He measured his bounds so that with each he was hidden behind massive tree-trunks: there were old maples and beeches still standing among the pines, and he hid behind each of them, then bounded on, until he had escaped from himself, as from a prison. He leapt on—he knew nothing of himself save the moment. Now he thought he was Uncle Leopold pursuing a peasant girl like a faun in the forest, now that he was a criminal and murderer like Gotthilff, with the sheriff’s men after him. But he contrived to elude them—fell on his knees before the Empress …

All at once he felt that a human being was really watching from close by. So even this was poisoned! He crouched behind a hazel-bush, as still as an animal. The man in the little clearing, fifty paces in front of him, was peering into the wood. When he had heard nothing for a while he went on with his work. He was digging. Andreas leapt towards him from tree to tree. When a twig cracked the man outside looked up from his work, but at last Andreas came quite close to him. It was one of the farm-hands from Castell Finazzer. He buried the house dog, then threw the earth back into the grave, flattened it down with his spade, and went away.

Andreas threw himself on to the grave and lay for a long time in heavy thought. “Here!” he said to himself. “Here! All this wandering about is futile, we cannot escape from ourselves. We are dragged hither and thither, they sent me all this long way—at last it comes to an end somewhere—here!” There was something between him and the dog, he did not know what, just as there was something between him and Gotthilff, who had brought about the dog’s death. Threads ran to and fro, and out of them a world was woven, behind the real one, and not so empty and desolate. Then he was amazed at himself: “Why am I here?” And he felt as if another man were lying there, and that he must enter into him, but had forgotten the word.

Evening had fallen without a gleam of red in the sky, without any of the signs with which the beauty of the changing day is made manifest. From the heavy clouds a dismal gloom descended, and from the misty air a quiet rain began to fall on Andreas as he lay on the grave. He felt cold, rose, and went down.

In his dream that night the sun was shining. He went deeper and deeper into the forest and found Romana. The deeper he went into the forest the brighter it shone: in the middle, where everything was darkest and most radiant, he found her sitting on a little island meadow, round which shining water flowed. She had fallen asleep hay-making, her sickle and rake beside her. As he stepped over the water she looked up at him, but as she would look at a stranger. He called to her: “Romana, can you see me?” Her eyes moved so vacantly.

“Why, yes, of course,” she said. “Do you know, I don’t know where the dog is buried.”

He felt strange, could not help laughing at what she said. She shrank from him in fear, stumbled into the heap of hay and sank half down on to the ground like a wounded doe. He was close to her and felt that she took him for the wicked Gotthilff, and yet not for Gotthilff either, and he himself was not quite sure who he was. She besought him not to tie her naked to the bed in front of all the people, and not to run away on a stolen horse. He took hold of her, called her tenderly by her name—she was distraught with fear. He let her go: she struggled after him on her knees.

“Come back! I will go with you, if it were to the gallows.