A Visit to the Land of our Forefathers.—The two Banks of the Rhine.—Druid Stones.—Weddings and Burials.—Xight Service.—A Dentigod Glacier.—Social Duels. A Countrywoman of Aspasia.—Boudoir of a Celtic Lady.—The Bard’s Story.—Teutons and Titans.—Earthquake.
Any one who has ever travelled in my company, must know that I am apt to stray from my way, or at least to choose the longest route. I have a fancy to-day, to turn my eyes and my steps away from those sacred precincts of the Druids, which had become slaughter-houses and in which the hand that blessed was also the hand that killed.
I desire to breathe an air less filled with the perfumes, or rather the fetid odor of sacrifices. Up there, on that hill-top, where the setting sun lights up the bright summit, I shall breathe more freely.
Here I am.
Beneath me the Rhine spreads out its two banks, not united yet by any bridge, and even without a ferry to bring the one nearer to the other.
But on both sides, half hid under dense willow thickets and gigantic reeds, there lie, in many a shallow little bay, large numbers of tiny barks. These cunning looking boats belong to harmless fishermen in the daytime; but at night they are filled with robbers and corsairs, who form in bands, cross over to the other side in search of booty, and even venture, if needs be, out into the Northern Sea. Just now nothing stirs; the fishermen have gone home, the corsairs have not come forth. I look farther out.
On the left bank there are some Gallic Celts encamped, with blue eyes, white skin, and abundant golden tresses. Almost naked, their principal garment seems to be that immense shield, almost as long as their body, which shelters them on the march as well as when they are at rest, and which protects them against the sun and the enemy alike. All of a sudden I hear them, with lips held close to one of the edges of their shields, utter sharp cries, which are taken up and repeated, from distance to distance, all the way down the river. To these cries, which no doubt represent their telegraphic system, there comes an answer from far sounding trumpets.
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Who are these other soldiers with the black hair and the bronzed complexions? Carefully arrayed in symmetrical lines they advance steadily, clad in brilliant armor, and carrying banners surmounted by golden eagles with half open wings. Has CÆsar really succeeded, after ten years’ warfare, in making himself master of Gaul as far as the banks of the Rhine? I cannot doubt it; for at their approach, the Gauls lower their lance-heads, in token of their peaceful disposition, and allow them to pass.
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When they reach the river, the small Roman army pauses; under the protection of this armed force a few men, dressed in simple tunics, with no arms but tablets, a style, and ropes for measuring the ground, go to work preparing a plan, perhaps for a bridge, perhaps for a town.
German sentinels, take care!
From the height of my hill I look down upon a narrow strip of land on the right bank of the river, and here I see several groups of men, scattered here and there in the woods and on the plain, who work under the superintendence of a Druid. Some are digging up the roots of trees which overshadow and impoverish the ground; others draw long furrows with the iron of their ploughs. These laborers seem all to suffer from some restraint which impedes their movements, but of which at this distance I can discover no cause.
In order to meditate on this strange sight, I look around for a resting place. Half way up the hill I notice a small stone bench. As I draw nearer, the object grows in size and rises to such a height, that I should need a ladder if I wished to take possession of my seat.
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This apparent bench is a monument, a Druidical monument, and consists of two upright stones, on which rests a third, horizontal stone. In France, in England, and in Germany there are still found such Druidical altars, cromlechs or dolmens; these menhyrs astonished already Alexander of Macedonia when he marched through Scythia. In Bretagne, at Carnac, some of these stones, consisting of a single rock, rise by the wayside, as if to tell the traveller the story of the past, or they range themselves before his eyes in long lines, forming on the ground endless circles of emblematic meaning, as it is supposed. But the traveller can no longer understand their language. Was this an altar, or was it an idol, or perhaps only a simple monument raised over a grave. If they were altars, Carnac would be Olympus; if they were tombstones, it would be a cemetery.
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I was going all around the mystic three stones to examine them more closely, when I noticed close by a flock of sheep, and then a shepherd.
This shepherd, covered with a ragged sagum, had on his feet leather sandals, a half open wound on his forehead, which had not yet had time to close, enhanced the fierceness of his appearance. His burning glances fell now upon the Druidical stone and now upon another object which I had not noticed before. This was the guard of a sword which had been driven into the ground.
Could it be that this stone resting upon two supports, were new concessions made by the politic Druids?
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As according to their spiritualistic views God could not render himself visible in a shape resembling our own, they had represented him as well as they could by a symbol. It appeared thus that human sacrifices were already no longer sufficient to maintain their creed.
While I was examining with growing curiosity this strange keeper of sheep, fair, with bare neck and bare feet, was busy watching on the same side of the hill another flock, and at the same time gathering herbs for medicinal purposes. When she was about to leave, she offered the shepherd to attend to his wound, sword handle, and this but he refused haughtily; she ran away laughing, and threw a flower into his face.
He did not pick up that flower; he did not salute that pretty girl as she left him. He looked at her with disdain.
Ah! I can doubt it no longer; this unhappy man is like the wood-cutter in the forest, and the laborers in the field, one of those prisoners taken in war, whom the Druids have spared, and now render useful. His closely shorn hair, his open wound, and the heavy wooden yoke which he has to carry on his neck, all betray his sad fate. He has made no reply to the half pitiful, half coquettish advances of the pretty gatherer of simples, because she has only awakened in his heart painful memories of his distant love, or of his wife, whom he is never to see again! He has cast glances of fierce hatred and burning revenge at the Druidical altar and the handle of the sword, because both of these objects point out the place of bloody sacrifices. Does he think he is himself destined to be slain? or was perhaps the warrior whom they slew yesterday, a man of his own tribe, his best friend, his own brother?
But I have taken refuge here in order to escape from these painful thoughts of blood and murder. I propose to seek new objects of interest.
Farther down, nearly at the foot of the hill, I see a few huts, or rather a few low, almost crushed roofs, which seem hardly to rise from the ground. Are they houses, or stables, or caves?
On the left bank Gauls and Romans have alike disappeared in the mists rising from the river. On the right bank the wood-cutters and the field-laborors are resting upon their axes or their ploughs, and seem to ask the sun if the day is not drawing to an end.
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A breeze is springing up, the shepherd gathers his flock and, as mournful as ever, he slowly takes the footpath that leads down the hill towards the village.
I follow him without knowing what mysterious power draws me in that direction.
Perhaps some Druid magician holds me under a potent spell, which enables me to forget who I am, whence I come, and even to what century I belong, and to witness these strange scenes, which, well nigh forgotten by all living beings, I alone am permitted to watch? Let me try, at all events, to profit by this rare piece of good fortune.
I reach the low village and find it occupied by a colony of Salic Franks, who live scattered all along the Rhine. With their eyes fixed upon the left bank, they are just now far more occupied with the invasion of Germany by the Romans, than with the thought of invading Gaul themselves.—I feel suddenly a deep interest in these people. What Frenchman of this nineteenth century can feel sure that the blood in his veins is not the same that once gave life and strength to these terrible warriors from the North, Franks or Gauls? We are all natives of one or the other bank of this great river Rhine, and feel towards each other, whether we live on the right or the left bank, very much like school-boys whose friendship is cemented by many a battle royal.
Being a Frenchman, I feel that I am about to pay a visit to my paternal ancestors—for the Franks have given us our name. No wonder that I feel deeply moved.
I examine the low huts of the village, if village it can be called, and find that they are separated from each other by commons and by fields, and that they finally lose themselves in the open country. Where now these scattered huts are standing, there may be one of these days a Mayence or a Cologne, and yet they will occupy no larger space with all their suburbs included.
On both sides of the road extend orchards, fenced in with reeds and all aglow with blooming apple trees; dark, sombre pine forests and swamps, the greenish waters of which are confined within slight dams; here and there the live rock crops out from the ground and interrupts the road, or huge trees are lying across, recently cut down and but just deprived of their branches. In the open pasture grounds huge buffaloes are lying about snorting and panting with fatigue, for they have worked all day in the plough; the neighing of horses is heard from one end of the country to the other, and gradually dies out as the sun sinks below the horizon; lean heifers, with long, spiral horns, push here and there their heads through the fence of the orchards to have a last bite at the tender foliage of the reeds, and small oxen of an inferior breed return to their quarters at the same time with the sheep, quite content to browse on the grass by the wayside, while herds of swine are wallowing in the mire of the low grounds.
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The landscape resembles parts of Bretagne and of Normandy; but these provinces have no such huts. To see a human habitation, you have to rise high above the fences and hedges and then look down upon the ground.
At a place where two roads meet, the cracking of a whip is heard; hogs, sheep, and small oxen are driven aside to make way for a kind of procession, consisting of grave and solemn men and women, who almost all wear a look of consternation.
It is a wedding.
Two young people have just had their union blessed by the priests under the sacred oak. The bride is dressed in black, and wears a wreath of dark leaves on her head; she walks in the midst of her friends, bent double, as if weighed down by overwhelming thoughts. A matron, who walks on her left, holds before her eyes a white cloth; it is a shroud, the shroud in which she will be buried one of these days. On her right, a Druid intones a chant, in which he enumerates, in solemn rhythm, all the troubles and all the anxieties which await her in wedded life.
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“From this day, young wife, thou alone wilt have to bear all the burden of your united household.
“You will have to attend the baking oven, to provide fuel, and to go in search of food; you will have to prepare the resinous torch and the lamp.
“You will wash the linen at the fountain, and you will make up all the clothing;
“You will attend to the cow, and even to the horse if your husband requires it;
“Always full of respect, you will wait upon him, standing behind him, at his meals;
“If he chooses to take more wives, you will receive your new companions with sweetness; "If needs be, you will even offer to nurse the children of these favorites, and all from obedience to your karl (master);
“If he is angry against you and strikes you, you will pray to Esus, the only God, but you will never blame your husband, who cannot do wrong.
“If he expresses a wish to take you with him to war, you will accompany him to carry his baggage, to keep his arms in good condition, and to nurse him if he should be sick or wounded.
“Happiness consists in the fulfillment of duty. Be happy, my child!”
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When I heard this dolorous wedding song, which in some parts of France is to this day addressed to brides by local minstrels, when I saw this winding-sheet, the mournful costumes and the whole funereal wedding procession, I felt overcome with sadness. Just then, cries and joyous acclamations were heard at some little distance.
Another procession came from the opposite direction to the cross-roads; there all the faces were smiling and full of joyousness.
This was a funeral.
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Such were the ways of our fathers; they rejoiced in facing death, which relieves man from all his sufferings; they had nothing but tears for man when he entered upon his trials.
In the meantime the twilight had passed into darkness. Small lights, looking like will-o’-the-wisps, were flitting to and fro in field and forest, going in all directions. Devout worshippers, carrying torches or lanterns in their hands, were going to consecrated places, to hold public worship or to recite private prayers. Some, and these were the majority, go in the direction of the oak forests, where the Druids are found; others, concealing the light of their lanterns as well as they can, go hither and thither, towards the copses of beeches and pine trees, or towards the river, or towards the hill, which was but just now shining brightly in the sunlight, but is now concealed in utter darkness.
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What are they going to do? They are going to worship the Rhine, the wells, the water-courses, the trees, the Druidical altars, and the sword-guards. For no creed yet but has had its schisms.
Orthodox or not, German or Gallic, the Franks have always shown a preference for nocturnal worship; they divide the year into moons, and count the moons not by days but by nights. And yet they have been suspected of worshipping the sun! And I had nearly fallen into the same error! How well it was that I came to see for myself!
As I am just now more interested in watching manners than in studying mythology, I pursue my investigations, especially as I know very well that we must know the lives which people lead in order to be able fully to appreciate the objects of their worship.
While all these small lights are flashing, like shooting stars, here and there through the landscape, certain specially bright lights seem to become stationary and permanent. These are the lighted-up windows of human habitations. I called the latter just now stables, or caves, and excepting a few of them, I must still call them such.
They are dug out of the ground, damp and dark; their ceiling is on a level with the surface of the earth, and their roof consists of layers of turf, or of dry thatch covered with moss. The only door resembles the lid of a snuff-box, and is set in the roof on a level with the ground. The dwelling has no light but such as enters through these trapdoors; consequently they are utterly dark during the whole rainy season and during winter, that is to say, for three fourths of the year! Darkness reigns supreme here; that darkness which is the enemy of all healthfulness, of enjoyment, of every comfort. No windows! No glass! O divine Apollo,—
“Thou of the silver bow, god of Claros, hear!”
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I never had any objection to the doctrine which made of you, the brilliant personification of the sun, a first class divinity; but I think like honors ought to have been bestowed upon the unknown man who first invented windows and window-panes, the first glazier in fine. He ought at least to have been made a demigod, and if he had to remain a simple mortal, they ought surely to have remembered his name! Alas! that high honors are as unfairly distributed in heaven as upon earth!
As there is no window, I peep through the trapdoor to see how these subterranean dwellings look inside. The aspect is far from being as wretched as I had expected. I find that the walls are hung with mattings and the floor is beaten hard; by the side of the smoking lamp which is suspended from the main beam of the ceiling, there are hanging, on hooks, a hindquarter of venison, baskets filled with provisions, and implements for fishing and hunting. Besides, I notice long strings of medicinal herbs, such as we see in the shops of herb-doctors, and among these plants the mistletoe occupies, as a matter of course, the place of honor.
In another underground hut there appear actually some traces of luxury. Here the walls are incrusted with pebbles from the Rhine, of many colors and skillfully arranged; here and there weapons are arranged in various shapes; javelins with sharp hooks; framees, such as the ancient Franks were using; hatchets of stone or iron; “morning stars,” with sharp points, were pleasantly mingled with huge bucklers; large leather quivers and long arrows feathered at one end and with jagged teeth at the other. At first sight it looks as if for the purpose of softening somewhat the threatening aspect of these panoplies, the Celtic lady of the house had added some of her jewels to these weapons. But it is not so; these gold chains, these necklaces set with onyx and rubies, are worn by the grim warriors on the day of battle, quite as much in the nature of ornaments as for the purpose of protection. One of our sober, I may say, most sober historians, ascribes to this custom of our forefathers, the Franks, the gorget, worn still by officers in some European armies. Here also I see straw mats, but here they are trod under foot; they are used as carpets, not as hangings.
The deep and spacious dwelling contains, besides the large room which alone I can see through my dormer-window, a number of other rooms on all sides, or rather of other caves, which are all connected with each other. I am evidently before the palace of one of the chief men of the country.
In the first hut, into which I had looked, I had found the people at table, drinking a beverage made from grain and herbs—cerevisia—in horns of wild bulls, and talking about business—for our ancestors talked about business at dinner, just as we do. The conversation turned about exchanges of rams, a great fishing expedition to be undertaken jointly, an invasion to be made into the territory on the other
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bank of the river, and most eagerly, about the approaching elections. For Montesquieu tells us that municipal and even constitutional government existed alike among the early Germans.
In the other dwelling, the one adorned with panoplies, they were talking neither of elections, nor of fishing, but they were likewise at table. Here they drank not only cerevisia in the horns of the brave, but also hydromel and hippocras in leathern tankards or human skulls, as white as ivory, adorned with silver and naturally shaped like cups. God be thanked that this custom has not been bequeathed to us by the Franks!
On that evening they were celebrating the welcome given to a young warrior who had already made himself known by great exploits and who belonged to a neighboring, friendly tribe.
When the meal was ended, and what a meal it was!—I shall be careful not to give the bill of fare, since the mere recital would cause an indigestion,—they thought of prolonging the entertainment given to their illustrious guest. But what could they do? The young Frankish ladies were not familiar yet with the piano, and the noble game of billiards had not yet been invented. They proposed riddles to be guessed, but this did not seem to afford much amusement to the young man. Then came a game with bones; but he nearly fell asleep. As the duty of hospitality required that they should make every possible effort to entertain their guest, a great man among the Cheruski or the Marcomanni, they proposed the handkerchief; this, seemed to arouse his attention.
The handkerchief game was at that time very popular; it was a kind of company duel. Two kind-hearted adversaries, having no other motive but to amuse themselves and to entertain the company, would seize with their left hand one end of a handkerchief, and with their right hand a table knife or a hunting knife, it did not matter which, provided the weapon was sharp and very pointed. For our good ancestors did not know foils with cork buttons or other arms of courtesy. Imbued with the strange idea that to fight, man against man, or a thousand against a thousand, was the greatest happiness upon earth, they delighted in occasionally cutting each other’s throat, even if they were the best friends in the world.
The spectators formed a ring around the combatants. After they had taken a solemn oath, by the rims of their bucklers, by the shoulders of their horses, and by the points of their swords, that they cherished no feeling of animosity against each other, a signal was given and the game commenced. For some time I saw how the handkerchief was stretched out, twisted and then suddenly turned around and around rapidly. Light red lines had already begun to mark the skin of the two adversaries; the blood was trickling down their arms, but these wounds were such trifles that the spectators took no notice of them and uttered not a single exclamation.
All of a sudden I heard three hurrahs in rapid succession; the welcomed guest, whom all had been striving to honor to the utmost of their capacity, had fallen down with his adversary’s knife still sticking in his breast. He was dead.
They had not been able to think of any better way to make him spend a pleasant evening. The good old times had a hospitality of their own!
This pleasant handkerchief game has survived, only slightly modified, in several countries of northern Europe. The handkerchief is generally wrapped around a rapier, so as to shorten the length of the blade. In the taverns of Holland the game is considered conducive to health; a knife wound gives a man a chance to escape apoplexy; it serves as a timely bleeding.
I had run away in horror. For an hour I wandered about, casting a furtive glance down a trapdoor here and there, and almost everywhere I saw men and women, horses and cattle, enjoying their rest, lying pell-mell on the same litter.
In one of these hovels I thought I recognized the young girl whom I had seen on the hill; her attitude of repose gave a peculiar charm to her supple and delicate limbs, and by the feeble flickering light of the lamp, she suggested the idea of a sleeping nymph.
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She was a young Ionian girl, a countrywoman of Aspasia; captured in war, she had been sold as a slave in twenty markets, developing in spite of such treatment, one grace and one beauty after another. On the banks of the Ilyssus, they would have erected an altar in her honor, on the banks of the Rhine they made her keep a herd of swine. She was not the only one of her sex, however, whom I saw during that fantastic night.
The sound of a shrill fife, mingling with the sweeter notes of a harp, attracted my attention. I went toward the spot from which the music came.
In a little room decked with flowers, a young woman was engaged in her toilet.
I ought to have fled once more,—this time from bashfulness or a sense of propriety,—but a conscientious historian is bound to overcome every difficulty, in order to ascertain the exact truth. It was a great piece of good luck, surely, to be able to report as an eye-witness, what might be seen in the boudoir of a Celtic lady.
My friend was sitting, half undressed, on a stool, with her hair loosened, and holding in her hand a metal mirror. An old woman, a servant or her mother, I cannot tell which—and yet it seemed to me as if I had seen both these women, as well as the beautiful swine-herd, somewhere before; when that was, however, I could not possibly tell—the old woman held the whole rich abundance of the young lady’s hair in both her hands and rubbed it with a horrid mixture of tallow, ashes, and plaster. Thanks to this wretched pomatum, the beautiful hair gradually changed from pale blonde to intense red, and thus enabled the owner to comply with a fashion, which I do not presume to criticise, but simply record here. Then she washed and combed it carefully, plaited it cunningly, and at last rubbed the shoulders and the neck of the beauty with melted butter, while she washed the face and the hands with foaming beer.
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After the demands of cleanliness had thus been satisfied, she placed before her mistress a slight collation, which was promptly served and promptly dispatched. While she was thus attending to her toilet and disposing of a bird’s meal, there was a cyclopean feast going on in an adjoining room; loud and violent voices were heard, everybody seemed to talk at once, and in such high tones that even the shrill fife could no longer be distinguished—for it was from this hall that the sound of music proceeded, which had attracted me to the dwelling.
The old woman evidently thought the feast was drawing to an end, for she hastened to finish her mistress’s toilet: She opened a wooden box and drew from it a pair of pretty red boots, which she put on the feet of the young beauty; then she threw over her white dress a purple scarf, which she fastened on the left shoulder with a long thorn from a sloe-tree. After that she tied a narrow scarlet ribbon around her head, handed her a collar and bracelets made of small berries, which in form and color were strikingly like corals, and finally, as the finishing touch, she daubed her cheeks with red by means of a cosmetic which I suspect consisted largely of brickdust. When the young Frankish beauty found that there was enough red—scarlet, crimson, purple, and pink—on her person from head to foot, she uttered a cry of triumph, especially when her husband, who entered her room, followed by his guests, seemed to be quite dazzled by the resplendent charms of his lovely wife, whom he had just bought.
To buy a woman was a familiar expression in Germany at that time, as it is now,—Ein weib kaufen. It must be borne in mind, however, that in those days the bride brought no dower; on the contrary, the husband paid her family a certain sum as compensation. We have inherited many of our usages from our Celtic forefathers; but as to this custom, we have not thought proper to keep it up.
I at once recognized the husband, although he was now all smiles in his face, and let us hope, all smiles in his heart also. He was the chief personage in the wedding procession, whom I had seen two hours before, looking so grave and solemn, so sad and mournful.
According to Druidical regulations, the bride has first of all waited upon him at table, humbly standing behind him like the other house slaves; then, towards the middle of the repast, she had gone to her room in order to exchange her girlish costume for the dress of a married woman—a woman who has the right to follow the fashions and to dress herself up in red from the heels of her feet to the end of her hair.
Now she receives her master at home; here she is mistress, and mistress she will remain. This was the rule among the Franks; for in spite of the lachrymose anthems of the bards and in spite of the sombre ceremonies of the wedding, the women became almost invariably the masters at home, a usage which, contrary to that of dowerless girls, may possibly have crossed the Rhine. Thinking it over, I found that during my nocturnal excursion into the land of my forefathers, I had been present—as a witness only, be it understood—at three successive entertainments; a feast of welcome, a business dinner, and a wedding dinner. Although they had not been calculated to satisfy my appetite, they had, at all events, made me extremely hungry. I was thinking, therefore, of retracing my steps and looking for a lodging, when I saw the Druid-bard, who had not disdained taking a seat at the nuptial feast, coming slowly and solemnly to the centre of the room, all the while drawing a few accords from, a kind of harp, which consisted of a closely bent bow with three strings instead of one.
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He was getting ready to charm the company with the recital of one of those long and mysterious poems which recount the history of the Celts. I delay my departure.
It has been said, and not without a show of reason, that the history of our Gallic or Germanic ancestors ought to be for us a subject of deep interest; but bold minds have in vain tried to raise up once more the old oak tree, to trim it and to let air and light enter within its canopy of leaves. The birds that once sang in its branches have left no trace behind them of their songs, and nothing has reached us from those sacred precincts but a few faint echoes.
I certainly have reason to praise my good fortune! What all these great scholars, these learned men, have not been able to accomplish by dint of energy and perseverance and aided by all their knowledge of Latin, Greek, and Sanskrit, I (I, the man whom you know) am enabled to do! Thanks to the bard’s long recital, I am able to fill up this blank,—the first, the only man in the history of mankind, who can throw light upon the impenetrable darkness of those ages!
The bard began. I listened, all attention and eagerness, trying to catch every sound and to impress every word upon my excellent memory.
In a pompous introduction he told us all about the first arrival of the Celts in Europe, the coming of the Druids as apostles of the true faith; he told us how a great colony of Salic Franks, Gauls, under the collective name of Pelasgi, all children of Teut, or Teutons, had first planted a sacred oak at Dodona. On this point I was already well informed. He then alluded to the building up of Athens, due as much to the Teutons as to the Greeks of Cecrops; he boasted, that when the Greeks were led astray by their corrupt imagination and wished to raise altars to Saturn, Jupiter, and all those false gods whom they had borrowed from the Egyptians and the Phoenicians, the Teutons rose in the name of outraged human reason, and proclaimed the only one God, breaking down all the false altars. Hence, he said, that formidable struggle, still so well known as the battle of the gods of Olympus against the Teutons or Titans....
I held my breath. What? Those terrible giants, those colossal men, whom Jupiter himself feared and who piled Ossa upon Pelion, or Pelion upon Ossa—they were Celts? They were the ancestors of the brave French?
O Titans, O my brothers, with what delight I listened to the sacred words of the bard, so that I might repeat them to you and rejoice with you in our glorious descent!
By special grace I understood the Germano-Celtic words of the bard without difficulty. But the poem was flowing on interminably; I began to mistrust my memory. Centuries succeeded centuries, events followed events, and they were as close to each other and as numerous as grains in a bag of wheat. The continuous exertion of all my faculties began to tell upon me. The most illustrious heroes of Gaul and of Germany appeared to me soon only like the faint forms seen by means of a magic lantern; Sigovesus and Bellovesus, the descendants of the great king Ambigat; Brennus, Btlgius, and Lutharius, sons or sons-in-law of that other great king Cambaules, began to turn around and arouad in my head, holding each other by the hand and performing an old British dance to the music of an old Breton instrument. Ariovistus played on the biniou. Then the sounds of the biniou, the shrill tones of the fife and the Druid harp were broken in upon by a terrible noise of countless church bells; the air shook all of a sudden, the earth trembled, everything around me fell to the ground with a great crash, the Druid, the house of the wedding, the trap-door, the hamlet, the trees, the hill, the Rhine and its banks, the heaven and the stars, all disappeared at the same moment, and I awoke in my arm-chair, surrounded by my poor books, which had just fallen from my knees.
The dinner bell was still ringing.
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