"It was for this that smoke was ever issuing from the chimney of his laboratory; for this that sparks and flames were always there. And I was there too," said the wind. "'Hollo, hollo!' I sang through the chimney. There were steam, smoke, embers, ashes. 'You will burn yourself up--take care, take care!' But Waldemar Daae did _not_ take care.
"The splendid horses in the stables, what became of them?--the silver and the gold plate, the cows in the fields, the furniture, the house itself? Yes, they could be smelted--smelted in the crucibles; and yet no gold was obtained.
"All was empty in the barns and in the pantry, in the cellars and in the loft. The fewer people, the more mice. One pane of glass was cracked, another was broken. I did not require to go in by the door," said the wind. "When the kitchen chimney is smoking, dinner is preparing; but there the smoke rolled from the chimney for that which devoured all repasts--for the yellow gold.
"I blew through the castle gate like a warder blowing his horn; but there was no warder," said the wind. "I turned the weathercock above the tower--it sounded like a watchman snoring inside the tower; but no watchman was there--it was only kept by rats and mice. Poverty presided at the table--poverty sat in the clothes' chests and in the store-rooms. The doors fell off their hinges--there came cracks and crevices everywhere. I went in, and I went out," said the wind; "therefore I knew what was going on.
"Amidst smoke and ashes--amidst anxiety and sleepless nights--Waldemar Daae's hair had turned grey; so had his beard and the thin locks on his forehead; his skin had become wrinkled and yellow, his eyes ever straining after gold--the expected gold.
"I whisked smoke and ashes into his face and beard: debts came instead of gold. I sang through the broken windows and cracked walls--came moaning in to the daughter's cheerless room, where the old bed-gear was faded and threadbare, but had still to hold out. Such a song was not sung at the children's cradles. High life had become wretched life. I was the only one then who sang loudly in the castle," said the wind. "I snowed them in, and they said they were comfortable. They had no wood to burn--the trees had been felled from which they would have got it. It was a sharp frost. I rushed through loopholes and corridors, over roofs and walls, to keep up my activity. In their poor chamber lay the three aristocratic daughters in their bed to keep themselves warm. To be as poor as church mice--that was high life! Wheugh! Would they give it up? But Herr Daae could not.