The Professor Peregrine Papers

The Professor and I were greatly honoured last year to make the acquaintance of Dr Twanketen Overmorrow, visiting Solivagant Scholar and noted exponent of the contrabass clarinet. Her discourse on the inference of quantum effects in the elegies of Sextus Propertius will never be forgotten in these hallowed halls and surrounding parishes. However, late one evening, following a notable dinner based upon a series of variations on Battenberg cake, she confided to us that she had been troubled and intrigued by dreams relating to the works of Guillaume Apollinaire. She described a recurring dream as “debout devant le zinc d'un bar crapuleux designed by James Ensor”.  The Professor recommended an increase in jasmine tea consumption and a reduction in the amount of liver sausage prior to retiring for the night. However, on subsequent evenings, we did hear plaintive notes of the contrabass clarinet drifting through the air in the early hours. Shortly afterwards, at the end of her sojourn, D...

Early last Absolu, Daglet Scribacious was convinced that he had seen Dorothea Tanning on a passing train. To his considerable regret, he failed to attract her attention.   That night, he dreamed of dancing with Ann Radcliffe to the music of Mozart.  The next morning, the Professor and I insisted on buying him a double espresso or three at his favourite coffee shop. We conversed at length on the weather, our favourite umbrellas and the best way to cook toad in the hole.  It was so much safer that way.

The sea was calm. The light gleamed and was gone. So beautiful. "If you even mention Sophocles, it'll be a melancholy, long night for you on this darkling plain," she said. We went for fish and chips instead. 

I had that dream again last night. The one in which we were excluded from the fortress. She warned me at the time that it would continue to haunt me. Years later, I found a note inside a book that she left behind. It read: "There's milestones on the Dover Road."

 Back then, beside the lake, we discussed the nature of time endlessly. She cut the water with a pocket knife and it was still water. Although, far from still.  "Remember that." she said. I do remember, but I don't believe that she's still there watching the same water. Perhaps she's watching other water and forgetting.

To assist in my biographical efforts, the Professor helpfully jots down a few notes whenever he recollects random incidents from his past. Sadly, most of these notes turn out to be shopping lists, receipts for dry cleaning or scorecards from long-forgotten matches. However, written on the back of a leaflet for gutter cleaning services, the following words proved to be particularly instructive and illuminating. I hope that others will be as moved as I by his account. “I remember my father saying to me when I was still a callow youth, ‘Treasure the words of Maharaja Jam Saheb of Nawanagar and remember his sterling service to the county of Sussex.’  With that, his genial but confused demeanour became stern and momentous.  ‘But, at the same time, never forget the contribution of a man such as Mr George Brann and his partnerships with Mr C B Fry at Lords. And while you're at it, open another bottle of that fine sherry, my boy.’ The Professor's Father Takes Guard I refreshed his gl...

At that time she had a lingering desire for an absence of atmosphere. The craft that she built would never succeed but that was immaterial. I watched her for an hour as she contemplated flight.  The next day I took a train to the coast.

Our work on a camera to record dreams is progressing at a disappointingly slow pace. This morning the Professor sent me his latest captured image together with the following note: "Once again I find that I cannot get beyond the two gatekeepers in my dreams. They seem determined to relocate the gate. One of the two reminds me very much of my uncle Cyril. This is odd, since I have no uncle called Cyril. "

The Professor has continued to struggle with the development of his camera that records dreams. I confess that I had begun to harbour serious doubts concerning the feasibility of the entire project. In the last few weeks, however, a number of indistinct but interesting images have emerged from the Professor's dreams. They are all images of hats.  The Professor believes that this is to be expected since he asserts that everybody has at least one dream every night about hats or other headwear. I suggested that perhaps this might not be entirely true and that it may be useful to analyse such dreams. 'I believe,' the Professor replied, 'that Freud said that sometimes a cigar is just a cigar. Personally, I think that sometimes a cigar is also a bird in flight, a briefcase and a passing thought I had about knot gardens on Tuesday afternoon.' That's close, I suppose, but no cigar.  Last night the Professor dreamed of top hats again.

For some time now I've been assisting the Professor with the development of his new invention: a camera that records dreams. I confess that we've run into a few teething troubles and, for several weeks, the only image the camera produced was of a cat in a box that might not have been there at all. However, last night the Professor produced this convincing image which seemed an accurate reflection of one of his more mundane dreams. The Professor has suggested that the amount of cheese consumed at dinner may be significant.