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Soelver slid noiselessly to the floor in front of her, afraid that he would be seen, in deadly terror lest she should awaken. For he knew how dreadful it might be to awaken a sleep walker and in his excited phantasy he heard already the cry of horror and madness which would issue from Gro's mouth if she awoke and saw herself in this dark, subterranean depth alone with a naked man as with a demon.
He breathed upon her ethereal kisses, which closed her lips, moistened her forehead and descended thence like a refreshing spring rain so that her lids drooped. When her eyes were closed Soelver felt for the first time quite secure.
She had crossed her hands beneath them and fastened her pure gaze upon Soelver, so that he was seized with terror and, without escaping her look, fled to the lee of the vessel to the edge of the ship. Yet Gro steadily drew nearer. Now she reached the ship's border and Soelver retreated. Step by step she followed him, the painful gaze of her deathly white face absorbed by his own.
"So abruptly came this question over her naïve soul that she fancied for a moment that this might be the punishment of fate for her longing for Soelver. This longing was desire, and desire was sin no less than the love itself. Her wish for him had grown to a fire in her blood and now she was stained by her own passion, pregnant from her own sin.
When she questioned her nurse and the latter finally put it to her, "Have you spent no night under the same roof with Soelver?" then there occurred to her the many nights "when she had dreamed of the lonely imprisoned man, who was being punished because of her.
"Soelver started upright, frightened at his own movement, for he scarcely dared breathe, much less go towards her. He felt his nakedness as a crime, even his being awake as a transgression.
Soelver whispered to his daughter at his death bed, "Gro, whatever may happen, know now that we belong to one another." She "turned her head slowly toward him and looked at him with her large eyes swollen with tears. Her look was that of a stranger and quite uncomprehending, so that Soelver understood that she did not simply deny everything but she had no recollection at all."
He fastened them with a real kiss and now, since her sleep wandering had reached its goal in his arms and Soelver was sure that her love dream was too deep to be disturbed, he whispered louder than before, 'Gro I love you! 'Soelver I love you! 'How long have you loved me? 'Longer than I have known you, Soelver. 'Why have you not said so, Gro? 'That, Soelver, I will never tell!
Her body is almost illuminated by its own light, her hair sparkles electrically when it is touched, "warm waves of light" emanate from her, which Soelver noticed at their first meeting, the sun seems expressly to seek her, a halo of impalpable beauty surrounds her and above all glows from the depths of her eyes.
Was it dream or reality, which he saw when he opened his eyes? "The sun's rays burst forth through a crack in a long, radiant arrow, which bored itself into the floor and transfixed as it were something red that began to glow." And as Soelver crept nearer his astonishment grew deeper.
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