I saw a woman sleeping. In her sleep she dreamt Life stood before her, and held in each hand a gift—in the one Love, in the other Freedom. And she said to the woman, "Choose!"
And the woman waited long: and she said, "Freedom!"
And Life said, "Thou hast well chosen. If thou hadst said, 'Love,' I would have given thee that thou didst ask for; and I would have gone from thee, and returned to thee no more. Now, the day will come when I shall return. In that day I shall bear both gifts in one hand."
I heard the woman laugh in her sleep.
London
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.
London
[from Dreams by Olive Schreiner and reproduced from Project Gutenburg - in accordance with their licence]
I learned of Olive Schreiner's work over 25 years ago, a time when i was exploring international literature and feminism as well as being an anti-apartheid activist. I read her Story of an African Farm as part of my education about South Africa. But it was discovering her parables in Dreams that made my heart sing. I realized many years later that Schreiner's stories were an important part of my eventual choice to be a storyteller. When i moved to Toronto in 89 i special-ordered (from the long-gone Britnell's Books on Yonge St.) a facsimile edition of Dreams. Alas, it was loaned and lost. So, it is with a child's delight of discovery that, having decided to check Project Gutenburg, i found Olive Schreiner's works. How i love the internet sometimes!
These two tales have always struck me very deeply. They are troubling in the best possible way. The first, Life's Gift's, i was reminded of when Niki sent me her story, Stone, which i blogged last week. The second was remembered on the heels of this memory as i looked at our newborn son Taliesen and wondered about what parents can teach their children, what we can hope for for them. And i'm sure it is normal, or at least common, to want the world for them. But can there be any greater gift than the gift of how to make meaning? I wonder. And is that something we can teach? Or is it something that must be sought and found uniquely by each person? I am unsure. It's certainly true that the metaphor of "the search" for meaning (or "truth") is common. And, while i believe that neither meaning nor truth are things that lie in wait to be discovered, perhaps the metaphor is making a more subtle point than that of highlighting the object of the search and is rather pointing to the nature of the search itself - i.e. a task that each individual decides to embrace or not.
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