788ページ中472ページ

From them there flowed and met two streams, like hands clasped

together: farther on the stream formed a waterfall; it fell, but

did not perish, for into the darkness of the ravine it bore upon

its waves the golden shimmer of the moon. The water fell in

sheets, and on every sheet glittered skeins of moonbeams; the

light in the ravine was dispersed into fine splinters, which the

fleeing flood seized and carried off below, but from on high the

moonbeams fell in fresh skeins. You might have thought that by

the pond a nixie157 was sitting, and with one hand was pouring

forth a fountain from a bottomless urn, while with the other she

cast sportively into the water handfuls of enchanted gold that

she took from her apron.