seemed that we were not in a strange country, but in my native village, in the deep shade beside the mill.  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.  And when he went on saying nothing but “Eh! eh!” and kept advancing toward me step by step, I was suddenly seized with so curious a sensation of disgust that I hastily jumped to my feet, leaped over the fence, and, without looking round, ran across country until my fiddle in my pocket twanged again.

When at last I stopped to take breath, the orchard and the whole valley were out of sight and I was in a beautiful forest.  But I took little note of it, for I was downright provoked at the peasant’s impertinence, and I fumed for a long time, to myself.  I walked on quickly, going farther and farther from the high-road and in among the mountains.  The plank-roadway which I had been following ceased, and before me was only a narrow, unfrequented foot-path.  Not a soul was to be seen anywhere, and no sound was to be heard.  But it was very pleasant walking; the trees rustled and the birds sang sweetly.  I resigned myself to the guidance of heaven, and, taking out my violin, played all my favorite airs.  Very joyous they sounded in the lonely forest.