The Wind Tells about Valdemar Daae and His Daughters

But then those eyes became larger and larger - until they seemed about to burst.

"Behold the alchemistic glass! I glittered, glowing, pure and heavy; he lifted it with faltering hand; he cried with stumbling tongue, 'Gold! Gold!' He staggered, dizzy, and I could have blown him down as he stood," said the Wind, "but I only blew on the live coals, then followed him through the door to where his daughters sat, shivering. Ashes sprinkled his beard, clung to his dress, and lay in his matted hair. He stood erect and lifted high his treasure in its fragile glass. 'I've found it! I've won!' he cried. 'Gold!' The glass flashed in the sunbeams as he held it high - and then, lo! his hand trembled so that the alchemistic glass fell to the floor and shivered into a thousand fragments! His last bubble had burst! Whew, whew, whew! On, on, on! And I went on, away from the alchemist's home.

"Toward the end of that year, during the short days when the mist flings wet drops on the red berries and leafless branches, I came back in happy spirits, swept the heavens clean, and broke off the dead branches; that is not very hard work, to be sure, but it has to be done. And at the same time there was a different sort of sweeping and cleaning out at Borreby Mansion. Valdemar Daae's old enemy, Ove Ramel, of Basnaes, was there with the mortgage on the mansion and all its contents. I drummed on the broken panes, beat against the ruined doors, and whistled through the cracks and chinks; Master Ove shouldn't find it pleasant to stay there. Ide and Anna Dorothea wept quietly; Johanne stood pale and stately and bit her thumb till it bled; but all that did no good.

"Ove Ramel generously offered to allow Mr. Daae to remain at the mansion during his lifetime, but he got no thanks for the gesture. I listened, and noticed how the homeless old nobleman held his head more proudly than ever. I rushed against the mansion and the old lime trees, so that the thickest branch broke off - and it wasn't a rotten one, either.