Phantastes, A Faerie Romance

The heat of the sun soon became too intense even for passive support. I

therefore rose, and sought the shelter of one of the arcades. Wandering

along from one to another of these, wherever my heedless steps led me,

and wondering everywhere at the simple magnificence of the building, I

arrived at another hall, the roof of which was of a pale blue, spangled

with constellations of silver stars, and supported by porphyry pillars

of a paler red than ordinary.--In this house (I may remark in passing),

silver seemed everywhere preferred to gold; and such was the purity of

the air, that it showed nowhere signs of tarnishing.--The whole of the

floor of this hall, except a narrow path behind the pillars, paved with

black, was hollowed into a huge basin, many feet deep, and filled with

the purest, most liquid and radiant water. The sides of the basin were

white marble, and the bottom was paved with all kinds of refulgent

stones, of every shape and hue.

In their arrangement, you would have supposed, at first sight, that

there was no design, for they seemed to lie as if cast there from

careless and playful hands; but it was a most harmonious confusion; and

as I looked at the play of their colours, especially when the waters

were in motion, I came at last to feel as if not one little pebble could

be displaced, without injuring the effect of the whole. Beneath this

floor of the water, lay the reflection of the blue inverted roof,

fretted with its silver stars, like a second deeper sea, clasping and

upholding the first. The fairy bath was probably fed from the fountain

in the court. Led by an irresistible desire, I undressed, and plunged

into the water. It clothed me as with a new sense and its object both in

one. The waters lay so close to me, they seemed to enter and revive my

heart. I rose to the surface, shook the water from my hair, and swam as

in a rainbow, amid the coruscations of the gems below seen through the

agitation caused by my motion. Then, with open eyes, I dived, and swam

beneath the surface.

And here was a new wonder. For the basin, thus

beheld, appeared to extend on all sides like a sea, with here and there

groups as of ocean rocks, hollowed by ceaseless billows into wondrous

caves and grotesque pinnacles. Around the caves grew sea-weeds of all

hues, and the corals glowed between; while far off, I saw the glimmer

of what seemed to be creatures of human form at home in the waters. I

thought I had been enchanted; and that when I rose to the surface, I

should find myself miles from land, swimming alone upon a heaving

sea; but when my eyes emerged from the waters, I saw above me the blue

spangled vault, and the red pillars around. I dived again, and found

myself once more in the heart of a great sea. I then arose, and swam to

the edge, where I got out easily, for the water reached the very brim,

and, as I drew near washed in tiny waves over the black marble border. I

dressed, and went out, deeply refreshed.