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A FAERIE ROMANCE. |
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and motion, when she alone of assembled crowds of marble forms, would be standing rigid and cold."
But the difficulty was, to surprise the dancers. I had found that a premeditated attempt at surprise, though executed with the utmost care and rapidity, was of no avail. And, in my dream, it was effected by a sudden thought suddenly executed. I saw, therefore, that there was no plan of operation offering any probability of success, but this: to allow my mind to be occupied with other thoughts, as I wandered around the great centre-hall; and so wait till the impulse to enter one of the others should happen to arise in me just at the moment when I was close to one of the crimson curtains. For I hoped that if I entered any one of the twelve halls at the right moment, that would as it were give me the right of entrance to all the others, seeing they all had communication behind. I would not diminish the hope of the right chance, by supposing it necessary that the desire to enter should awake within me, precisely when I was close to the curtains of the tenth hall.
At first, the impulses to see recurred so continually, in spite of the crowded imagery that kept passing through my mind, that they formed too
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