And there I sat, all through
the night, up in the tree, like a night-owl, amid the ruins of my
happiness.
The cool breeze of morning aroused me at last from my dreamings. I was
startled as I looked about me. The music and dancing had long since
ceased, and everything around the castle and on the lawn, and the
marble steps and columns, all looked quiet, cool, and solemn; the
fountain alone plashed on before the entrance. Here and there in the
boughs near me the birds were awaking, shaking their bright feathers,
and as they stretched their little wings, peering curiously and amazed
at their strange fellow-sleeper. The joyous rays of morning flashed
across my breast and over the garden.
I stood erect in my tree, and for the first time for a long while
looked far abroad over the country, to where the ships glided down
the Danube among the vineyards, and the high-roads, still deserted,
stretched like bridges across the gleaming landscape and far over the
distant hills and valleys.
I cannot tell how it was, but all at once my former love of travel
took possession of me, all the old melancholy, and delight, and ardent
expectation. And at the same moment I thought of the Lady fair over in
the castle sleeping among flowers, beneath silken coverlets, with an
angel surely keeping watch beside her bed in the silence of the dawn.
"No!" I cried aloud. "I must go away from here, far, far away--as far
as the sky stretches its blue arch!"
As I uttered the words I tossed my basket high into the air, so that
it was beautiful to see how the flowers fell among the branches and
lay in gay colors on the green sod below.
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