The Books: Further Chronicles of Avonlea: ‘The Dream Child”‘ (L.M. Montgomery)

Daily Book Excerpt: YA/Children’s books:

Further Chronicles of Avonlea – “The Dream Child” – by L.M. Montgomery

This is one of Lucy Maud’s more openly tragic stories. When you get to her collection of ghost stories (published posthumously – as in, the last 10 years) – you see a lot of this kind of writing – quivering wtih passion, grief, strong strong emotions – nobody has a sense of humor. Life is tragic. Bad Things Happen. She was a big believer (and she had a whole philosophy about it) that there is no shame in the Happy Ending, that a book shouldn’t be considered less important or less worthy just because things work out in the end. But at the time that she was writing – happy endings were not in vogue (I guess they never really are, if you think about it) – and so she was defensive about being seen as a lightweight. Which is so ridiculous. How anyone could read Emily of New Moon (excerpt here) or Blue Castle (excerpt here) and ever think of her as a “lightweight writer” I will never know.

But anyway – when she puts on her Tragic Mask (as she does in this story) – she tends to tip over into melodrama. At least that is my assessment. She does good melodrama – it gets gothic, the writing is a bit florid – and people quiver with unspeakable pain. Melodrama.

There is a married couple. The story is told first-person from the perspective of the husband. Oh, they are happy. What a happy courtship they had. They live in a little house by the sea. They are happy happy happy. Then their son is born. They had never thought they could be MORE happy. But then lo – they were. Happy happy happy. The child lives 20 months or something like that – and then dies suddenly. And the wife loses it. She cracks up. Her grief is so intense that weird psychic shit starts happening. The husband begins to wake up in the night only to find his wife is not there. He goes out looking for her and finds her wandering along the shore, staring out into the ocean …She says that she has heard the baby calling for her. She calls it her “dream-child”. She can hear it just over that next dune, just over that NEXT dune … she chases the sound of the dream-child’s cry. Husband tries to bring her back to the house. She flips OUT. So he walks the shore with her. This starts to happen more and more often. Every other night he wakes up and finds her wandering along the shore, in between waking and dreaming, listening for the cries of her dream-child, and then following the sound when it comes (the husband can hear nothing).

Here’s an excerpt.

Excerpt from Further Chronicles of Avonlea – “The Dream Child” – by L.M. Montgomery

What a horror brooded over that spring – that so beautiful spring! The time had come of lazy days, sunny blue skies, of the soft patter of sudden showers welcomed by the yet-to-be-weeded soil; of daffodils and iris and violets, or orchards transformed into pink and white fairylands; of the murmuring of babbling brooks and the sweet song of birds. Yes, the delicious joys of spring were abroad in the land. Almost every night of this wonderful time the dream-child called his mother, and we roved the gray shore in quest of him.

In the day she was herself; but, when the night fell, she was restless and uneasy until she heard the call. Then follow it she would, even through storm and darkness. It was then, she said, that the cry sounded loudest and nearest, as if her pretty boy were frightened by the tempest. What wild, terrrible rovings we had, she straining forward, eager to overtake the dream-child; I, sick at heart, following, guiding, protecting, as best I could, then afterwards leading her gently home, heart-broken because she could not reach the child.

I bore my burden in secret, determining that gossip could not busy itself with my wife’s condition so long as I could keep it from becoming known. We had no near relatives – none with any right to share any trouble- and so I carried on alone, for grief is ever proud.

I thought, however, that I should have medical attention, and I took our old doctor into my confidence. He looked grave when he heard my story. I did not like his expression nor his few guarded remarks. He said he thought human aid would avail little; she might come all right in time; humor her as far as possible, watch over her, protect her. He needed not to tell me that.

The spring went out and summer came in – and the horror deepened and darkened. I knew that suspicions were being whispered from lip to lip. We had been seen on our nightly quests. Men and women began to look at us pityingly when we went abroad.

One day, on a dull, drowsy afternoon, the dream-child called. I knew then that the end was near the end had been near in the old grandmother’s case sixty years before when the dream-child called in the day. The doctor looked graver than ever when I told him, and said that the time had come when I must have help in my task. I could not watch by day and night. Unless I had assistance I would break down.

I did not think that I should. Love is stronger than that. And on one thing I was determined — they should never take my wife from me. No restraint sterner than a husband’s loving hand should ever be put upon her, my pretty, piteous darling.

I never spoke of the dream-child to her. The doctor advised against it. It would, he said, only serve to deepen the delusion. When he hinted at an asylum, I gave him a look that would have been a fierce sword for another man. He never spoke of it again.