Her sentiments besides are
not very clear even to herself. "Do you doubt my heart?" she asks
reassuringly; "Do you doubt that it is full of kindness toward
you? What is it, tell me, makes you so unhappy? What suspicion
darkens your mind?"--"Oh, your father's heart is set upon riches.
And you, Senta, how should I count upon you? Do you ever grant
one of my requests? Do you not daily hurt and afflict my
heart?"--"Afflict your heart?..." she asks in wonder. "What am I
to think?" he goes on to show the jealous core of his unhappiness;
"That picture..."--"What picture?..."--"Will you renounce your
extravagant imaginings?"--"Can I keep from my face the compassion
I feel?"--"And that ballad... you sang it again to-day."--"I am a
child," she excuses herself, "and sing I know not what! Are you afraid
of a song, a picture?"--"You are so pale!" he replies, studying her
face dubiously; "Tell me, have I no reason to be afraid?"--"Should
I not be moved by the terrible doom of that unhappiest man?"--"But
my sufferings, Senta, do they no longer move you?"--"Oh, vaunt not
your sufferings!" she cries, almost impatiently; "What can your
sufferings be? Do you know what the fate is of that poor soul?" She
draws him before the picture, and while indicating it to him gazes
raptly at it herself; "Can you not feel the woe, the inexpressible
deep misery in the eyes which he turns upon me? Oh, the calamity
which robbed him eternally of rest, the sense of it pierces my
heart!" Veritable alarm seizes Erik at the earnestness she exhibits,
an alarm to something more vital even than his alert jealousy, a
terrible fear for her as apart from himself. "Woe's me!" he exclaims,
"I am reminded of my ill-boding dream! God have you in his care,
Satan has cast his toils about you!"--"What frightens you so?"
she asks wearily. It is as if excess of emotion had brought on an
immense fatigue; she sinks exhausted in the grand-sire's chair.
"Let me tell you of it, Senta. It is a dream, hear and be warned
by it." She leans back with closed eyes, and as he narrates it is
as if having fallen asleep she saw in dream what he describes.
"Upon the high cliff I lay dreaming. Beneath me I saw the expanse
of the sea; I could hear the surf where it breaks foaming against
the beach. I espied a foreign ship close to shore, a strange ship,
extraordinary. Two men drew toward land. One of them, I saw it,
was your father."--"And the other?" she asks, like a somnambulist,
without op