Her laughing face has grown severe and solemn. Her body seems to have grown. Noble and lordly as a judge she stands before me. I stretch my neck; I peer at the chest. There it lies, gleaming and silent, the old sword. A beam of moonlight glides along the old blade, drawing a long, straight line. But what do those dark spots mean which have eaten hollows into the metal? "That is blood," says my friend and crosses her arms upon her breast. I shiver but my eyes seem to have grown fast to the terrible image. "Come," says Thea. "I can't." "Do you want it?" "What? The sword?" She nods. "But may you give it away? Does it belong to you?" "I may do anything. Everything belongs to me." A horror grips me with its iron fist. "Give it to me!" I cry shuddering. The iron lightening gleams up and it lies cold and moist in my arms. It seems to me as though the blood upon it began to flow afresh. My arms feel dead, the sword falls from them and sinks upon the strings. These begin to moan and sing. Their sounds are almost like cries of pain. "Take care," cries my friend. "The sword may rend the strings; it is heavier than you." We fly out into the moonlit night. But our flight is slower than before. My friend breathes hard and the harp swings to and fro like a paper kite in danger of fluttering to earth. But I pay no attention to all that. Something very amusing captures my senses. Something has become alive in the moon which floats, a golden disc, amid the clouds. Something black and cleft twitches to and fro on her nether side. I look more sharply and discover a pair of old riding-boots in which stick two long, lean legs. The leather on the inner side of the boots is old and worn and glimmers with a dull discoloured light. "Since when does the moon march on legs through the world?" I ask myself and begin to laugh. And suddenly I see something black on the upper side of the moon--something that wags funnily up and down. I strain my eyes and recognise my old friend Muenchausen's phantastic beard and moustache. He has grasped the edges of the moon's disc with his long lean fingers and laughs, laughs. "I want to go there," I call to my friend. She turns around. Her childlike face has now become grave and madonna like. She seems to have aged by years. Her words echo in my ear like the sounds of broken chimes. "He who carries the sword cannot mount to the moon." My boyish stubbornness revolts. "But I want to get to my friend Muenchausen." "He who carries the sword has no friend." I jump up and tug at the guiding riband. The harp capsises.... I fall into emptiness ... the sword above me ... it penetrates my body ... I fall ... I fall.... "Yes, yes," says my mother, "why do you call so fearfully? I am awake." Calmly she took the knitting-needle from behind her ear, stuck it into the wool and wrapped the unfinished stocking about it. Chapter III.