I
know it, I feel it! heart would have come into me and I should have
been quite another man; nay, I might have carried it so far that when
one or other of them asked, `What o'clock may it be?' or 'What is
it they are playing?' I should have started up with light grace, and
without overturning my glass or stumbling over the bench, but in a
curved posture, moving one step and a half forward, I should have
answered: 'Give me leave, Mademoiselle! it is the overture of the
_Donauweibchen_;' or, 'It is just going to strike six.' Could any
mortal in the world have taken it ill of me? No! I say; the girls
would have looked over, smiling so roguishly, as they always do when
I pluck up heart to show them that I too understand the light tone of
society, and know how ladies should be spoken to. But here--the Devil
leads me into that cursed apple-basket, and now must I sit moping
in solitude, with nothing but a poor pipe of----" Here the student
Anselmus was interrupted in his soliloquy by a strange rustling and
whisking, which rose close by him in the grass, but soon glided up
into the twigs and leaves of the elder-tree that stretched out over
his head. It was as if the evening wind were shaking the leaves; as if
little birds were twittering among the branches, moving their little
wings in capricious flutter to and fro. Then he heard a whispering and
lisping; and it seemed as if the blossoms were sounding like
little crystal bells.
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