d with heavy air, the wonder work must be found
which she was to seek in her short lifetime. It must gleam brighter
than all the gas-flames, stronger than the moon that was just
gliding past.

Yes, certainly, she saw it yonder in the distance, it gleamed
before her, and twinkled and glittered like the evening star in the
sky.

She saw a glittering portal open, that led to a little garden,
where all was brightness and dance music. Colored lamps surrounded
little lakes, in which were water-plants of colored metal, from
whose flowers jets of water spurted up. Beautiful weeping willows,
real products of spring, hung their fresh branches over these lakes
like a fresh, green, transparent, and yet screening veil. In the
bushes burnt an open fire, throwing a red twilight over the quiet huts
of branches, into which the sounds of music penetrated--an ear
tickling, intoxicating music, that sent the blood coursing through the
veins.

Beautiful girls in festive attire, with pleasant smiles on their
lips, and the light spirit of youth in their hearts--"Marys," with
roses in their hair, but without carriage and postilion--flitted to
and fro in the wild dance.

Where were the heads, where the feet? As if stung by tarantulas,
they sprang, laughed, rejoiced, as if in their ecstacies they were
going to embrace all the world.

The Dryad felt herself torn with them into the whirl of the dance.
Round her delicate foot clung the silken boot, chestnut brown in
color, like the ribbon that floated from her hair down upon her bare
shoulders. The green silk dress waved in large folds, but did not
entirely hide the pretty foot and ankle.

Had she come to the enchanted Garden of Armida? What was the
name of the place?

The name glittered in gas-jets over the entrance. It was
"Mabille."

The soaring upwards of rockets, the splashing of fountains, and
the popping of champagne corks accompanied the wild bacchantic
dance. Over the whole glided the moon through the air, clear, but with
a somewhat crooked face.

A wild joviality seemed to rush through the Dryad, as though she
were intoxicated with opium. Her eyes spoke, her lips spoke, but the
sound of violins and of flutes drowned the sound of her voice. Her
partner whispered words to her which she did not understand, nor do we
understand them. He stretched out his arms to draw her to him, but
he embraced only the empty air.

The Dryad had been carried away, like a rose-leaf on the wind.