“At once he felt a blow and a jerk, that made him think he had been struck by lightning. His eyes were blinded, and it seemed as though a violent whirlwind was hurling him through the immeasurable space. As terrified and giddy he felt about him with his hands, he touched indeed the mossy stone on which he had been standing, and therefore in his mind regained the earth, but now he had a new and unpleasant sign. For as previously he had been flung about the universe like an atom, it now seemed to him as if his body were infinitely extended. Amid the most frightful agonies, this newly-wakened power forced his limbs to such a monstrous size, that he thought he must be touching the sky. The bones of his head and chest were become as capacious as temples; into his ears fell strange, heavenly sounds of distracting effect, and he said to himself: ‘That is the song of the stars in their golden orbits.’ The pains at last were exchanged for a titillating pleasurable sensation, during which he felt his body again shrink up to its ordinary size, while the gigantic form remained standing around him like an outer shell, or a kind of atmosphere in aërial outline. The darkness left his eyes, while great, yellow-shining surfaces of light, as with the sensation of dazzling, freed themselves from the pupils and glided into the corners, where they gradually disappeared. “While he thus regained his sight, a clear-toned, sweet chorus--he did not know whether it was the birds alone, or whether the boughs, bushes, and grasses joined in--sang quite plainly round him: ‘Yes, he shall hear it, Yes, he must bear it; To us he belongs alone. Soon will he By the green-wood tree, Be dumb and cold as a stone.’ “In the block of mossy rock a light murmuring was audible. It seemed as though the stone wished to move itself and could not, like one in a trance. The student looked upon its surface, and lo! the green and red veins were running together into a very ancient countenance, which from its weary eyes looked upon him with such a mournful and supplicating aspect, that he turned aside with horror, and sought consolation among the trees, plants, and birds.