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Chapter the Eighth: The Epilogue · The Dream: A Novel

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  Section twenty four of The Dream, a Novel. This is a LibriVox recording.
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  All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to
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  volunteer, please visit LibriVox dot org. The Dream a Novel by H.
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  G. Wells. Chapter the eighth the epilogue, Section one. The guest
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  Master poked the sinking fire into a last effort. So am i, he
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  said, And then, with profound conviction, that tale is true? But
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  how could it be true? Asked Willow. I should be readier to believe
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  it true if Sarnac had not brought in sun Ray, as Hetty said radiant.
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  It was very dream like the way Hetty grew more and more like his
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  dear lady, and at last dissolved altogether into her. But if Smith was
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  a sort of anticipation of Sarnac, said Starlight, then it was natural for
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  him to choose as his love a sort of anticipation of sun Ray. But
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  are there any other anticipations in the story, asked Willow, Did you recognize
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  any other people who are intimate with you both? Is there a Fanny in
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  this world? Is there a Matilda Good? Or brother? Ernest was Sarnac's
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  mother, like Martha Smith. That tale, said the guest master, Stoutly,
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  was no dream. It was a memory floating up out of the deep
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  darkness of forgotten things into a kindred brain. Sarnac thought, what is a
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  personality but a memory. If the memory of Harry Mortimer Smith is in my
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  brain, then I am Smith. I feel as sure that I was Smith
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  two thousand years ago as that I was Sarnak this morning. Sometimes before this,
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  in my dreams, I have had a feeling that I lived again forgotten
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  lives. Have none of you felt that I dreamt the other day, said
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  Radiant, that I was a panther that haunted a village of huts in which
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  lived naked children and some very toothsome dogs, And how I was hunted for
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  three years and shot at five times before I was killed. I can remember
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  how I killed an old woman gathering sticks and hid part of her body under
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  the roots of a tree to finish it on the morrow. It was a
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  very vivid dream, and as I dreamt it, it was by no means
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  horrible. But it was not a clear and continuous dream like yours. A
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  panther's mind is not clear and continuous, but passes from flashes of interest to
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  interludes of apathy and utter forgetfulness. When children have dreams of terror, of
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  being in the wild with prowling beasts, of long pursuits and hair breadth escapes,
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  perhaps it is the memory of some dead creature that lives again in them
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  asks starlight. What do we know of the stuff of memory that lies on
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  the other side of matter? What do we know of the relations of consciousness
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  to matter and energy? For four thousand years men have speculated about these things,
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  and we know no more today than they did in Athens, when Plato
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  taught and Aristotle studied. Science increases and the power of man grows, but
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  only inside the limits of life's conditions. We may conquer space and time,
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  but we shall never conquer the mystery of what we are and why we can
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  be? Matter that feel in wills, My brother and I have much to
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  do with animals, And more and more do I perceive that what they are
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  I am. They are instruments with twenty strings, while we have ten thousand.
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  But they are instruments like ourselves. What plays upon them plays upon us,
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  and what kills them kills us. Life and death alike are within the
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  crystal sphere that limits us forever. Life cannot penetrate, and death will not
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  penetrate that limitation. What memories are we cannot tell. If I choose to
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  believe that they float away like gossamer nets when we die, and that they
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  float I know not where, and that they can come back presently into touch
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  with other such gossamer nets. Who can contradict me. Maybe life, from
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  its very big has been spinning threads and webs of memories, not a thing
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  in the past. It may be that has not left its memories about us.
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  Some day we may learn to gather in that forgotten gossamer. We may
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  learn to weave its strands together again, until the whole past is restored to
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  us and life becomes one. Then perhaps the crystal sphere will break. And
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  however that may be, and however these things may be explained, I can
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  well believe, without any miracles, that Sarnak has touched down to the real
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  memory of a human life that lived and suffered two thousand years ago. And
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  I believe that because of the reality of the story he told, I have
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  felt all along that whatever interrupting question we choose to ask, had we asked
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  what buttons he wore on his jacket are or how deep the gutters were at
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  the pavement edge, or what was the price he had paid for his cigarettes?
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  He would have been ready with an answer more exact and sure than any
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  historian could have given. And I too believe that said Sonray, I have
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  no memory of being hetty, but in everything he said and did, even
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  in his harshest and hardest acts, Smith and Sarnac were one character. I
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  do not question for a moment that Sarnac lived that life Section two. But
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  the hardness of it cried Firefly, the cruelty, the universal heartache. It
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  could have been only a dream persisted Willow. It is not the barberism I
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  think of, said Firefly, Not the wars and diseases, the shortened,
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  crippled lives, the ugly towns, the narrow countryside, But worse than that,
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  the sorrow of the heart, the universal unkindness, the universal failed to
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  understand or care for the thwarted desires and needs of others. As I think
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  of Sarnac's story, I cannot think of any one creature in it who was
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  happy as we are happy. It is all a story of love crossed imaginations
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  Like flies, that have fallen into gum, things withheld, and things forbidden,
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  and all for nothing, all for pride and spite. Not all that
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  world had a giver who gave with both hands. Poor Milly. Do you
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  think she did not know how coldly you loved her, Sarnac? Do you
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  think her jealousy was not born of a certainty and a fear A lifetime,
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  a whole young man's lifetime, a quarter of a century. And this poor
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  Harry Smith never once met a happy soul, and came only once within sight
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  of happiness. And he was just one of sco and hundreds of millions.
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  They went heavily and clumsily and painfully, oppressing and obstructing each other from the
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  cradle to the grave. This was too much for the guest master, who
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  almost wailed aloud. But surely there was happiness. Surely there were moods,
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  in phases of happiness, in gleams and flashes, said Sarnak. But I
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  verily believe that what firefly says is true. In all my world there were
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  no happy lives, not even children lives, I said, not parts of
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  lives. Children would laugh and dance for a while if they were born in
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  hell and out of that darkness, said radiant. In twenty short centuries,
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  our race has come to the light and tolerance, the sweet freedoms and charities
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  of our lives today. Which is no sort of comfort to me, said
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  firefly, when I think of the lives that have been. Unless this is
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  the solution. The guest master cried that everyone is presently to dream back the
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  lives that have gone, unless the poor memory ghosts of all those sad lives
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  that have been are to be brought into the consolation of our happiness. Here,
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  poor souls, for your comfort is the land of heart's desire. In
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  all your hopes come true. Here you live again in your ampler selves.
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  Here lovers are not parted for loving, and your loves are not your torment.
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  Now I see why men must be immortal, for otherwise the story of
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  man's martyrdom is too pitiful to tell. Many good men there were like me,
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  jolly men with a certain plunkness, men with an excellent taste for wine
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  and cookery, who loved men almost as much as they loved the food and
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  drink that made men. And they cannot do the jolly work I do,
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  and make comfort and happiness every day for fresh couples of holiday friends. Surely,
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  presently I shall find the memories of the poor license innkeeper I was in
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  those ancient days, the poor overruled, ill paid publican handing out bad stuff
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  in wrath and shame. I shall find all his troubles welling up again in
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  me, consoled in this good inn. If it was I who suffered in
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  those days, I am content. But if it was some other good fellow
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  who died and never came to this, then there is no justice in the
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  heart of God. So I swear by immortality now and henceforth, not for
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  greed of the future, but in the name of the wasted dead. Look
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  the guest master. Continue. Morning comes, and the cracks at the edge
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  of the door curtain grow brighter than the light within. Go all of you
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  and watch the mountain glow. I will mix you a warm bowl of drink,
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  and then we will sleep for an hour or so, before you breakfast
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  and go your way. Section three. It was a life, said Sarnak,
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  And it was a dream, a dream within this life. And this
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  life too is a dream, dreams within dreams, dreams containing dreams, until
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  we come at last, maybe to the dreamer of all dreams, the being
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  who is all beings. Nothing is too wonderful for life, and nothing is
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  too beautiful. He got up and thrust back the great curtain of the guest
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  house room. All night we have been talking and living in the dark ages
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  of confusion, and now the sunrise is close at hand. He went out
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  upon the portico of the guest house and stood still, surveying the great mountains
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  that rose out of cloud and haze, dark blue and mysterious in their recesses,
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  and soaring up at last into the flush of dawn. He stood quite
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  still. In all the world seemed still, except that far away and far
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  below, a mist of sounds, beneath the mountain mists, a confusion of
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  birds was singing. End of Section twenty four. End of the Dream,
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  a novel by H. G. Wells,