ful!" He finally brings me a volume of some German encyclopædia, and opens it at the article "Wagner," which he expects me to read.
I am so upset that I nearly break down. Resting my head on the back of the sofa, I look up at the ceiling to swallow down my tears as they well up. And I begin to weave fancies.
A wonderful immemorial forest, through which, clad in armour, knights are riding on white steeds. Most lofty oaks, strong-limbed and gnarled, with black trunks and dark-blue foliage, strike their roots deep into the ground. Amid mosses in hue like malachite, ferns put forth their sprays of sea-green lace. Fairies dance merrily among the trees, and scatter round them pearls of ringing laughter. And far away, lost in reverie, upon a dark, enchanted lake there floats a swan. A strange, clear, chilly splendour illuminates the twilight.
All at once a thunderbolt, a red thunderbolt falls: and the oak forest and the lake vanish into the depths of the earth. … Yet thunderstorms only take place on sultry summer days.
