A cold shudder ran through his fevered frame. He gazed in helpless despair up and down, not knowing where to turn, while the rain poured down in torrents, soaking him from head to foot, and the centuries old tree-tops groaned and moaned like lost souls in Dante's Inferno. Now everything began to swim around him. Nature was in an uproar and bluster. Every little glowworm seemed to his frightened eyes to grow to gigantic proportions dancing wildly about.
Sharp flashes of lightning lit up the Traunstein ever and anon and seemed to come nearer and nearer, as if trying to march straight down upon him. He wanted to retreat, but could not move; there was a dark mist before his eyes. Uttering a piercing cry, he fell to the ground in a heap because the big monster kept on advancing.
With a tremendous crash, the great mountain burst apart and a whole troop of tiny, little mountain gnomes came out, dancing grotesquely like sprites of another world.
They were garbed in white vestments, like fleecy vapors, with brazen girdles which seemed to be sunbeams, and a cloudy stuff supposed to be mantles hung loosely around their diminutive forms. With bare feet they pattered down upon him. As soon as they caught sight of him they commenced to giggle, swarming around him in great merriment. And then they put their ludicrous little heads together and pointed at him with contempt, whispering tales in falsetto tones to each other, which he could not understand. But he saw by the glare of their twinkling little eyes that they meant him, that they touched on something in his past life.
By and by they became bolder and touched his wet clothes; some of the older ones bent down to him and whispered malicious tales about his wife into his ears. He groaned aloud. "It is a lie! I don't believe a word of it!" he screamed, cursing the whole deceitful band. In his indignation he tried to rise several times in order to drive them away—down into the foaming stream, or back into their mountain riff; but he could not move; his feet seemed to be fastened to the very ground as if paralyzed or chained to earth. They whispered once more the name of his wife with scornful laughter, and passed on over hills and valleys dancing merrily.
Suddenly a bright light shone about him, illuminating the marshy waters; invisible choirs were singing sweetly, as if angels were descending from heaven. His eyes dilated as he saw a procession of tiny elves passing him, carrying little lighted tapers in their diminutive hands. In their midst he saw his dear mother stretching out her arms longingly towards him.
Tears came to his eyes. The dear face! He wanted to run to her, embrace her, but could not stir. A cry of horror broke from his trembling lips when the fair Siren so fatal to his life stood before him, intervening and trying to ensnare him again with the fascination of her glittering eyes, her bewitching smile, speaking to him of love and devotion which he believed again.
He listened to her; and a ray of happiness and delight filled his love-sick heart. She comes back to him! She loves only him! And unheeding the beseeching beckoning of his anxious mother, whose tortured heart writhed and bled for her suffering son, he hastened on with the enticing Siren,—where to, he did not know.
Suddenly they stood before a deep precipice; darkness surrounded them, and the old trees commenced to sigh and moan and bend down upon them. Six shadowy forms with blazing torches appeared upon the scene carrying a coffin. Just in front of him the lid opened and the pale waxen face of his dead mother met his frightened eyes. He screamed aloud with horror. He had broken that noble heart, he had killed the best of mothers, because he had followed this evil spirit of his life.