Prince [giving him his hand]. It shall be so.... Yes, yes, my lad. Since I have been gone--how long is it?
Hans. A good two years, master.
Prince. The old wife now, and quickly, that she may open to me all the enchantment lurking in the feathers, to which I trusted and surrendered myself. The time has come for this unmolded life to shape itself after the law of its own desire. Why dost thou hesitate?
Hans. I will go.
Prince. But yet thou mutterest?
Hans. Do not blame me, master; I know of what I speak. First of all, mistrust the old one. I fear her not ... but something horrible and slimy crawled in my throat when I first saw her crouching in a grave, all stiff, her brows drawn and her staring eyes turned inwards lifelessly.... When a storm stood coal-black in the heavens and gave the greedy coffins fresh food--lo, there she stood and bade me dig the graves; and when the wave cast corpses up on the strand, she bore each one up the hill pressed mother-like to her breast, shaken meanwhile with a sly laugh; and thus she laughed until they all lay quietly at rest beneath. Have a care for thyself!
Prince. Yet why? Her work is pious and she tends it faithfully.
Hans. But if she weaves enchantment, master?
Prince. I am the last from whom on that account a threat is fit. It has turned to blessing for me. To him who chooses sacrifice for his fate, there often comes the best of gifts,--to see deep into the unsearchable, and smilingly to build as though within a pleasure-park, upon the very boundary of the ideal. Once more--
Hans. And once more I stand broad-legged in thy unhappy path and shout: Do not destroy thyself! Whoever runs after his desire shall perish in the race; it only yields to him who hurls it from him. Thou dost not know as yet the old wife's schemes; thou standest now above enchantment, a young glowing god confiding in the magic of thine own strength. What thou dost know is that thy prize is hidden, and that the broad path of possibilities, on which thou thinkest to glide aloft, may be choked all at once between black walls and leave thee fevered and panting with the chase, with desire and loathing, eagerness and shrinking, to hasten on forever and never gain the end.