Bram Stoker

The Jewel of Seven Stars Bram Stoker

Again, the light skiff, ceasing to shoot through the lazy water as when the oars flashed anddripped, glided out of the fierce July sunlight into the cool shade of the great drooping willowbranches-I standing up in the swaying boat, she sitting still and with deft fingers guarding herselffrom stray twigs or the freedom of the resilience of moving boughs. Again, the water looked goldenbrown under the canopy of translucent green; and the grassy bank was of emerald hue. Again, we satin the cool shade, with the myriad noises of nature both without and within our bower merging intothat drowsy hum in whose sufficing environment the great world with its disturbing trouble, and itsmore disturbing joys, can be effectually forgotten. Again, in that blissful solitude the young girl lostthe convention of her prim, narrow upbringing, and told me in a natural, dreamy way of theloneliness of her new life. With an undertone of sadness she made me feel how in that spacioushome each one of the household was isolated by the personal magnificence of her father and herself;that there confidence had no altar, and sympathy no shrine; and that there even her father's face wasas distant as the old country life seemed now. Once more, the wisdom of my manhood and theexperience of my years laid themselves at the girl's feet. It was seemingly their own doing; for theindividual "I" had no say in the matter, but only just obeyed imperative orders. And once again theflying seconds multiplied themselves endlessly. For it is in the arcana of dreams that existencesmerge and renew themselves, change and yet keep the same-like the soul of a musician in a fugue. And so memory swooned, again and again, in sleep.