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The dawn was beginning to turn gray the only window of the donjon-tower, when I was awakened in my granite bed by the distant notes of a hunting-horn. I know of no sound more sad and melancholy than the vibrations of its tones, just at morning twilight, when all is still, and no breath, no whisper comes to disturb the perfect quiet of solitude; it is the final note, especially, that, spreading over the immense plain and awaking the far-off echoes of the mountain, stirs us to the heart with its pure, poetic quality.
Leaning with my elbow on the bearskin, I listened to this plaintive cry, that seemed to be invoking memories of the Feudal Ages. The aspect of my chamber, with its low, ragged arch, and, further on, the little window with its panes set in lead, midway between the alcove and the corridor, the ceiling more wide than high, and deeply hollowed in the wall, -- in short, every detail of this ancient den of the Wolf of Nideck served to realize my fancy.