章节正文
Dream Life and Real Life
by Olive Schreiner
A Little African Story
by Olive Schreiner
Dedication.
To My Brother Fred,
For whose little school magazine the first of these tiny stories--one of
the first I ever made--was written out many long years ago.
O.S.
New College, Eastbourne,
Sept. 29, 1893.
Contents.
I. Dream Life and Real Life; a Little African Story.
II. The Woman's Rose.
III. "The Policy in Favour of Protection--".
Kopjes - In the karoo, are hillocks of stones, that rise up singly or in
clusters, here and there; presenting sometimes the fantastic appearance of
old ruined castles or giant graves, the work of human hands.
Kraal - A sheepfold.
Krantz - A precipice.
Sluit - A deep fissure, generally dry, in which the superfluous torrents of
water are carried from the karoo plains after thunderstorms.
Stoep - A porch.
I. DREAM LIFE AND REAL LIFE; A LITTLE AFRICAN STORY.
Little Jannita sat alone beside a milk-bush. Before her and behind her
stretched the plain, covered with red sand and thorny karoo bushes; and
here and there a milk-bush, looking like a bundle of pale green rods tied
together. Not a tree was to be seen anywhere, except on the banks of the
river, and that was far away, and the sun beat on her head. Round her fed
the Angora goats she was herding; pretty things, especially the little
ones, with white silky curls that touched the ground. But Jannita sat
crying. If an angel should gather up in his cup all the tears that have
been shed, I think the bitterest would be those of children.
By and by she was so tired, and the sun was so hot, she laid her head
against the milk-bush, and dropped asleep.
She dreamed a beautiful dream. She thought that when she went back to the
farmhouse in the evening, the walls were covered with vines and roses, and
the kraals were not made of red stone, but of lilac trees full of blossom.
And the fat old Boer smiled at her; and the stick he held across the door,
for the goats to jump over, was a lily rod with seven blossoms at the end.
When she went to the house her mistress gave her a whole roaster-cake for
her supper, and the mistress's daughter had stuck a rose in the cake; and
her mistress's son-in-law said, "Thank you!" when she pulled off his boots,
and did not kick her.
It was a beautiful dream.
While she lay thus dreaming, one of the little kids came and licked her on
her cheek, because of the salt from her dried-up tears. And in her dream
she was not a poor indentured child any more, living with Boers. It was
her father who kissed her. He said he had only been asleep--that day when
he lay down under the thorn-bush; he had not really died. He felt her
hair, and said it was grown long and silky, and he said they would go back
to Denmark now. He asked her why her feet were bare, and what the marks on
her back were. Then he put her head on his shoulder, and picked her up,
and carried her away, away! She laughed--she could feel her face against
his brown beard. His arms were so strong.
As she lay there dreaming, with the ants running over her naked feet, and
with her brown curls lying in the sand, a Hottentot came up to her. He was
dressed in ragged yellow trousers, and a dirty shirt, and torn jacket. He
had a red handkerchief round his head, and a felt hat above that. His nose
was flat, his eyes like slits, and the wool on his head was gathered into
little round balls. He came to the milk-bush, and looked at the little
girl lying in the hot sun. Then he walked off, and caught one of the
fattest little Angora goats, and held its mouth fast, as he stuck it under
his arm. He looked back to see that she was still sleeping, and jumped down
into one of the sluits. He walked down the bed of the sluit a little way
and came to an overhanging bank, under which, sitting on the red sand, were
two men. One was a tiny, ragged, old bushman, four feet high; the other
was an English navvy, in a dark blue blouse. They cut the kid's throat
with the navvy's long knife, and covered up the blood with sand, and buried
the entrails and skin. Then they talked, and quarrelled a little; and then
they talked quietly again.
The Hottentot man put a leg of the kid under his coat and left the rest of
the meat for the two in the sluit, and walked away.
When little Jannita awoke it was almost sunset. She sat up very
frightened, but her goats were all about her. She began to drive them
home. "I do not think there are any lost," she said.
Dirk, the Hottentot, had brought his flock home already, and stood at the
kraal door with his ragged yellow trousers. The fat old Boer put his stick
across the door, and let Jannita's goats jump over, one by one. He counted
them. When the last jumped over: "Have you been to sleep today?" he said;
"there is one missing."
Then little Jannita knew what was coming, and she said, in a low voice,
"No." And then she felt in her heart that deadlysickness that you feel
when you tell a lie; and again she said, "Yes."
"Do you think you will have any supper this evening?" said the Boer.
"No," said Jannita.
"What do you think you will have?"
"I don't know," said Jannita.
"Give me your whip," said the Boer to Dirk, the Hottentot.
...
The moon was all but full that night. Oh, but its light was beautiful!
The little girl crept to the door of the outhouse where she slept, and
looked at it. When you are hungry, and very, very sore, you do not cry.
She leaned her chin on one hand, and looked, with her great dove's eyes--
the other hand was cut open, so she wrapped it in her pinafore. She looked
across the plain at the sand and the low karoo-bushes, with the moonlight
on them.
Presently, there came slowly, from far away, a wild springbuck. It came
close to the house, and stood looking at it in wonder, while the moonlight
glinted on its horns, and in its great eyes. It stood wondering at the red
brick walls, and the girl watched it. Then, suddenly, as if it scorned it
all, it curved its beautiful back and turned; and away it fled over the
bushes and sand, like a sheeny streak of white lightning. She stood up to
watch it. So free, so free! Away, away! She watched, till she could see
it no more on the wide plain.
Her heart swelled, larger, larger, larger: she uttered a low cry; and
without waiting, pausing, thinking, she followed on its track. Away, away,
away! "I--I also!" she said, "I--I also!"
When at last her legs began to tremble under her, and she stopped to
breathe, the house was a speck behind her. She dropped on the earth, and
held her panting sides.
She began to think now.
If she stayed on the plain they would trace her footsteps in the morning
and catch her; but if she waded in the water in the bed of the river they
would not be able to find her footmarks; and she would hide, there where
the rocks and the kopjes were.
So she stood up and walked towards the river. The water in the river was
low; just a line of silver in the broad bed of sand, here and there
broadening into a pool. She stepped into it, and bathed her feet in the
delicious cold water. Up and up the stream she walked, where it rattled
over the pebbles, and past where the farmhouse lay; and where the rocks
were large she leaped from one to the other. The night wind in her face
made her strong--she laughed. She had never felt such night wind before.
So the night smells to the wild bucks, because they are free! A free thing
feels as a chained thing never can.
At last she came to a place where the willows grew on each side of the
river, and trailed their long branches on the sandy bed. She could not
tell why, she could not tell the reason, but a feeling of fear came over
her.
On the left bank rose a chain of kopjes and a precipice of rocks. Between
the precipice and the river bank there was a narrow path covered by the
fragments of fallen rock. And upon the summit of the precipice a kippersol
tree grew, whose palm-like leaves were clearly cut out against the night
sky. The rocks cast a deep shadow, and the willow trees, on either side of
the river. She paused, looked up and about her, and then ran on, fearful.
"What was I afraid of? How foolish I have been!" she said, when she came
to a place where the trees were not so close together. And she stood still
and looked back and shivered.
At last her steps grew wearier and wearier. She was very sleepy now, she
could scarcely lift her feet. She stepped out of the river-bed. She only
saw that the rocks about her were wild, as though many little kopjes had
been broken up and strewn upon the ground, lay down at the foot of an aloe,
and fell asleep.
...
But, in the morning, she saw what a glorious place it was. The rocks were
piled on one another, and tossed this way and that. Prickly pears grew
among them, and there were no less than six kippersol trees scattered here
and there among the broken kopjes. In the rocks there were hundreds of
homes for the conies, and from the crevices wild asparagus hung down. She
ran to the river, bathed in the clear cold water, and tossed it over her
head. She sang aloud. All the songs she knew were sad, so she could not
sing them now, she was glad, she was so free; but she sang the notes
without the words, as the cock-o-veets do. Singing and jumping all the
way, she went back, and took a sharp stone, and cut at the root of a
kippersol, and got out a large piece, as long as her arm, and sat to chew
it. Two conies came out on the rock above her head and peeped at her. She
held them out a piece, but they did not want it, and ran away.
It was very delicious to her. Kippersol is like raw quince, when it is
very green; but she liked it. When good food is thrown at you by other
people, strange to say, it is very bitter; but whatever you find yourself
is sweet!
When she had finished she dug out another piece, and went to look for a
pantry to put it in. At the top of a heap of rocks up which she clambered
she found that some large stones stood apart but met at the top, making a
room.
"Oh, this is my little home!" she said.
At the top and all round it was closed, only in the front it was open.
There was a beautiful shelf in the wall for the kippersol, and she
scrambled down again. She brought a great bunch of prickly pear, and stuck
it in a crevice before the door, and hung wild asparagus over it, till it
looked as though it grew there. No one could see that there was a room
there, for she left only a tiny opening, and hung a branch of feathery
asparagus over it. Then she crept in to see how it looked. There was a
glorious soft green light. Then she went out and picked some of those
purple little ground flowers--you know them--those that keep their faces
close to the ground, but when you turn them up and look at them they are
deep blue eyes looking into yours! She took them with a little earth, and
put them in the crevices between the rocks; and so the room was quite
furnished. Afterwards she went down to the river and brought her arms full
of willow, and made a lovely bed; and, because the weather was very hot,
she lay down to rest upon it.
She went to sleep soon, and slept long, for she was very weak. Late in the
afternoon she was awakened by a few cold drops falling on her face. She
sat up. A great and fiercethunderstorm had been raging, and a few of the
cool drops had fallen through the crevice in the rocks. She pushed the
asparagus branch aside, and looked out, with her little hands folded about
her knees. She heard the thunder rolling, and saw the red torrents rush
among the stones on their way to the river. She heard the roar of the
river as it now rolled, angry and red, bearing away stumps and trees on its
muddy water. She listened and smiled, and pressed closer to the rock that
took care of her. She pressed the palm of her hand against it. When you
have no one to love you, you love the dumb things very much. When the sun
set, it cleared up. Then the little girl ate some kippersol, and lay down
again to sleep. She thought there was nothing so nice as to sleep. When
one has had no food but kippersol juice for two days, one doesn't feel
strong.
"It is so nice here," she thought as she went to sleep, "I will stay here
always."
Afterwards the moon rose. The sky was very clear now, there was not a
cloud anywhere; and the moon shone in through the bushes in the door, and
made a lattice-work of light on her face. She was dreaming a beautiful
by Olive Schreiner
A Little African Story
by Olive Schreiner
Dedication.
To My Brother Fred,
For whose little school magazine the first of these tiny stories--one of
the first I ever made--was written out many long years ago.
O.S.
New College, Eastbourne,
Sept. 29, 1893.
Contents.
I. Dream Life and Real Life; a Little African Story.
II. The Woman's Rose.
III. "The Policy in Favour of Protection--".
Kopjes - In the karoo, are hillocks of stones, that rise up singly or in
clusters, here and there; presenting sometimes the fantastic appearance of
old ruined castles or giant graves, the work of human hands.
Kraal - A sheepfold.
Krantz - A precipice.
Sluit - A deep fissure, generally dry, in which the superfluous torrents of
water are carried from the karoo plains after thunderstorms.
Stoep - A porch.
I. DREAM LIFE AND REAL LIFE; A LITTLE AFRICAN STORY.
Little Jannita sat alone beside a milk-bush. Before her and behind her
stretched the plain, covered with red sand and thorny karoo bushes; and
here and there a milk-bush, looking like a bundle of pale green rods tied
together. Not a tree was to be seen anywhere, except on the banks of the
river, and that was far away, and the sun beat on her head. Round her fed
the Angora goats she was herding; pretty things, especially the little
ones, with white silky curls that touched the ground. But Jannita sat
crying. If an angel should gather up in his cup all the tears that have
been shed, I think the bitterest would be those of children.
By and by she was so tired, and the sun was so hot, she laid her head
against the milk-bush, and dropped asleep.
She dreamed a beautiful dream. She thought that when she went back to the
farmhouse in the evening, the walls were covered with vines and roses, and
the kraals were not made of red stone, but of lilac trees full of blossom.
And the fat old Boer smiled at her; and the stick he held across the door,
for the goats to jump over, was a lily rod with seven blossoms at the end.
When she went to the house her mistress gave her a whole roaster-cake for
her supper, and the mistress's daughter had stuck a rose in the cake; and
her mistress's son-in-law said, "Thank you!" when she pulled off his boots,
and did not kick her.
It was a beautiful dream.
While she lay thus dreaming, one of the little kids came and licked her on
her cheek, because of the salt from her dried-up tears. And in her dream
she was not a poor indentured child any more, living with Boers. It was
her father who kissed her. He said he had only been asleep--that day when
he lay down under the thorn-bush; he had not really died. He felt her
hair, and said it was grown long and silky, and he said they would go back
to Denmark now. He asked her why her feet were bare, and what the marks on
her back were. Then he put her head on his shoulder, and picked her up,
and carried her away, away! She laughed--she could feel her face against
his brown beard. His arms were so strong.
As she lay there dreaming, with the ants running over her naked feet, and
with her brown curls lying in the sand, a Hottentot came up to her. He was
dressed in ragged yellow trousers, and a dirty shirt, and torn jacket. He
had a red handkerchief round his head, and a felt hat above that. His nose
was flat, his eyes like slits, and the wool on his head was gathered into
little round balls. He came to the milk-bush, and looked at the little
girl lying in the hot sun. Then he walked off, and caught one of the
fattest little Angora goats, and held its mouth fast, as he stuck it under
his arm. He looked back to see that she was still sleeping, and jumped down
into one of the sluits. He walked down the bed of the sluit a little way
and came to an overhanging bank, under which, sitting on the red sand, were
two men. One was a tiny, ragged, old bushman, four feet high; the other
was an English navvy, in a dark blue blouse. They cut the kid's throat
with the navvy's long knife, and covered up the blood with sand, and buried
the entrails and skin. Then they talked, and quarrelled a little; and then
they talked quietly again.
The Hottentot man put a leg of the kid under his coat and left the rest of
the meat for the two in the sluit, and walked away.
When little Jannita awoke it was almost sunset. She sat up very
frightened, but her goats were all about her. She began to drive them
home. "I do not think there are any lost," she said.
Dirk, the Hottentot, had brought his flock home already, and stood at the
kraal door with his ragged yellow trousers. The fat old Boer put his stick
across the door, and let Jannita's goats jump over, one by one. He counted
them. When the last jumped over: "Have you been to sleep today?" he said;
"there is one missing."
Then little Jannita knew what was coming, and she said, in a low voice,
"No." And then she felt in her heart that deadlysickness that you feel
when you tell a lie; and again she said, "Yes."
"Do you think you will have any supper this evening?" said the Boer.
"No," said Jannita.
"What do you think you will have?"
"I don't know," said Jannita.
"Give me your whip," said the Boer to Dirk, the Hottentot.
...
The moon was all but full that night. Oh, but its light was beautiful!
The little girl crept to the door of the outhouse where she slept, and
looked at it. When you are hungry, and very, very sore, you do not cry.
She leaned her chin on one hand, and looked, with her great dove's eyes--
the other hand was cut open, so she wrapped it in her pinafore. She looked
across the plain at the sand and the low karoo-bushes, with the moonlight
on them.
Presently, there came slowly, from far away, a wild springbuck. It came
close to the house, and stood looking at it in wonder, while the moonlight
glinted on its horns, and in its great eyes. It stood wondering at the red
brick walls, and the girl watched it. Then, suddenly, as if it scorned it
all, it curved its beautiful back and turned; and away it fled over the
bushes and sand, like a sheeny streak of white lightning. She stood up to
watch it. So free, so free! Away, away! She watched, till she could see
it no more on the wide plain.
Her heart swelled, larger, larger, larger: she uttered a low cry; and
without waiting, pausing, thinking, she followed on its track. Away, away,
away! "I--I also!" she said, "I--I also!"
When at last her legs began to tremble under her, and she stopped to
breathe, the house was a speck behind her. She dropped on the earth, and
held her panting sides.
She began to think now.
If she stayed on the plain they would trace her footsteps in the morning
and catch her; but if she waded in the water in the bed of the river they
would not be able to find her footmarks; and she would hide, there where
the rocks and the kopjes were.
So she stood up and walked towards the river. The water in the river was
low; just a line of silver in the broad bed of sand, here and there
broadening into a pool. She stepped into it, and bathed her feet in the
delicious cold water. Up and up the stream she walked, where it rattled
over the pebbles, and past where the farmhouse lay; and where the rocks
were large she leaped from one to the other. The night wind in her face
made her strong--she laughed. She had never felt such night wind before.
So the night smells to the wild bucks, because they are free! A free thing
feels as a chained thing never can.
At last she came to a place where the willows grew on each side of the
river, and trailed their long branches on the sandy bed. She could not
tell why, she could not tell the reason, but a feeling of fear came over
her.
On the left bank rose a chain of kopjes and a precipice of rocks. Between
the precipice and the river bank there was a narrow path covered by the
fragments of fallen rock. And upon the summit of the precipice a kippersol
tree grew, whose palm-like leaves were clearly cut out against the night
sky. The rocks cast a deep shadow, and the willow trees, on either side of
the river. She paused, looked up and about her, and then ran on, fearful.
"What was I afraid of? How foolish I have been!" she said, when she came
to a place where the trees were not so close together. And she stood still
and looked back and shivered.
At last her steps grew wearier and wearier. She was very sleepy now, she
could scarcely lift her feet. She stepped out of the river-bed. She only
saw that the rocks about her were wild, as though many little kopjes had
been broken up and strewn upon the ground, lay down at the foot of an aloe,
and fell asleep.
...
But, in the morning, she saw what a glorious place it was. The rocks were
piled on one another, and tossed this way and that. Prickly pears grew
among them, and there were no less than six kippersol trees scattered here
and there among the broken kopjes. In the rocks there were hundreds of
homes for the conies, and from the crevices wild asparagus hung down. She
ran to the river, bathed in the clear cold water, and tossed it over her
head. She sang aloud. All the songs she knew were sad, so she could not
sing them now, she was glad, she was so free; but she sang the notes
without the words, as the cock-o-veets do. Singing and jumping all the
way, she went back, and took a sharp stone, and cut at the root of a
kippersol, and got out a large piece, as long as her arm, and sat to chew
it. Two conies came out on the rock above her head and peeped at her. She
held them out a piece, but they did not want it, and ran away.
It was very delicious to her. Kippersol is like raw quince, when it is
very green; but she liked it. When good food is thrown at you by other
people, strange to say, it is very bitter; but whatever you find yourself
is sweet!
When she had finished she dug out another piece, and went to look for a
pantry to put it in. At the top of a heap of rocks up which she clambered
she found that some large stones stood apart but met at the top, making a
room.
"Oh, this is my little home!" she said.
At the top and all round it was closed, only in the front it was open.
There was a beautiful shelf in the wall for the kippersol, and she
scrambled down again. She brought a great bunch of prickly pear, and stuck
it in a crevice before the door, and hung wild asparagus over it, till it
looked as though it grew there. No one could see that there was a room
there, for she left only a tiny opening, and hung a branch of feathery
asparagus over it. Then she crept in to see how it looked. There was a
glorious soft green light. Then she went out and picked some of those
purple little ground flowers--you know them--those that keep their faces
close to the ground, but when you turn them up and look at them they are
deep blue eyes looking into yours! She took them with a little earth, and
put them in the crevices between the rocks; and so the room was quite
furnished. Afterwards she went down to the river and brought her arms full
of willow, and made a lovely bed; and, because the weather was very hot,
she lay down to rest upon it.
She went to sleep soon, and slept long, for she was very weak. Late in the
afternoon she was awakened by a few cold drops falling on her face. She
sat up. A great and fiercethunderstorm had been raging, and a few of the
cool drops had fallen through the crevice in the rocks. She pushed the
asparagus branch aside, and looked out, with her little hands folded about
her knees. She heard the thunder rolling, and saw the red torrents rush
among the stones on their way to the river. She heard the roar of the
river as it now rolled, angry and red, bearing away stumps and trees on its
muddy water. She listened and smiled, and pressed closer to the rock that
took care of her. She pressed the palm of her hand against it. When you
have no one to love you, you love the dumb things very much. When the sun
set, it cleared up. Then the little girl ate some kippersol, and lay down
again to sleep. She thought there was nothing so nice as to sleep. When
one has had no food but kippersol juice for two days, one doesn't feel
strong.
"It is so nice here," she thought as she went to sleep, "I will stay here
always."
Afterwards the moon rose. The sky was very clear now, there was not a
cloud anywhere; and the moon shone in through the bushes in the door, and
made a lattice-work of light on her face. She was dreaming a beautiful
- bundle [´bʌndl]
n.包，捆；包袱(裹) (初中英语单词) - anywhere [´eniweə] ad.无论何处；任何地方 (初中英语单词)
- mistress [´mistris] n.女主人；情妇；女能手 (初中英语单词)
- running [´rʌniŋ] a.奔跑的；流动的 (初中英语单词)
- trousers [´trauzəz] n.裤子，长裤 (初中英语单词)
- jacket [´dʒækit] n.茄克衫；外套 (初中英语单词)
- handkerchief [´hæŋkətʃif] n.手帕，手绢 (初中英语单词)
- sleeping [´sli:piŋ] n.&a.睡着(的) (初中英语单词)
- sunset [´sʌnset] n.日落；晚霞 (初中英语单词)
- deadly [´dedli] a.致命的 ad.死一般地 (初中英语单词)
- sickness [´siknis] n.生病；呕吐，恶心 (初中英语单词)
- lightning [´laitniŋ] n.闪电 a.突然的 (初中英语单词)
- waiting [´weitiŋ] n.等候；伺候 (初中英语单词)
- stream [stri:m] n.河 vi.流出；飘扬 (初中英语单词)
- willow [´wiləu] n.柳树 (初中英语单词)
- glorious [´glɔ:riəs] a.光荣的；辉煌的 (初中英语单词)
- delicious [di´liʃəs] a.美味的，可口的 (初中英语单词)
- whatever [wɔt´evə] pron.&a.无论什么 (初中英语单词)
- opening [´əupəniŋ] n.开放；开端 a.开始的 (初中英语单词)
- fierce [fiəs] a.残忍的；强烈的 (初中英语单词)
- thunder [´θʌndə] n.雷 vi.打雷 vt.吼出 (初中英语单词)
- fantastic [fæn´tæstik] a.奇异的；荒谬的 (高中英语单词)
- denmark [´denmɑ:k] n.丹麦 (高中英语单词)
- ragged [´rægid] a.衣服破烂的 (高中英语单词)
- streak [stri:k] n.纹理 v.用线条(条纹) (高中英语单词)
- farmhouse [´fɑ:mhaus] n.农场住房，农舍 (高中英语单词)
- summit [´sʌmit] n.顶(点)；绝顶 (高中英语单词)
- sleepy [´sli:pi] a.困的，想睡的 (高中英语单词)
- strewn [stru:n] strew的过去分词 (高中英语单词)
- bearing [´beəriŋ] n.举止；忍耐；关系 (高中英语单词)
- policy [´pɔlisi] n.政策；权谋；保险单 (英语四级单词)
- superfluous [su:´pə:fluəs, sju:-] a.过剩的，多余的 (英语四级单词)
- blouse [blauz] n.女衬衫；短上衣 (英语四级单词)
- precipice [´presipis] n.悬崖；危急的处境 (英语四级单词)
- asparagus [ə´spærəgəs] n.文竹；天门冬；龙须菜 (英语四级单词)
- crevice [´krevis] n.裂缝，罅隙 (英语四级单词)
- fissure [´fiʃə] n.裂缝；分歧 (英语六级单词)
- thorny [´θɔ:ni] a.多刺的，棘手的 (英语六级单词)
文章标签:名著
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