I. Dream Life and Real Life; A Little African Story

Little Jannita, tasked with herding Angora goats on a vast, barren plain, seeks solace under a milk-bush, succumbing to sleep and dreams. In her vivid dreamscape, the mundane harshness of her life with the Boers transforms into a world of gentleness and appreciation, a stark contrast to her reality where gratitude and kindness are sparing. Her dream extends to a poignant reunion with her father, intertwining fantasies of return to a Denmark remembered or imagined, where pain and privation do not exist.

Her waking life intrudes through a theft witnessed in her slumber; a Hottentot, observing her vulnerability, steals a goat, betraying the trust inherent in their shared, yet separate existences on the plain. This theft, a tangible representation of the ongoing afflictions in her life, leads Jannita into a confrontation with her harsh reality: a lie told in fear, leading to punishment without supper, embodying the Boer’s hard, uncompromising justice.

Amid her punishment and hunger, Jannita finds a moment of escape, a fleeting connection with a wild springbok, representing freedom and unattainable desires. This encounter emboldens her, and she ventures into the night, away from her life of servitude toward an uncertain freedom. The narrative traces her journey of self-reliance, survival, and discovery of a hidden refuge among the rocks—a sanctuary she claims as her own, illustrating her transition from captivity to the autonomy of the wild.

However, peace is transient. Eavesdropping on a sinister plot by the Hottentot, Dirk, a Bushman, and an English navvy, Jannita learns of a planned attack on her former abode. Her resolve strengthens; she risks her newfound sanctuary to warn the farm, embodying a heroism born of desperation and innate goodness.

The closing passages juxtapose the tranquility of her makeshift home against the tempest of her emotions and the external turmoil of a brewing storm. Jannita’s fleeting moments of delight in nature’s embrace and her imaginative reveries are shattered by the looming violence. Despite her efforts, confronting the reality of her limitations, she is powerless to intervene directly in the impending doom that shadows her past and current worlds. The narrative leaves her in a liminal space, between the dream of what could be and the harsh truth of what is, encapsulating the essence of childhood innocence adrift in the harsh landscapes of both dream and real life.