The sleep-walkers - by Khalil Gibran

Here is a beautiful story by him -

In the town where I was born lived a woman and her daughter, who walked in their sleep.

One night, while silence enfolded the world, the woman and her daughter, walking, yet asleep, met in their mist-veiled garden.

And the mother spoke, and she said: "At last, at last, my enemy! You by whom my youth was destroyed—who have built up your life upon the ruins of mine! Would I could kill you!"

And the daughter spoke, and she said: "O hateful woman, selfish and old! Who stand between my freer self and me! Who would have my life an echo of your own faded life! Would you were dead!"

At that moment a cock crew, and both women awoke. The mother said gently, "Is that you, darling?" And the daughter answered gently, "Yes, dear."

Khalil Gibran

I read it once, long ago, and never forgot it -

"Drink your cup alone though it taste of your own blood and tears,
and praise life for the gift of thirst.
For without thirst your heart is but the shore of a barren sea,
songless and without a tide."