THE WINTER NIGHT 253 



with lighter pink tints where a ridge here and there 

 catches the last reflection of the vanished day. Up in 

 the blue of the cupola shine the stars, speaking peace, as 

 they always do, those unchanging friends. In the south 

 stands a large red-yellow moon, encircled by a yellow 

 rino- and lioht orolden clouds floatiuQ- on the blue back- 

 ground. Presently the aurora borealis shakes over the 

 vault of heaven its veil of glittering silver — changing 

 now to yellow, now to green, now to red. It spreads, it 

 contracts again, in restless change; next it breaks into 

 waving, many-folded bands of shining silver, over which 

 shoot billows of glittering rays, and then the glory 

 vanishes. Presently it shimmers in tongues of flame 

 over the very zenith, and then again it shoots a bright 

 ray right up from the horizon, until the whole melts 

 away in the moonlight, and it is as though one heard the 

 sigh of a departing spirit. Here and there are left a few 

 waving streamers of light, vague as a foreboding — they 

 are the dust from the aurora's glittering cloak. But now 

 it is growing again ; new lightnings shoot up, and the 

 endless game begins afresh. And all the time this utter 

 stillness, impressive as the symphony of infinitude. I 

 have never been able to grasp the fact that this earth 

 will some day be spent and desolate and empty. To 

 what end, in that case, all this beauty, with not a creat- 

 ure to rejoice in it.^* Now I begin to divine it. 

 This is the coming earth — here are beauty and death. 

 But to what purpose 1 Ah, what is the purpose of all 



