I
remembered somehow that my mother died when I was a baby. I
looked deeper and deeper, till they spread around me like seas,
and I sank in their waters. I forgot all the rest, till I found
myself at the window, whose gloomy curtains were withdrawn, and
where I stood gazing on a whole heaven of stars, small and
sparkling in the moonlight. Below lay a sea, still as death and
hoary in the moon, sweeping into bays and around capes and
islands, away, away, I knew not whither. Alas! it was no sea,
but a low bog burnished by the moon. "Surely there is such a sea
somewhere!" said I to myself. A low sweet voice beside me
replied--
"In Fairy Land, Anodos."
I turned, but saw no one. I closed the secretary, and went to my
own room, and to bed.
All this I recalled as I lay with half-closed eyes. I was soon
to find the truth of the lady's promise, that this day I should
discover the road into Fairy Land.
CHAPTER II
"`Where is the stream?' cried he, with tears. `Seest thou its not
in blue waves above us?' He looked up, and lo! the blue stream
was flowing gently over their heads."
--NOVALIS, Heinrich von Ofterdingen.
While these strange events were passing through my mind, I
suddenly, as one awakes to the consciousness that the sea has
been moaning by him for hours, or that the storm has been howling
about his window all night, became aware of the sound of running
water near me; and, looking out of bed, I saw that a large green
marble basin, in which I was wont to wash, and which stood on a
low pedestal of the same material in a corner of my room, was
overflowing like a spring; and that a stream of clear water was
running over the carpet, all the length of the room, finding its
outlet I knew not where.
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