night might be taken for spirits of the powers of nature. The mountain-
dweller saw them through the panes of his little window. They sailed in
hosts before the Ice Maiden as she came out of her palace of ice. Then she
seated herself on the trunk of the fir-tree as on a broken skiff, and the water
from the glaciers carried her down the river to the open lake.
“The wedding guests are coming,” sounded from air and sea. These were
the sights and sounds without; within there were visions, for Babette had a
wonderful dream. She dreamt that she had been married to Rudy for many
years, and that, one day when he was out chamois hunting, and she alone in
their dwelling at home, the young Englishman with the golden whiskers sat
with her. His eyes were quite eloquent, and his words possessed a magic
power; he offered her his hand, and she was obliged to follow him. They
went out of the house and stepped downwards, always downwards, and it
seemed to Babette as if she had a weight on her heart which continually
grew heavier. She felt she was committing a sin against Rudy, a sin against
God. Suddenly she found herself forsaken, her clothes torn by the thorns,
and her hair gray; she looked upwards in her agony, and there, on the edge
of the rock, she espied Rudy. She stretched out her arms to him, but she did
not venture to call him or to pray; and had she called him, it would have
been useless, for it was not Rudy, only his hunting coat and hat hanging on
an alpenstock, as the hunters sometimes arrange them to deceive the
chamois. “Oh!” she exclaimed in her agony; “oh, that I had died on the
happiest day of my life, my wedding-day. O my God, it would have been a
mercy and a blessing had Rudy travelled far away from me, and I had never
known him. None know what will happen in the future.” And then, in
ungodly despair, she cast herself down into the deep rocky gulf. The spell
was broken; a cry of terror escaped her, and she awoke.
The dream was over; it had vanished. But she knew she had dreamt
something frightful about the young Englishman, yet months had passed
since she had seen him or even thought of him. Was he still at Montreux,
and should she meet him there on her wedding day? A slight shadow passed
over her pretty mouth as she thought of this, and she knit her brows; but the
