The Vision of the Fountain (From "Twice Told Tales")

A fifteen-year-old newcomer to a country village discovers a crystal spring and beholds an evanescent, idealized female image in its waters, which sparks an obsessive longing. He returns repeatedly to the wood and fountain, letting imagined rivals and romances populate an inner romance that increasingly supplants outward life. Absence and winter deepen his melancholy until, on the eve of departure, the vision briefly reappears in the firelight of a dim parlor. The narrative examines the porous boundary between fancy and reality, portraying youthful yearning, the consolations and torments of solitary reverie, and the power of imagination to transmute ordinary scenes into haunting presences.