f her.
"How could I?" returned Anna, looking confidingly in his eyes, and
laying her hand on her heart.
"Very well," cried Frederick. "You
will not. God damn me if I ever see you again!" He rushed out like a mad
man.
"Frederick," cried Anna after him, "Do stay, stay a moment, listen how
the wind is howling."
She was starting to hurry after him when her dress brushed against the
candle placed low down on an oak-block; it fell over and set fire to the
flax which burst at once into powerful flames. Frederick, crazed with
wine and anger, forced himself, as usually happens in such moments, to
sing a song as he strode out into the night, which had turned out to be
very stormy. The familiar tones, in wild hilarity, penetrated to where
Anna was. "Oh! oh!" she sighed from the depth of her heart. Then for the
first time she noticed that half of the room was already on fire.
Beating with her hands and stamping with her feet she threw herself upon
the greedy flames which, hot and burning, leaped toward her and scorched
her. Frederick's voice died away in the distance in a last halloo.
"Pshaw, why should I put it out, let it be!" she cried, and slamming the
door behind her with all her might, she hurried out with a horrible
laugh, involuntarily following the same path through the garden that
Frederick had taken.
Soon, however, she sank down, exhausted, almost fainting, in a meadow
which adjoined the garden, and groaning aloud pressed her face into the
cold, wet grass. Thus she lay for a long time.
Then from far and near the fire and alarm bells sounded, hollow and
terrifying. She half raised herself, but did not look around. Above her
the sky was blood-red and full of sparks; an unnatural heat was
spreading, and increasing from minute to minute. The wind howled and
roared, the flames crackled, wails and shouts resounded. She lay down
again at full length on the ground, and it seemed to her as though she
could sleep. But the next moment she was frightened out of this
death-like state by the words of two people hurrying past her, one of
whom cried out, "Lord have mercy on us! the village is already burning!"
She pulled herself together then with a superhuman effort, and hurried,
with flying hair, down to the village, which adjoined the burning side
of the castle. There, in more than one place the inflammable straw roofs
had already burst into flame.
The wind grew stronger and stronger. Most of the inhabitants, with the
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