When the priest entered, Sidonia stretched out her meagre arms towards him, and thanked him for coming; would he sit down here on the bed, for there was no other seat in the room? she had much to tell him that was truly wonderful. But the priest remained standing: let her speak on.
Illa.—"Ah! it concerned himself. She had dreamt a strange dream (God be thanked that it was not a reality), but it left her no peace. Three times she awoke, and three fell asleep and dreamt it again. At last she sent for him, for there might be danger in store for him, and she would turn it away if possible."
Hic.—"It was strange, truly. What, then, had she dreamed?"
Illa.—"It seemed to her that murderers had got up into his room through the window, and just as they were on the point of strangling him, she had appeared and put them to flight, whereupon—" (here she paused and sighed).
Hic (in great agitation).—"Go on, for God's sake go on—what further?"
Illa.—"Whereupon—ah! she must tell him now, since he forced her to do it. Whereupon, out of gratitude, he took her to be his wife, and they were married" (sighing, and holding both hands before her eyes).
Hic (clasping his hands).—"Merciful Heaven! how strange! I dreamt all that precisely myself." [Footnote: The power of producing particular dreams by volition, was recognised by the ancients and philosophers of the Middle Ages. Ex. Albertus Magnus relates (De Mirabilibus Mundi 205) that horrible dreams can be produced by placing an ape's skin under the pillow. He also gives a receipt for making women tell their secrets in sleep (but this I shall keep to myself). Such phenomena are neither physiologically nor psychologically impossible, but our modern physiologists are content to take the mere poor form of nature, dissect it, anatomise it, and then bury it beneath the sand of their hypotheses. Thus, indeed, "the dead bury their dead," while all the strange, mysterious, inner powers of nature, which the philosophers of the Middle Ages, as Psellus, Albertus Magnus, Trithemius, Cardanus, Theophastus, &c., did so much to elucidate, are at once flippantly and ignorantly placed in the category of "Superstitions," "Absurdities," and "Artful Deceptions.">[
Upon which Sidonia cried out, "How can it be possible? Oh, it is the will of God, David—it is the will of God" (and she seized him by both hands).
But the priest remained as cold as the snow outside, drew back his head, and said, "Ah! no doubt these absurdities about marriage came into my head because I had been thinking so much over our young Lord Philip of Wolgast, who was wedded to-day at Berlin."
Sidonia started up at this, and screamed in rage and anger—"What! Duke Philip married to-day in Berlin? The accursed prioress told me the wedding was not to be for eight days after the next new moon."