I wandered about the dark rooms with a vacant mind. I
wished I had a guitar to which I could sing to the unknown: "O fire,
the poor moth that made a vain effort to fly away has come back to thee!
Forgive it but this once, burn its wings and consume it in thy flame!"
Suddenly two tear-drops fell from overhead on my brow. Dark masses of
clouds overcast the top of the Avalli hills that day. The gloomy woods
and the sooty waters of the Susta were waiting in terrible suspense and
in an ominous calm. Suddenly land, water, and sky shivered, and a wild
tempest-blast rushed howling through the distant pathless woods, showing
its lightning-teeth like a raving maniac who had broken his chains. The
desolate halls of the palace banged their doors, and moaned in the
bitterness of anguish.
The servants were all in the office, and there was no one to light the
lamps. The night was cloudy and moonless. In the dense gloom within I
could distinctly feel that a woman was lying on her face on the carpet
below the bed--clasping and tearing her long dishevelled hair with
desperate fingers.
Pages:
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
26
27
28
29
30
31
32
33
34
35
36
37
38
39
40
41