Page:Poet Lore, volume 36, 1925.pdf/381

 is impossible. Beyond that threshold, who knows what will await you, what insolence! Just see, no one has even come forward to greet you.

Princess.—Perhaps the miller is not at home.

Magistrate (Eagerly).—Your Grace, with your permission, I will see.

Princess.—Yes, do ask.

leaves, entering the mill.

Courtier.—Your Grace, how could you have ventured without escort! And above all to this place! Do you seek pleasure here?

Princess.—No, different people, new places, places that are unvisited by ennui. That little castle in the woods also interests me.

Courtier.—What a soltiarysolitary [sic] spot! What discomforts!

Princess.—What is comfort when it lacks peace? The little castle is most inviting, and even more so than any one of my large castles. The site by a lake, the antique structure, real mossy balustrades, the peaceful terrace, free, easy walks leading to it, and grass on their slopes, queer little nooks, and the greenish gray twilight of the forest in the quiet rooms!—Everything so different, so forsaken in the mysterious shadows! That solitude will perhaps amuse me, calm me, give me peace.

Courtier.—Perhaps, but for how long?

Princess.—Peace is everywhere a brief visitor. But if only for a day, only to have it for a moment and not to have to think (ironically) of that faithful love, of sacrificing friendship and devotion; to dream in sweet restfulness, to stand in the radiant sunshine or in the mysterious twilight, blissfully attentive, forgetful and forgotten, like a flower, like a tree! And to have that which oppressed me vanish like a cloud in the distance and fade like a glowing sky; while around everything, the forest, the lake, and the antique mossy structure, shadows of past generations might hover; and while all within me—my very soul—should merge in an appealing harmony which wafts one on and soothes one like an elegy! See, I already feel what the solitude will offer me here.