243*
The Dream of the Travelier
L. .W. W. VOGELESANG,
Professor of English at the Leyden Grammar-school.
Published in behalf of the wives and children of the Boers» struggling for their tndependence in South-Africa.
D.281





THE DREAM OF THE TRAVELLER.


r


The Dream of the Travelier
BY
L. W. W. VOGELESANG,
Professor of English at the Leyden Grammar-school.
PUBLISHED IN BEHALF OF THE WIVES AND CHILDREN OF THE BOERS, STRUGGLING FOR THEIR INDEPENDENCE IN SOUTH-AFRICA.
LEYDEN. — A. W. SIJTHOFF.


/^r. univ. n
(bibliotheek
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THE DREAM OF THE TRAVELLER.
„This shall be thy reward — that the ideal shall be real to thee".
A Dream of Wild Bees.
Olive Schreiner.
1 here was once a Man who came travelling' from a far-off world.
And in that world he had been a brilliant and radiant being", and had been united there to another being almost as bright and radiant as himself.
And so close had been the tie between them that they were as one soul and one body; and from that close union resulted perfect harmony, unspeakable bliss.
But in and on account of that continual state of perfect happiness the lower principles and instincts of his nature, ambition and envy, had developed and asserted themselves; so that he had tried to equal the Most High, who reigned supreme in that far-off world, by opposing His high will.
And by doing so he had incurred the displeasure


of that Supreme Being, who, in his wrath separated him from his radiant Queen, the union with whom had been his happiness and his glory.
And to give him a chance of redeeming his sin, and that his soul might be purified of the lower passions of envy and ambition, which had lost him his glory, he was sent to a place in the great universe, which the dweilers therein call Earth, but which the people of that far-off world call Heil, on account of the hot and fierce fires of tribulation that are always burning there.
And he went; and the journey to this world took him ages and ages, so that he lost all remembrance of his former state. The only thing he brought away with him was a craving to seek for something he could not fmd, for something he did not know what.
And he came to dweil as a stranger among the inhabitants of the Earth.
And when he had lived there for some time, and that restless craving made him feel very lonely among those around him, he tried to be less of a stranger among them, and followed their customs and manners; and took unto himself a wife and begat children and thought in this way to get rid of that restlessness which haunted him by day and by night.
And one day it returned to him with such tremendous force that he could no longer stay, but bade adieu to his wife and children and to his most intimate


friends, and went wandering on and on, seeking for that unknown thing.
And after travelling over many and many a weary mile he at length came to a very barren country that stretched out before him like an endless waste, and the dreariness of it was such as filled with dismay all those who had to cross it.
And when he cast his eyes on that dreadful region, his heart failed him and he lay down to rest in great despondency.
And while he was lying there, all at once a light shone upon him, the brightness whereof was a thousand times greater than the sun's.
And in the midst of that light he saw a radiant female figure, nodding to him and smiling on him. Round her lips there was a sweet expression of great sincerity, and in her eyes there was a glow more bright than the midday sun and behind that light he saw a great gravity, a great sadness.
And in one hand she held a golden crown and in the other a golden sceptre.
And she approached the travelier and touched his forehead; and a great shudder of delight and sadness passed through his veins and his every limb.
And she spoke to him and said:
,,My King, look upon thy Queen".
And he tried to look upon her, but his eyes were


dazzled by the rays that shone out of hers; but at the same time he feit that that bright light had penetrated through his own eyes deep into his inmost heart and had kindled a fire and a light there, which, when it radiated from his face, seemed to turn everything he looked upon into pure gold.
And she spoke further and said: „My king, one day this sceptre and this crown shall be thine and with them I, thy Queen".
And the travelier hearing these words at once recognized her, and cried: „I know thee, I know thee; be mine for ever now and let us never be separated again, for how could I bear this a second time?"
But she with great gravity and sadness in her voice, said: „Thou canst not as yet be united with me; how couldst thou, not being able to bear even the glow of my eyes?"
And he with his eyes turned to the ground like a blind man, cried out: „Well I know that thou art too bright for me yet, but oh, what am I to do without thee ?"
And when he saw her slowly receding from the view, he stretched out both his hands as if to retain her, and at the same time he feit a soft unconsciousness stealing over him, and he lay in a trance.
And in that state he was for many hours, till a voice like that of many waters was heard, awakening


him and speaking to him: „Long and difficult is the path that leads to everlasting bliss, that leads to thy reunion with the woman thou sawst. Take unto thee a staff and resume thy journey through this dreadful region full of thistles and thorns. And all the thorns that shall tear thy flesh, thou shalt gather, and thou shalt weave them into a crown and put it on thy head and thou shalt now and then press it, so that the blood will flow from the wounds, and thou shalt carefully gather it in a bottle, for one day thou wilt stand in need of it. And do not think that thou wilt ever gain thy crown, thy sceptre and thy Queen, before thou art worthy of them, and becoming this takes a long time".
And the travelier asked: „How long?"
And the voice answered: „Thy whole lifetime!"
And then with immense regret but with unconquerable hope in his heart, he took his staff and resumed his journey with that strange light in his eyes, which sometimes flashed from them, and turned everything into pure gold.
But sometimes, in moments of great weariness and despair, for the regions through which he travelled were very wild and impracticable, the light was not visible in his eyes but had retreated to his inmost heart.
But when it shone out, the most ugly and unseemly things seemed beautiful to him, and he came across many such things on his path.


And one day he came to a little sweet oasis in the desert through which he then was passing. It was full of rich fruit-trees, and there was a pleasant bower where he wanted to rest.
And then there came a woman to him, and said: „My ideal, long long have I been waiting for you; come into my bower and rest your weary head upon this breast of mine, and I will give you the best and rarest and choicest fruit to eat, and make you forget the weariness of your journey and give that restless heart of yours peace and rest, so that it will no longer worry itself with vain dreams".
And over the traveller came a soft dreamy lethargy, and he sank into the outstretched arms of that beautiful woman.
And she spoke to him kind words, and made beautiful music to him and sang to him sweet songs and lulled asleep all his sorrows and all his worries.
And she kissed him and fondled him, but those blandishments, instead of taking away the restlessness in his heart, increased it tenfold and turned it into a kind of terror, so that he opened wide his eyes and looked at the woman.
And he saw a red feverish glow in her eyes and on her cheeks like the morbid hectic red on the cheeks of some consumptive patiënt, but nothing like the glow he had seen radiating from the eyes of the Lady of his Vision.


And he rose as in terror and said: „What does this mean?"
And she answered with that ever heightening colour on her face as if she had gone mad: „This is love, delicious love".
But the terror in his heart grew greater and greater and he fled from her and resumed his journey, but she called after him in great anger and disappointment: „You will remember, you will remember; you will never be able to purify your soul from my pollution".
But after a long time he succeeded in it and travelled on through those rough regions and was almost quite exhausted with fatigue, when all at once his eye detected a beautiful patch of land, well-cultivated and fertile, a land so bright and beautiful as mortal eye ever beheld.
And then he remembered that he had now already been wandering for forty years, and he remembered also an old story read in a very old book about a people that went to a Promised Land, after wandering for forty years in the desert that separated them from it, just as he had now been separated from his Promised Land by a desert.
And in his impatient wild desire to reach that Land where he was to meet his Queen, he asked himself if it might not be possible, that he, like that ancient people had only to wander for forty years in the desert,


and that all at once his dreary journey had come to an end, as an agreeable and glorious surprise prepared for him by the Lady of his Love.
And when he had travelled on a little in that land, he met with a woman.
And in his eager desire to have his weary wanderings over he looked at her and thought to detect a strong likeness with the Queen of his Vision.
And he spoke to her, and she, easier of access then he had at first anticipated, answered him and soon welcomed him as a friend.
And then he learned that she too had come from afar, had severed her closest ties, had left her father and her mother and her country, and had gone on a dreary journey far from her home and friends.
And he thought then that her longing was his longing, that her sadness was his sadness, and that her loneliness was his loneliness; his loneliness which was greatest when most surrounded by human beings.
But this loneliness was not hers for she was ever sighing for friends and companionship.
But he heeded this not in the gladness of his illusion of having found his Queen.
And he spoke to her of harmony of souls, and then there was a look of non-comprehension on her face and in a silly laugh she answered: „What, harmony of souls? harmony of fiddlesticks!"


And when he heard this he looked at her with that strange light radiating from his eyes, which in a moment illumined her from top to toe; and while she was standing there in that bright light, she looked at herself and saw her skirt like a golden robe and said to herself: „Surely I must be a queen, for I am decked all over with gold".
But she did not know that it was only the glow from his eyes that made her appear like this, but thought that it was real earthly gold for which men sell their very souls and women sell their honour.
And when he, in his turn, looked at her, bathing in that golden light, he spoke to her and said: „Surely thou art my long lost queen"; and the light in his eyes became brighter than ever.
And she said to herself: „He is a funny mixture with that crown of thorns on his head and that golden glow in his eyes; yet he must be a king who can, by merely looking at a thing, turn it into bright gold, and I should be a fooi not to keep him in the delusion that he has met his queen, for this may be turned to good account", she being a very practical woman and belonging to a nation among the peoples of the Earth, very remarkable for their piety and their love of gold, to which they sacrificed men, women and children in cold blood.
And therefore she answered: „Yes, my king, thou hast met her at last who has been longing such a long time for thy coming; I am entirely thine and thou art mine for ever".


And then she took him by the hand and said: „Let me lead thee to the throne that I have prepared for thee."
And she led him to a heap of something in the midst of that bright patch of land, and when the traveller's eyes rested upon it, it looked like a high golden throne.
And he had some difficulty to scramble up to it, for there were no steps to it.
But at length he got on the top and sat down on it as on a throne.
And his staff looked in his eyes like the golden sceptre, and his crown of thorns looked like the golden crown which he had seen in the hands of the Lady of his Vision.
But the woman remained at the foot of the throne.
She had been making friends in that land and had told them of the wonderful travelier who could turn everything he looked upon into pure gold.
And they gathered round about the throne to enjoy the strange sight of the man with that brilliant light in his eyes, sitting there on that elevated seat.
And she had become very popular among those people on account of the tale she had told of her king, and of the great promise also to them of those untold riches he could distribute.
And in order to beguile the time she performed lascivious dances before them, which the people in that land call flirtation, and she became the best dancer


among the women of that land, and was admired for it exceedingly, so that when now and then the travelier looked down from his throne to invite his queen to scramble up to it and share the glories of his crown and sceptre, she often had no time to listen to him or answer him; but now and then she stood a little away from the crowd, who was dancing round the throne, and waved her hand to him and blew him kisses.
But this was all, for she was too busy entertaining those around her, between whom and her there was a very strong fellow-feeling, which she missed in the company of the travelier, which was sometimes unbearable to her, he being in her eyes an unpractical dreamer, a dawdler, though at the same time a king, because he disposed of such immense riches. And, besides, she did not think it fit to be with him on his throne because she and her companions were in the habit of taking from the foot of it handfuls of gold, which was very easily detachable; and she thought that she could not do this on the top of it in the presence of the king.
But one day when she had become quite familiar with him, and therefore insolent, she separated herself for some days from her boon companions and stayed with him on his throne.
And then the brightness in the traveller's eyes was such that the throne radiated with the sheen of gold, so that the woman could not help taking handfuls of it


before his very face and putting of it in her pockets as much as they would hold.
And on the tenth day there was a dreadful roar at the foot of the throne, for the people were clamouring for their lascivious dances, which they had enjoyed so much and which they had now been without for ten long days.
And as soon as she heard this she hastened down from the throne and was received by those people with open arms and fierce shouts of joy.
And when the travelier heard them, his heart was filled with great dismay, and he began to feel more lonely than ever, and the light in his eyes began slowly to fade and he began to be aware of offensive smells that reached his nose, and of a certain fever that raged through his veins as if his blood was being poisoned.
And the more feverish he became the more the light is his eyes began to fade, and sometimes when he looked down on the thing he was sitting on, he detected other colours in it than that of pure gold, and after some days when the smells became unbearable and the light had almost completely faded from his eyes, he discovered all at once that all the time he had been throning on a dung-hill!
And at the same moment when he made this discovery the voice of the woman at the foot of that dunghill was heard shrieking in great wrath, to the people


she was entertaining: „What is this? Our dung-heap has become an ordinary dung-heap again, and we thought it changed into gold by him who is sitting there. The smell of the dung-hill is nice enough: we have been used to it all our lives, but we wanted it to be gold".
And then turning to the traveller who was lying there sick and exhausted, she cried: „What is the use of your staying there any longer? Clear out as soon as possible!"
And he who would fain have left his lonely seat long before this warning could come to him, made a feeble effort to rise, but the poisonous fever had so weakened him that he could not move.
And the people on the ground headed by the woman scrambled up against the dung-hill to throw him from it.
And then there seemed to be a kind of consultation among the woman and her companions, when they saw the travelier lying there.
And one in whom some sense of justice was still left, said: „Let us not ill-treat him, for have we not profited by his presence here, having gathered a great treasure from the throne on which this king sat?"
And he standing nearest to the traveller heard him mutter faintly: „My kingdom is not of this world".
But the man did not understand.
And the woman answered the man and said: „What, he a king? He is not even a gentleman, but a common


cheat, for I have just been looking at what you call our treasure and it is nothing but dirt, dirt, and it has even soiled my clothes. It was the glow in his eyes that made us think it was gold, but it was not .
And then the man replied: „But that was our mistake: he never told us that he would givé us gold".
And when the woman found no answer to this because it was too obviously true, she paused a moment as to reflect, and then with a voice full of indignation she shrieked out: „Not only that he is not a king, not even a gentleman, but a common cheat, he is also a scoundrel, for he has left his wife and children and severed his closest ties with mankind to come here and sit on his throne. And as for my relation to that fellow, which I deemed, as long as I thought him to be a goldmaker, a beautiful thing, I now look upon it as on a crime". And in pious indignation she yelled out: „I will pray our god daily and nightly that I may be torgiven that sin". And then she raised her eyes to the sky.
And when the people round about her heard these words, there was a dreadful roar like that of an angry sea, above which the voice of the woman was heard: „Let him be thrown down from our dung-hill".
And that roar drowned entirely the cry for pity which came from the man wo had been standing nearest to the traveller, of „Ecce Homo" (Look at the Man).
And then they seized the traveller and threw him down.


And in that fall he was hurt inwardly, and he lay there in great pain and agony.
And after this he opened his mouth and cursed his day.
And he spake, and said:
„Let the day perish wherein I was bom, and the night in which it was said there is a man child conceived.
Why died I not from the womb? why did I not give up the ghost when I came out of the belly?
For now I should have lain still and been quiet, I should have slept: then I had been at rest,
With kings and counsellers of the earth, which built desolate places for themselves;
Or with princes that had gold, who filledtheir houses with silver:
Or as an hidden untimely birth I had not been; as infants which never saw light.
There the wicked cease from troubling; and there the weary be at rest.
For the thing which I greatly feared is come upon me, and that which I was afraid of is come unto me.
I was not in safety, neither had I rest, neither was I quiet; yet trouble came".
And when he had spoken these words he laid himself down to die.
But the roar and smell of that dung-hill troubled him very much, and just then the man who had spoken up for him in pity, passed.


And he begged of him, as a last favour to drag him a little away from that odious heap that he might die in peace.
And the man took pity on the travelier and dragged him to the side of a little brook that flbwed close by.
And there he fainted with the pain.
And while he was lying there he saw a strange thing happen: he saw his staff dwindling down into a penholder with a hard bright steel pen in it, pointing to the bottle he always carried with him, which was filled with his blood, and which he had almost entirely forgotten while throning on that dung-hill.
And then there was a voice that said: „Overwearied travelier, do not lose heart: the glow that shone out of thine eyes is not lost to thee: it hath only retreated to thine inmost heart, burning away thy life there.
It shall no longer shine out of thine eyes, but it shall henceforth shine out ot the pages of thy book written with thy life-blood; which will make thee famous, and people shall say: ,,,,How wonderful, how beautiful"", even those who cannot understand".
And the travelier murmured softly: „I don 't care any longer."
And then with great joy the voice replied: „This is exactly the benefit thou wert to derive from the shame and humiliation of that dung-hill viz. not to care. After being cast from that as not being worthy even of such a thing, all contumely, all applause most be the same


to thee. Thou hadst to learn not to care for anything but for the one great thing and that is — seeing thy real. Queen again, whom thou seemest to hare forgotten entirely.
And thou shalt no longer commit the error of taking a heartless lump of selfishness for thy Queen, nor a dungheap for a throne.
Thou shalt see the real as it really is in this world: ugly, wherever thou shalt cast thine eyes upon it.
Thou wantedst to make the real the ideal to thee-, henceforth the ideal shall be real to thee.
And far from cursing that woman for the great disappointment, the great suffering she hath caused thee, thou oughtst to be thankful to her, for what thou thoughtst pollution of thy soul, hath in reality been its purification.
And this time the purification hath been a thorough one.
Thou hast now gone through all the fiercest fires of tribulation that make of this world a real Heil.
Thou hast experienced „the pangs of despised love", „the proud man's contumely", „the law's delay", „the insolence of office", and „the spurns that patiënt merit from the unworthy takes".
And now it hath been given unto thee, oh, thrice happy travelier, that thou shalt be able to shrug thy shoulders at the pangs of despised love, smile at the proud man's contumely, not heed the law's delay, laugh at the insolence of offiice, and spurn at the spurns that patiënt merit from the unworthy takes.


And thou shalt continue thy journey.
And it shall not be a very long one, for the inward hurt thou receivedst in thy fall from that dung-hill will shorten it considerably.
And in order to beguile the tediousness of the road, thou shalt take thy pen and bottle filled with thy life-blood,
And when the fire within thee shall burn too fiercely and lick thy very life-blood, thou shalt sit down in some shady place on thy road and write of the great hope within thee of seeing thy Queen.
And in this way thou shalt give it an outlet as through some volcano that maketh fertile the soil all around it.
And even before thou art aware of it thyself, thou shalt have reached the golden palace gate of thy Queen.
And there the pen shall drop from thy hand,
And the fire and the light within thee shall shine out from thine eyes and face with a brilliancy that shall even surpass the brightness thou sawst in the eyes of thy Queen.
And while standing there thou shalt shed such a lustre over all the palace, that thy Queen shall be awakened by it.
And seeing the light she shall know that her King hath come at last, and she shall gather her robes about her and place her diadem on her head that she may receive thee worthily.
And she shall come through the palace gate to welcome thee.


And thou shalt speak unto her and say: „My Queen, look upon thy King".
And she, in her turn, shall be a little dazzled by the light from thine eyes, and she shall cast hers down.
And then she shall see and piek up the pen that hath fallen from thy hand, and it shall be turned into a golden sceptre of authority, and she shall take the crown of thorns from thy head and it shall be changed in her hand into a golden crown of glory.
And thou shalt take them from her hand and put the crown upon thy head.
And then she shall give thee welcome to her palace and she shall not take thy hand, but thou shalt take hers, and lead her through the golden gate into the palace and to the throne, which stands there in the midst of a sea of light.
And hand in hand ye shall mount together the golden steps inlaid with diamonds and gems, and ye shall sit down so close together, that the brilliancy of her face and eyes, and the radiance of thine, shall be as one great sun.
And that sun shall shine upon that part of thisdamned world, where thou hast worked and suffered, and from which thou shalt then have returned.
And the suns of all the other Men of Sorrows, when reunited to their Queens, shall shine upon the parts in which they worked and suffered.
And all those suns shall be united to one Great Sun of Righteousness that shall shine upon the Earth and kill


all the microbes of materialism, rationalism, atheism, cynicism, and of low ambition, envy and selfishness that poison the atmosphere there.
And thus purified the Earth shall be renewed.
And from that Sun shall be born a new race of creatures among whom there will dweil righteousness and peace and rest, and justice for ever and ever.
And then the Earth shall no longer be called Heil, but shall be called Heaven, and the dwellers therein shall taste bliss unutterable.
And this shall by thy reward, that a whole zoor ld shall be reclaimed".
Ihen the voice ceased, but the words had been as balm to his inward wounds, and had given the vigour of youth to his soul and emaciated body.
And he rose and went.
And from the distance the shrill voices of the crowd with the woman in the midst of them, dancing round their dung-hill, and singing snatches of songs as: „Old long syne" and others died on his ear.
And it is said that they in course of time mingled with the heap round which they made merry; but the travelier continued his way to the Land where he was to see the Lady of his Vision.
Leiden, 9 November 1901.