but he had gone and laid hold of the boat, and with the help of the rest of the men, they got her flung over the ship's side and prepared to get in her.

            With my final clarity I bethought myself that perhaps I should hurl my body from the rail, to God's mercy and the wild sea, rather than let the beast free among good men, and so I fled from my cabin into the light of the moon.  My vision grew dark and my flesh hot as the mantle of the beast fell upon me, and I felt my hands upon the rail and then no more.  Merciful God has spared my mind from much of what transpired after this, but as always I glimps'd and heard meer moments of what my beast experienc'd.

            It was much anger'd at finding itself cloath'd and it howled and roared and tore at the rail.  The mate and another man ran to the beast, thinking it was I in my "fit" and try'd to calm it with words afore they saw its face.  The terror of den wild zee, as the Dutch call the sea in a storm, was naught compar'd to the beast.

            They fled in fear, and the beast kill'd the mate in a moment, falling on him as wolves do to lambs, tearing at his flesh until his blood flowed cross the deck.  And now the crew's case was very dismal indeed, for they all saw plainly they must face the beast or risk the high sea and the dark and distant shore they had glimps'd.  Being wise men all, they chose the distant shore and threw themselves into the boat.

            A raging wave, mountain-like, came rolling astern and broke over the deck and the beast was driven from its kill.  It slid cross the tilted deck, into the air, and was all swallow’d up in a moment, tho' I can recall a sight of the wave falling upon the long-boat much as the beast had fallen upon the mate.

            Nothing can describe the confusion of thought which the beast felt when it sunk into the water, nor is it easy to make sense from the many images my intoxicated mind saw through the smok'd lens of the beast.  It swam well, yet disliked water and could not deliver itself from the waves so as to draw breath.  It could not drown, for the beast is immortal yet for purest silver, yet it could be thrash’d and batter’d by the waves, as it was.  At one point it felt land under its paws, yet the sea came back as a great hill of water which buried the beast deep in its body and carry’d it back away from shore.

            There was much time as the beast fought with the sea.  It would struggle to the shore and then be either dragged back with a howl or pounded against the land, and this did happen countless times.  One time would have been well nigh fatal to me, for the sea, having hurry'd the beast along, dashed it against a piece of rock with such force as to leave it senseless.  But it recover’d a little before the return of the waves and held fast to the rock till the wave abated.  Then the beast struck out again and fetch'd another run up the shore and the next wave went over it yet did not carry it away...  

My family, my nature, my first voyage

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            I was born on the last day of the full moon in the year 1632, in the city of York, of a good family, tho’ not of that country, my father being a foreigner who had fled the Prince-Archbishopric of Bremen and settled first at Hull.  He got a good estate by merchandise, and leaving off his trade, lived afterwards at York, from whence he had married my mother, whose relations were named Robinson and from whom I was called Robinson Kreisszahn.  By the usual corruption of words in England we are now called, nay we call ourselves, and write our name, Crusoe.

            I had two elder brothers, both of the same bloodline and inheritance as myself. One was lieutenant-colonel to an English regiment of foot in Flanders, commanded by the famous Colonel Lockhart, and was killed at the battle near Dunkirk when he was run thru with a silver saber.  What became of my second brother I was never told, though I was led to guess he had succumb'd to the life of the beast afore I was old enough to know him.

            Being the third son of the family, and bred with the wild blood of my sire, my head began to be fill’d very early with rambling thoughts.  My father had given me a competent share of learning and designed me for the law.  But I would be satisfied with nothing but going to sea.  My inclination led me so strongly against the commands of my father, and against all the entreaties and persuasions of my mother and other friends, that there seemed to be something fatal in that propension of nature, tending to the life of misery which was to befall me.

            My father, a wise and grave man, gave me serious counsel one morning against what he foresaw was my design.  He asked me what reasons more than a mere wandering inclination I had for leaving his house and my native country, where I had a prospect of raising my fortune by application and industry, with a life of ease and safety.  Mine, he said, was a life of legend hidden by necessity.  One ruled by the Moon and her brilliance, one which he had found was best suited to a quiet life of stability and routine.  He bid me observe it and I should always find the calamities of life were shared among the upper and lower part of mankind.  The middle station had the fewest disasters.  Peace and plenty were the handmaids of a middle fortune.  This way men went silently and smoothly through the world and comfortably out of it.  Not embarrassed with the labours of the hands or of the head.  Not harassed with perplexed circumstances, which rob the soul of peace, and the body of rest.  Nor hunted by the mobs of townsfolk and churchmen.  Not enraged with the animal passion of the beast or the secret hunger for flesh.
            After this he press’d me earnestly, and in the most affectionate manner, not to play the young man, not to precipitate myself into miseries which the life I was born in provided against.  He would do well for me and endeavour to enter me fairly into the station of life which he had been just recommending to me. To close, he told me I had my elder brother for an example, to whom he had used the same earnest persuasions to keep him from going into the Low Country wars, but could not prevail, his young desires prompting him to run into the army, where he was killed.  Tho’ my father said he would not cease to pray for me, yet he would venture to say to me that if I did take this foolish step God would not bless me, and I would have leisure hereafter to reflect upon having neglected his counsel, when there might be none to assist in my control or recovery.

            I observ’d, in this last part of his discourse, the tears run down his face very plentifully, especially when he spoke of my brother who was kill’d.  When he spoke of my having none to assist me, he was so moved he broke off the discourse and told me his heart was so full he could say no more to me.

            I was sincerely affected with this discourse, as indeed who could be otherwise?  I resolv’d not to think of going abroad any more, but to settle at home according to my father's desire.  But, alas! a few days wore it all off.  In short, to prevent any of my father's further importunities, a few weeks after I resolv’d to run quite away from him...