ousness on those
sensitive beauties, who discontentedly shut their white petals and
yellow stamens in a hard, leather-like sheath as soon as the sun
ceased to show itself.

One sunshiny day the outlaws came to this tarn to fish. They waded
out to a couple of big stones in the midst of the reed forest and
sat there and threw out bait for the big, green-striped pickerel
that lay and slept near the surface of the water.

These men, who were always wandering in the woods and the
mountains, had, without their knowing it themselves, come under
nature's rule as much as the plants and the animals. When the sun
shone, they were open-hearted and brave, but in the evening, as
soon as the sun had disappeared, they became silent; and the night,
which seemed to them much greater and more powerful than the day,
made them anxious and helpless. Now the green light, which slanted
in between the rushes and colored the water with brown and
dark-green streaked with gold, affected their mood until they were
ready for any miracle. Every outlook was shut off. Sometimes the
reeds rocked in an imperceptible wind, their stalks rustled, and
the long, ribbon-like leaves fluttered against their faces. They
sat in gray skins on the gray stones. The shadows in the skins
repeated the shadows of the weather-beaten, mossy stone. Each saw
his companion in his silence and immovability change into a stone
image. But in among the rushes swam mighty fishes with rainbow-colored
backs. When the men threw out their hooks and saw the circles
spreading among the reeds, it seemed as if the motion grew stronger
and stronger, until they perceived that it was not caused only by
their cast. A sea-nymph, half human, half a shining fish, lay and
slept on the surface of the water. She lay on her back with her
whole body under water. The waves so nearly covered her that they
had not noticed her before. It was her breathing that caused the
motion of the waves. But there was nothing strange in her lying
there, and when the next instant she was gone, they were not sure
that she had not been only an illusion.

The green light entered through the eyes into the brain like a
gentle intoxication. The men sat and stared with dulled thoughts,
seeing visions among the reeds, of which they did not dare to tell
one another. Their catch was poor. The day was devoted to dreams
and apparitions.

The stroke of oars was heard among the rushes, and they started up
as from sleep. The