Phantastes, A Faerie Romance

But the difficulty was, to surprise the dancers. I had found that a

premeditated attempt at surprise, though executed with the utmost care

and rapidity, was of no avail. And, in my dream, it was effected by a

sudden thought suddenly executed. I saw, therefore, that there was no

plan of operation offering any probability of success, but this: to

allow my mind to be occupied with other thoughts, as I wandered around

the great centre-hall; and so wait till the impulse to enter one of the

others should happen to arise in me just at the moment when I was close

to one of the crimson curtains. For I hoped that if I entered any one of

the twelve halls at the right moment, that would as it were give me the

right of entrance to all the others, seeing they all had communication

behind. I would not diminish the hope of the right chance, by supposing

it necessary that a desire to enter should awake within me, precisely

when I was close to the curtains of the tenth hall.

At first the impulses to see recurred so continually, in spite of the

crowded imagery that kept passing through my mind, that they formed

too nearly a continuous chain, for the hope that any one of them would

succeed as a surprise. But as I persisted in banishing them, they

recurred less and less often; and after two or three, at considerable

intervals, had come when the spot where I happened to be was unsuitable,

the hope strengthened, that soon one might arise just at the right

moment; namely, when, in walking round the hall, I should be close to

one of the curtains.

At length the right moment and the impulse coincided. I darted into the

ninth hall. It was full of the most exquisite moving forms. The whole

space wavered and swam with the involutions of an intricate dance. It

seemed to break suddenly as I entered, and all made one or two bounds

towards their pedestals; but, apparently on finding that they were

thoroughly overtaken, they returned to their employment (for it seemed

with them earnest enough to be called such) without further heeding

me. Somewhat impeded by the floating crowd, I made what haste I could

towards the bottom of the hall; whence, entering the corridor, I turned

towards the tenth. I soon arrived at the corner I wanted to reach, for

the corridor was comparatively empty; but, although the dancers here,

after a little confusion, altogether disregarded my presence, I

was dismayed at beholding, even yet, a vacant pedestal. But I had a

conviction that she was near me. And as I looked at the pedestal, I

thought I saw upon it, vaguely revealed as if through overlapping folds

of drapery, the indistinct outlines of white feet. Yet there was no

sign of drapery or concealing shadow whatever. But I remembered the

descending shadow in my dream. And I hoped still in the power of my

songs; thinking that what could dispel alabaster, might likewise be

capable of dispelling what concealed my beauty now, even if it were the

demon whose darkness had overshadowed all my life.