Then I got down as quickly
as possible, and went through the quiet garden to my dwelling. I
paused many times at spots where I had seen her pass, or where I had
lain in the shade and thought of her.
In and about my cottage all was just as I had left it the day before.
The garden was torn up and laid waste, the big account-book lay
open on the table in my room, my fiddle, which I had almost clean
forgotten, hung dusty on the wall; a ray of morning light glittered
upon the strings. It struck a chord in my heart. "Yes," I said, "come
here, thou faithful instrument! Our kingdom is not of this world!"
So I took the fiddle from the wall, and leaving behind me the
account-book, dressing-gown, slippers, pipes, and parasol, I walked
out of my cottage, as poor as when I entered it, and down along the
gleaming high-road.
I looked back often and often; I felt very strange, sad, and yet
merry, like a bird escaping from his cage. And when I had walked some
distance I took out my fiddle and sang--
"I wander on, in God confiding,
For all are His, wood, field, and fell;
O'er earth and skies He still presiding,
For me will order all things well."
The castle, the garden, and the spires of Vienna vanished behind me
in the morning mists; far above me countless larks exulted in the air;
thus, past gay villages and hamlets and over green hills, I wandered
on toward Italy.
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