'The dream! the nightmare! Why should it look to me so like truth? When will the true sun rise upon me?' Then he rushes to a sturdy pine, embraces its rough trunk with both his arms, strikes his head against it: 'Awake me, thou hard bark—awake me from this dreadful dream!' Turning back, he seizes one of the nearest of his followers by the throat, crying: 'Wrestle with thy lord, thou phantom of a servant, and wake him from his dream accursed!'
The frightened servant slips away and flees. The old man sighs, raises his eyes to heaven, an expression of submission to a divinely appointed torment shines for a moment upon his quivering features, as if he humbly offered to God the tortures of this cruel dream in penance for his sins. He walks on calmly for a while, then says:
'The bride is certainly on the lake; we will find her there.'
The sun is fully up now, drinking the dews from the leaves, and lighting up the waves of the lake with splendor. Large beaked boats with heraldic banners are rocking in the coves. Fastening the roses he had gathered for his child in his bosom, he walks to the shore, with fever burning more and more vividly in his face. No one ventures to suggest a return to the castle. Accustomed to obey the unbending will of their lord, they still pay homage to it, though it is no longer a thing of this world. Dark as midnight seems the day dawn to them; their own brains seem seething into madness.
'Perhaps she sails in one of her own light boats round the lake with her husband; she may be behind the fringe of willows, or among the little islands. Hallo! six of you take the oars; we will soon find her.'
They obey, he seats himself within, they push from shore.
'Why do you breathe so hard and look so weary to-day; is the water heavier than of old?'
They answer not, but row more rapidly. The larger boats are filled with guests and retainers; many follow the old lord, many remain on shore from lack of room. One after another the islets fly behind and hide themselves from view, with their circling wreaths of reeds and sedges. Rocks and bowlders are scattered over many of them, once sacrificial altars of old and cruel gods, now draped with hanging weeds and trailing mosses. Flocks of wild birds are startled up as the boats draw near them, frightened by the noise and plashing of the oars. Black clouds of them hang over the boat of the old man at every turn among the labyrinth of islands. He claps his hands:
'Here! we will surely find her here!' And when nothing is there to be seen, he asks the winds: 'Where is my child—my good and beautiful child?'
Having sailed round and round the whole group of islands, he orders them to row out into the middle of the lake, and then make for the other shore. He sinks into silence now; he leaves the helm, throwing himself suddenly down into the boat, while a ghastly pallor settles on his venerable face. He stretches his hand into the water, dives into it with his arm, listens to the rippling of the waves, then bursts into a loud scream of wild laughter. The oarsmen stop, in hopes he will order the boat to return to shore. He does not speak, but rises up and looks, first back at the boats following after, then at the mountains, the plains, the forests, the gardens, the ancestral castle. Constantly striking his palms together or rubbing his head with his hand, he exclaims: