Historical dream account · English · machine translation
The bill for 37½ centimes
Joseph Delbœuf
Le sommeil et les rêves, considérés principalement dans leurs rapports avec les théories de la certitude et de la mémoire (1885) · Original 1885 edition, printed pp. 52; scan leaves 62
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One night I dreamed of a German café where I had had a glass of beer. I had to pay 37½ centimes.—This number is strange only in appearance: it is the value in French currency of 30 pfennigs, or three-tenths of a mark (1 franc 25 centimes). At least, that is how I explain it to myself.—I approach the counter and first put down a 20-centime piece, then a 10-centime piece. The lady before whom I place this money does not find it sufficient and points this out to me. I am astonished. “Madame,” I say to her, “do not 20 and half of 20 make 37½?” The lady did not seem to understand. I exerted myself in vain; my reasoning would not enter her mind. The waiters approach and agree with me; the lady persists in her error; the bourgeois intervene and declare her wrong.—Finally, bewildered and stupefied, she stops insisting, and at last I leave, confident of being in the right, with an easy conscience, but increasingly amazed by this strange aberration of mind in a businesswoman who does not see that 20 and half of 20 make exactly 37½.
Read the original French account
L’addition de 37½ centimes
Une nuit, je rêvais d'un café allemand où j'avais pris un verre de bière. Il s'agissait de payer 37 centimes ½. — Ce nombre n'est bizarre qu'en apparence : c'est la valeur en monnaie française de 30 pfennigs ou des trois dixièmes d'un marc (1 franc 25 centimes). Du moins c'est ainsi que je me l'explique. — Je m'approche du comptoir et j'y dépose d'abord une pièce de 20 centimes, puis une de 10. La dame devant qui je mets cet argent n'y trouve pas son compte et m'en fait l'observation. Je m'en étonne, « Madame, lui dis-je, est-ce que donc 20 et la moitié de 20 ne font pas 37 ½ ? » La dame n'eut pas l'air de comprendre. J'eus beau m'évertuer ; mes raisonnements n'entraient pas dans son esprit. Les garçons s'approchent et me donnent raison ; la dame s'obstine dans son erreur ; les bourgeois s'en mêlent et lui donnent tort. — Enfin, ahurie et stupéfaite, elle cesse d'insister, et je sors enfin, fort de mon droit, la conscience tranquille, mais émerveillé de plus en plus de cette singulière aberration d'esprit chez une négociante qui ne voit pas que 20 et la moitié de 20 font exactement 37 ½.
Delbœuf reports his own undated dream about paying for beer. The mistaken dream calculation 20 plus half of 20 equals 37½ is retained, as is his internal currency aside. His following footnote offers a waking reconstruction of how the number may have arisen; that commentary is quoted separately rather than used to correct the dream. The implausible total is part of the remembered dream. Source qualification (Joseph Delbœuf, printed pp. 52, 53): “Si l'on s'en rapporte à ce que je dis plus haut sur l'altruisation du moi, la stupéfaction de la dame, en m'entendant énoncer cette absurdité, est le signe qu'il me restait encore une lueur de bon sens. D'autre part, lorsque, à mon réveil, j'ai cherché à retrouver ce qui avait pu me conduire à faire une addition aussi saugrenue, je remarquai immédiatement que je devais avoir eu le sentiment vague d'un mode de formation du nombre 37 ½ qui est égal, en effet, à 20 plus la moitié de 20 ou 10, plus la moitié de 10 ou 5, plus la moitié de 5 ou 2 ½.”
Source & context
English machine translation. The original account, source credit and publication terms remain available.
Delbœuf reports his own undated dream about paying for beer. The mistaken dream calculation 20 plus half of 20 equals 37½ is retained, as is his internal currency aside. His following footnote offers a waking reconstruction of how the number may have arisen; that commentary is quoted separately rather than used to correct the dream. The implausible total is part of the remembered dream. Source qualification (Joseph Delbœuf, printed pp. 52, 53): “If one refers to what I say above about the altruization of the self, the lady's stupefaction on hearing me utter this absurdity is a sign that a glimmer of good sense still remained in me. On the other hand, when, on awakening, I tried to discover what could have led me to make so outlandish an addition, I immediately noticed that I must have had a vague sense of a way of forming the number 37½, which is indeed equal to 20 plus half of 20, or 10, plus half of 10, or 5, plus half of 5, or 2½.”
Joseph Delbœuf, own recalled dream in Le sommeil et les rêves (Paris: Félix Alcan, 1885), Original 1885 edition, printed pp. 52; scan leaves 62. Delbœuf is author, recorder and dreamer here. The preface separately thanks G. Tarde for other dream material; these selected first-person accounts are not assigned to Tarde. Editorial French title and navigation themes added; no synthetic dream prose or modern translation.
Undated personal recollection; publication year is not the dream date.
Public domain in the United States (1885 edition) ↗
The original French 1885 printed text is public domain in the United States by expired publication term. The linked NoC-US statement describes that US-only basis; no new Archive license, CC grant or blanket worldwide clearance is asserted. Delbœuf’s 1831–1896 dates also support expiry in ordinary life-plus 70 territories. No modern edition, editorial revision or translation is copied. The three selected accounts are his own recollections, distinct from other contributors acknowledged in the book.
Source locator and text provenance
Original 1885 edition, printed pp. 52; scan leaves 62
The original text and redactions are preserved. The page title is an editorial navigation label.
Original French wording retained. Editorial title/navigation themes only; physical line wraps, running headers/signature furniture and OCR errors repaired from scans with an exact forward/reverse ledger. Fraction glyphs render the source values without correcting the dream’s arithmetic. Printed plant-name variation, repeated source guillemets, author interruption and internal asides remain. No invented event, modern translation or unmarked privacy omission.
- Account text SHA-256
- d58158dad04508f7907d20e04d92b9d459757afdadb9b00c295400129dc6c869
- Source file SHA-256
- 71938fd8d537301a6d8a9c8ae994066bf783dd0cac3be110df4b7cf1ca4983c5
Content notes
- Alcohol
Connections in the Loom
Titles, theme labels, illustrations and map connections are editorial navigation aids. They are separate from the account’s words and do not establish connections between real people.