There came a fleecy, yellow cloud driving across the sky. It collided with the grey cloud wall, and in a few seconds the wind formed a picture of the yellow and blue, of a bird of giant size, which tore itself free from the blue mêlée and with wide fluttering wings disappeared in the sky. Then the storm became audible and rain mixed with hail rattled down. A short burst of thunder with an unnatural and terrific sound cracked over the whipped landscape. Immediately after the sun broke through and on the mountains close at hand above brown woods glistened, pale and unreal, the fresh snow. When I returned after several hours, wet from the rain and wind, Demian himself opened the front door to me. He took me with him up to his room. A gas flame burned in the laboratory, paper lay about, he appeared to have been working. “Sit down,” he invited, “you must be tired, it was a terrible storm; it’s evident, you were overtaken by it. Tea is coming at once.” “Something is the matter to-day,” I began hesitatingly, “it can’t only be that bit of a storm.” He looked at me penetratingly. “Have you seen anything?” “Yes. I saw a picture clearly in the clouds, for an instant.” “What sort of a picture?” “It was a bird.” “The hawk? Was it that? The bird of your dream?” “Yes, it was my hawk. It was yellow and of giant size, it flew up into the blue-black heaven.” Demian took a deep breath. Someone knocked at the door. The aged servant brought in tea. “Take a cup, Sinclair, do. I don’t think it was by chance you saw the bird.” “Chance? Does one see such things by chance?” “Well, no. It means something. Do you know what?” “No. I only feel, it means a violent shock, the approach of fate. I think it will affect all of us.” He walked violently up and down. “The approach of fate!” he exclaimed loudly. “I dreamed the same thing myself last night, and my mother yesterday had a premonition, portending the same thing. I dreamed I was going up a ladder, placed against a tree trunk or a tower. When I reached the top I saw the whole country. It was a wide plain, with towns and villages burning. I cannot yet relate everything, because it isn’t all quite clear to me.” “Do you interpret the dream as affecting you?” I asked.