Perhaps it was a
punishment--the dream--for forgetting it."
"Silly child! Your dream is far better than your reflections."
"Well, I'll go on with my dream. I lay a long time till I got very tired,
and wanted to get up, O, so much! But still I lay, and although I tried, I
could not move hand or foot. At last I burst out crying. I was ashamed of
crying in my coffin, but I couldn't bear it any longer. I thought I was
quite disgraced, for everybody was expected to be perfectly quiet and
patient down there. But the moment I began to cry, I heard a sound. And
when I listened it was the sound of spades and pickaxes. It went on and on,
and came nearer and nearer. And then--it was so strange--I was dreadfully
frightened at the idea of the light and the wind, and of the people seeing
me in my coffin and my night-dress, and tried to persuade myself that it
was somebody else they were digging for, or that they were only going to
lay another coffin over mine. And I thought that if it was you, papa, I
shouldn't mind how long I lay there, for I shouldn't feel a bit lonely,
even though we could not speak a word to each other all the time. But the
sounds came on, nearer and nearer, and at last a pickaxe struck, with a
blow that jarred me all through, upon the lid of the coffin, right over my
head.
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