ded her of something; she felt she had
heard such sounds before, though she could not remember where and when.
But suddenly it flashed across her that the music resembled Albrecht's
song; it was Albrecht's song, only transfigured as it were, and a
thousand times more beautiful in her dream than in reality. More
beautiful, and at the same time as though it belonged to the days
of youth and spring which Albrecht had never known. The satyr ceased
playing and the pleasant noises of the world began once more. The
shining figure who stood before him looked on the satyr with divine
scorn and smiled a radiant, merciless smile. Then he struck his lyre and
Nature once more was dumb.

"But this time the magic was of another kind and a thousand times more
mighty; a song rose into the air which leapt and soared like a flame,
imperious as the flashing of a sword, triumphant as the waving of a
banner, wonderful as the dawn and fresh as the laughing sea. And once
more Princess Kunigmunde was aware that the music was familiar to her.
She had heard something like it in the chapel that evening, when in the
darkness Franz had played and sung the hymn that he had composed in her
honour. Only now it was more than human, unearthly and divine. As soon
as he ceased an eclipse seemed to darken the world, a thick cloud of
rolling darkness; there was a crash of thunder, a flash of lightning,
and out of the blackness came a piteous, human cry, the cry of a
creature in anguish, and then a faint moaning.

"Presently all was still, but the dark cloud remained, and she heard a
mocking laugh and the accents of a clear, scornful voice (she recognised
the voice, it was the voice of Albrecht), and the voice said: 'Thou hast
conquered, Apollo, and cruelly hast thou used thy victory; and cruelly
has thou punished me for daring to challenge thy divine skill. It was
mad indeed to compete with a god; and yet shall I avenge my wrong and
thy harshness shall recoil on thee. For not even gods can be unjust with
impunity, and the Fates are above us all. And I shall be avenged; for
all thy sons shall suffer what I have suffered; and there is not one of
them that shall escape the doom and not share the fate of Marsyas the
Satyr, whom thou didst cruelly slay. The music and the skill which shall
be their inheritance shall be the cause to them of sorrow and grief
unending and pitiless pain and misery. Their life shall be as bitter to
them as my death has been to me. The