Dreams | Page 7

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