le the daughter without a word's reply continues in her fixed
contemplation of his face, he speaks aside: "Tell me, did I praise
her too highly? Now you see her in person, does she rightly please
you? Must I add more still to my overflowing praise? Confess that she
is an ornament to her sex!" The Hollander answers by an expressive
gesture, his eyes fast all the while upon the maiden's face. The
father turns anew to the daughter, and, without further preamble:
"My child, let it please you to show favour to this man. He requests
a goodly gift from your heart. Reach him your hand, for he shall
be your bridegroom. If you are of a like mind with your father,
to-morrow he shall be your husband." She shrinks, painfully, at
this bluntness and precipitancy. The father, not noticing, unpockets
jewels to show her. "Look at this circlet, behold these clasps.
The sum of his possessions makes these the merest trifle. How,
my precious child, should you not care for them? And it will all
be yours for the exchanging of rings with him. But... neither of
you speaks...." He looks at them in turn. They have neither heeded
nor heard, they are lost in contemplation of each other. "Am I in
the way?" They do not hear that either. "I clearly am," he says
to himself. "The best will be to leave them alone together." With a
parting private word to the daughter: "May you win this noble man!
Believe me, such good fortune is not common!" and to the Dutchman:
"I leave you to yourselves, and betake myself away. Believe me, fair
as she is, she is no less true than fair!" he discreetly withdraws.

The strange predestined lovers stand for long moments steadily
gazing at each other, almost unconsciously, without motion to draw
nearer--or further apart. Each of them voices his thoughts, not
speaking to the other, but, dreamily, to himself. He murmurs: "As
if out of the distance of long-past days speaks to me the semblance
of this maiden. Even such as through dread eternities I dreamed
her, I behold her now here before my eyes. From the black depths
of my night I too have ventured to raise my longing eyes upon a
woman. Satan's malice left me a living heart, alas, that I might
never lose consciousness of my torment. The sullen glow which I
feel burning in my breast, should I, unhappy man, call it love?
Ah, no, the longing it is for redemption! Oh, might redemption be
my portion through such an angel as she is!" And she speaks, to
herself, half-aloud: "Have I