u.--"But thou and I have chattered enough, old
fellow. It is time to sleep."

"It is time!"

The huge mountains slumber; the green, clear heaven slumbers over the
earth which has grown dumb forever.

February, 1878.

THE OLD WOMAN

I was walking across a spacious field, alone.

And suddenly I thought I heard light, cautious footsteps behind my
back.... Some one was following me.

I glanced round and beheld a tiny, bent old woman, all enveloped in grey
rags. The old woman's face was visible from beneath them: a yellow,
wrinkled, sharp-nosed, toothless face.

I stepped up to her.... She halted.

"Who art thou? What dost thou want? Art thou a beggar? Dost thou expect
alms?"

The old woman made no answer. I bent down to her and perceived that both
her eyes were veiled with a semi-transparent, whitish membrane or film,
such as some birds have; therewith they protect their eyes from too
brilliant a light.

But in the old woman's case that film did not move and reveal the
pupils ... from which I inferred that she was blind.

"Dost thou want alms?" I repeated my question.--"Why art thou following
me?"--But, as before, the old woman did not answer, and merely shrank
back almost imperceptibly.

I turned from her and went my way.

And lo! again I hear behind me those same light, measured footsteps
which seem to be creeping stealthily up.

"There's that woman again!" I said to myself.--"Why has she attached
herself to me?"--But at this point I mentally added: "Probably, owing to
her blindness, she has lost her way, and now she is guiding herself by
the sound of my steps, in order to come out, in company with me, at some
inhabited place. Yes, yes; that is it."

But a strange uneasiness gradually gained possession of my thoughts: it
began to seem to me as though that old woman were not only following
me, but were guiding me,--that she was thrusting me now to the right,
now to the left, and that I was involuntarily obeying her.

Still I continue to walk on ... but now, in front of me, directly in my
road, something looms up black and expands ... some sort of pit.... "The
grave!" flashes through my mind.--"That is where she is driving me!"

I wheel abruptly round. Again the old woman is before me ... but she
sees! She gazes at me with large, evil eyes which bode me ill ... the
eyes of a bird of prey.... I bend down to her face, to her eyes....
Again there is the same film, the same blind, dull visage as