pressing his fist against his bent brow, he ran to the meadows, where,
below, the ponds glittered, and took his stand above the one with marshy
banks; in its greenish depths he buried his greedy gaze and drew into his
breast with joy the swampy odours, and opened his lips to them; for
suicide, like all wild passions, springs from the imagination: in the
giddy whirling of his brain he felt an unspeakable longing to drown
himself in the swamp.

But Telimena, guessing the young man's despair from his wild gestures, and
seeing that he had run towards the ponds, although she burned with such
just wrath against him, was nevertheless alarmed; in reality she had a
kind heart. She had felt sorrow that Thaddeus dared to love another; she
had wished to punish him, but she had not thought of destroying him. So
she rushed after him, raising both her arms and crying: "Stop! What folly!
Love me or not! Get married or depart! Only stop!----" But in his swift
course he had far outstripped her; he already--was standing at the shore!

By a strange decree of fate, along that same shore was riding the Count,
at the head of his band of jockeys; and, carried away by the charm of so
fair a night, and by the marvellous harmony of that subaqueous orchestra,
of those choruses that rang like AEolian harps (for no frogs sing so
beautifully as those of Poland), he checked his horse and forgot about his
expedition. He turned his ear to the pond and listened curiously; he ran
his eyes over the fields, over the expanse of the heavens: he was
evidently composing in his thoughts a nocturnal landscape.

In very truth, the neighbourhood was picturesque! The two ponds inclined
their faces towards each other like a pair of lovers. The right pond had
waters smooth and pure as a maiden's cheeks; the left was somewhat darker,
like the swarthy face of a youth, already shaded with manly down. The
right was encircled with glittering golden sand as if with bright hair;
but the brow of the left bristled with osiers, and was tufted with
willows: both ponds were clothed in a garment of green.

From them there flowed and met two streams, like hands clasped together:
farther on the stream formed a waterfall; it fell, but did not perish, for
into the darkness of the ravine it bore upon its waves the golden shimmer
of the moon. The water fell in sheets, and on every sheet glittered skeins
of moonbeams; the light in the ravine was dispersed into fine splinters,
which the