The Dreams In The Witch House Epub Converter
HALEY SCHANDELMIER
Leslie came over to the house of dreams one frosty October night, whenmoonlit mists were hanging over the harbor and curling like silverribbons along the seaward glens. She looked as if she repented comingwhen Gilbert answered her knock; but Anne flew past him, pounced onher, and drew her in.
Anne could hardly discard it completely, for there were undoubtedlytimes when she felt, with an instinct that was not to be combated byreason, that Leslie harbored a queer, indefinable resentment towardsher. At times, this secret consciousness marred the delight of theircomradeship; at others it was almost forgotten; but Anne always feltthe hidden thorn was there, and might prick her at any moment. Shefelt a cruel sting from it on the day when she told Leslie of what shehoped the spring would bring to the little house of dreams. Leslielooked at her with hard, bitter, unfriendly eyes.
So Little Jem was talked to and loved and cuddled; and he throve asbecame a child of the house of dreams. Leslie was quite as foolishover him as Anne was. When their work was done and Gilbert was out ofthe way, they gave themselves over to shameless orgies of love-makingand ecstasies of adoration, such as that in which Owen Ford hadsurprised them.
There was a strange solemnity about the little scene. Anne and Lesliebowed as those receiving a benediction. Gilbert suddenly brushed hishand over his eyes; Owen Ford was rapt as one who can see visions. Allwere silent for a space. The little house of dreams added anotherpoignant and unforgettable moment to its store of memories.
Not only did meat disappear, but food shortages became common, aggravated in times of harvest failure, when the scanty grain reserves sent the price of grain sky-high, condemning city dwellers to starvation (Braudel 1966, Vol. I: 328). This is what occurred in the famine years of the 1540s and 1550s, and again in the decades of the 1580s and 1590s, which were some of the worst in the history of the European proletariat, coinciding with widespread unrest and a record number of witch-trials. But malnutrition was rampant also in normal times, so that food acquired a high symbolic value as a marker of rank. The desire for it among the poor reached epic proportions, inspiring dreams of Pantagruelian orgies, like those described by Rabelais in his Gargantua and Pantagruel (1552), and causing nightmarish obsessions, such as the conviction (spread among northeastern Italian farmers) that witches roamed the countryside at night to feed upon their cattle (Mazzali 1988: 73).
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