Yet though he exerted himself to the utmost to open the door of his dungeon, it was all in vain. It must have been fastened on the outside with massive oak or iron bars. “So finally he gave up entirely and turned back to the opening where the light came in. Gro had sunk down under the last bit of light, without complaint, without sound. Her eyes were closed, she leaned her head against the sharp edge of the aperture and her arms hung down lifelessly. Soelver bent over her; her breath was almost inaudible, but irregular and did not suggest sleep. Like a thirsty plant she stretched herself out of the single airhole of the dungeon that she might seize the last drop of light before the darkness extinguished everything. Soelver divined that she could not be brought away from this aperture for light.” He brought all the skins from the couch, spread them over her, pushed them under her body and “solicitously, with infinite carefulness he protected her from the damp floor, while he shoved his arm under her for support without ever touching her with his hand. All his brutality was gone, all his burning passion. Here she lay before him like a delicate sick flower, which must be covered over from the cold of night.”
When Soelver awoke the next morning he noticed that one of his hands was seized by her, grasped in the unconsciousness of sleep and held fast by her long, slender fingers, which clasped themselves about his hand. It was as if her soul clung to him in sleep as helper and savior from him himself, from his own brutal savagery. When Gro however opened her eyes and stared into Soelver's face, lit up by the sun, she broke out into weeping which could not be stilled. “She was terrified at awaking in a cellar hole, into the close damp darkness of which she looked, while the face of her vanquisher blazed strong in the sunlight before her; she wept without understanding or comprehending anything of what had happened about her.” Perplexed, Soelver bent over her hand and kissed it. Then came Sten Basse and saw how uncontrollably Gro sobbed. “If you have gone near my daughter,” he hissed at the young nobleman, “there will be no punishment strong enough for you.” At this there shot up in Soelver a wild lust for revenge and he answered his enemy with irritating coldness: “Yes, I took what you gave. You brought her yourself into my presence, you laid her yourself in my arms. Now you may take her back again. I spurn your daughter for I have not desired her for the honor and keeping of my house, but only for the entertainment of a night. Take her back now! Take her back!”
Nevertheless better treatment was from this time on accorded Soelver, which he never for a moment doubted he owed to Gro. As he dwelt in his cell upon his phantasies, he suddenly heard her voice singing that melancholy song of Sir Tidemand, who tried to lure the maiden Blidelille into his boat by vigorous runes written upon roses. Blidelille awoke at midnight and knew not what it was that compelled her.
“It drew me along to Sir Tidemand
Whom never mine eyes had seen.”
In vain the foster mother bids them spread velvets and satins over her that she might sleep. Notwithstanding she arises suddenly, dresses herself and goes down to the strand to Sir Tidemand, who meets her scornfully. Then she goes into the lake, whither Tidemand follows her, seized with heartfelt remorse.
“For evil the rune on the rose leaf traced
And evil the work it had wrought,
That two so noble, of royal grace,
To ruin and death were brought.”
The woful song trailed itself through Soelver's mind like an indistinct dream. Then he believed that he distinguished Gro's step, until it was lost in her sleeping room. With his mental vision he saw the maiden, as she looked out upon the lake toward Aebeloe. She looked away from him, of whose fate she took no thought, but gazed fixedly over the sea, which bore upon its bosom a ship with silken sails, on whose deck Sir Tidemand stood. “Then Soelver was conscious of an infinite weakness in his love toward this pure maiden, whom his coarseness had taken into his arms, his desire had scorched with its hot breath but who had nevertheless left him benumbed in his baseness, cowardliness and weakness. Now he understood that love, in order to triumph, must first humble its own power, still its own movement and soften its brutal will. Now he comprehended that he must carve mystic runes of passion upon his own heart as upon a glowing rose and fling it into the mighty sea of feeling, praying it to bring the maiden Gro into his hands.”
Day and night Soelver's thoughts tarried only with Gro. In his phantasies “he forced himself through the bolted door, climbed sharp angled passage ways and winding staircases and lifted oaken beams from barred doors. Without once making a mistake, driven by a magic sense of direction, he finally reached Gro's couch, at which he saw himself staring with great white eyes, whose pupils in the darkness of sleep had as it were glided over to the side. And upon the cover of her couch lay her two gleaming arms and the fingers of the right hand trembled as if they grasped another invisible hand. In this room Soelver remained until her sleep drew him to itself, until the heaving of her breasts drew him down, until her fingers entwined themselves with his, until their breath mingled and his lids closed before her pure gaze.”
Another time he dreamed that he was upon a vessel, evidently in the rôle of Sir Tidemand. And Gro actually came over the water to him like the maiden Blidelille, “with roses like two blood spots upon her breast. She had crossed her hands beneath them and fastened her pure gaze upon Soelver, so that he was seized with terror and, without escaping her look, fled to the lee of the vessel to the edge of the ship. Yet Gro steadily drew nearer. Now she reached the ship's border and Soelver retreated. Step by step she followed him, the painful gaze of her deathly white face absorbed by his own. And he withdrew over to the other border, drew back until he felt the railing hard behind him. Gro stepped forward alone and it was not possible to stop her; he felt as if she wished to press within him like the sped arrow to its goal. Finally, in an instant, as her garment fluttered against him, he threw himself with a loud cry to one side and saw, with a great horror, that Gro went forward, through the railing as through air and disappeared on the other side in the sea, while Soelver lay moaning upon the deck and saw before him only the red roses, which fallen from her breast crept like living blood over the ship's planks.”
Was it dream or reality, which he saw when he opened his eyes? “The sun's rays burst forth through a crack in a long, radiant arrow, which bored itself into the floor and transfixed as it were something red that began to glow.” And as Soelver crept nearer his astonishment grew deeper. “For hard by the vision of red were footprints breathed so to speak upon the floor, fine, slender prints, directed toward him, no more distinct than if a warm breeze had blown away the dampness from the surface of a stone, leaving the outline of a foot fixed there.” As he now stooped down and with his hand felt for the blood red spot, his fingers actually touched “a heavy full-blown rose, whose sweet strong odor he drank as if in an intoxication of reality.” No one had forced his way in through the hatchway, of this he soon convinced himself. Gro must have dropped it here while he was spinning dreams about her.