Ossip Schubin

For two nights she had had no sleep; on the third she was exhausted and slept soundly, and dreamed a sweet--wonderfully sweet dream.

It seemed to her that she met her beloved in the garden. A delicious perfume was wafted from the crown of the lindens, soft greenish shadows spread twilight over the earth, and all nature, as in measureless rapture, held its breath, no lightest touch of air stirred--she lay in his arms, love-enchanted and his lips closed her mouth.

Thus she dreamed--when suddenly she sprang up as if one had struck her heart with an iron hammer.

Was not that the sound of a horse's hoof which broke on the stillness of night? In her long white nightdress she flew to the window.

She recognised him, notwithstanding the speed of his horse, and in spite of the curtain of darkness with which midnight sought to veil his figure. She bent far over the window-breasting and stretched out her arms; a frightful longing confused her senses, and she sang--poor child!--without knowing what the words meant:

"Si tu veux m'apaiser
Redonne--moi la vie
Par l'esprit d'un baiser.

"Heureux sera le jour
Quand je mourrai d'amour!"

Louder and louder the voice swelled out, piercing as a cry of anguish; yet full of a powerful sweetness the song echoed through the sultry stillness of night. It struck the ear of the rider. He checked his horse, looked around him, and then spurred the animal anew until he leaped wildly on.

She bent forward--farther forward,--"Plus d'espoir!" she groaned. Her heart was so heavy, so heavy! Beneath, the dew glistened like a silver sheen over the azure fields, out of which an angel seemed calling her to "Cool rest--cool rest!"

She bent forward--forward! and then fell many, many fathoms deep into the moat below.

* * * * *

The heavy fall was heard in the castle, and soon the servants with torches hurried forth to see what had happened.

There, below, glimmered something white as a blossom broken off by the storm. They climbed down. The light of the torches played over a pale, lovely face which smiled in death. She was not disfigured, not a particle of dust, not a speck of mud or soil of earth, adhered to her white garment, although she had fallen among plants growing in the mud. In spotless purity the white folds wound about her beautiful limbs. And when the people saw this, they marvelled, and said, "A miracle!" Then one pressed through the throng, deathly pale with distorted face--Henri de Lancy!

But Gottfried coldly turned him away from the dead maiden.

Right tenderly the old soldier lifted the lovely body in his arms, murmuring:

"Her heart was broken--she is released!"