CHAPTER II

"`Where is the stream?' cried he, with tears. `Seest thou its not

in blue waves above us?'　 He looked up, and lo! the blue stream

was flowing gently over their heads."

　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　 --NOVALIS, Heinrich von Ofterdingen.

While these strange events were passing through my mind, I

suddenly, as one awakes to the consciousness that the sea has

been moaning by him for hours, or that the storm has been howling

about his window all night, became aware of the sound of running

water near me; and, looking out of bed, I saw that a large green

marble basin, in which I was wont to wash, and which stood on a

low pedestal of the same material in a corner of my room, was

overflowing like a spring; and that a stream of clear water was

running over the carpet, all the length of the room, finding its

outlet I knew not where.[makoto1] 　 And, stranger still, where this carpet,

which I had myself designed to imitate a field of grass and

daisies, bordered the course of the little stream, the grass-

blades and daisies seemed to wave in a tiny breeze that followed

the water's flow; while under the rivulet they bent and swayed

with every motion of the changeful current, as if they were about

to dissolve with it, and, forsaking their fixed form, become

fluent as the waters.[makoto2] 

My dressing-table was an old-fashioned piece of furniture of

black oak, with drawers all down the front.　 These were

elaborately carved in foliage, of which ivy formed the chief

part.　 The nearer end of this table remained just as it had been,

but on the further end a singular change had commenced.　 I

happened to fix my eye on a little cluster of ivy-leaves.　 The

first of these was evidently the work of the carver; the next

looked curious; the third was unmistakable ivy; and just beyond

it a tendril of clematis had twined itself about the gilt handle

of one of the drawers.　 Hearing next a slight motion above me, I

looked up, and saw that the branches and leaves designed upon the

curtains of my bed were slightly in motion.[makoto3] 　 Not knowing what

change might follow next, I thought it high time to get up; and,

springing from the bed, my bare feet alighted upon a cool green

sward; and although I dressed in all haste, I found myself

completing my toilet under the boughs of a great tree, whose top

waved in the golden stream of the sunrise with many interchanging

lights, and with shadows of leaf and branch gliding over leaf and

branch, as the cool morning wind swung it to and fro, like a

sinking sea-wave.[makoto4] 

After washing as well as I could in the clear stream, I rose and

looked around me.　 The tree under which I seemed to have lain all

night was one of the advanced guard of a dense forest, towards

which the rivulet ran.　 Faint traces of a footpath, much

overgrown with grass and moss, and with here and there a

pimpernel even, were discernible along the right bank.

"This," thought I, "must surely be the path into Fairy Land,

which the lady of last night promised I should so soon find."　 I

crossed the rivulet, and accompanied it, keeping the footpath on

its right bank, until it led me, as I expected, into the wood.

Here I left it, without any good reason: and with a vague feeling

that I ought to have followed its course, I took a more southerly

direction.[makoto5]