The gypsy girl is waiting on the roof for the smuggler, her lover, to come home over the hills from the sea She leans over the rail, staring at the hills and the moon. The green weeds in the cistern throw back a green glow over everything. Her longing becomes an obsession embracing everything he stands for; the sea, the moist wind of the lush green world where there is no thirst and frustration. She is tired of waiting for a lover.

But who will come, and from where?

She is dreaming of being married; dreaming of living a rich and fulfilled life, but finally, overwhelmed by the apparent impossibility of attaining her desires she commits suicide by throwing herself into the pool ("she cannot see anything").

The smuggler comes home mortally wounded. He tries to ask for the hand of his friend's daughter:

friend, i want to change
my horse for your house

and the girl's father tries to tell him she has committed suicide:

no more i am myself
nor is my house now my house

Then the civil guard knock on the door.

Both characters are taken up with their own sorrows, and dont seem to understand what the other is saying. They share, however, the beautiful hour before dawn. The girl, suspended by an icicle of moonlight is still attached to this world, but now only thru the images of her longings and dreams, and thus all three are united in dreams.