Reading.
Get started

Library / Literature & Fiction

Dreams

by Olive Schreiner

Pages
about 70
Category
Literature & Fiction
Language
English
Reading time
77 min at 250 wpm
Start readingThe whole book, as cards or one word at a time. 43 min at 450 wpm in Read mode.

From the opening

VI. A Dream of Wild Bees (Written as a letter to a friend).

All day the soft wind played with her hair, and the young, young face looked out across the water. She was waiting--she was waiting; but she could not tell for what.

All day the waves ran up and up on the sand, and ran back again, and the pink shells rolled. Life sat waiting; all day, with the sunlight in her eyes, she sat there, till, grown weary, she laid her head upon her knee and fell asleep, waiting still.

Then a keel grated on the sand, and then a step was on the shore--Life awoke and heard it. A hand was laid upon her, and a great shudder passed through her. She looked up, and saw over her the strange, wide eyes of Love--and Life now knew for whom she had sat there waiting.

And of that meeting was born a thing rare and beautiful--Joy, First-Joy was it called. The sunlight when it shines upon the merry water is not so glad; the rosebuds, when they turn back their lips for the sun’s first kiss, are not so ruddy. Its tiny pulses beat quick. It was so warm, so soft! It never spoke, but it laughed and played in the sunshine: and Love and Life rejoiced exceedingly. Neither whispered it to the other, but deep in its own heart each said, “It shall be ours for ever.”

Then there came a time--was it after weeks? was it after months? (Love and Life do not measure time)--when the thing was not as it had been.

Still it played; still it laughed; still it stained its mouth with purple berries; but sometimes the little hands hung weary, and the little eyes looked out heavily across the water.

And Life and Love dared not look into each other’s eyes, dared not say, “What ails our darling?” Each heart whispered to itself, “It is nothing, it is nothing, tomorrow it will laugh out clear.” But tomorrow and tomorrow came.

A short sample. Read the whole book

More to read

Public-domain text from Project Gutenberg, Standard Ebooks or a similar open source. Copyright differs between countries. Rights holder? See our takedown process.