Dreams - Olive Schreiner (latest novels to read TXT) 📗

it. And against her breast was a tiny thing, who drank from

it, and the yellow curls above his forehead pressed against it; and his

knees were drawn up to her, and he held her breast fast with his hands.

 

And Reason said, “Who is he, and what is he doing here?”

 

And she said, “See his little wings—”

 

And Reason said, “Put him down.”

 

And she said, “He is asleep, and he is drinking! I will carry him to the

Land of Freedom. He has been a child so long, so long, I have carried him.

In the Land of Freedom he will be a man. We will walk together there, and

his great white wings will overshadow me. He has lisped one word only to

me in the desert—‘Passion!’ I have dreamed he might learn to say

‘Friendship’ in that land.”

 

And Reason said, “Put him down!”

 

And she said, “I will carry him so—with one arm, and with the other I will

fight the water.”

 

He said, “Lay him down on the ground. When you are in the water you will

forget to fight, you will think only of him. Lay him down.” He said, “He

will not die. When he finds you have left him alone he will open his wings

and fly. He will be in the Land of Freedom before you. Those who reach

the Land of Freedom, the first hand they see stretching down the bank to

help them shall be Love’s. He will be a man then, not a child. In your

breast he cannot thrive; put him down that he may grow.”

 

And she took her bosom from his mouth, and he bit her, so that the blood

ran down on to the ground. And she laid him down on the earth; and she

covered her wound. And she bent and stroked his wings. And I saw the hair

on her forehead turned white as snow, and she had changed from youth to

age.

 

And she stood far off on the bank of the river. And she said, “For what do

I go to this far land which no one has ever reached? Oh, I am alone! I am

utterly alone!”

 

And Reason, that old man, said to her, “Silence! What do you hear?”

 

And she listened intently, and she said, “I hear a sound of feet, a

thousand times ten thousand and thousands of thousands, and they beat this

way!”

 

He said, “They are the feet of those that shall follow you. Lead on! make

a track to the water’s edge! Where you stand now, the ground will be

beaten flat by ten thousand times ten thousand feet.” And he said, “Have

you seen the locusts how they cross a stream? First one comes down to the

water-edge, and it is swept away, and then another comes and then another,

and then another, and at last with their bodies piled up a bridge is built

and the rest pass over.”

 

She said, “And, of those that come first, some are swept away, and are

heard of no more; their bodies do not even build the bridge?”

 

“And are swept away, and are heard of no more—and what of that?” he said.

 

“And what of that—” she said.

 

“They make a track to the water’s edge.”

 

“They make a track to the water’s edge—.” And she said, “Over that bridge

which shall be built with our bodies, who will pass?”

 

He said, “The entire human race.”

 

And the woman grasped her staff.

 

And I saw her turn down that dark path to the river.

 

And I awoke; and all about me was the yellow afternoon light: the sinking

sun lit up the fingers of the milk bushes; and my horse stood by me quietly

feeding. And I turned on my side, and I watched the ants run by thousands

in the red sand. I thought I would go on my way now—the afternoon was

cooler. Then a drowsiness crept over me again, and I laid back my head and

fell asleep.

 

And I dreamed a dream.

 

I dreamed I saw a land. And on the hills walked brave women and brave men,

hand in hand. And they looked into each other’s eyes, and they were not

afraid.

 

And I saw the women also hold each other’s hands.

 

And I said to him beside me, “What place is this?”

 

And he said, “This is heaven.”

 

And I said, “Where is it?”

 

And he answered, “On earth.”

 

And I said, “When shall these things be?”

 

And he answered, “IN THE FUTURE.”

 

And I awoke, and all about me was the sunset light; and on the low hills

the sun lay, and a delicious coolness had crept over everything; and the

ants were going slowly home. And I walked towards my horse, who stood

quietly feeding. Then the sun passed down behind the hills; but I knew

that the next day he would arise again.

 

VI. A DREAM OF WILD BEES.

 

A mother sat alone at an open window. Through it came the voices of the

children as they played under the acacia-trees, and the breath of the hot

afternoon air. In and out of the room flew the bees, the wild bees, with

their legs yellow with pollen, going to and from the acacia-trees, droning

all the while. She sat on a low chair before the table and darned. She

took her work from the great basket that stood before her on the table:

some lay on her knee and half covered the book that rested there. She

watched the needle go in and out; and the dreary hum of the bees and the

noise of the children’s voices became a confused murmur in her ears, as she

worked slowly and more slowly. Then the bees, the long-legged wasp-like

fellows who make no honey, flew closer and closer to her head, droning.

Then she grew more and more drowsy, and she laid her hand, with the

stocking over it, on the edge of the table, and leaned her head upon it.

And the voices of the children outside grew more and more dreamy, came now

far, now near; then she did not hear them, but she felt under her heart

where the ninth child lay. Bent forward and sleeping there, with the bees

flying about her head, she had a weird brain-picture; she thought the bees

lengthened and lengthened themselves out and became human creatures and

moved round and round her. Then one came to her softly, saying, “Let me

lay my hand upon thy side where the child sleeps. If I shall touch him he

shall be as I.”

 

She asked, “Who are you?”

 

And he said, “I am Health. Whom I touch will have always the red blood

dancing in his veins; he will not know weariness nor pain; life will be a

long laugh to him.”

 

“No,” said another, “let me touch; for I am Wealth. If I touch him

material care shall not feed on him. He shall live on the blood and sinews

of his fellow-men, if he will; and what his eye lusts for, his hand will

have. He shall not know ‘I want.’” And the child lay still like lead.

 

And another said, “Let me touch him: I am Fame. The man I touch, I lead

to a high hill where all men may see him. When he dies he is not

forgotten, his name rings down the centuries, each echoes it on to his

fellows. Think—not to be forgotten through the ages!”

 

And the mother lay breathing steadily, but in the brain-picture they

pressed closer to her.

 

“Let me touch the child,” said one, “for I am Love. If I touch him he

shall not walk through life alone. In the greatest dark, when he puts out

his hand he shall find another hand by it. When the world is against him,

another shall say, ‘You and I.’” And the child trembled.

 

But another pressed close and said, “Let me touch; for I am Talent. I can

do all things—that have been done before. I touch the soldier, the

statesman, the thinker, and the politician who succeed; and the writer who

is never before his time, and never behind it. If I touch the child he

shall not weep for failure.”

 

About the mother’s head the bees were flying, touching her with their long

tapering limbs; and, in her brain-picture, out of the shadow of the room

came one with sallow face, deep-lined, the cheeks drawn into hollows, and a

mouth smiling quiveringly. He stretched out his hand. And the mother drew

back, and cried, “Who are you?” He answered nothing; and she looked up

between his eyelids. And she said, “What can you give the child—health?”

And he said, “The man I touch, there wakes up in his blood a burning fever,

that shall lick his blood as fire. The fever that I will give him shall be

cured when his life is cured.”

 

“You give wealth?”

 

He shook his head. “The man whom I touch, when he bends to pick up gold,

he sees suddenly a light over his head in the sky; while he looks up to see

it, the gold slips from between his fingers, or sometimes another passing

takes it from them.”

 

“Fame?”

 

He answered, “likely not. For the man I touch there is a path traced out

in the sand by a finger which no man sees. That he must follow. Sometimes

it leads almost to the top, and then turns down suddenly into the valley.

He must follow it, though none else sees the tracing.”

 

“Love?”

 

He said, “He shall hunger for it—but he shall not find it. When he

stretches out his arms to it, and would lay his heart against a thing he

loves, then, far off along the horizon he shall see a light play. He must

go towards it. The thing he loves will not journey with him; he must

travel alone. When he presses somewhat to his burning heart, crying,

‘Mine, mine, my own!’ he shall hear a voice—‘Renounce! renounce! this is

not thine!’”

 

“He shall succeed?”

 

He said, “He shall fail. When he runs with others they shall reach the

goal before him. For strange voices shall call to him and strange lights

shall beckon him, and he must wait and listen. And this shall be the

strangest: far off across the burning sands where, to other men, there is

only the desert’s waste, he shall see a blue sea! On that sea the sun

shines always, and the water is blue as burning amethyst, and the foam is

white on the shore. A great land rises from it, and he shall see upon the

mountain-tops burning gold.”

 

The mother said, “He shall reach it?”

 

And he smiled curiously.

 

She said, “It is real?”

 

And he said, “What IS real?”

 

And she looked up between his half-closed eyelids, and said, “Touch.”

 

And he leaned forward and laid his hand upon the sleeper, and whispered to

it, smiling; and this only she heard—“This shall be thy reward—that the

ideal shall be real to thee.”

 

And the child trembled; but the mother slept on heavily and her brain-picture vanished. But deep within her the antenatal thing that lay here

had a dream. In those eyes that had never seen the day, in that half-shaped brain was a sensation of light! Light—that it never had seen.

Light—that perhaps it never should see. Light—that existed somewhere!

 

And already it had its reward: the Ideal was real to it.