I put down my knife and fork and
went out of doors; for in this strange land I, with my German tongue,
seemed to have sunk down fathoms deep into the sea, where all sorts
of unfamiliar, crawling creatures were gliding about me, peopling the
solitude and glaring and snapping at me.
Outside, the summer night was warm and inviting. From the distant
vineyards a laborer's song now and then fell on the ear; there was
lightning low on the horizon, and the landscape seemed to tremble and
whisper in the moonlight. Sometimes I thought I perceived a tall,
dim figure gliding behind the hazel hedge in front of the house and
peeping through the twigs, and then all would be motionless. Suddenly
Herr Guido appeared on the balcony above me. He did not see me, and
began to play with great skill on a zither which he must have found in
the house, singing to it like a nightingale:
"When the yearning heart is stilled
As in dreams, the forest sighing,
To the listening earth replying,
Tells the thoughts with which 'twas filled:
Days long vanished, soothing sorrow--
From the Past a light they borrow,
And the heart is gently thrilled."
I do not know whether he sang any more, for I had stretched myself on
a bench outside the door, and I fell asleep in the warm air from sheer
exhaustion.
A couple of hours must have passed, when I was roused by the winding
of a post-horn, which sounded merrily in my dreams for a while before
I fully recovered consciousness.
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