ith
these glad advisers. Bright like pictures, clear like a voice in the
porches of her ear, memory re-enacted the tumult of the evening: the
Countess and the dancing fan, the big Baron on his knees, the blood on
the polished floor, the knocking, the swing of the litter down the
avenue of lamps, the messenger, the cries of the charging mob; and yet
all were far away and phantasmal, and she was still healingly conscious
of the peace and glory of the night. She looked towards Mittwalden; and
above the hill-top, which already hid it from her view, a throbbing
redness hinted of fire. Better so: better so, that she should fall with
tragic greatness, lit by a blazing palace! She felt not a trace of pity
for Gondremark or of concern for Gruenewald: that period of her life was
closed for ever, a wrench of wounded vanity alone surviving. She had but
one clear idea: to flee;--and another, obscure and half-rejected,
although still obeyed: to flee in the direction of the Felsenburg. She
had a duty to perform, she must free Otto--so her mind said, very
coldly; but her heart embraced the notion of that duty even with ardour,
and her hands began to yearn for the grasp of kindness.

She rose, with a start of recollection, and plunged down the slope into
the covert. The woods received and closed upon her. Once more, she
wandered and hasted in a blot, uncheered, unpiloted. Here and there,
indeed, through rents in the wood-roof, a glimmer attracted her; here
and there a tree stood out among its neighbours by some force of
outline; here and there a brushing among the leaves, a notable
blackness, a dim shine, relieved, only to exaggerate, the solid
oppression of the night and silence. And betweenwhiles, the unfeatured
darkness would redouble and the whole ear of night appear to be gloating
on her steps. Now she would stand still, and the silence would grow and
grow, till it weighed upon her breathing; and then she would address
herself again to run, stumbling, falling, and still hurrying the more.
And presently the whole wood rocked and began to run along with her. The
noise of her own mad passage through the silence spread and echoed, and
filled the night with terror. Panic hunted her: Panic from the trees
reached forth with clutching branches; the darkness was lit up and
peopled with strange forms and faces. She strangled and fled before her
fears. And yet in the last fortress, reason, blown upon by these gusts
of terror, still shone with