se of community with
her.

I found the gate to the park, through which she had just passed, only
half closed. I could not catch sight of her in the silvery twilight of
the umbrageous garden. Hastily I ran across grass plots and flower beds
to the fountain, which filled the air with the mighty noise of its
waters, and heavily as silver splashed down into the black pool.

She was not here.

Oppressed with eagerness I circled the pool and searched at the
erythrina. Here my footstep roused her; like a gray moth she fled to
the bamboo alley, and through the nocturnal vault farther and farther
away. I could not overtake her; and when we were once more in the
bright moonlight, I sank exhausted by my mad hurry, and in despair I
cried, "Mara!"

Then she paused, turned about, and, holding the palms of her hands at
her breast, as though carrying something, she slowly drew near. Her
eyes gleamed in soft pearly lustre, and rolled anxiously. When she
stood before me I felt my strength sweetly restored to me; I kissed
Mara's shadow in the grass and got up groaning. Then I saw something in
her hands glowing like purple wine, and knew at once that it was my
heart. I tried to seize it. She drew back and glided away from me.

"Give it me!" I cried in frightful need, "Give it me!"

But she fled. Then I snatched my dagger from its sheath, and with the
last ounce of my strength hurled it after her; it whirred like a silver
arrow through the moonlight and pierced her back. Seeing her fall, I
myself plunged down; my senses left me.

I awoke in a strange room. Traversing the park in the early morning,
the head gardener had found my dagger sticking in the ground, and
farther on had found me; and when he failed to rouse me, had had me
taken to his home and put to bed. Two days and nights I had lain in a
heavy sleep; now they had by force to prevent me from rising from bed,
and had to compel me to take nourishment and submit to nursing. Raising
myself on my stiff arms, I sat upright in bed, and gazed with
wide-open, restless eyes out among the trees in the park, until,
exhausted, I once again sank back and fell asleep.

HERMANN HESSE

* * * * * *

IN THE OLD "SUN" (1908)

TRANSLATED BY A. I. DU P. COLEMAN, A.M.
Professor of English Literature, College of the City of New York

Whenever, in spring or summer or even early autum