“Are you Adelstan, the good iarl?” replied Karine. “Ah well, listen, and behold: you see that your well beloved has ceased to suffer! She has gone to the land of the elfs. The wicked iarl said: ‘She shall die here,’ and she is dead; but he said also: ‘If a son is born to her, it shall die first.’ But he counted without Karine. Karine was there; she received the child, she saved it, she gave it to the fairies of the lake, and the Snow Man never knew that it was born. And Karine has never told her secret, even in fever and in grief! She speaks now, because the belfry of the chateau is ringing for the dead. Do you not hear it?”
“Can it be true?” cried the major, opening the window in all haste: “no, I do not hear anything. She is dreaming.”
“If it is not ringing, it will not delay long,” replied the danneman. “Already, this morning, she heard it, from our mountain. We knew that it could not be; but we knew also that she hears in advance, as she sees in advance, the things that are to be.”
Karine, feeling the air from the window, approached.
“It was here,” she said, “it was to this window that Karine Bœtsoi brought the child, so that it should fly away.”
And she began to sing the refrain of the ballad that Christian had heard in the fog.
“The child of the lake, more beautiful than the star of the evening—”
“Is that a song that your mistress taught you?” asked M. Goefle.
But Karine did not seem to hear any voice but Christian’s.
Martina Akerstrom replied for her: