I passed the day in unrest. At supper I drank
almost a whole bottle of wine, and all but went out
on to the steps; but I turned back and flung myself
into my bed. My blood was pulsing painfully.
Again the sound was heard.... I started, but
did not look round. All at once I felt that some
one had tight hold of me from behind, and was whispering
in my very ear: ’Come, come, come.’...
Trembling with terror, I moaned out: ‘I
will come!’ and sat up.
A woman stood stooping close to my very pillow.
She smiled dimly and vanished. I had time, though,
to make out her face. It seemed to me I had seen
her before—but where, when? I got up
late, and spent the whole day wandering about the
country. I went to the old oak at the edge of
the forest, and looked carefully all around.
Towards evening I sat at the open window in my study.
My old housekeeper set a cup of tea before me, but
I did not touch it.... I kept asking myself in
bewilderment: ‘Am not I going out of my
mind?’ The sun had just set: and not the
sky alone was flushed with red; the whole atmosphere
was suddenly filled with an almost unnatural purple.
The leaves and grass never stirred, stiff as though
freshly coated with varnish. In their stony rigidity,
in the vivid sharpness of their outlines, in this
combination of intense brightness and death-like stillness,
there was something weird and mysterious. A rather
large grey bird suddenly flew up without a sound and
settled on the very window sill.... I looked at
it, and it looked at me sideways with its round, dark
eye. ‘Were you sent to remind me, then?’
I wondered.
At once the bird fluttered its soft wings, and without
a sound—as before—flew away.
I sat a long time still at the window, but I was no
longer a prey to uncertainty. I had, as it were,
come within the enchanted circle, and I was borne
along by an irresistible though gentle force, as a
boat is borne along by the current long before it reaches
the waterfall. I started up at last. The
purple had long vanished from the air, the colours
were darkened, and the enchanted silence was broken.
There was the flutter of a gust of wind, the moon
came out brighter and brighter in the sky that was
growing bluer, and soon the leaves of the trees were
weaving patterns of black and silver in her cold beams.
My old housekeeper came into the study with a lighted
candle, but there was a draught from the window and
the flame went out. I could restrain myself no
longer. I jumped up, clapped on my cap, and set
off to the corner of the forest, to the old oak-tree.
This oak had, many years before, been struck by lightning;
the top of the tree had been shattered, and was withered
up, but there was still life left in it for centuries
to come. As I was coming up to it, a cloud passed
over the moon: it was very dark under its thick
branches. At first I noticed nothing special;
but I glanced on one side, and my heart fairly failed
me—a white figure was standing motionless
beside a tall bush between the oak and the forest.
My hair stood upright on my head, but I plucked up
my courage and went towards the forest.
