Dreams by Olive Schreiner (best books to read for self development TXT) đź“–
- Author: Olive Schreiner
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He laughed in the merry sunshine, and sang loud. Victory was very near.
Nevertheless, after a while the path grew steeper. He needed all his
breath for climbing, and the singing died away. On the right and left rose
huge rocks, devoid of lichen or moss, and in the lava-like earth chasms
yawned. Here and there he saw a sheen of white bones. Now too the path
began to grow less and less marked; then it became a mere trace, with a
footmark here and there; then it ceased altogether. He sang no more, but
struck forth a path for himself, until it reached a mighty wall of rock,
smooth and without break, stretching as far as the eye could see. “I will
rear a stair against it; and, once this wall climbed, I shall be almost
there,” he said bravely; and worked. With his shuttle of imagination he
dug out stones; but half of them would not fit, and half a month’s work
would roll down because those below were ill chosen. But the hunter worked
on, saying always to himself, “Once this wall climbed, I shall be almost
there. This great work ended!”
At last he came out upon the top, and he looked about him. Far below
rolled the white mist over the valleys of superstition, and above him
towered the mountains. They had seemed low before; they were of an
immeasurable height now, from crown to foundation surrounded by walls of
rock, that rose tier above tier in mighty circles. Upon them played the
eternal sunshine. He uttered a wild cry. He bowed himself on to the
earth, and when he rose his face was white. In absolute silence he walked
on. He was very silent now. In those high regions the rarefied air is
hard to breathe by those born in the valleys; every breath he drew hurt
him, and the blood oozed out from the tips of his fingers. Before the next
wall of rock he began to work. The height of this seemed infinite, and he
said nothing. The sound of his tool rang night and day upon the iron rocks
into which he cut steps. Years passed over him, yet he worked on; but the
wall towered up always above him to heaven. Sometimes he prayed that a
little moss or lichen might spring up on those bare walls to be a companion
to him; but it never came.
And the years rolled on; he counted them by the steps he had cut—a few for
a year—only a few. He sang no more; he said no more, “I will do this or
that”—he only worked. And at night, when the twilight settled down, there
looked out at him from the holes and crevices in the rocks strange wild
faces.
“Stop your work, you lonely man, and speak to us,” they cried.
“My salvation is in work, if I should stop but for one moment you would
creep down upon me,” he replied. And they put out their long necks
further.
“Look down into the crevice at your feet,” they said. “See what lie there-
-white bones! As brave and strong a man as you climbed to these rocks.”
And he looked up. He saw there was no use in striving; he would never hold
Truth, never see her, never find her. So he lay down here, for he was very
tired. He went to sleep forever. He put himself to sleep. Sleep is very
tranquil. You are not lonely when you are asleep, neither do your hands
ache, nor your heart. And the hunter laughed between his teeth.
“Have I torn from my heart all that was dearest; have I wandered alone in
the land of night; have I resisted temptation; have I dwelt where the voice
of my kind is never heard, and laboured alone, to lie down and be food for
you, ye harpies?”
He laughed fiercely; and the Echoes of Despair slunk away, for the laugh of
a brave, strong heart is as a death blow to them.
Nevertheless they crept out again and looked at him.
“Do you know that your hair is white?” they said, “that your hands begin to
tremble like a child’s? Do you see that the point of your shuttle is
gone?—it is cracked already. If you should ever climb this stair,” they
said, “it will be your last. You will never climb another.”
And he answered, “I know it!” and worked on.
The old, thin hands cut the stones ill and jaggedly, for the fingers were
stiff and bent. The beauty and the strength of the man was gone.
At last, an old, wizened, shrunken face looked out above the rocks. It saw
the eternal mountains rise with walls to the white clouds; but its work was
done.
The old hunter folded his tired hands and lay down by the precipice where
he had worked away his life. It was the sleeping time at last. Below him
over the valleys rolled the thick white mist. Once it broke; and through
the gap the dying eyes looked down on the trees and fields of their
childhood. From afar seemed borne to him the cry of his own wild birds,
and he heard the noise of people singing as they danced. And he thought he
heard among them the voices of his old comrades; and he saw far off the
sunlight shine on his early home. And great tears gathered in the hunter’s
eyes.
“Ah! they who die there do not die alone,” he cried.
Then the mists rolled together again; and he turned his eyes away.
“I have sought,” he said, “for long years I have laboured; but I have not
found her. I have not rested, I have not repined, and I have not seen her;
now my strength is gone. Where I lie down worn out other men will stand,
young and fresh. By the steps that I have cut they will climb; by the
stairs that I have built they will mount. They will never know the name of
the man who made them. At the clumsy work they will laugh; when the stones
roll they will curse me. But they will mount, and on my work; they will
climb, and by my stair! They will find her, and through me! And no man
liveth to himself and no man dieth to himself.”
The tears rolled from beneath the shrivelled eyelids. If Truth had
appeared above him in the clouds now he could not have seen her, the mist
of death was in his eyes.
“My soul hears their glad step coming,” he said; “and they shall mount!
they shall mount!” He raised his shrivelled hand to his eyes.
Then slowly from the white sky above, through the still air, came something
falling, falling, falling. Softly it fluttered down, and dropped on to the
breast of the dying man. He felt it with his hands. It was a feather. He
died holding it.
III. THE GARDENS OF PLEASURE.
She walked upon the beds, and the sweet rich scent arose; and she gathered
her hands full of flowers. Then Duty, with his white clear features, came
and looked at her. Then she ceased from gathering, but she walked away
among the flowers, smiling, and with her hands full.
Then Duty, with his still white face, came again, and looked at her; but
she, she turned her head away from him. At last she saw his face, and she
dropped the fairest of the flowers she had held, and walked silently away.
Then again he came to her. And she moaned, and bent her head low, and
turned to the gate. But as she went out she looked back at the sunlight on
the faces of the flowers, and wept in anguish. Then she went out, and it
shut behind her for ever; but still in her hand she held of the buds she
had gathered, and the scent was very sweet in the lonely desert.
But he followed her. Once more he stood before her with his still, white,
death-like face. And she knew what he had come for: she unbent the
fingers, and let the flowers drop out, the flowers she had loved so, and
walked on without them, with dry, aching eyes. Then for the last time he
came. And she showed him her empty hands, the hands that held nothing now.
But still he looked. Then at length she opened her bosom and took out of
it one small flower she had hidden there, and laid it on the sand. She had
nothing more to give now, and she wandered away, and the grey sand whirled
about her.
IV. IN A FAR-OFF WORLD.
There is a world in one of the far-off stars, and things do not happen here
as they happen there.
In that world were a man and woman; they had one work, and they walked
together side by side on many days, and were friends—and that is a thing
that happens now and then in this world also.
But there was something in that star-world that there is not here. There
was a thick wood: where the trees grew closest, and the stems were
interlocked, and the summer sun never shone, there stood a shrine. In the
day all was quiet, but at night, when the stars shone or the moon glinted
on the tree-tops, and all was quiet below, if one crept here quite alone
and knelt on the steps of the stone altar, and uncovering one’s breast, so
wounded it that the blood fell down on the altar steps, then whatever he
who knelt there wished for was granted him. And all this happens, as I
said, because it is a far-off world, and things often happen there as they
do not happen here.
Now, the man and woman walked together; and the woman wished well to the
man. One night when the moon was shining so that the leaves of all the
trees glinted, and the waves of the sea were silvery, the woman walked
alone to the forest. It was dark there; the moonlight fell only in little
flecks on the dead leaves under her feet, and the branches were knotted
tight overhead. Farther in it got darker, not even a fleck of moonlight
shone. Then she came to the shrine; she knelt down before it and prayed;
there came no answer. Then she uncovered her breast; with a sharp two-edged stone that lay there she wounded it. The drops dripped slowly down
on to the stone, and a voice cried, “What do you seek?”
She answered, “There is a man; I hold him nearer than anything. I would
give him the best of all blessings.”
The voice said, “What is it?”
The girl said, “I know not, but that which is most good for him I wish him
to have.”
The voice said, “Your prayer is answered; he shall have it.”
Then she stood up. She covered her breast and held the garment tight upon
it with her hand, and ran out of the forest, and the dead leaves fluttered
under her feet. Out in the moonlight the soft air was blowing, and the
sand glittered on the beach. She ran along the smooth shore, then suddenly
she stood still. Out across the water there was something moving. She
shaded her eyes and looked. It was a boat; it was sliding swiftly over the
moonlit water out to sea. One stood upright in it; the face the moonlight
did not show, but the figure she knew. It was passing swiftly; it seemed
as if no one propelled it; the moonlight’s shimmer
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