The wedding is imminent,
and Leda is sorely perplexed. Her father does not know why she is so
indifferent to the approaching event and accordingly sends her to a
distant and lonely castle in the hope that she may become interested,
at least, in her own nuptials. While there she drowns herself in the
swan lake. Alberto drops out of the story, and Cephalo becomes the
intimate friend of the duke. Previous to this Alberto had ordered a
certain painter to paint a picture of "Leda and the Swan." Danae, the
daughter of an old, unscrupulous antiquarian, was seen by Cephalo
while posing as a model for Leda. Enraged at this, she tells her
father that she will not be appeased until married to Cephalo. But she
loses her life through the falling of an old, dilapidated castle
wherein she has been keeping an unconventional tryst, and Cephalo
becomes the intimate friend of the painter.
Loeben's ideas and technique stand out in every line of this story.
One woman is placed between two men, unexpected friendships are
developed, the lute and the zither are played in the moonlight, love
and longing abound, nature is made a confidant, _der Zaubern der
Kunst_ is overdone, familiar stories--Leda and the Swan, Actaeon and
Danae--are interwoven, there are manifest reminiscences of _Emilia
Galotti_ and _Ofterdingen_, and the prose is uncommonly fluent.
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