[Scene I]

A black carriage rushing through the mountains of Carpathia.
The only passenger - the main character of this drama.

Titan wood and haunted hill, vales in which the wolf doth kill...
Wisps that in the morass glow mounts with diadems of snow...
Fog that swirls o'er moor and heath, the tawny owl sings from the trees...
From the ponds the old toad calls, this is where our drapery falls...
Eight hooves that pound the midnight groove...

Over stock and stone a carriage that winds upward the mountain pass, deep into the wild.
Crushing stone and shatt'ring bough under wooden wheel and moonlight breaks in spruce and fir and paints the night unreal.

With ruthless hand and turbid eyes the coachman drives his brute that snarls and sniffs but rushes on to escape that spook...
Six hours as the raven flies - still - to acquinted land...
Six hours till the sun wiil rise and morning shall ascent.

- Sleep my dear, don't bother thee with the idle talk of curse and evil blood that runeth in thy veins...
- In the cabin lies asleep unblessed by fevered dreams, traveller on his way home towards the sun's first beams...