But everything was still
and deserted, as it is when the people are all gone to church and only
the solemn sounds of the organ wafted down through the trees break the
stillness; I was oppressed with melancholy. But the Lady fair was very
kind and gentle, and put her hand in mine and walked along with me,
and sang, amid this solitude, the beautiful song that she used to
sing to her guitar early in the morning at her open window, and in the
placid mill-pool I saw her image, lovelier even than herself, except
that the eyes were wondrous large and looked at me so strangely that
I was almost afraid. Then suddenly the mill-wheel began to turn, at
first slowly, then faster and more noisily; the pool became dark and
troubled, the Lady fair turned very pale, and her robes grew longer
and longer, and fluttered wildly in long strips like pennons of
mist up toward the skies; the roaring of the mill-wheel sounded ever
louder, and it seemed as though it were the Porter blowing upon his
bassoon, so that I waked up with my heart throbbing violently.
In fact, a breeze had arisen, which was gently stirring the leaves of
the apple-tree above me; but the noise and roaring came neither from
the mill nor from the Porter's bassoon, but from the same peasant who
had before refused to show me the way to Italy. He had taken off
his Sunday coat and put on a white smock-frock. "Oho!" he said, as I
rubbed my sleepy eyes, "do you want to pick your oranges here, that
you trample down all my grass instead of going to church, you lazy
lout, you?" I was vexed that the boor should have waked me, and I
started up and cried, "Hold your tongue! I have been a better gardener
than you will ever be, and a Receiver, and if you had been driving to
town, you would have had to take off your dirty cap to me, sitting at
my door in my yellow-dotted, red dressing-gown--" But the fellow was
nothing daunted, and, putting his arms akimbo, merely asked, "What do
you want here? eh! eh!" I saw that he was a short, stubbed, bow-legged
fellow, with protruding goggle-eyes, and a red, rather crooked nose.
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