And my breast rises in a convulsive struggle but the coffin lid pushes it back. I strain my head against the wood to burst it, but it lies upon me like a mountain. My body seems to burn. To protect it I burrow in the saw-dust which fills mouth and eyes with its biting chaff. I try to cry out but my throat is paralysed. I want to pray but instead of thoughts the lightnings of madness shoot through my brain. I feel only one thing that threatens to dissolve all my body into a stream of flame and that penetrates my whole being with immeasurable might: "I must live ... live...!" There, in my sorest need, I think of the faery who upon my desire brought me by magic to my grave. "Thea, I beseech you. I have sinned against the world and myself. It was cowardly and slothful to doubt of life so long as a spark of life and power glowed in my veins. Let me arise, I beseech you, from the torments of hell--let me arise!" And behold: the boards of the coffin fall from me like a wornout garment. The earth rolls down on both sides of me and unites beneath me in order to raise my body. I open my eyes and perceive myself to be lying in dark grass. Through the bent limbs of trees the grave stars look down upon me. The black crosses stand in the evening glow, and past the railings of grave-plots my eyes blink out into the blossoming world. The crickets chirp about me in the grass, and the nightingale begins to sing anew. Half dazed I pull myself together. Waves of fragrance and melting shadows extend into the distance. Suddenly I see next to me on the grave mound a crouching gray figure. Between a veil tossed back I see a countenance, pallid and lovely, with smooth dark hair and a madonna-like face. About the softly smiling mouth is an expression of gentle loftiness such as is seen in those martyrs who joyfully bleed to death from the mightiness of their love. Her eyes look down upon me in smiling peace, clear and soulful, the measure of all goodness, the mirror of all beauty. I know the dark gleam of those eyes, I know that gray, soft veil, I know that poor sick hand, white as a blossom, that leans upon a crutch. It is she, my faery, whose tears have awakened me from the dead. All my defiance vanishes. I lie upon the earth before her and kiss the hem of her garment. And she inclines her head and stretches her hand out to me. With the help of that hand I arise. Holding this poor, sick hand, I stride joyfully back into life. Chapter VI. I sought my faery and I found her not. I sought her upon the flowery fields of the South and on the ragged moors of the Northland; in the eternal snow of Alpine ridges and in the black folds of the nether earth; in the iridescent glitter of the boulevard and in the sounding desolation of the sea.... And I found her not.