Timar heard it too. He could not sleep; he had left the trap-door open to get some light. The moon shone, and when the dog was silenced, deep stillness lay over the scene; a wonderful calm, rendered more fantastic by the isolated voices of the night and the solitude. The rattle of carriages, the clatter of mills, human voices—none of these struck the ear. This is the kingdom of swamps, islets, and shallows. From time to time a deep note sounds through the night—the boom of the bittern, that hermit of the marsh. Flights of night-birds strike long-drawn chords in the air, and the breathing wind stirs in the poplars, as it sighs through their quivering leaves. The seal cries in the reeds like the voice of a weeping child, and the cockchafer buzzes on the white wall of the hut. All around lies the dark brake, in which fairies seem to hold a torch-light dance; under the decayed trees will-o'-the-wisps wander, pursuing each other. But the flower-garden is flooded by the full radiance of the moon, and night-moths hover on silvery peacock wings round the tall mallows. How exquisite, how divine is this solitude! the whole soul is absorbed in its contemplation.
If only no human tones were mingled with these voices of the night!
But there below in the two little divisions of the hut lie other sleepless people, whom some evil spirit has robbed of their slumber, and who add their deep sighs to the other voices. From one room Timar heard the sigh, "Oh, thou dear Christ!" while from the other "Oh, Allah!" resounded.
They can not sleep; what is there down below which keeps people awake?
While Timar tried to collect his thoughts, an idea flashed through his mind which induced him to leave his couch, throw on the coat he had had over him, and descend the ladder to the ground.
At the same moment, some one in one of the rooms below had had the same thought. And when Timar, standing at the corner of the house, uttered the name of "Almira" under his breath, another voice from the door opening into the veranda called Almira's name too, as if one were the ghostly echo of the other.
The speakers approached each other with surprise.
The other person was Therese. "You have come down from your bed?" she asked.
"Yes; I could not sleep."
"And what did you want with Almira?"