Fantasy fiction; Utopian fiction; Utopias -- Fiction
“Oh, what queer things we do in our sleep, and how supremely selfish
a dreamer is. I once had a theory that we are all responsible for the
character of our dreams, but I hope, my dear, that you will not call me
to too strict an account in this case, I should blush to tell you how I
loved each singer, and yet I know now it was only the voice that charmed
me. I shall seek my pillow with delight to-night, to try and catch in my
sleep some faint echo of that song, for I never expect to hear its like
in my waking hours. You are laughing at me, and I don’t wonder. Let me
see. I dreamed that I dreamed that you and Mona and Avis were all one
grand, sweet singer. I wonder what would have happened if I had staid
there long enough to tell Avis something that was on my mind. Perhaps I
never should have come away.
“But forgive me, dear Margaret, for my enthusiasm for simply a memory,
and put the blame on my sensitive ears. And now, tell me what you have
been doing during these long hours. Did you find the professor and get
your book?”
“Yes, but I had to stay a few minutes and hear him talk. I hurried back,
however, to be with you, and for my reward found you fast asleep.”
“I was only dozing. But what did you do then?”
“Oh, I sat quiet for a while, and then took up the amusement I usually
follow when I find myself alone.”
“What is that? Pray tell.”
“Singing, of course.”
“Singing?”
“Why, yes, didn’t you know I could sing?”
“Do you mean to say you were singing all those two or three hours?”
“Not all the time, but at intervals. I sang so loud sometimes that I
thought I should wake you.”
“Then,” I exclaimed with feeling, “it was you that I heard. You know my
ears are never fully asleep. Margaret, it was your voice that I have
been falling in love with.”
At this Margaret laughed heartily, as she answered:
“You have been a good while finding it out. I knew it all the time.
That’s what I sang for, and I had my pay as I went on, for every time
I began, whether soft or loud, I could see your face light up with the
light of your soul, and then I knew my voice was finding its way to some
corner of your brain.”
“How stupid of me,” I said, “not to wake up the very first time I heard
you; but I thought it was Mona. Oh, how it did thrill me! And to think
I am to hear it again when I am really awake. Come, why do we waste all
this time in talking when I have that great happiness still unfulfilled?
May I not hear you sing now?”
“Oh, you might be disappointed, after all. My idea is that you enjoyed
my singing because all your critical faculties were dulled in sleep, and
you heard only through your heart, as it were. Don’t you think it would
be better to live awhile on the pleasant memory you have brought back
with you?”
“Not at all. I can retain the memory, and have the present happiness
besides.”
“But you said you never expected to hear such music in your waking
hours.”
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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