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By a strange decree of fate, along that same shore was riding the

Count, at the head of his band of jockeys; and, carried away by

the charm of so fair a night, and by the marvellous harmony of

that subaqueous orchestra, of those choruses that rang like

Aeolian harps (for no frogs sing so beautifully as those of

Poland), he checked his horse and forgot about his expedition. He

turned his ear to the pond and listened curiously; he ran his

eyes over the fields, over the expanse of the heavens: he was

evidently composing in his thoughts a nocturnal landscape.