A terrifying tale from the legends of ballad poetry. It enjoys great fame in world literature. It has been translated into every language and has inspired great artists to marvelous paintings and to some of the most powerful pieces of music.

At the break of dawn 'Lenora' started up, fleeing from troubled dreams, asking herself: 'O Wilhelm, my husband! Has death struck you down and fate's arrow found its mark in you? Or has passion led you astray, so that you have betrayed my covenant and broken your pledge to me? Can your absence stretch out longer than this!'

For on the very night of the wedding, the husband had ridden away in the train of King Frederick to the field of battle at the city of Prague, and from that time he had sent her no word of his welfare.

But the two adversaries, the King and the Empress, grew weary of these bloody battles; their fury sub-sided little by little, and at last they concluded peace. And both armies turned back, homeward bound, amid the blowing of trumpets and the ringing of cymbals, crowned with garlands of fresh green leaves.

The roads and bridges surged from every quarter with unending streams of young and old hurrying out to meet them. How many a son and wife cried out at the sight of their provider: Thanks be to God! And every betrothed girl threw herself into her betrothed's arms, murmuring: Welcome! All except 'Lenora' — alas! She waited long, and in vain, for the kiss of reunion; then she went scouring the ranks

up and down in every direction, questioning the returning men, but not one quenched her thirst with news of her beloved husband...

And now they were all gone. She flung herself upon the ground, tearing loose her hair and writhing, dazed and raving.

Her mother rushed to her: 'God keep you! What has befallen you, my poor child?' — and clasped her to her breast.

— Oh mother, mother, he is dead! Dead! Perish the world and everything in it. There is no mercy with God. O woe! O woe is me!

— May God be your help and pardon you! My child, entreat the Lord of the heavens. Whatever He does in this is for the best. He will not withhold His succor from us.

— Oh mother, mother! You are deluded. God has forsaken me. What good did all the prayers I offered do? What good are they to me today?

— Lord, have mercy! Whoever knows God with the knowledge of certainty is certain that He does not forsake His servants. The mystery of the holy sacrament will wipe away all your pains, by His leave.

— Oh mother! How can a sacra-ment bring the dead back to life...?

— Gently, my child. How do you know? Perhaps he betrayed your love and tied the bonds of intimacy with some other girl. Forget him, then, and turn away from his memory. Come now! God will not grant him a good end. His abode will be hell — and a wretched fate it is!

— Oh mother, mother, what is

dead is dead. What we have lost, we have lost for all eternity. Nothing remains for me but death for my watering place.

Would that I had never been born, had never been anything at all! O flame of my life, go out — go out in the dreadful darkness of nothingness. There is no mercy with God. Ah, how wretched I am!

— Lord, have mercy! Do not call my daughter to account for what has escaped her lips; she does not know what she is saying. Do not reckon it up against her as sins and offenses. And you, my child, forget the cares of earth and remember God and the bliss of heaven. A bridegroom still remains for you in the heavens.

— Oh mother, what is bliss? Mother, what is hell? Bliss is wherever Wilhelm is, and hell is wherever he is not. Go out, O flame of my life, in the dreadful darkness of nothingness. There is no mercy with God. Ah, how wretched I am!

Thus the fit of unbridled despair split her heart and rent her soul, as she railed against divine Providence and heaped reproaches upon it. And so she remained, beating her breast in grief and terror and wringing her hands in pain and anguish, until the sun sank away into the unseen and the shining stars stepped forth into the vault of the sky.

But... what sound is this, in the depth of night, outside the house? Tap! Tap! Tap! Like the fall of a horse's hooves... Then it is as if a rider dismounts, and the clink of his weapons is heard... And now he is climbing the stair... Hush, hush...