ashes. His skin grew grimy and yellow,
and his eyes greedy for gold, the long expected gold.

'I whistled through the broken panes and fissures; I blew into the
daughters' chests where their clothes lay faded and threadbare; they had
to last for ever. A song like this had never been sung over the cradles
of these children. A lordly life became a woeful life! I was the only
one to sing in the castle now,' said the wind. 'I snowed them up, for
they said it gave warmth. They had no firewood, for the forest was cut
down where they should have got it. There was a biting frost. Even I had
to keep rushing through the crannies and passages to keep myself lively.
They stayed in bed to keep themselves warm, those noble ladies. Their
father crept about under a fur rug. Nothing to bite, and nothing to
burn! a lordly life indeed! Whew! whew! let it go! But this was what
Waldemar Daa could not do.

'"After winter comes the spring," said he; "a good time will come after
a time of need; but they make us wait their pleasure, wait! The castle
is mortgaged, we are in extremities--and yet the gold will come--at
Easter!"

'I heard him murmur to the spider's web.--"You clever little weaver! You
teach me to persevere! If your web is broken, you begin at the beginning
again and complete it! Broken again--and cheerfully you begin it over
again. That is what one must do, and one will be rewarded!"

'It was Easter morning, the bells were ringing, and the sun was at play
in the heavens. Waldemar Daa had watched through the night with his
blood at fever pitch; boiling and cooling, mixing and distilling. I
heard him sigh like a despairing soul; I heard him pray, and I felt that
he held his breath. The lamp had gone out, but he never noticed it; I
blew up the embers and they shone upon his ashen face, which took a
tinge of colour from their light; his eyes started in their sockets,
they grew larger and larger, as if they would leap out.

'Look at the alchemist's glass! something twinkles in it; it is glowing,
pure and heavy. He lifted it with a trembling hand and shouted with a
trembling voice: "Gold! gold!" He reeled, and I could easily have blown
him over,' said the wind, 'but I only blew upon the embers, and followed
him to the room where his daughters sat shivering. His coat was powdered
with ash, as well as his beard and his matted hair. He drew himself up
to his full height and held up his precious treasure, in the fragile
glass: "Found!