Deux contes: Le massacre des Innocents; Onirologie.

In this stark vignette of a Flemish village, a frantic child bursts into a tavern with news of an invading force. The villagers scramble, lanterns flashing against a moonlit snow, while they arm themselves with crude tools and pray to a silent church. The narrative, drawn from a sixteenth‑century Bruegel panel, turns a simple tableau into a chilling meditation on collective fear and the randomness of cruelty. Its language is spare yet vivid, pulling listeners into the cold night and the uneasy anticipation of a clash that may never come.

The companion piece, a youthful essay on dream‑signs, shifts from external terror to the inner workings of the mind. Here the author catalogs strange nocturnal visions, treating them as clues to hidden truths, an early echo of the symbolic investigations that would later define his more famous works. Though unfinished and less polished, the fragment retains a haunting curiosity, inviting listeners to wander through half‑remembered reveries. Together the two tales offer a glimpse of a writer at the threshold of his artistic voice, balancing stark realism with unsettling imagination.