None move, all eyes are cast down; they cannot bear the strange light in his wandering glances. 'Ah! do you not know we are all dreaming? My sleep is torpid, stubborn, accursed, but the dawn is here, and I must soon awake!' So saying he moves out upon the gallery, where suddenly a new thought appears to strike him; he leans over the marble balustrade, looks to the right and left, then exclaims: 'Guests, we will go out to seek the young betrothed; it is strange they should have gone out to walk so early!' He descends the vaulted stairway by which his nephew had ascended but a short time before. He stoops at the foot of the hill, picks some roses, murmuring: 'For my good child. Move silently, friends, she loved this bower of jessamines; we will surprise her here, and be the first to say good morning to the bride.' With drooping heads his guests follow his steps as he glides along under the sad firs and stately pines. Pathways stretch before them, leading into forest depths and over mossy banks, or climbing hillsides laden with vines. The old man often calls his daughter loudly by her name; the laughing echoes answer mockingly; the followers burst into tears. Striking his forehead suddenly and violently with his hands, he cries: 'The dream! the nightmare! Why should it look to me so like truth? When will the _true_ sun rise upon me?' Then he rushes to a sturdy pine, embraces its rough trunk with both his arms, strikes his head against it: 'Awake me, thou hard bark--awake me from this dreadful dream!' Turning back, he seizes one of the nearest of his followers by the throat, crying: 'Wrestle with thy lord, thou phantom of a servant, and wake him from his dream accursed!' The frightened servant slips away and flees. The old man sighs, raises his eyes to heaven, an expression of submission to a divinely appointed torment shines for a moment upon his quivering features, as if he humbly offered to God the tortures of this cruel dream in penance for his sins. He walks on calmly for a while, then says: 'The bride is certainly on the lake; we will find her there.' The sun is fully up now, drinking the dews from the leaves, and lighting up the waves of the lake with splendor. Large beaked boats with heraldic banners are rocking in the coves. Fastening the roses he had gathered for his child in his bosom, he walks to the shore, with fever burning more and more vividly in his face. No one ventures to suggest a return to the castle. Accustomed to obey the unbending will of their lord, they still pay homage to it, though it is no longer a thing of this world. Dark as midnight seems the day dawn to them; their own brains seem seething into madness. 'Perhaps she sails in one of her own light boats round the lake with her husband; she may be behind the fringe of willows, or among the little islands. Hallo! six of you take the oars; we will soon find her.' They obey, he seats himself within, they push from shore.