her heart, at that ethereal shock,
began to move more soberly. The sun that sails overhead, ploughing into
gold the fields of daylight azure and uttering the signal to man's
myriads, has no word apart for man the individual; and the moon, like a
violin, only praises and laments our private destiny. The stars alone,
cheerful whisperers, confer quietly with each of us like friends; they
give ear to our sorrows smilingly, like wise old men, rich in tolerance;
and by their double scale, so small to the eye, so vast to the
imagination, they keep before the mind the double character of man's
nature and fate.

There sat the Princess, beautifully looking upon beauty, in council with
these glad advisers. Bright like pictures, clear like a voice in the
porches of her ear, memory re-enacted the tumult of the evening: the
Countess and the dancing fan, the big Baron on his knees, the blood on
the polished floor, the knocking, the swing of the litter down the avenue
of lamps, the messenger, the cries of the charging mob; and yet all were
far away and phantasmal, and she was still healingly conscious of the
peace and glory of the night. She looked towards Mittwalden; and above
the hill-top, which already hid it from her view, a throbbing redness
hinted of fire. Better so: better so, that she should fall with tragic
greatness, lit by a blazing palace! She felt not a trace of pity for
Gondremark or of concern for Grunewald: that period of her life was
closed for ever, a wrench of wounded vanity alone surviving. She had but
one clear idea: to flee;--and another, obscure and half-rejected,
although still obeyed: to flee in the direction of the Felsenburg. She
had a duty to perform, she must free Otto--so her mind said, very coldly;
but her heart embraced the notion of that duty even with ardour, and her
hands began to yearn for the grasp of kindness.

She rose, with a start of recollection, and plunged down the slope into
the covert. The woods received and closed upon her. Once more, she
wandered and hasted in a blot, uncheered, unpiloted. Here and there,
indeed, through rents in the wood-roof, a glimmer attracted her; here and
there a tree stood out among its neighbours by some force of outline;
here and there a brushing among the leaves, a notable blackness, a dim
shine, relieved, only to exaggerate, the solid oppression of the night
and silence. And betweenwhiles, the unfeatured darkness would redouble
and the whole ear of