ooding the landscape with flame and color, the Danube wound
toward the horizon like a band of gold and fire, and the vine-dressers
on all the hills throughout the country were glad and gay. I was
sitting with the Porter on the bench before my cottage, enjoying the
mild air and the gradual fading to twilight of the brilliant day.
Suddenly the horns of the returning hunting-party sounded on the
air; the notes were tossed from hill to hill by the echoes. My soul
delighted in it all, and I sprang up and exclaimed, in an intoxication
of joy, "That is what I ought to follow in life, the huntsman's noble
calling!" But the Porter quietly knocked the ashes out of his pipe and
said, "You only think so; I've tried it. You hardly earn the shoes you
wear out, and you're never without a cough or a cold from perpetually
getting your feet wet." I cannot tell how it was, but upon hearing him
speak thus, I was seized with such a fit of foolish rage that I fairly
trembled. On a sudden the entire fellow, with his bedizened coat, his
big feet, his snuff, his big nose, and everything about him, became
odious to me. Quite beside myself, I seized him by the breast of his
coat and said, "Home with you, Porter, on the instant, or I'll send
you there in a way you won't like!" At these words the Porter was
more than ever convinced that I was crazy. He gazed at me with evident
fear, extricated himself from my grasp, and went without a word,
looking reproachfully back at me, and striding toward the castle,
where he reported me as stark, staring mad.

But after all I burst into a hearty laugh, glad in fact to be rid of
the pompous fellow, for it was just the hour when I was wont to carry
my nosegay to the arbor. I clambered over the wall, and was just about
to place the flowers on the marble table, when I heard the sound of a
horse's hoofs at some distance. There was no time for escape; my Lady
fair was riding slowly along the avenue in a green hunting-habit,
apparently lost in thought. All that I had read in an old book of my
father's about the beautiful Magelona came into my head--how she used
to appear among the tall forest-trees, when horns were echoing and
evening shadows were flitting through the glades. I could not
stir from the spot. She started when she perceived me and paused
involuntarily. I was as if intoxicated with intense joy, dread, and
the throbbing of my heart, and when I saw that she actually wore at
her breast the flowers I had le