The life of a good-for-nothing

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JOSEPH, FREIHERR VON ETCHENDORFF WaS bom in SilcSia

in 1788. He studied law at Halle and Heidelberg, and then
lived in Vienna until 181 3, when he joined the Prussian
army. In 18 16 he was appointed to a judicial office at
Breslau, and this appointment was followed by similar
ones at Danzig, Konigsberg and Berlin. He died at Neisse
in 1857.

Eichendorff is best known for his lyric poetry, and is one
of the finest poets of the later German romantic school.
Many of his poems, celebrating the moods of nature and
the life of the wanderer, have been set to music by Schubert.
He also wrote plays and short romances, and of these
Aus dem Leben eines Taugenichts, which appeared in 1826, is
the most famous.

,.

THE LIFE OF A
GOOD-FOR-NOTHING

THE LIFE OF A
GOOD-FOR-NOTHING

JOSEPH, FREIHERR von EICHENDORFF

TRANSLATED FROM THE GERMAN BY MICHAEL GLENNY

BLACKIE

LONDON & GLASGO\7

Copyright © /bis translation by Blackie c^ Son Ltd.

Blackic & Son Ltd., 5 Fitzhardinge Street, London, W.i

Bishopbriggs, Glasgow

Blackie & Son (India) Ltd., Bombay

Printed in Great Britain bj BlackJe (& Son Ltd., Glasgow

THE LIFE OF A
GOOD-FOR-NOTHING

^^^<©>><*??>#^^^^^^

Once more the wheel of my father's mill was humming
and gurgling right merrily, the snow was dripping busily
from the roof and the sparrows twittering and bustling
back and forth as I sat upon the threshold and rubbed
the sleep from my eyes; I loved to be in the warm sun-
shine. Then my father stepped out of the house; since
daybreak he had been a-rummaging in the mill, his night-
cap askew on his head. Said he to me: 'You good-for-
nothing! There you sit sunning yourself, lolling and
stretching your limbs to exhaustion and leaving me to do
all the work alone. I can feed you here no longer. Spring's
at the gate, go out into the world and earn your own
bread for once in your life.'

'Well,' said I, 'if I am a good-for-nothing, so be it; I
will set out and make my fortune.' Indeed I was glad
to go, for I had lately been thinking of setting off on my
travels; I could hear how the yellow-hammer, who all
autumn and winter had piped sadly at our window —
'Farmer, hire me. Farmer, hire me' — now in the sweet
springtime had proudly changed his tune to a gay
'Farmer can /^^^^ his work!'

So I went indoors and took down my fiddle, which I
played well enough. My father gave me a few groats for

the road and I sauntered down the long village street and
away. To my secret joy I saw all my old friends and
comrades going out to work, to dig and plough as they
had done yesterday and the day before and would do
forever, while I strolled out so free into the wide world.
Proud and happy I called adieu right and left to the poor
people, but not one of them paid me heed. It was as if
life were an endless Sunday, and when at last I reached
the open fields I put up my beloved fiddle and played and
sang as I went along:

The man elect to God's salvation
Moves in a world where wonders teem.
Is shown the wonders of creation
In mountain, wood, in field and stream.

Slow spirits by their firesides lying
Are never quickened by the morn.
They understand an infant crying.
And care and need and hope forlorn.

Streams gush and babble down the mountain,
A lark rides on the shining air,
I, too, must sing with lark and fountain.
Full-throated, fresh and free of care. f

God's ways and works charm and content me,
His streams, his larks, his heaven, his earth:
Each field and wood in which he sent me
Has brought me joy and blessed my birth.

As I looked about me there drew near to me an elegant
travelling coach, which must have been driving along
behind me for some time without my perceiving it, so
full was my heart with music; for it was driving quite
slowly and two fine ladies were stretching their heads out

of the coach and Ustening to me. One of them was
especially beautiful and younger than the other, but in
truth I liked both of them. As I stopped singing the
elder of the two ordered the coach to halt and said
graciously to me : *Now there's a merry lad who can sing
a pretty song.' To which I answered smartly: 'If it were
to oblige your grace I could sing some much sweeter.'
Whereat she questioned me further: *And where might
he be going so early this fine morning ?' I was ashamed,
not knowing myself whither I was bound, but said
boldly: 'To Vienna.' They then spoke to each other in a
strange language which I did not understand. The
younger of them shook her head several times, but the
other only laughed and laughed and finally called to me :
'Jump up behind, we are going to Vienna.' What an
invitation ! I made a bow and was up behind the coach in
one leap, the coachman cracked his whip and we flew off
along the shining road at a pace that made the wind
whistle round my hat.

Village, garden and church tower now faded behind
me as, new villages, castles and mountains appeared
ahead; standing corn, bushes and meadows flew gaily by,
countless larks sang in the clear blue air. I was too shy to
shout aloud, but inwardly I rejoiced and stamped and
danced about so much on the running-board that I soon
almost lost my fiddle which I was holding under my arm.
But as the sun climbed higher and higher, the heavy white
midday clouds rose up round the horizon; as everything
in the air and on the broad plain grew empty and a sultry
calm settled over the gently waving cornfields, only then
did I .remember my village, my father and our mill, how

5

still and cool it had been by the shady mill-pool and how
far, far behind me it now all lay. I had a curious feeling,
as though I must turn back; I stuck my fiddle between
jacket and waistcoat, sat down pensively on the running-
board and fell asleep.

When I opened my eyes the coach had stopped under
some tall lime trees, beyond which broad steps led
between columns up to a stately castle. Beyond, I saw
the towers of Vienna through the trees. The ladies, it
seemed, had long since alighted and the horses had
been unharnessed. Sitting there all alone I took fright
and as I ran into the house I heard laughter from a
window.

I was wonderfully pleased to be in this great palace. As
I cast my first looks around in the cool, spacious entrance
hall, someone tapped me on the shoulder with a stick. I
turned round and there stood a tall gentleman in livery, a
broad sash of silk and gold hanging down to his waist, a
silver-topped staff in his hand and an unusually long,
curved imperial nose on his face, as grand as a puffed-up
turkey-cock, who asked me who I was and what I wanted
here. I was dumbfounded and speechless with fear and
amazement. At that moment a host of servants came
running from above and below stairs, saying nothing, but
looking me up and down from top to toe. Then a chamber-
maid (as I later learned she was) came straight up to me
and said that I was a charming boy and that her gracious
mistress wished to know if I cared to serve her as a
gardener's lad. I clutched my waistcoat; my few groats
must, I suppose, have been flung out of their pocket by
the jolting of the coach and were gone. I had nothing but

4

my fiddle for wliich, the gentleman with the staff had said
as he walked by, he would not give me a penny. In my
anguish at this I said to the chambermaid, *Yes,' still
gazing sideways at the menacing figure who continued to
pace up and down the hallway like the pendulum of a
church clock and who was just approaching again from
the further part of the hall with awful and majestic tread.
Finally the gardener appeared, muttered into his beard
something about vagabonds and peasant bumpkins and
led me to the garden, subjecting me to a lengthy homily
on the way : how I was always to be sober and industrious,
not to wander abroad, not to waste time on unprofitable
and useless occupations and how I might then, with
time, come to some good. There were many more fair,
well-phrased and useful precepts, but I have meanwhile
as good as forgotten them all. I was still not entirely sure
what had happened to me, but merely answered Yes to it
all, for I felt like a bird whose wings had been doused.
At least, thank God, I was assured of my bread and
butter.

Life in the garden was pleasant. I had my daily fill of
hot food and more money <"han I needed for wine, only
unfortunately I also had rather much to do. I delighted
in the temples, bowers and fair green alleyways and would
have loved them more had I but been allowed to walk
round them at my ease and in sensible discourse as did the
gentlemen and ladies who daily visited the garden.
Whenever the gardener was away and I was alone, I
would at once take out my short pipe, sit down and
imagine all the polite turns of speech which I should
address, were I her suitor, to the beautiful young lady

5

who had brought me here. Or on sultry afternoons I
would lie on my back, when everything was so quiet that
the only sound was the humming of the bees, and watch
the clouds above me flying towards my village, the grasses
and flowers swaying to and fro ; as I thought of that lady
it would often happen that the fair creature would pass
through the garden in the distance, a guitar or a book in
her hand, so quiet, so angeUcally charming that I was not
sure whether I was dreaming or waking.

One day, as I was passing a summer-house on my way
to work, I was singing this song to myself:

Where'ere my roaming finds me.
Where mountain skies are blue.
Your beauty, lady, blinds me,
Each field and wood reminds me
A thousand times of you

Just then I saw two sweet, young, fresh eyes sparkling
forth from the cool dark summer-house between the
half-open shutters and the flowers that stood behind
them. I was so frightened that I did not finish my song
but went on to my work without looking around me.

One evening — it was a Saturday and I was already
enjoying the coming Sunday in anticipation — I was
standing at the window of the gardener's lodge with my
fiddle and still thinking of those sparkling eyes, when
suddenly the chambermaid came slipping through the
twilight. 'My lady sends you something with which you
may drink her health — and she wishes you a good night!'
With that she smartly set a bottle of wine on my window-
sill and vanished through the flowxrbeds and hedges like
a little lizard.

6

I stood for a long time in front of that wonderful bottle,
unable to grasp my good fortune. Where once I had
scraped my fiddle merrily enough, now I played and sang
with a will; I sang the song of the fair lady to its end and
all the other songs that I knew, until the nightingales
were out and moon and stars had long risen over the
garden. What a night that was !

None of us knows in our cradle what will become of
him, even a blind hen will often find a grain, he laughs
best who laughs last, the unexpected often happens,
man proposes and God disposes — thus I meditated as I
again sat in the garden with my pipe next day and I almost
felt, so carefully did I examine myself, that I had been
moonstruck. I had now taken to getting up very early
every day, quite contrary to my usual habit, before the
gardener and the other workmen were stirring. It was so
beautiful out in the garden at that hour. The flowers,
the fountains, the rosebushes, the whole garden sparkled
in the morning sun like pure gold and precious stones.
In the tall avenues of beeches it was as still, as cool and as
solemn as in a church, except for the birds that fluttered
and pecked at the soil. Before the great house, below the
very window where the fair lady lived, was a flowering
shrub. There I would go very early every morning and
crouch beneath its branches in order to gaze at her
windows, for I had not the valour to show myself in the
open. There I would always see my beauty come to the
window, still warm and half asleep in a snow-white
gown. Now she would begin to plait her dark brown hair
while her playful gaze would wander over bush and
garden, now she would bend down and gather the

7

flowers which grew under her window, or she would lay
her guitar in her white arm and sing out over the garden
so wonderfully that my heart still leaps even now when
I recall one of those songs — but oh, that is all so long

ago!

This lasted a week or more, but one day when she was
again standing at the window and all around was still, a
fatal fly buzzed into my nose and I gave such a fearful
sneeze that I could not stop. She leaned far out of the
window and saw me, oh horror, lurking in the bush. I
was so ashamed that I did not come back for several
days.

Finally I plucked up courage and went again, but this
time the window was shut; four, five, six mornings I sat
behind the shrub but she did not appear again at the
window. Then I grew impatient and with great boldness
I walked openly up and down past all the windows of the
great house, but my dear lady still stayed away. A little
further along, however, I always saw the other lady
standing at the window. I had never before looked at her
so closely. She was in truth also something of a beauty,
plump and pink, full-blown and proud in appearance like
a tulip. I always made her a deep bow and I must admit
that she thanked me every time, nodded and lowered her
eyes most politely in response. Once only I thought
that I saw my beauty herself standing at the window
behind the curtain and peeping out from her hiding-
place.

Many days went by, however, without my seeing her.
She no longer came into the garden or to her window.
The gardener called me a lazy oaf, I was peevish and the

8

tip of my own nose seemed to be in my way whenever
I stared out at the world.

One Sunday afternoon I lay in the garden and as I
stared through the blue tobacco-clouds from my pipe I
reproached myself for not having taken up some other
work in which I would at least have had a Monday half-
holiday to look forward to. Meanwhile the other lads had
probably all gone, decked out in their best, to the dance
halls in the nearby outskirts of the city. There, in the
warm breeze, they would all be strolling and weaving
their excited way in their Sunday finery between the
brightly ht houses and the wandering barrel-organs. Yet
I squatted in the reeds of a remote pond in the garden,
like that solitary bird the bittern, rocking myself in the
punt moored to the bank, while the vesper bells of the
city echoed over the garden and the swans paddLd slowly
to and fro beside me on the water. I was in deathly
anguish.

Just then I heard a babble of distant voices, of gay
chatter and laughter coming nearer and nearer, soon there
came flashes of red and white scarves, hats and plumes
through the greenery and all at once a bright crowd of
young ladies and gentlemen from the castle came across
the meadow and were upon me, among them my two
ladies. I stood up and was about to go, when the elder of
the two fair ladies espied me. 'Aha, well met!' she cried
with a smile. 'He can row us over the pond to the far side.*
One after the other, with caution and trepidation, the
ladies now embarked on the punt, the gentlemen helpmg
them and showing not a little pride at their boldness on
the water. When all the ladies were seated on the thwarts,

2 Q (h967)

I pushed off from the bank. One of the young gentlemen
standing up in the bow began imperceptibly to rock the
craft, at which the ladies turned hither and thither in
fright and some cried out. My beauty sat with a lily in her
hand close by the little boat's side and, smiling to herself,
gazed down into the clear waves; as she touched them
with the lily her image was repeated in the water between
the reflections of clouds and trees, like an angel
gently floating through the deep blue of the heavenly
vault.

As I gazed at her thus, the cheerful, plump one of my
two ladies suddenly decided that I should sing to them
as we sailed along. At that a very elegant young gentle-
man, with a pair of spectacles on his nose, who was seated
beside her, quickly turned towards her, softly kissed her
hand and said : 'Oh, thank you for that charming thought !
A folk song, sung by one of the people in the freedom of
the woods and fields is like an alpine rose growing wild
on the mountainside — your collections of so-called folk
songs are nothing but picture-book flowers by compari-
son— it is the very heart and soul of our people.' I said,
though, that I knew of nothing to sing which was good
enough for such fine company. Then the pert little
chambermaid, who was standing close beside me with a
basket full of cups and bottles and whom until then I had
not noticed at all, said: 'But he knows a very pretty song
about a beautiful lady.' 'Yes, yes, he must sing that song
as boldly as only he can,' answered the lady at once. I
blushed more and more. At that my beauty looked up
from the water and gave me a look which pierced me
body and soul. I thought no more, seized my courage and

lo

sang with a full-chested vigour:

Where'ere my roaming finds me.
Where mountain skies are blue.
Your beauty, lady, blinds me.
Each field and wood reminds me
A thousand times of you.

My garden flowers I take for

A garland fresh and fair,

A garland I might make for.

The thousand thoughts which ache for

The greeting I would bear.

She never could receive them.
She is too fine and pure.
They fade e'en as I weave them.
So in my heart I leave them
Where love must still endure.

My joy might seem unending.
My work is brisk and brave.
While to my flowers bending,
My broken heart's not mending:
I'll soon have dug my grave.

We touched land, the company disembarked ; I had not
failed to notice that while I sang several of the young
gentlemen had mocked me to the ladies with sly glances
and whispers. As he went, the gentleman in the spectacles
clasped me by the hand and said something to me — what
it was I cannot even remember — and the elder of my two
ladies gave me a very kind look. Throughout my song my
beauty herself had sat with downcast eyes and had gone
away, saying nothing. But even as I sang tears were in my
eyes, my heart nearly broke with pain and shame at my
song and only now did I see how truly beautiful she was

II

and how poof, despised and abandoned was I. When they
had disappeared through the bushes I could contain my
feehngs no longer, but threw myself down on the grass
and wept bitterly.

12

— ^^^ixr*^^^

The road ran alongside the estate, only separated from
the garden by a high wall. Beside it stood a neat little toll-
house with a red tiled roof and a gaily-fenced flower
garden ; a hole in the wall led from it to the shadiest and
most secluded part of the castle garden. The toll-keeper
who occupied it had recently died. One morning early
when I was still fast asleep, the clerk of the estate came
to me and roused me to go at once to the bailiff. I quickly
dressed and ambled off behind the jolly clerk, who as he
went broke off a flower, now here, now there, and stuck
it in his button-hole, now made a few mock fencing-passes
in the air with his walking stick and chattered endlessly
to me — of which I grasped nothing, as my eyes and ears
were still full of sleep. As I entered the estate ofBce, it
being still before daybreak, the bailiff looked at me from
behind an enormous inkwell and piles of books and
papers ; staring from beneath a handsome peruke like an
owl from its nest he addressed me: *What might your
name be ? Whence do you come ? Can you write, read and
reckon?' Receiving my affirmative answer he went on:
*Well, my lad, their gracious lordships, having regard to
your good conduct and particular merits, have proposed
you for the vacant post of toll-keeper.' I took momentary

13

stock of my previous behaviour and manners and having
done so I was obliged to admit that the bailiff was right
and before I had time to turn round I became a toll-
keeper.

I at once took over my new dwelling and was soon
settled in. I found many implements which the late toll-
keeper had bequeathed to his successor, among them a
gorgeous red dressing gown with yellow dots, a nightcap
and several long-stemmed pipes. In my days at home I
had longed to possess all these, having seen our vicar
parading with such complacency in like array. The whole
day long (for I had nothing else to do) I sat in dressing
gown and nightcap on the little bench in front of my
house, smoked the longest-stemmed of the pipes which
I had inherited from my sainted predecessor and watched
the people as they walked, drove or rode up and down the
turnpike. My only wish was that once in a while a few of
the folk from my own village, who had always said I
would never come to anything in all my days, might pass
by and see me. The dressing gown admirably suited my
looks and I was thoroughly pleased with my situation.
There I sat and pondered on this and that — how all
beginnings are difficult and what comforts there were in
a life of respectability; I secretly resolved to give up
travelling, even to save money as others did and with
time to make my way to some position in the world.
Meanwhile, though, I forgot nothing of my resolves,
cares and stratagems regarding my fair one. I threw out
the potatoes and other vegetables which I found growing
in my Uttle garden and planted it entirely with the
choicest flowers, at which the castle porter, he of the

14

imperial nose, who often visited me since my move into
the toll-booth and had become my intimate friend, looked
at me askance and considered me to be one of those whom
sudden fortune robs of their senses. But I paid no heed,
for in the nearby castle garden I could hear the sound of
gentle voices, among which I felt sure I recognized that
of my beauteous lady, despite the thickets which hid them
from my view. Every day I tied up a bouquet of the
prettiest flowers that I had, climbed over the wall every
evening after dark and laid them on a stone table which
stood in an arbour; every evening when I brought a fresh
bunch the other was gone from the table.

"One evening the gentry had ridden out hunting; the
sun was about to set, bathing the countryside in a shining
glow, the Danube rippled away in the distance as though
made of pure gold and fire, while from every hillside into
the furthest distance echoed the joyous song of the vine-
dressers. I was sitting with the porter on the bench in
front of my house and enjoying the spectacle of that happy
day slowly darkening and declining in the warm air.
Suddenly the horns of the returning hunters were heard
in the distance, echoing back and forth from the hills
opposite. My inmost heart was touched and I sprang up
and cried as if bewitched : *Ah, that is the life for me, the
noble sport of hunting!'
\ The porter, however, calmly knocked out his pipe and
, said: 'So you may think, but I have taken part in it; they
hardly pay you enough to replace the shoe-leather which
you wear out and you never throw off the coughs and
sneezes you catch from wet feet.' For some reason a
foohsh anger seized me with such strength that my whole

15

[^ body trembled. Suddenly I found the fellow and every-
thing about him repellent, his dull coat, his perpetual
complaints about his feet, his snuff and his big nose. As
though beside myself I seized him by the chest and said:
ij. Torter — be off home with you or I will thrash you on
I the spot!' At these words the porter reverted to his
former view of me, namely that I was demented. He stared
at me with suspicion and trepidation, made off without
a word and, with many a backward scowl, strode away
to the castle, where he breathlessly described how I was
now turned raving mad.

I could not but laugh with delight at being rid of that
know-all, for the time had nearly come at which I was
wont to put my bunch of flowers in the arbour. Today, too^
I leaped smartly over the wall and was just approaching
the little stone table when I heard the sound of nearby
horse's hooves. There was no time to run away, for my
graciouslady herself was riding slowly towards me down
the avenue, dressed in green hunting habit and plumed
hat. She seemed to be deep in thought. My feelings were
exactly those which had once seized me when, at home
with my father, I had read in old books of the fair Mage-
lone and how she had advanced through the tall trees to
the ever-approaching sound of hunting horns and the
glancing lights of evening — I could not move from the
spot. She took fright as she suddenly became aware of me
and halted almost as if against her will.' My heart pounding
with joy, I was as though stupefied with anxiety, and
when I noticed that she was in truth wearing my bouquet
of yesterday at her breast I could contain myself no
longer but said in great confusion: 'Most gracious, fairest

i6

lady, take this bouquet too, from me, take all the flowers
from my garden and everything that I have. Ah, were
there but need I would go through fire for you!' At first
she gazed at me with a look of such earnestness, indeed
almost of anger, that I was stricken to the marrow of my
bones, and her eyes remained deeply downcast for as long
as I spoke. Just then the sound of riders' voices was
heard from the bushes ; she quickly took the bunch from
my hand and, without saying a word, she had vanished
round the corner of the avenue in a moment. From that
evening on I had no more peace. In mood I was per-
petually as I am prone to feel on the threshold of spring,
joyous yet uneasy without knowing why, as though a
great happiness or some other prodigious event were
awaiting me. In particular the art of calculating, at which
I never excelled, now began to elude me altogether and
whenever the sunshine fell golden-green through the
leaves of the chestnut tree outside my window on to my
figures and played tricks between 'Carried Forward' and
'Brought Forward', I had such strange thoughts that I
often grew quite fuddled and truly incapable of counting
up to three. Then the figure 'eight' would begin to look
like the tightly laced lady with a broad cap, the evil 'seven'
Hke a backward-pointing signpost or a gallows. The
jolliest figure was the 'nine' which would always stand on
its head and turn into a 'six' when I was not looking,
whilst the 'two' looked so quizzically like a question-
mark as if it were saying to me : 'And what is to become
of you, you poor "nought" ? Without her, that slim figure
"one", you will never amount to anything!' I no longer
even enjoyed sitting out of doors. To be more comfort-

17

able I took a stool with me and stretched my feet upon it.
I patched an old parasol that had belonged to the toll-
keeper and opened it over me against the sun like a
Chinese pagoda. But none of this helped. It seemed to me
as I sat there and smoked and speculated as though my
legs were growing slowly longer from boredom and my^
nose were gradually being stretched out from so many
hours of staring at it. And on the many occasions, often
before daybreak, when a special mail-coach came by and
I walked out half asleep into the cool air and a charming
little face, whose sparkling eyes were the only features
that could be descried in the half-light, would lean with
curiosity from the coach and bid me a friendly good
morning; when the cocks in the surrounding villages
crowed so sharply over the gently waving cornfields, a
few early-risen larks were scudding high in the sky
between the swathes of morning mist and the postilion
would pick up his post-horn and drive on blowing and
blowing — then I would stand long and watch the coach
disappear and feel that I must at once take to the road
myself and be off into the wide wide world.

Meanwhile I still continued, as soon as the sun set, to
lay my bouquets on the stone table in the dark arbour, but
to tell the truth it had been a failure since that evening:
they were now disregarded. Whenever I looked early in
the morning, the flowers lay there as on the day before
and looked at me sadly with their wilted, drooping little
heads and drops of dew like tears. This grieved me deeply.
I made up no more bouquets. From now onward the
weeds might grow in my garden as they wished and I let
the flowers stand there and grow until the wind blew

i8

their petals away and my heart felt as wild, as neglected
as those flowers.

It was at this critical time then, that one day as I lay at
home by the window staring gloomily out into the empty
air, the chambermaid from the castle came tripping across
the road. As soon as she caught sight of me she turned
towards me and stopped at the window. *The master
returned yesterday from his travels,' she said quickly.
'Indeed?' I countered in astonishment — I had paid so
little heed to events for several weeks that I was not even
aware that the master had been away — 'Then his daughter,
my gracious lady, will be delighted.' The chambermaid
looked me up and down so curiously that I was obliged
to wonder whether I had said anything stupid. *Oh, but
you know nothing,' said she finally, wrinkling her little
nose. 'Now,' she wxnt on, 'tonight there will be a ball
and masquerade at the castle in the master's honour. My
lady too will be masked and costumed as a gardener — do
you understand me? — as a gardener. Now my lady has
seen that the flowers in your garden are especially pretty.'

That is strange, I thought to myself, since there are
now hardly any flowers to be seen in it for weeds. But she
continued: 'Since my lady needs flowers to go with her
costume, freshly picked flowers, you are to bring her
some and to wait with them after dark under the big pear
tree in the castle garden; there she will come and fetch
her flowers.'

I was quite speechless with joy at this news and in my
delight I leaped out of the window at the chambermaid.

'O fie, what a horrible old dressing gown!' she cried,
as she suddenly saw how I was dressed. This vexed me,

19

but not wanting to be backward in gallantry I made a few
skips and lunges to clasp her and kiss her. Unfortunately
as I did so my dressing gown, which was far too long
for me, became tangled in my feet and I measured my
length on the ground. By the time that I had picked
myself up the chambermaid was off and away and I could
hear her in the distance laughing so hard that she had to
hold her sides.

Now I had some pleasing food for thought. She had
remembered me and my flowers ! I went into my garden,
hastily pulled all the weeds from the beds and threw them
over my head into the bright sky as though by pulling
them out I was uprooting all evil and melancholy. Now
the roses were like her mouth again, the sky-blue con-
volvulus were like her eyes and the snow-white lily with
its head bowed in melancholy was the very image of her.
I laid them all carefully in a basket. It was a beautiful still
evening with not a trace of cloud in the sky. A few stars
had already risen in the firmament, far away the Danube
whispered past the meadows and near by countless birds
sang lustily in the great trees of the master's garden. Oh,
I was so happy! When at last night fell I took my basket
on my arm and set off for the big garden. The basket was
so full of charm and colour, white, red, blue and scented,
that my heart danced at the very sight.

Full of merry thoughts I walked in the beautiful moon-
Hght along the quiet, neatly sanded paths, over the litde
white bridges beneath which the swans slept on the water
and passed the delicate bowers and summer-houses. I soon
reached the big pear tree, for it was the same one under
which I had lain on sultry afternoons as a gardener's boy.

20

It was dark and lonely here. Only the silver leaves of an
aspen trembled and whispered without cease. Snatches of
dance music occasionally echoed from the castle and now
and again I could hear voices in the garden which often
came quite near, only to be followed by complete stillness.

My heart was beating. I thrilled with a strange feeling,
as though I were about to commit robbery. For a long
time I stood leaning stock-still against the tree and
listened all around me, but still no one came and I could
endure it no longer. I hooked my basket over my arm
and quickly climbed up into the pear tree in order to be
in the free fresh air again.

Once up there the dance music could clearly be heard
over the tree-tops. I could see over the whole garden and
right into the brightly lit windows of the castle. There
the chandeliers were turning slowly like garlands of stars ;
as in a shadow play countless elegant lords and their
ladies wove and waltzed and criss-crossed in gay con-
fusion, whilst now and again some would lean out of the
window and look down into the garden. Outside the
castle the lawns, the shrubs and trees stood as if gilded
by the multitude of lights from the ballroom, in which the
flowers and birds seemed to have awakened into life.
Further away, all around and behind me the rest of the
garden lay black and still. There she is, dancing away, I
thought to myself up there in the tree, and has certainly
long ago forgotten you and your flowers. They are all so
gay, not a soul has a thought for you. And that is my fate,
always and everywhere. Everyone has his own little spot
on earth, his own warm stove, his cup of coffee, his wife^
his glass of wine of an evening and he is truly happy

21

withal; even that great long stick of a porter is content
with his life. I belong nowhere: it is as if I arrived
everywhere too late, as though the whole world had
simply failed to reckon with my existence.

As I philosophized thus I suddenly heard something
come rusthng towards me in the grass. Two gentle voices
were quietly talking somewhere near by. After a few
moments the branches of the shrubs were parted and the
chambermaid's little face appeared through the branches
as she looked all around her. The moonlight sparkled in
her mischievous eyes as she stared out. It was not long
before the lady dressed as a gardener also stepped out
between the trees, looking just as the chambermaid had
described her to me yesterday. My heart beat as if to
burst. She was wearing a mask and gazed around her in
surprise, at which it suddenly seemed to me that she was
not quite so slim and delicate after all: finally she stepped
close to the tree and took off her mask — in truth it was
not my young beauty but the other, the elder!

How glad I now was, when I had recovered from my
first shock, that I was sitting up here in safety. How in
heaven's name, thought I, does this one come to be here ?
If my dear young one comes now to fetch her flowers —
what a scene there will be! I could have wept with
vexation at the whole spectacle.

Meanwhile below me the disguised gardener spoke up:
*It is so stiflingly hot there in the ballroom that I was
simply obliged to take a walk and to cool off a Uttle out
in the sweet fresh air.* So saying she fanned herself un-
ceasingly with her mask and pufied away. In the bright
moodight I could clearly see how the tendons in her

22

neck were puffed and swollen ; she looked brick-red and
angry. The chambermaid continued to search behind
every bush as though she had lost a needle.

*I so badly need some fresh flowers to go with my
mask/ went on the false gardener, Vhere can he be?'
The chambermaid searched on, giggling to herself all the
while. 'Did you say something. Rosette ?' asked the lady
sharply. 'I was saying wh.2Lt I have always said,' rephed
the chambermaid, putting on an honest and serious face,
*that our young toll-keeper is nothing but an idle bump-
kin and is sure to be lying somewhere asleep behind a
bush.' This made me twitch in every limb and want to
jump down and defend my reputation, when suddenly a
great sound of music and kettledrums was heard from
the castle.

The gardener's lass could contain herself no longer.
*Oh, now they are going to give a cheer for my lord,' she
snapped. *Come, we shall be missed.' With this she
quickly donned her mask and set off in a fury to return
with the chambermaid to the castle. The trees and bushes
seemed to point inquisitively after her, as if with long
fingers and sharp noses, the moonlight played up and
down her broad waist as though over a keyboard and so
she made her exit to the sound of drums and trumpets,
for all the world like an opera singer leaving the stage.

Up there in my tree I was ignorant of what had
happened and I now fixed my gaze on the castle, where a
circle of torches on the lower steps of the entrance was
throwing a strange glow over the glittering windows and
far out into the garden. It was the servants, who were
serenading their young mistress. In the midst of them

23

stood the porter as magnificently bedizened as a minister
of state, puffing industriously at a bassoon in front of a
music-stand. As I was settling myself comfortably to
listen to the beautiful serenade, the double doors on the
castle balcony suddenly opened. A noble gentleman,
handsome and stately in his uniform adorned with many
glittering stars, stepped out on to the balcony, holding by
the hand my gracious young lady in a pure white dress,
looking like a lily in the light of the moon rising over the
clear firmament.

I could not turn my eyes from that spot. Garden, trees
and meadows vanished from my senses as she stood there,
tall and slim, wonderfully lit by the torches as she turned
gracefully, now to speak to the handsome officer, now to
give a friendly nod to the musicians below. The people
below were beside themselves with joy and finally I could
no longer restrain myself either and joined in the shouts
of Hurrah! with all the force in my body.

But when soon afterwards she disappeared from the
balcony, the torches below were extinguished one by one
the music-stands were removed and the garden round
about grew dark again and its rustling sounds were
heard as before — only then did I realize, only then was my
heart aware that no one but the aunt had summoned me
to supply her with flowers, that my fair one was long
since married and had forgotten me and I was nothing
but a great fool.

All this plunged me into an abyss of meditation. I
curled up like a hedgehog within the prickly spines of my
own thoughts. The dance music from the castle could
now be heard less often, sohtary clouds floated away over

24

the dark garden. And there I sat up in my tree Uke an owl
in the ruins of my happiness the whole night through.

The cool morning air finally wakened me from my
reverie. I was thoroughly astonished when I looked
around. The music and dancing had long since ceased;
everything in and around the castle, on the lawns, on the
stone steps and between the columns looked so still, so
cool and solemn; only the fountain before the entrance
played its lonely tune as it splashed away. Here and there
in the branches beside me the birds were already waking;
they shook their bright feathers and as they stretched their
little wings they stared with surprise and curiosity at
their strange bedfellow. The rays of the morning sun
flickered gaily at me and flashed over the garden.

I stood up in the tree and for the first time in a long
while I could see far over the countryside, to where a
few barges were already sailing down the Danube
between the vineyards and where the still empty high-
roads swung out like bridges over the shining landscape
towards distant hill and dale. I do not know how it came^
but all at once I was seized by all my old longing to travel,
all the old joy, the yearning and the high expectation. At
the same moment I thought how my beauty was sleeping
up there in the castle among flowers and between silken
sheets with an angel sitting on her bed in the still of the
morning. 'No,' I cried, 1 must away from here, away to
as far as the sky is blue!'

At that I picked up my basket and threw it high into
the air, scattering the poor flowers so that they fell
through the branches and lay like so many specks of
colour on the grass beneath. Then I climbed down and

3 25 (H967)

walked through the silent garden to my house. Many a
time did I stop at places where I had once seen her pass
or had lain in the shade thinking of her.

In and about my little house everything looked as it did
when I had left it the day before. The garden stood bare
and plundered, indoors the great ledger lay open, my
violin, which I had almost forgotten, hung thick with
dust on the wall. From the window opposite a ray of
morning sunshine was at that very moment glancing like
a lightning flash over the strings. The sight of it struck a
chord in my heart. *Come,' said I, *come, my faithful
fiddle! This is not the world for such as you and me!'
I took the violin from the wall, left ledger, slippers,
dressing gown and parasol where they were and wandered
away, as poor as I had come, out of the house and down
the gleaming highroad. I cast many a glance behind me;
I had a curious feeling, sad and yet overjoyed as a bird
escaping from its cage. When I had walked a fair stretch
I put up my fiddle in the free open air and sang :

God's ways alone are my ways.
Larks, streams and fields and wood,
'Twixt earth and heaven all my days,
I know His ways are good.

The castle, the garden and the towers of Vienna had
vanished behind me in the morning haze, countless larks
rejoiced high above me in the sky as I set off past the hills,
past the bright towns and villages, away down towards
Italy.

26

3

Soon, however, I was in trouble for I did not know the
right way and had not given it a thought. In the still of
that early hour there was not a person in sight whom I
might have asked and not far from where I stood the
highroad divided into several branches leading far, far
away over the high hills as if to the end of the world,
making me dizzy from looking.

At last a peasant came in sight along the road, going,
I think, to the church, as it was Sunday, and wearing an
old-fashioned topcoat with big silver buttons and carry-
ing a long Spanish cane topped with a very heavy silver
knob which flashed from afar in the sunlight. I at once
asked him with much courtesy: *Can you please tell me,
which is the road which leads to Italy?' The peasant
stopped, looked at me, then reflected with his underlip
jutting forward and looked at me again. I said once more:
*To Italy — where the oranges grow.' 'Ah, what do I care
for your oranges !' said the peasant and strode bravely on.
I had imagined the man to have had better manners, for he
had quite a grand look about him. What was I to do now ?
Turn back and return to my village? Then the people
would have pointed their fingers at me and the boys
would have jumped round me crying: 'Welcome back

27

from the big wide wotldl What is it Hke out there? Have
you brought us back some gingerbread from your travels ?*
The porter with the imperial nose, who knew a great
deal of the world, had often said to me: *Sir, Italy is a
beautiful country where God provides all; there you
may lie down on your back while the grapes grow into
your very mouth and if you are bitten by the tarantula
you will dance with most uncommon agility, however
unskilled you may be at dancing.' *No ! To Italy, to Italy !'
I cried joyously and ran off, without a care for the several
roads, along the route which happened to Ue at my feet.
When I had strolled on for a while I saw to the right of
the road a most beautiful orchard, where the morning
sunlight shone so gaily between the trunks and branches
that it seemed as though the grass were laid with a
golden carpet. Seeing no one about I climbed over the
low fence and lay comfortably down in the grass beneath
an apple tree, for all my limbs still ached from having
spent last night up a tree. From there I could see far over
the landscape whence, it being Sunday, the sound of bells
came ringing from afar over the silent fields and every-
where countryfolk decked in their best were wending
their way through bush and meadow to church. My heart
was cheered, the birds sang above me in the tree and I
thought of my mill, of my gracious lady and how far, far
^' . away it all now lay — until at last I fell asleep. I dreamed
^-j/ that my lady was walking through the countryside, or
rather floating slowly towards me to the sound of the
1 bells and trailing long white veils which floated in the
^ morning sunshine. Then it seemed as if we were no
longer far from home, but in the shadow of the mill in

28

my village. There too all was so still and empty, as when
the people are all gone to church on Sunday with only
the organ music to be heard through the trees, that my
heart ached. Yet my lady was so kind, held me by the
hand, walked with me and amidst all this loneliness she
sang the same beautiful song which she used always to
sing to her guitar early in the morning at the open win-
dow. As she did so I saw her image reflected in the calm
mill-pond, looking a thousand times more beautiful, but
with eyes strangely large which stared at me so fixedly
that I was almost afraid. All at once the mill-wheel began
to splash and turn, at first in slow, single strokes then
faster and louder until the mill-pond darkened and rippled,
my lady turned quite pale, her veils grew longer and
longer and waved in long, fearful trails like mist high
into the sky; the roaring grew louder, joined with what
seemed like notes from the porter's bassoon until
suddenly I awoke with a violently beating heart.

A wind had indeed arisen and was blowing gently
through the apple tree above me, but the noise of roaring
and rumbling was neither the mill nor the porter but that
same peasant who earlier had refused to show me the way
to Italy. Now, though, he had doff'ed his Sunday suit and
stood before me wearing a white smock. 'Aha,' said he,
as I was still wiping the sleep from my eyes, 'perhaps he
wants to steal some of those oranges here and that's why
he's a-trampling my good grass instead of going to
church, the sluggard!' I was angry, but only because this
boor had woken me up. Furious, I leaped up and quickly
retorted : 'Berate me, would you ? You do not know it,
but 1 have been a gardener — and a toll-keeper, and if you

29

_^? had driven into town you would have been obliged to
doff your greasy night-cap to me; I had a house of my
own and a red dressing gown with yellow spots.' But this
rustic clod was not impressed and only stuck his arms
akimbo and said : 'What might he want, then ? Eh ? Eh ?'
I now saw that he was a short, stocky, bow-legged
fellow with goggling, protruding eyes and a red, slightly
crooked nose. As he continued to say nothing more but
*Eh? Eh?' and each time took a step nearer to me, I was
suddenly overcome by such a curious and uncanny
feeling of anxiety that I quickly made off, jumped over
the fence without looking round and galloped headlong
over the fields at such a pace that my fiddle rang in my
pocket.

When at last I stopped to draw breath the orchard and
the valley were no more to be seen and I found
myself in the midst of a beautiful wood. I did not, how-
ever, give it much thought as the whole scene now began
to anger me, especially the way the rude fellow had called
.me 'he' and for a long while I cursed silently to myself.
Deep in these thoughts I marched rapidly on, moving
further and further from the highroad and into the hills.
The woodland track along which I had taken flight came
to an end and now there was only a narrow and scarcely
trodden footpath before me. There was no one to be seen
and not a sound to be heard, but the walking was pleasant,
the tree-tops rustled and the birds sang most sweetly. I
commended myself, therefore, to God's guidance, pulled
out my violin and played through all my favourite pieces,
the sound echoing gaily through the lonely wood.
My playing did not last for long, though, as I stumbled

30

every minute over some vexing tree root. In time I began
to grow hungry and there seemed no end to the wood.
Thus I wandered about the whole day long and the sun
was already slanting through the tree-trunks when I
finally reached a little grass-grown valley surrounded by
hills and carpeted with red and yellow flowers, over
which countless butterflies flickered in the gold of the
evening. Here it was as lonely as if the world lay a hundred
miles away. There was only the chirping of the crickets
and a shepherd lying in the tall grass and blowing on his
shawm with heart-breaking melancholy. He has a fine
life, thought I, the idle fellow — while the likes of us must
work ourselves to a shred and forever keep alert. As
there ran between us a clear brook which I could not
cross, I shouted to him from the far side to tell me where
the nearest village lay. He made no move except to stick
his head a little out of the grass; he pointed towards the
next wood with his shawm and calmly went on
playing.

I marched bravely on, as dusk was beginning to fall.
The birds, which had all the time been singing mightily
until the last rays of the sun glimmered through the wood,
were suddenly silent and I almost began to feel afraid in
the endless, lonely rustling of the forest. At last I heard
the distant bark of a dog. I quickened my pace, the wood
thinned out and soon I saw between the trees a square
of green where a host of children were tumbling noisily
round a big lime tree in its centre. On one side of the
square was an inn, in front of which a few peasants were
seated round a table, playing cards and smoking. On the
other side, before a doorway, were some young lads and

several girls, their arms folded in their aprons, gossiping
together in the cool evening air.

Without much ado I drew my fiddle from my pocket
and quickly played a gay country dance as I walked out
of the wood. The girls looked up in surprise and the old
men laughed so loud that it echoed through the wood.
But when I reached the lime tree and had leaned against
it, still playing, a subdued muttering and whispering began
to run right and left among the younger folk; the lads
finally put away their Sunday pipes, each one took a
partner and before I had noticed it the young peasants
were swinging gaily all about me, the dogs barked, the
skirts flew and the children were standing round me in a
circle staring curiously at my face and my fingers as I
fiddled away.

Only when the first tune was over was I able to observe
the enlivening effect of a piece of good music: the
peasant lads, who before had been sitting about on
benches, pipe in mouth, stretching their stiff limbs before
them, were now all at once as if transformed; they let
their bright kerchiefs dangle low from their buttonholes
and pranced so nimbly around the girls that it was a joy
to see. One of them, who had a somewhat superior air,
fished for a long time in his waistcoat pocket to make sure
that the others would notice it and finally produced a
small silver piece which he tried to press into my hand.
I did not care for this, even though I was for the moment
penniless. I told him to keep his money, that I played only
for the joy of being in company again. Soon afterwards a
comely young lass came up to me with a big tumbler full
of wine. ^Musicians are always glad of a drink,' she said to

32

me with a friendly laugh and her pearl-white teeth
flashed so charmingly between her red lips that I could
have kissed them there and then. She dipped her little
beak into the wine, her eyes flashing at me over the glass
as she did so and handed me the tumbler. I drank it to the
dregs and began to play afresh, at which they all spun
gaily round me once more.

The elders had meanwhile finished their game and even
the young people began to grow tired and to drift away
until gradually the village green before the inn grew
empty and still. The girl too, who had handed me the
wine, started back towards the village but she walked very
slowly and glanced round now and again as if she had
forgotten something. Finally she stopped and looked for
something on the ground, but I noticed that whenever
she bent down she looked back at me under her arm.
Having learned a little of life during my stay at the castle,
I sprang after her and said: 'Have you lost something,
fairest mam'selle?' *Oh no,' said she, blushing all over,
'it was only a rose — would he like it ?' I thanked her and
stuck the rose into my buttonhole. She gave me a very
friendly look and said: 'He plays so beautifully.' 'Yes,' I
said, 'it is something of a gift from God.' 'Musicians are
very rare creatures hereabouts,' went on the girl, her eyes
firmly downcast. 'He might earn himself a good stipend
here — my father also plays the fiddle a little and loves to
hear tell of foreign parts — and my father is very rich.'
Then she laughed and said : 'If only he would not make
such grimaces when he's fiddling!' 'Dearest maiden,' I
replied, 'firstly: kindly cease to address me as "he". Then
as for my head-wagging — that is something common to

33

all us virtuosi.' *Oh, is it now,' answered the girl. She
was about to say something more, but at that moment
there came a terrible crash from the inn, the door opened
with a loud creak and a thin fellow shot out like a ramrod
fired from a gun and the door was immediately slammed
after him.

At the first sound the girl ran away like a hind and
vanished into the darkness. The figure outside the door
nimbly picked himself up and began to hurl curses at the
tavern at such a rate that I was amazed. 'What,' he
shouted, *I — drunk ? I haven't paid my score chalked on
that smoke-blackened old door? Rub it out, rub it out!
Was it not I who shaved you only yesterday, holding your
head over the cooking-ladle which you bit in half when I
nicked your nose? The shave makes one mark — the
cooking-ladle spoilt, another mark — the plaster for your
nose, yet another mark — how many more strokes of the
chalk do you expect me to pay, you dog ? Very well then,
the whole village, the whole world for aught I care can
go unshaven. For my part you may all walk around with
beards, so God cannot tell Jew from Christian at the day
of judgement. Yes, you may all go and hang yourselves
by your beards, you hairy country boors!' Here he broke
into pitiful weeping and howled quite miserably: 'Must
I drink water hke a wretched fish? Is that neighbourly
feeling? Am I not a man and a master surgeon-barber?
Oh, I am in such a fury! And my heart full of such a love
of my fellow men!' So saying he gradually drew away
from the inn, as no sound came from within. When he
saw me he ran towards me with outspread arms and I
thought that this wild wretch was about to embrace me.

34

I jumped to one side, he stumbled on and I heard him
long afterwards holding forth in language now coarse,
now fine, into the darkness.

I, however, had much else to think of. The maiden who
had given me the rose was young, pretty and rich; I could
have made my fortune there in the wink of an eye. There
would be mutton and pork, turkey and fat goose with
apple stuffing — indeed, it was as if I saw the porter
himself urging me on: 'Take it, toll-keeper, take it!
Faint heart never won fair lady, nothing venture —
nothing gain, a bird in the hand . . .'

With such philosophical thoughts I sat down on a stone
on the village green, which was now quite deserted, for I
did not dare to knock on the inn door for lack of
money. The moon shone brilliantly, the rustling of the
woods gently wafted over from the mountainsides and
the sleep of the village in its valley under the moonlit
trees was only occasionally broken as the bark of a dog
was taken up by others. I gazed at the firmament, where
sparse clouds sailed slowly through the moonlight and
now and again a distant shooting star would fall. This
same moon, I thought, was shining both on my father's
mill and the count's stately white castle. There all has
long been silent, my lady is asleep and only the fountains
and the trees in the garden are still gently rustling as they
ever did and no one there cares whether I am still alive or_
have met my death abroad. At this thought the world
seemed all at once so terrifyingly vast and I so much alone
that I could have wept from the bottom of my heart.
After a while as I sat there I suddenly heard the sound of
hoofbeats in the wood. I held my breath and listened as it

35

came nearer and nearer until I could even hear the
horses snorting. Soon two riders emerged from the wood,
but halted at its edge and spoke earnestly and stealthily
to one another, as I could see from the shadows suddenly
cast on the moonlit village green. With long, dark arms
they pointed now here, now there. How often when my
mother used to tell me tales at home of wild forests
and fierce robbers had I secretly wished to take part my-
self in such a story. Now my stupid, idle wishes were to
be realized! Quietly I climbed as far as I could up
the trunk of the lime tree where I was standing until
I reached the first branch and quickly swung myself
over. Just as I was dangling with half my body over the
branch and was about to haul my legs up, one of the
horsemen quickly trotted over the green behind me.
I closed my eyes firmly among the greenery and stayed
quite still.

'Who's there?' came the sudden cry from behind me.
'No one!' I shouted at the top of my voice, fearful that
he had discovered me. Inwardly I could not help laughing
at these fellows' disappointment when they turned out
my empty pockets. 'Aha,' said the robber, 'then whose
are those two legs hanging down?' There was nothing
more to be done. 'Only a pair that belongs to a poor
wandering musician who has lost his way,' said I and
quickly dropped to the ground, for I was growing
ashamed of hanging over the branch like a bent fork.

The rider's horse shied as I fell so suddenly from the
tree. He patted its neck and said with a laugh : 'Well, we
too have lost our way, so we are companions in mis-
fortune. I thought that you might help us to find the way

}6

to B . You shall come to no harm for it.' I protested in

vain that I had no notion of where B might be, that I

had best inquire at the inn or lead them down into the
village, but he would not hear reason. He calmly drew
from his belt a pistol, which glittered in the moonlight.
*My dear fellow,' he said in the most friendly fashion as he
wiped the barrel of the pistol and then inspected it
critically, *you will, I am sure, be so kind as to go before

us and lead the way to B .'

I was in a pretty fix. If I found the way I would certainly
fall among the robber band and be beaten because I had
no money; if I did not find it I should also be beaten. I
did not waste much time in thought, but took the first
path I could see which led past the inn and out of the
village. The horseman galloped back to his companion
and both began to follow me at some distance, the blind
leading the blind through the bright moonlit night. The
path lay down the mountainside and through the forest.
Now and again one could see over the tall, darkly waving
pinetops far away into the deep, still valleys, occasionally
a nightingale struck up, dogs barked in the distant villages.
Down below a river could be heard splashing and
occasionally flashed in the moonlight. The monotonous
gait of the horses and the clinking and creaking of the
riders' harness mingled with their ceaseless talk in a
foreign language. The bright moonlight and the long
shadows of the tree-trunks flickering on the two horse-
men played such tricks that they seemed to be constantly
changing shape — now bright, now black, now small, now
as tall as giants. My thoughts were as confused as if I were
in a dream from which there was no awakening. I kept

37

up a firm pace, thinking that we must soon come out of
the forest and the night.

At last long, reddish streaks began to flit across the sky,
as lightly as when one breathes on a mirror, and a lark
began to sing high above the silent valley. Suddenly this^
dawn greeting lightened my heart and all my fear was I
gone. The two horsemen stretched themselves, looked
all around and seemed only now to realize that we might \
well be on the wrong road. They had a long talk together""
and it was clear that they were speaking about me, indeed,
it even seemed as though one of them was beginning to
grow afraid of me, perhaps thinking that I was a decoy
posted to lead them astray in the wood. This amused me,
for the lighter it grew the more my courage rose and we
had just reached a beautiful open clearing in the woods,
so I began to stare wildly round in all directions and gave
a few whistles on two fingers as urchins do when they
want to signal to each other. 'Stop!' shouted one of the
horsemen, so suddenly that I jumped with fright. As I
looked round I saw that they had both dismounted and
tethered their horses to a tree. One walked rapidly up to
me, stared at my face and burst into uncontrollable
laughter. 'Why,' said he, 'I do declare its the gardener,
or I should say the toll-keeper, from the castle.'

I gaped at him, but could not recall him, having been
too busy to look at all the young gentlemen who used to
ride in and out of the castle, but he continued, laughing
all the while: 'This is splendid! You are foot-loose, as I
see, we happen to need a servant — stay with us and you
will have a post for hfe.' I was nonplussed and finally said
that I had just undertaken a journey to Italy. 'To Italy .^'

38

rejoined the stranger, *but we too ate going there!' *Well,
if that is so. . .1' I cried and joyously pulled my fiddle
from my pocket and struck up with such vigour that the
birds in the wood all woke up. The stranger ran to his
companion and rolled about in the grass with him as
though gone mad. Then they suddenly stood still. 'By

God,' cried one, 'I can see the church tower of B !

Why, we shall soon be down there!' He pulled out his
watch, made it strike, shook his head and let it strike again.
*No,' he said, Ve cannot go yet, we would be too early
and that could mean trouble.'

Thereupon they fetched cakes, roast meat and bottles
of wine from their saddlebags, spread a brightly coloured
cloth on the green grass, set to with gusto and shared it
generously with me, which I greatly enjoyed since I had
not eaten a proper meal for several days. 'But do you not,'
said one of them to me, 'know who we are ?' I shook my
head. 'Well, let us introduce ourselves : I am Leonhard, a
painter, and my friend here is called Guido — he is also a
painter.' -^

In the dawn light I was now able to scrutinize the two
artists more closely. One of them. Master Leonhard, was
tall, sUm, brown-haired, with jolly, flashing eyes. The
other was much younger, shorter and finer-built, dressed
in the old German fashion, as the porter used to call it,
white collar and bared neck hung around with his
dark brown locks, which he was constantly shaking away
from his handsome face. When he had eaten his fill of
breakfast he picked up my fiddle, which I had laid on the
grass beside me, sat down on the branch of a felled tree
and plucked at the strings with his fingers. Then he sang

39

to this accompaniment, as clearly as a woodland bird, a
song whose sound echoed through my heart;

Dawn's first rays fly to the hill.
Probe the valleys, misty, still;
Now as rustling woods are waking
Those who can their flight are taking.

Now, the joyful man is out,
Flings his hat up, starts to shout:
If the source of joy is singing
Let my voice with song be ringing!

As he did so the reddish glow of the dawn light played
gracefully over his somewhat pale face and his black, pas-
sionate eyes. But I was so tired that the words and melody
as he sang seemed to grow more and more confused
until at last I fell asleep. When I gradually came to myself
again, as if in a dream I heard the two artists still talking
beside me and the birds singing above me while the rays
of the dawning sun shone through my closed eyes, so that
I saw a dull half-light as when the sun shines through
red silk curtains. ''Come I belloT I heard one of them
exclaim beside me. I opened my eyes and saw the
young artist bending so closely over me in the sparkling
morning light that I could see almost nothing but his big,
dark eyes between his long, hanging locks. I jumped up
to find that it was already broad daylight. Master Leon-
hard seemed to be somewhat peevish, with two angry
lines marking his forehead, and he began to make haste to
depart. The other artist only shook his curls from his face
and calmly trilled a song as he untethered his horse until
Leonhard too suddenly laughed aloud, seized a bottle
which lay on the grass and poured the remains of its

40

contents into our glasses. 'Here's to our safe arrival!' he
cried; they clinked glasses with a merry sound and
Leonhard threw the bottle high into the air, where it
flashed gaily.

At last they were mounted and I too set off briskly.
Before us lay a valley which stretched away out of sight,
into which we began to descend. How it flashed and
rustled, how joyously it all glittered! My head felt so
light and cool that I could have flown down from the
mountain into that magnificent vista before us.

41 (H967)

— ^^'§iD<5©f"^3^—

And so adieu, mill and castle and porter 1 Now we were
off, with the wind whistling past my hat. To right and
left villages, towns and vineyards flew past so quickly
that they seemed to flicker before my eyes; behind me in
the coach were the two artists, before me four horses with
a splendid postilion and myself, often bouncing inches
into the air, high up on the box. It had happened thus :

when we reached B , at the very edge of the village a

tall, gaunt, morose gentleman dressed in a green petersham
coat came to meet us and with many a bow to the two
artists led us into the village. There, beneath a tall lime
tree in front of the posting-house, stood a magnificent
four-in-hand ready harnessed. On the way Master Leon-
hard had mentioned that I should change my clothes, at
which he drew some other clothes from his portmanteau
and I was made to don a handsome new frock-coat and
waistcoat which suited me nobly, except that they felt
over-long and broad and flapped around me. I also
acquired a new hat which shone in the sunshine as though
it had been pomaded with fresh butter. Then the gloomy
stranger led away the horses; the two painters jumped
into the coach, I on to the box and we started just as the
postmaster in his nightcap looked out of the window.

42

The postilion gave a merry blast on his post-horn and we
were off and away to Italy.

Up there I enjoyed all the pleasures of a bird in the air
without the labour of flying. I had nothing to do but sit
on the box night and day and to fetch meat and drink to
the coach from inns on the way, for the artists never
stepped indoors and by day they closed the coach win-
dows tight, as though the sunlight might injure them.
Only occasionally did Master Guido stretch his head out
of the window and chat to me in friendly fashion, when
he would laugh at Master Leonhard, who could not
bear this and always grew angry at our long talks. A few
times I was nearly in trouble with my master, once when
on a clear starry night I began to play my fiddle on the
box, and then later because I could not help falling asleep.
It was astonishing — I wished after all to see as much of
Italy as possible — and would open my eyes every quarter
of an hour, but no sooner had I looked around me for a
while than the sight of those sixteen horses' hooves
flickering and criss-crossing before my eyes brought me
to such a mesmerized state that my eyes closed again and
eventually I sank into such a fearful, irresistible sleep that
there was no keeping awake. It might be day or night,
rain or sunshine, Tyrol or Italy, I could do nothing for it
but lean now left, now right, now backwards over the
box, indeed I often dashed my head on the floor with such
vehemence that my hat fell off^ and Master Guido shouted
aloud from within the coach.

So without quite knowing how I had travelled half the
way through that part of Italy known as Lombardy when
we stopped one fine evening before a country inn. The

43

post horses from the neighbouring station would not be
ready for a few hours, the artists aHghted and were led to
a private room to rest a httle and write some letters. I
was delighted at the respite and betook myself at once to
the tap-room in order to be able to eat and drink again in
peace and comfort. The place had a slovenly look about
it. The maids walked around with matted hair and open
kerchiefs draped round the yellowish skin of their necks.
The inn servants, wearing loose blue overshirts, were
seated at a round table eating their supper and now and
again gave me a sideways glance. They all had short,
thick plaited queues and looked as elegant as young
gentlefolk. Here you are, I thought to myself as I
assiduously went on eating, here you are at last in that
country whence all those curious people used to come
and sell mousetraps, barometers and pictures to the vicar.
What can a man not learn when he once ventures forth
from hearth and home !

As I sat eating and meditating, a little man, who until
then had been sitting in a dark corner of the room over
his glass of wine, suddenly scuttled over to me from his
cranny like a spider. He was short and hunchbacked, with
a grisly face with a long Roman nose and sparse red side-
whiskers and his powdered hair stood up all round his
head as though a storm had blown through it. He wore an
old-fashioned, threadbare frock-coat, short velvet breeches
and silk stockings turned quite yellow. He had been to
Germany once and imagined that he imderstood Ger-
man to perfection. He sat down beside me and pestered
me with questions on this and that, while he constantly
took snuif : Was I the servitore ? When would we arrivare ?

44

Did we go to Koma ? I knew nothing of these matters
myself and could not understand his double-Dutch. At
last in distress I said to him 'Parlet^^-vous fran^ais?' He
shook his big head, which was a relief to me as I knew no
French either. But these tactics could not throw him off:
he had well and truly fixed his eye on me and pressed his
questions without cease. The more we parleyed the less
we understood of each other, then we finally grew quite
heated and I began to feel that this signor was about to
stab me with his sharp nose, until at last the maids who
had overheard our babel-like discourse laughed us both
heartily to scorn. I put down my knife and fork and went
outside. In this alien land it was as if I with my German
tongue had been sunk a thousand fathoms into the sea
and all kinds of strange worms were squirming and
rustling, staring and snapping at me.

Out of doors it was just the sort of warm summer
night to go for a stroll. From the distant vineyards a vine-
dresser could now and again be heard singing, lightning
flashed occasionally from afar and the whole countryside
trembled and rustled in the moonlight. At times I thought
I noticed a tall, dark figure lurking behind the hazel
bushes in front of the inn and peering through the
branches, then all was still again. Suddenly Master Guido
stepped out on to the balcony. He did not notice me, but
struck up with great skill on a zither, which he must have
found in the inn, and sang to it with the voice of a
nightingale:

Man's loud joy at last is still.
Earth stirs gently as though dreaming,
Leaves are sighing, moonlight gleaming.
And the heart with secret skiU

45

For old sadness now beats quicker,
Showers pass, dead moments flicker
Like the lightning on the hilL

I cannot tell whether he sang any more, because I had
stretched myself out on a bench in front of the tavern and
fell asleep in the warm night from sheer weariness.
Several hours must have passed before the post-horn
wakened me, after sounding long in my dreams before I
came to my senses. At last I jumped up, day was already
dawning over the mountains and the dew was soaking
my limbs. Only then did I recall that it was time for us to
leave. Aha, thought I, today it is my turn to do the waking
and the laughing at them. How Master Guido would
leap up with his sleepy head of curls when he heard me
outside. So I walked into the small garden close under
their window, turned once more towards the dawn's
glow and sang with a merry heart:

When the larks begin to rise.
Day approaches in the skies.
As the sun begins to peep —
Oh, how good it is to sleep I

The window was open, but all was quiet upstairs
except for the night wind blowing through the vines
which grew up to the window. *What can this mean?'
I cried out in astonishment, ran indoors and through the
silent corridors to their room. There I had a shock. When
I opened the door all was empty: not a jacket, not a hat^
not a boot. Only the zither, which Master Guido had
played yesterday, still hung on the wall. On the table in
the middle of the room lay a full purse of money with a

46

note attached to it. I held it close to the light and could
hardly trust my eyes, for in very truth it read in large
letters : Tor the toll-keeper' I

What use, though, was it all to me if I were to lose my
dear, kind masters ? I shoved the purse into the capacious
tail pocket of my coat, where it dropped as if into a deep
well and nearly pulled me over backwards. Then I ran
out, making a great deal of noise and waking all the
maids and servitors in the house. They had no notion of
what I wanted and thought I had gone mad, but soon
they were as amazed as I had been when they saw that the
birds had flown from their nest. Nobody knew anything
of my two gentlemen. Only one maid — as far as I could
gather from her signs and gesticulations — had noticed
that Master Guido, while singing on the balcony the
evening before, had suddenly cried aloud and rushed
back into the room to his companion. On waking later
that night she had heard the sound of horses' hooves, had
looked out of the little window of her chamber and seen
the hunch-backed signor, who had conversed with me
for so long yesterday, galloping across the moonlit
fields on a grey at such a speed that he flew in the air from
his saddle, at which the girl had crossed herself, so much
did he resemble a ghost riding on a three-legged horse.
What was I to do ?

Meanwhile our coach had long been waiting ready
harnessed at the door and the postilion was impatiently
blowing his horn fit to burst, for he had his timetable to
consider which laid down the precise time at which he
was due to arrive at the next posting-station. I ran once
more round the whole house and called the two artists,

47

but there came no answer; the people from the inn all ran
out in a crowd and gaped at me, the postilion cursed,
the horses snorted, until at last I sprang, in utter confusion,
into the coach. The ostler slammed the door behind me,
the postilion cracked his whip and away I went once
more into the wide world.

48

5

We drove on over hill and dale, night and day without
cease. I had no time to gather my thoughts, for wherever
we stopped fresh horses were waiting ready harnessed, I
could not speak to the people and my sign language was
useless; often when I was seated over an excellent meal
at an inn the postilion would sound his horn, I would
have to drop knife and fork and leap aboard the coach
again without the least idea whither I was going nor why
we should be travelling at such an exhausting pace.

Otherwise life was none too bad. I lay as if on a couch
first in one corner of the coach and then in the other and
saw a great deal of Italy and the Italians. Whenever we
drove through a town I would lean out of the window
on both arms and thank the people who politely doffed
their hats to me, or I would wave to the girls at their
windows like an old friend, whereupon they stared even
harder and gaped after me long and curiously.

At last I received a great fright. I had never counted the
money in my purse, I had been everywhere obliged to pay
out a great deal to the postmasters and innkeepers and
before I knew it the purse was empty. At first I decided
to jump out of the coach and run away as soon as we
passed through a deserted wood, but then I regretted the

49

thought of leaving the splendid coach in which I could
gladly have travelled on to the very end of the world.

Thus I sat, deep in thought and incapable of finding a
solution to my dilemma, when the coach suddenly took a
side turning from the highroad. I shouted out of the
window to the postilion to ask where he was going, but
to whatever I said the fellow only answered : ^Si^ si, signore!*
and drove on heedless of sticks and stones in a manner
which threw me from side to side of the coach.

I could not understand the reason for our change of
route, as the highroad at that point ran through a splendid
landscape towards the setting sun, like a glittering sea in
its richness and glory, whereas in the direction which we
had now taken lay only harsh mountains broken by dis-
mal gorges where darkness was already setting in. The
further we drove the wilder and more desolate the region
grew. At last the moon appeared from behind some
clouds and shone all at once so brightly on the trees and
cliffs that it was grim to behold. We could only drive
slowly along the narrow, stony gorges and the endless,
monotonous rattling of the coach resounded from the
rocky sides far into the silent night as though we were
driving into a great tomb. The only sounds were the
constant roaring of unseen waterfalls deep in the forest
and the incessant hooting of screech-owls: 'Come too^
come tooV After a while it seemed to me as if the coach-
man, who, as I now noticed for the first time, was no
longer a uniformed postilion, began to give many an
uneasy glance around him and drove faster; once as I
leaned right out of the coach a horseman came suddenly
out of the undergrowth, jumped clean across the path in

50

front of our horses and was immediately lost again in the
woods on the other side. I was amazed, for as far as I
could perceive in the bright moonlight it was the same
hunch-backed manikin on his grey who had stabbed at me
with his aquiline nose in the tavern. The coachman shook
his head and laughed aloud at this wild exhibition, but
then turned round to me and spoke long and volubly, of
which I unfortunately understood nothing, and then
drove on faster than ever.

I was very relieved when soon afterwards I saw a light
flickering in the distance. Gradually more and more
lights appeared, they grew larger and brighter and finally
we drove past a few smoke-blackened huts clinging like
swallows' nests to the cliif-side. As the night was warm
the doors stood open and I could see the brightly lit rooms
within, in which ragged vagabonds squatted round
the fire like dark shadows. On we rattled through the
still night and up a stony path which began to climb a
steep hillside. At one moment tall trees and dangling
bushes covered the sunken path, at another we could
again see the heavens and down below the vast, silent
ring of mountains, forests and valleys. On the peak of
the mountain there stood in the brilliant moonlight a
great and ancient castle, set with innumerable turrets.
'God help meT I cried, inwardly heartened and full of
expectation to discover at last where I was to be brought.
It was another half-hour at least before we finally
reached the castle gates. We entered through a broad,
round tower whose upper works were almost in ruins. The
coachman gave three cracks of his whip, which echoed
through the old castle and sent a sudden swarm of jack-

31

daws fluttering in terror from every crack and cranny
and whirling through the air with loud cries. Thereupon
the coach rolled in through the long, dark gateway: the
horses' hooves sent sparks flashing from the cobbles, a
great dog barked, the coach thundered between the
vaulted walls, the jackdaws still screaming — and so with
much sound and fury we made our entrance into the
narrow, paved castle courtyard.

A curious posting-station ! I thought to myself as the
coach drew to a stop. The coach doors were opened from
outside and a tall old man with a small lantern
stared grimly at me from beneath thick eyebrows. He
took me by the arm and helped me, as though I were a
great lord, to alight from the coach. Before the great door
stood an extremely ugly old woman in black smock and
jacket, with a white apron and a black cap from which a
long tassel hung down to her nose. She held a large
bunch of keys dangling at her hip and in the other hand
an old-fashioned sconce with two lighted wax candles.
As soon as she saw me she made a deep curtsey, babbling
questions the while. I could understand none of it, but
bowed awkwardly to her, feeling ill at ease.

Meanwhile the old man had been shining his lantern all
round the coach, muttering and shaking his head because
there was no sign of trunk or baggage. Then the coach-
man, without demanding a tip from me, drove the coach
away into an old shed which stood open on one side of
the courtyard. The old woman, however, bade me with
signs to follow her. With her candles to light the way she
led me through a long, narrow passage and up a small
stone staircase. As we passed the kitchen a few young

52

maids put their heads inquisitively round the half-open
door and stared at me, beckoning and nodding mysteri-
ously to each other as though they had never seen a male
creature in their lives. At last the old woman opened an
upstairs door, at which I was at first quite nonplussed, for
it led into a large and beautiful, indeed magnificent, room
adorned with gold on the ceiling, with splendid flowered
tapestries on the walls depicting all sorts of figures and
large flowers. In the middle stood a table laid with roast
meats, cakes, salad, fruit, wine and sweets which cheered
me to the heart. Between the two windows hung a huge
mirror reaching from floor to ceiling.

I must say that I found it all most pleasing. I stretched
myself a few times and walked up and down the room in
properly noble manner, but I could not long resist looking
at myself in such a grand mirror. In truth Master Leon-
hard's new clothes suited me handsomely and since my
stay in Italy I had acquired something of a fiery glance,
but otherwise I was still the same beardless milksop that
I had been at home, with only a few strands of fluff
beginning to show on my upper lip. ■'' jflj y

All this time the old woman continued to mouth away
with her toothless gums, for all the world as if she were
chewing the tip of her pendulous nose. She bade me be
seated, stroked my chin with her withered fingers, and
called me poverino ! at which she gave me a roguish look
from her reddened eyes, and pulled the corners of her
mouth half way up her cheeks, and finally left the room
with a deep curtsey.

As I sat down at the table a young and pretty maid
entered to serve me. I tried out many a gallant discourse

53

with her, but she could not understand me and only
stared with curiosity at my delight over the meal, which
was most delicate. Waen I had eaten my fill and stood up
again, the maid took a light from the table and led me
into another room. There was a sofa, a little mirror and a
magnificent bed hung with green silk curtains. I signed to
her, asking whether I might lay down in it ? She nodded
*Yes', but I could not do so as she remained beside me as
if nailed to the spot. Finally I fetched myself a large glass
of wine from the room in which I had dined and wished
her ^Felkissima notteT for I had by then learned that much
Italian, but as I drained the glass in one draught she
suddenly burst into a fit of suppressed giggling, blushed
all over, walked into the dining-room and out at the door.
What is there to laugh at? I thought in amazement; I do
believe all Italians are mad.

I was still afraid lest the postilion should start blowing
his horn again. I listened at the window, but all was quiet
outside. Let him blow, I thought as I undressed and lay
down in the splendid bed. It was as if I were swimming in
milk and honey. The old hme tree rustled outside in the
courtyard and now and again a jackdaw would suddenly
fly up from the roof until at last, in deep satisfaction, I
fell asleep.

54

^-#^>><*^^^^^—

When I awoke again the first rays of the morning were
already playing over the green curtains above me. I
could not properly remember where I was. It seemed to
me that I was still driving in the coach and that I had
dreamed of an old castle in the moonlight, of an old witch
and her pale daughter. At last I jumped out of bed,
dressed myself and while doing so looked all round the
room. Then I noticed a little tapestried door which I had
not seen yesterday. It was only ajar, I opened it and
espied a neat little room that looked most inviting in the
light of the dawn. Some women's clothes were thrown
untidily over a chair and beside it lay the girl who had
served me at table the evening before. She was still fast
asleep and she had lain her head on her bare white arm,
over which fell her black curls. If she knew that the door
was open! I said to myself and returned to my bedroom,
shutting and bolting the door behind me lest the girl
should be ashamed and take fright when she awoke.
Outside there was not a sound to be heard. Only an early
woodland bird was sitting outside my window, singing
his morning song on a tuft that grew out of the wall.
*No,' said I, 'you shall not shame me by being the first to
rise and sing your praises to God.' I picked up my fiddle,

55

which I had laid on the table yesterday, and went out. All
was still deathly quiet in the castle and it was long before
I found my way out through the dark passages.

When I stepped out in front of the castle I entered a
large garden, which descended half the mountainside in
broad terraces. As a garden, however, it was a poor piece
of work. The paths were all overgrown with tall grass,
the boxwood topiary figures were untrimmed and
stretched out such long ghostly noses or yard-long
pointed caps that one might have taken fright to see them
in the twilight. There was even washing hung over some
broken statues atop a dried-up fountain, here and there
someone had been burning charcoal in the midst of the
garden and a few dull flowers were growing in untidy
confusion beside tall, ragged weeds, the haunt of bright
lizards. A lonely vista of mountain after mountain peak
was the only sight to be seen through the tall and ancient
trees.

After strolling around for a while through this wilder-
ness, I noticed on the terrace below me a tall, thin, pale
youth in a long brown cowled habit walking up and
down with arms folded. He appeared not to have seen
me. Shortly afterwards he sat down on a stone bench,
drew a book from his pocket and began reading in a very
loud voice as though he were preaching, now and again
gazing heavenwards and resting his head in melancholy
fashion on his right hand. I stared at him for a long time
until I grew curious to know why he made such odd
grimaces and walked up to him. He had just heaved a deep
sigh and leaped up in fright as I approached. He was
embarrassed, as indeed was I, neither of us knowing what

56

we should say and exchanging endless bows until he
finally fled into the bushes with long strides. The sun had
meanwhile risen over the forest, I jumped up on to the
bench and for pure pleasure struck up on my fiddle until
it echoed far down the silent valleys. The old woman
with the bunch of keys, who had anxiously been searching
for me all over the castle to summon me to breakfast,
now made her appearance on the terrace above me and
was amazed that I played so well on the fiddle. The grim
old man of the castle joined her and was quite astonished;
finally came the maids, who all stood above me in wonder-
ment while I fingered the strings and swung my fiddle-
stick with ever greater skill and speed, playing cadenzas
and variations until I finally wore myself out.

Strangely enough no one at the castle spoke of my
journeying further; it was indeed no posting-inn, but
belonged, as I learned from the maid, to a rich count. On
the many occasions that I asked the old woman for the
count's name and where he lived, she would merely smirk
as she had on the first evening that I came to the castle
and wink at me as furiously as if she were out of her
senses. When once, on a hot day, I drank a whole bottle
of wine, the maids giggled when they brought me another
bottle and even when I demanded a pipe of tobacco,
describing it to them by signs, they all burst out into loud
and unreasonable laughter. But most mysterious of all
was a serenade which was to be heard frequently and
always on the darkest nights beneath my window, con-
sisting of no more than occasional soft chords on a
guitar. Once, however, I thought that I heard someone
call out 'Psst! Psst!' while the music was playing. I leaped

5 57 (H967)

out of bed and stuck my head out of the window
'Hallo I Who is that out there ?' I called down, but no one
answered and I heard nothing but the sound of something
running quickly away through the bushes. My shout
caused the big dog in the courtyard to bark a few times,
then all was still again and after that the serenade was
never heard again.

Otherwise my life here left nothing to be desired. Ah,
the good old porter ! He knew what he was talking about
when he used to say that the raisins in Italy grew into
one's very mouth. I lived in that lonely castle like an
enchanted prince. Wherever I went the people showed
me great deference, although by now they all knew that I
had not a farthing in my pocket. I only had to say: 'Table,
spread yourself!' and there stood a delicious meal ready
for me — rice, wine, melons and Parmesan cheese. I
delighted in the food, slept in the magnificent four-poster,
went for walks in the garden, made music and even
helped with the gardening. Often I would lie for hours in
the tall grass of the garden and the thin youth (he was a
student, a relative of the old woman, who was here for
his vacation) in his long cassock walked round me in a
wide circle, murmuring aloud from his book like a
magician — which always sent me to sleep. So the days
went by, until at last so much good food and drink began
to make me melancholy. The lack of occupation made my
limbs quite slack and I felt as if I should fall apart from
idleness. It was thus that I was sitting one sultry afternoon
in the top of a tall tree, which stood on a slope, gently
rocking myself on the branches over the deep, stiJl valley.
The bees buzzed around me through the leaves, otherwise

58

all was motionless, not a soul was to be seen on the
mountainsides while far below me the cattle were at rest
in the tall grass of the woodland meadows. Then from
far away came the sound of a post-horn over the wooded
hilltops, at first hardly to be heard and then louder and
clearer. All at once an old song came to my mind, which
I had learned at home at my father's mill from a wandering
apprentice, and I sang:

A wanderer's heart will not grieve him
Who fares with his love, his own:
For others rejoice and would leave him,
A stranger bereft, alone.

Dark tree, whisper tales of the old times.
Of fled moments, fine and dear.
Ah my homeland I which in these cold times
Is far away from me here.

I love now in starlight to wander —
Stars shone when I sought her before —
I hear in that nightingale, yonder.
The song near my darling's door.

The morning's great joy always thrills me:
First, its stillness on the plain.
Then for mountains a yearning fills me.
Where I greet my dear home again.

It seemed as though the post-horn in the distance was
trying to accompany my song. As I sang it came nearer
and nearer through the mountains, until at last its sound
could be heard coming from the castle courtyard itself.
I jumped quickly down from the tree. The old woman
was already coming towards me, carrying an open parcel.
'Something has come for you,' she said and handed me a
neat little letter from the parcel. It bore no address, but I

59

quickly opened it. All at once I went as red in the face as
a peony and my heart beat so furiously that the old
woman noticed it, for the letter was from — my gracious
lady, wl ose aandwriting I had seen many times on notes
addressed to the estate bailiff. Her message was quite
short: 'AH is now well, all obstacles are overcome. I made
secret use of this opportunity to be the first to send you
these glad news. Come, hasten back. It is so desolate here
and I cannot live since you have left us. Aurelia.'

As I read this my eyes swam with delight, with fear and
unspeakable joy. The sight of the old woman, who was
smirking at me again in her repellent fashion, made me
suddenly shy and I fled like an arrow to the loneliest
corner of the garden. There I threw myself down into the
grass under some hazel-bushes and read the letter once
more, repeating the words aloud until I had them by
heart and then read them again and again as the sunbeams
danced through the leaves over the letters, making them
into golden, red and pale green blossoms before my eyes.
Did she eventually not marry, I thought, was the un-
known officer perhaps her brother, or is he now dead, or
am I mad ? 'What matter.^' I cried at last and sprang up.
*One thing is clear — she loves me, yes, she loves me!'

When I crept out of the bushes the sun was beginning
to set. The sky was red, the birds were singing merrily in
the woods and the valleys were shimmering in the
evening glow, but my heart was a thousand times
brighter and happier!

I called to the castle that they should bring my supper
out into the garden this evening. They should all, the old
woman, the gloomy old man and the maids, come outside

60

and share my table under the trees. I took up my fiddle
and played in between eating and drinking, which made
them all gay: the old man's grim frown vanished as he
downed glass after glass of wine, the old woman mumbled
incessantly God knows what rubbish and the maids began
to dance with each other on the grass. Finally even the
pale student appeared out of curiosity, threw a few
scornful glances at the spectacle and made as if to depart
again with great dignity. I jumped smartly to my feet,
caught him unawares by his long cassock and waltzed
him vigorously around. He tried hard to dance in the
modern manner and made such efforts to keep time
that the sweat poured down from his face and the long
skirts of his cassock flew round us like a wheel. But he
gave me such curious looks from his squinting eyes that
I grew quite afraid of him and suddenly let him go again.

The old woman would have liked to discover the
contents of the letter and why I was so suddenly cheerful
today, but it was all too complicated to explain to her. I
merely pointed to a pair of cranes which were at that
moment flying through -the air above us and said that I
must away again, away and away into the far distance ! At
that she opened wide her dried up old eyes and stared Uke
^ basilisk, first at me and then at the old man. Then I saw
them both putting their heads together whenever I turned
away, talking most earnestly and occasionally squinting
sideways at me.

I could not but notice this and tried urgently to think
what they might be hatching between them. I grew quiet ;
as the sun had long since set I wished them all a good
night and went pensively up to my bedroom.

6i

I felt so happy and so disturbed that I paced up and
down in my room for some time. Outside the wind was
rolling heavy black clouds over the castle turrets and even
the nearest mountaintops were scarce to be seen in the
darkness. Then I thought that I could hear voices down
below in the garden. I put out my light and stationed
myself by the window. The voices seemed to come nearer,
but they were talking very softly. All at once a small
lantern, carried by a cloaked figure, sent out a long ray. I
was now able to make out the grim castle bailiff and the
old housekeeper. The light shone over the old woman's
face, w^hich I had never seen looking so ghastly, and on a
long knife which she was holding in her hand. I could
also see that they were both looking up at my window.
Then the bailiif drew his cloak tightly round him and all
was once more dark and still.

What, I wondered, are they doing out in the garden at
this hour? I shuddered as I recalled all the tales of murder
that I had ever heard in my life, tales of witches and
robbers who cut men down in order to eat their hearts.
As I sat there in thought, the sound of footsteps came
first up the stairs, then softly, softly along the long
corridor tow^ards my door, accompanied now and again
by the sound of whispering voices. I quickly sprang
behind a large table at the other end of the room, with the
aim, as soon as anything should move, of picking it up
and running with all my force for the door. But in the
darkness I knocked over a chair, which made a fearful
clatter; at once all was quiet outside. I listened from
behind the table, staring all the while at the door as
though I might pierce it with my sight until my eyes were

62

starting from my head. After I had remained there for a
while, so still that one could have heard the flies walking
on the wall, I heard someone softly putting the key into
the keyhole from outside. I was about to rush forward
with my table when whoever it was turned the key three
times round in the lock, carefully pulled it out and softly
withdrew along the corridor and down the stairs.

I took a deep breath. Oho, thought I, so they have
locked you in to catch you more easily when you have
fallen alseep. I quickly examined the door. I was right; it
was securely locked, as was the other door, beyond which
slept the pretty, pale maid. This had never happened since
I had been at the castle. I was a prisoner in a foreign land P
My dear lady would now be sitting at her window and
looking out over the silent garden towards the turnpike,
wondering whether I would come strolling along past the
toll-booth with my fiddle, the clouds were flying across
the sky, time was passing — and I could not escape from
here ! My heart ached so that I could no longer think what
to do. All the time I felt, whenever the leaves rustled
outside or a rat scurried under the floorboards, that the
old woman had secretly entered through a concealed door
in the tapestry and was lurking and creeping about in
the room with her long knife. As I sat anxiously on the
bed I suddenly heard, for the first time for a long while,
the serenade beneath my window. At the first notes of
the guitar it was just as though a ray of sunlight shone
through my soul. I flung open the window and called
softly down that I was awake. Tsst! Psst!' came the
answer from below. I wasted no more time in thought but
seized the letter and my fiddle, swung myself out of the

63

window and climbed down the crumbling old wall by-
holding on to the tufts that grew out of the cracks.
However, a few rotten bricks gave way, I started to slip
and slide down, faster and faster, until I finally landed
with such a thump on both feet that my brainbox
rattled.

Scarcely had I reached the garden in this way than I felt
myself embraced with such vehemence that I cried aloud.
JSIy good friend quickly put his finger to my mouth,
seized me by the hand and led me out of the shrubbery
into the open. There with amazement I recognized the
tall student, who was carrying the guitar slung round his
neck on a broad silk band. In great haste I conveyed to
him that I wanted to find my way out of the garden. He
seemed to know this already and led me by all manner
of concealed by-ways to the furthest turret at the bottom
of the garden wall. This too was locked, but the student
had made provision for this; he drew out a large key
and carefully unlocked the door.

As we stepped out into the forest and I was about to
ask him the best way to the nearest town, he suddenly
cast himself down on one knee before me, raised his hand
high and started to curse and swear in a manner terrible
to hear. I had no notion of what he wanted and could only
hear how he repeated iddio and cuore and amore a.nd /wore I'/'^^y
When he began, though, to crawl nearer and nearer
towards me on both knees, I had a sudden feehng of
horror and saw in truth that he must be insane; I ran,
without looking round, away into the thickest part of
the wood.

I could hear the student running after me, raging and

64

shouting. Soon another and rougher voice could be
heard in answer from the castle. I thought that they were
now certain to set off in my pursuit. I did not know the
way, the night was dark and I might easily fall into their
hands again. I therefore climbed to the top of a tall fir tree
to await a better opportunity.

From where I was I could hear voice after voice
awakening at the castle. Torches appeared up above and
threw their wild glare over the old masonry of the castle
walls and far out over the mountains into the dark night.
I commended my soul to God, for the wild uproar grew
ever louder and nearer. At length the student, bearing a
torch, ran past the trunk of my tree, the skirts of his long
cassock flying in the wind; then they all seemed gradually
to turn towards another flank of the mountain, the voices
grew fainter and fainter and only the wind was again
heard rustling through the silent forest. Then I climbed
down from the tree and ran, breathless, into the night and
towards the valley.

65

7

For a day and a night I hurried on, for I imagined that I
could hear them shouting down the mountain and chasing
me with torches and long knives. On my way I learned
that I was only a few miles distant from Rome. This news
gave me a shock of joy, for even as a child at home I had
heard so many wonderful tales of glorious Rome, and
when I lay in the grass before the mill on Sunday after-
noons and all around was still, I imagined Rome to be
like the great clouds sailing above me, with wonderful
hills and chasms, with golden gates and tall shining
towers on which angels in golden raiment stood and
sang. Night had long since fallen again and the moon was
shining brilliantly when at last I stepped out of the wood
on to a hill and suddenly saw the city in the distance
before me. Far away was the glint of the sea, the infinite
sky flashed and sparkled with countless stars and beneath
it lay the Holy City, which could be seen as no more than
a long swathe of mist like a sleeping lion on the silent
earth, the mountains round about like dark giants
standing guard.

As I walked on I came first to a great lonely tract of
heath, where all was as grey and as still as the grave. Only
here and there stood a pile of decaying masonry or a dry,

66

wonderfully twisted bush; many a night bird flapped
across the sky and always my own shadow strode, long
and dark, in the loneliness beside me. They say that an
ancient city, in which is the tomb of the lady Venus, lies
buried here and that at times the old heathen will rise
from their graves to walk the heath at dead of night to
lead travellers astray. But I kept going straight ahead, in
fear of naught, for the city rose before me ever clearer
and more splendid and the tall castles, the gates and
golden domes shone so gloriously in the bright moon-
light, as though in truth angels in golden raiment were
standing on the roofs and singing out into the silent
night.

At last I began to pass the first little houses, then went
through a magnificent gateway into the famous city of
Rome. The moon shone between the palaces as though it
were bright daylight, but the streets were all empty, only
here and there in the soft night air lay a ragged figure as
though dead, asleep on some flight of marble steps. The
fountains splashed in quiet squares and gardens along the
street rustled softly, filling the air with vivid scent.

As I strolled along, so full of pleasure, of moonlight
and well-being that I knew not where to turn, suddenly
from deep within a garden came the sound of a guitar.
By God, thought I, that must be the mad student with
the long habit who has been secretly following me 1 Then
a lady in the garden began to sing with surpassing beauty.
I stood as if bewitched, for it was the voice of my
beautiful, my gracious lady and the same ItaUan song
which she had so often sung at her open window.

All at once the happy past came back to my thoughts

67

with such force that I could have wept bitter tears ; there
again was the silent castle garden in the early morning and
myself so happily ensconced behind the shrub — before
that stupid fly had decided to crawl up my nose. I could re-
strain myself no longer. I climbed up the gilded wrought-
ironwork, over the gate and swung myself down into
the garden from whence came the song. Then I noticed
that a slim white figure was standing in the distance
behind a poplar; at first she stared at me in amazement as
I climbed over the lattice-work, but then ran off so
quickly through the dark garden towards the house that
I could hardly make out her feet as she fled in the moon-
light. 'That was her!' I cried, and my heart beat with joy,
for I had recognized her at once by her swift little feet. It
was unfortunate that in jumping down from the gate I
had slightly twisted my right foot and shambled a few
paces on one leg before I could run after her towards the
house. In the meantime, though, door and window had
been bolted fast. I knocked timidly, listened and knocked
again. I seemed to hear a sound of whispering and giggling
from indoors and once I even thought that I saw two
bright eyes sparkling in the moonlight between the
shutters. Then all was still again.

Of course, she does not know who I am, thought I and
took out my fiddle which I always carried with me,
walked up and down with it on the pathway in front of
the house, played and sang the song of the gracious lady
and played all the songs which I used to play on fine
summer nights in the castle garden or on the bench in
front of the toll-house, loud enough to be heard from the
castle window. But all to no avail; no one stirred in the

68

whole house, so at last I sadly put away my fiddle and
lay down on the threshold of the house, for I was very
tired from my long march. The night was warm, the
flowerbeds in front of the house gave off a delicious scent
and deeper within the garden a fountain splashed without
cease. I thought of sky-blue flowers, of lovely dark green,
lonely valleys, where spring water babbled and streams
flowed and gaily coloured birds sang wonderfully — until
at last I fell fast asleep.

When I awoke the morning air was chilling me in every
limb. The birds were already awake and were twittering
on the trees around me as though to laugh me to scorn.
I jumped up and looked all around me. The fountain in
the garden was still splashing, but not a sound was yet to
be heard indoors. I squinted through the green shutters
into one of the rooms. There was a sofa and a large
round table covered with a grey linen cloth, chairs stood
in neat rows round the walls; outside, however, the
shutters were let down over all the windows as though
the whole house had been uninhabited for years. A shud-
der of fear overcame me at this lonely house and garden
and at the thought of the white figure of the night before.
I ran, without looking round, through the silent bowers
and pathways and quickly climbed up the lattice gate.
But I stopped and sat as if bewitched when all at once I
caught sight of the gorgeous city from the top of the
gate. The morning sun was flashing and sparkling over
the roofs and into the long, silent streets ; the sight made
me cry out in delight and, full of joy, I jumped down into
the street. But whither should I turn in this great, un-
known city? The confused events of the night and the

69

Italian song of my gracious lady were still running
through my head. At last I sat down on the stone fountain
in the middle of a deserted square, washed my eyes clean
in the clear water and sang as I did so:

Were I a bird on high,

I know what I should be singing;

And with two wings to fly

I know where I'd be winging.

*Aha, my merry fellow, you sing like a lark at sunrise I'
I suddenly heard a young man, who had walked up to
the fountain as I sang, say to me. Hearing these words
spoken so unexpectedly in German it was just as though
it was a Sunday morning and the bells of my own village
had suddenly started to ring. 'God be with you, fellow-
countryman,' I cried and, full of cheer, jumped down
from the stone fountain. The young man smiled and
looked me up and down. 'But what in the world are you
doing here in Rome?' he finally asked. I did not quite
know what to say, for I did not care to tell him that I had
just been leaping over gates after my dear lady. 'I am
travelling around,' I replied, 'in order to see something
of the world.' 'I see,' said the young man and laughed
aloud, 'then we are in the same trade, you and I, for I too
am seeing the world and painting it as I go along.' 'So
you are an artist!' I shouted joyfully, remembering Master
Leonhard and Master Guido. But the young man inter-
rupted me before I could say more. 'I think,' said he,
'that you should come and have breakfast with me, for it
would give me great pleasure to do your likeness.' I
readily accepted and set off with the artist through the
empty streets, where only occasional shutters were yet

70

open and where now a pair of white arms, now a sleepy-
little face appeared in the fresh morning air.

For a long while he led me round and about through
a maze of narrow, dark alle3rways, until we finally slipped
into an old, smoke-blackened house. There we climbed
up one dark stairway and then another, as though we
were climbing to heaven itself. We now stood before an
attic doorway and the artist began to search furiously in
all his pockets, but early that morning he had forgotten
to lock his door and had left the key inside the room, for
as he told me on the way he had been out before day-
break in order to see that district of the city before
sunrise. He only shook his head and kicked the door
open. It was a large and very long room in which one
could have held a dance, had not everything lain all over
the floor. Boots, paper, clothes and knocked-over pots
of paint lay in utter disorder; in the middle of the room
were some large step-ladders, of the sort one uses to pick
pears, and a number of large pictures were leaned against
the walls. On a long wooden table was a dish, containing
bread and butter and a blob of paint; beside it stood a
bottle of wine.

'First you must eat and drink, fellow-countryman!'
said the painter. I was about to spread myself a few slices
of bread and butter, but there was no knife. We had first
to rummage for a long while among the papers on the
table before we finally found it under a large parcel.
Thereupon the artist flung open the window to let a
pleasant gush of fresh morning air into the room. There
was a glorious view right across the city and away over
to the mountains, where the morning sun was casting its

71

joyful rays over white farmhouses and vineyards. 'Here's
to our cool green land of Germany up there over the
mountains !' cried my artist friend, taking a swig from the
wine bottle and handing it to me. I politely followed suit
and silently greeted my beautiful homeland a thousand
times over. Meanwhile the painter had pulled a wooden
easel, on which was stretched a large sheet of paper,
closer to the window. On the paper was a drawing, in
bold black strokes, of an old hut. In it sat the Holy Virgin
with a beautiful face, at once joyous and sad. At her feet
in a little nest of straw lay the child Jesus, looking happy
but with great, serious eyes. Outside on the threshold of
the open hut knelt two shepherd boys with staff and
wallet. 'Do you see,' said the painter, 'I shall put your
head on one of the shepherd boys, so people will see your
face and, God willing, it will still give them pleasure when
you and I are both long in our graves and are kneeling as
quietly and joyfully before the Holy Mother and her son
as these happy young lads in the picture.' Then he seized
an old chair which, as he picked it up, broke in pieces,
leaving him holding nothing but half the chair-back. He
quickly fitted it together again, then pushed it in front of
the easel, made me sit on it and turn my face slightly
sideways. For a few minutes I sat quite still without
moving, but — I do not know why — I could not hold the
pose for long; now I felt an itching here, now there. The
broken half of a mirror hung opposite me and I could not
keep myself from staring into it while he painted and, out
of boredom, making every kind of grimace. The painter,
who had noticed it, finally burst out laughing and gestured
to me to stand up again. He had finished drawing my face

72

on the shepherd boy and it looked so handsome that even
I found my own likeness most pleasing. He continued to
draw away industriously in the fresh, cool morning air,
singing a little song as he worked and now and again
glancing out at the open window to the glorious view.
I meanwhile cut myself another slice of bread and butter
and walked up and down the room with it, inspecting the
pictures that were propped up against the wall. Two of
them pleased me particularly. 'Did you also paint these ?'
I asked the painter. 'Would that I had!' he replied. 'They
are by the famous masters Leonardo da Vinci and Guido
Reni — but what do you know about them!' I was
angered by his last words. 'Oh,' said I, 'I know both of
these masters as well as I know my own pockets.' At that
his eyes opened wide. 'How so ?' he quickly asked. 'Well,'
said I, 'I have been travelling with them day and night,
on foot, on horseback and by coach, so fast that the wind
whistled past my hat; I lost them both in an inn and then
drove on alone in their coach at double speed, the coach
bouncing over the most fearful stones on two wheels
and...' 'Aha! Aha!' the painter interrupted me and
stared at me as if I were mad. Then he suddenly burst out
into loud laughter. *Ah,' he cried, 'now I understand.
You made the journey with two artists called Guido and
Leonhard ?' When I answered in the affirmative, he hastily
jumped up and stared at me again very closely from top to
toe. 'I do believe,' he said, at last — 'do you play the
violin ?' I slapped my tail-pocket, making the fiddle ring.
'In truth,' said the painter, 'a countess from Germany has
been here, inquiring in every corner of Rome after two
artists and a young musician with a fiddle.' 'A young

6 73 (H967)

countess from Germany?' I cried out in excitement. 'Is
the porter with her?' 'That I cannot tell/ replied my
artist. 'I only saw her a few times at the house of a friend,
who lives outside the city. Do you know her?' he went
on, suddenly lifting the canvas cover from a large picture
standing in the corner. I felt at that moment as one does
when the shutters are opened on a dark room and the
morning sun floods in to dazzle one's eyes ; it was — my
beauty, my gracious lady ! She stood in a garden in a black
velvet dress, lifting her veil from her face with one hand
and gazing calmly and happily over a glorious distant
prospect. The longer I looked the more strongly I felt as
though it were the castle garden, the trees and branches
were swaying gently in the wind and in the distance I could
see m.y little toll-house, the turnpike stretching far into
the green countryside, the Danube and the distant blue
mountains. 'It is she, it is she!' I cried out at last, seized
my hat, ran down the many stairs and out at the door,
only just hearing the astonished artist shouting after me
that I should come back towards evening, when we
might perhaps learn morel

74

8

I ran through the city with reckless speed, in order to
show myself again at that house in the garden where my
lady had sung last night. In the meantime the streets had
come to life, gentlemen and ladies were out walking in
the sunshine, bowing and greeting one another on all
sides, gorgeous carriages rattled along between them and
from every church tower the bells were ringing for mass,
the sound echoing marvellously in the clear air above the
throng. I felt as if I were drunk with joy and the noise of
the crowd and in my gladness I ran straight ahead until
eventually I no longer knew where I was. It was like
magic, as if the silent square with the fountain, the garden
and the house had been merely a dream and everything
had vanished from the earth at the break of day. I could
not ask anyone, because I did not know the name of the
square. At last it began to grow very sultry, the sun's rays
struck the cobbles like singeing arrows and people began
to retire indoors ; everywhere shutters were closed and all
at once the streets were dead. At last, in despair, I cast
myself down in front of a large, handsome house, before
which a colonnaded balcony threw its broad shadows,
and gazed first at the silent city, which had taken on a
positively sinister look in the sudden sohtude of bright

75

midday, then again at the deep blue, almost cloudless
sky, until at last I too fell asleep from utter weariness. I
dreamed that I was lying in an empty green meadow in
my own village, a warm summer shower was falling and
glistening in the sun, which had just set behind the
mountains and as the raindrops fell on the grass they
turned into a mass of brilliant flowers which covered me
in their profusion.

How astonished I was, however, when I awoke and
saw a host of beautiful fresh flowers really lying beside
me! I sprang up, but could discover nothing unusual
except that high up in the house above me was a window
full of scented herbs and flowers and behind them a
parrot, chattering and screeching without cease. I col-
lected the scattered flowers, tied them together and put
the bouquet into my buttonhole. Then I struck up a
conversation with the parrot, for I was pleased to watch
him climbing up and down in his gilded cage with all
sorts of grimaces, tripping clumsily over his big toe at
every step. Before I knew it he cursed me for a 'furjante\ '
Although he was no more than a heathen beast, I was
nevertheless vexed. I cursed him in return; finally we
both grew heated and the more I swore at him in German,
the more he gurgled away at me in Italian.

Suddenly I heard someone laugh behind me. I quickly
turned round. It was the painter of this morning. 'What
madcap tricks are you playing now ?' he said. 'I have been
waiting for you for half an hour. The air is cooler now,
we must go to my friend's garden outside the city where
you will find many of your fellow-countrymen and
perhaps learn some more about the German countess.'

76

.if-'

I was delighted at this and we set off at once on our
walk, while for long I could hear the parrot still cursing
away at my back.

After a long climb outside the city up narrow, stony
footpaths between farmhouses and vineyards, we came
to a small garden on a plot of high ground where several
young men and girls were seated at a round table in the
open. As soon as we entered they all signed to us to be
quiet and pointed over to the other side of the garden.
There in a great, green-grown bower sat two beautiful
ladies facing one another at a table. One was singing, the
other accompanying her on the guitar. Between them
behind the table stood a cheerful man, now and again
beating time with a little wand. The evening sun sparkled
through the vine leaves, now over the wine bottles and
fruit with which the table in the bower was covered, now
over the full, round, dazzling white shoulders of the lady
with the guitar. The other lady was as if enraptured, as
she sang in Italian with such abandon that the tendons on
her neck stood out.

Just as she was sustaining a long cadenza with her eyes
turned heavenwards and the man beside her with baton
raised was awaiting the exact moment when she would
take up the beat again, and not a soul in the garden was
daring to breath, suddenly the garden gate flew open
wide and a flushed girl, followed by a young man with
delicate, pale features burst in, engaged in a violent
quarrel. The frightened conductor stood still hke a
petrified magician with wand raised, although the singer
had long since broken off her extended trill and had
angrily stood up. All the others hissed furiously at the

77

newcomers. 'Barbarian/ one of those at the round table
shouted at him, 'jou are running right into the middle of
the brilliant tableau, enacted just as the blessed Hoffman
on page 347 of the Ladies Companion for 18 16 so
beautifully described the finest picture by Hummel
shown at the 18 14 exhibition of art in Berlin!' But this
had no effect. 'Oh, fie,' returned the young man, *on your
tableaux of tableaux ! I paint my own paintings for others
to look at and keep my own girl for myself! And so it
will be! Oh false, oh faithless one!' said he, turning
again to the wretched girl. 'You criticize — yet in painting
you can judge only its worth in silver and in poetry only
its weight in gold ! You want no dearest one — only what
is dear ! Henceforth instead of an honest painter I wish
you an old duke with a whole mine full of diamonds on
his nose, the glint of silver on his bald pate and a golden
parting in his few remaining hairs ! Come, out with that
cursed note which you tried to hide from me before!
What devilment are you up to now ? Who is it from and
to whom is it addressed?'

The girl, however, stood up to him bravely and the
more zealously the others surrounded the angry young
man and loudly attempted to console and calm him, the
madder and more heated he grew from the noisy crowd,
especially since the girl herself was not inclined to hold
her tongue, until at last she fled from the milling throng
and suddenly threw herself quite unexpectedly at my
breast to seek my protection. I at once adopted the
appropriate stance, but as the others in the crowd were
paying no attention to us, she suddenly turned her little
head up towards me and quickly whispered quite calmly

78

and softly into my ear: *Oh you, you dreadful toll-
keeper! It is for your sake that I have to suffer all this.
There, take the fatal note and hide it — it tells you where
we are living. Be there at the appointed hour. When you
pass the city gate, the deserted street on your right hand!*
Such was my amazement that I could not utter a word,
for now when I could see her properly I recognized her
at once : she was in very truth the pert little chambermaid
from the castle who had brought me the bottle of wine on
that beautiful Sunday evening. I had never seen her
looking so pretty as now when she leaned against me,
quite flushed, with her dark curls hanging over my arm.
*But my dear mam'selle,' I said in astonishment, 'how do
you come to be . . .' 'For heaven's sake be quiet, be quiet
now!' she replied and sprang away from me to the other
side of the garden before I could grasp what had hap-
pened.

Meanwhile the others had by now almost forgotten
the original quarrel, but were cheerfully continuing to
argue among themselves as they tried to prove to the
young man that he was drunk, which was not seemly for
an artist with pretentions to honour. The stout, lively
man from the bower, who was — as I later learned — a
great connoisseur and lover of the arts and whose
pleasure it was to participate as a keen amateur, had
thrown away his wand and was strolling around in the
thick of the crowd, his fat face positively glistening with
amiability, in an attempt to mediate and smooth it all
over, whilst he continued to regret the spoilt cadenza and
the beautiful tableau which he had been at such pains to
arrange.

79

My heart, though, was as Hght as it had been on that
blessed Saturday when I had played on my fiddle long
into the night with the wine-bottle at my open window.
There seemed to be no end to the noise and confusion; I
took out my violin and without pausing long to think I
struck up an Italian dance which they dance up in the
mountains and which I had learned at the lonely old
castle in the forest.

At once every head was raised. *Bravo, bravissimo, a
delicious inspiration!' cried the gay connoisseur and at
once ran from one to another in order to arrange a rustic
'divertissement', as he called it. He himself led the dance,
offering his hand to the lady who had played in the bower.
He began to dance in a highly artificial style, describing
all manner of figures on the grass with the points of his
toes, shaking regular trills with his feet and from time to
time making quite passable leaps in the air. He soon had
enough, though, for he was somewhat corpulent. His
leaps grew ever shorter and clumsier, until he finally
retired from the circle, coughing mightily and never
ceasing to wipe away the sweat with his snow-white
handkerchief. Meanwhile the young man, who had now
quite recovered his humour, had fetched some castanets
from the inn and before I knew it, they were all dancing
pell-mell under the trees. The sun, although set, still cast
a few red rays of afterglow between the dark shadows and
over the old masonry and the ivy-grown, half-collapsed
columns at the end of the garden, whilst in the other
direction, far below the vineyard terraces, could be seen
the city of Rome basking in the evening glow. There they
all danced under the branches in the clear, still air and my

80

heart danced with them to see the shm girls, the chamber-
maid in their midst, weave between the foliage, arms
arching upward like heathen wood-nymphs as they gaily
clashed their castanets in time to every step. I could no
longer restrain myself, but leaped into their midst and
cut a few merry capers as I fiddled away.

I had no doubt been leaping around in the circle for
some time without being aware that the others had begun
to grow tired and were gradually drifting away from the
grassy dance-floor. Then I felt a violent tug at my coat-
tails. It was the chambermaid. *Stop playing the fool,' she
said softly, *you are jumping about like a billy-goat! Take
my advice, read your note and follow me soon; the fair
young countess is waiting.' And with that she slipped
through the garden gate in the twilight and quickly
vanished among the vineyards.

My heart was beating so hard that I would have liked
to spring after her. Fortunately, as it had now grown dark,
the waiter lit a large lantern by the garden gate. I stepped
up to the light and pulled out the note. Scribbled on it in
pencil was a description of the gate and the street, as the
chambermaid had told me. It read : 'Eleven o'clock by the
little door.' How many long hours stretched ahead till
then! I was nevertheless about to set out on my way at
once, for I could rest no longer, but at that moment the
painter, who had brought me here, approached me.
'Have you spoken to the girl?' he inquired. 'I can no
longer see her anywhere ; she is the chambermaid of the
German countess.' 'Hush, hush,' I repUed, 'the countess
is still in Rome!' 'Well, so much the better,' said the
artist, 'come and drink her health with us !' And with that

8i

he dragged me back into the garden, in spite of all my
resistance. It had in the meantime become empty and
deserted. The convivial guests, each with his sweetheart
on his arm, were strolling back to the city and they could
be heard among the vineyards, chattering and laughing
in the still of the evening, the voices fading further and
further into the distance until at last they were lost in the
valley among the rustling of the trees and the stream. I
was left behind, alone except for my artist friend and
Master Eckbrecht — for such was the name of the other
young painter who had earlier caused such a rumpus.
The moon shone down brilliantly on to the garden be-
tween the tall, dark trees, a lamp on the table before us
flickered in the wind and glinted on the many pools of
wine spilled on the table. I was made to sit down and my
artist companion chatted with me, asking me whence I
had come, about my journey and my plans for the future.
Master Eckbrecht had seated the pretty young girl from
the inn on his lap after she had placed some bottles on
our table. He laid the guitar in her arm and began teach-
ing her to strum a song on it. Her little hands soon
learned the knack and together they sang an Italian song,
he and the girl singing a verse in turn, which sounded
splendid in that beautiful still evening. When the girl was
called away. Master Eckbrecht leaned back on the bench
with the guitar, put up his feet on a chair before him and,
heedless of us, sang to himself a score of beautiful
German and Italian songs. The stars came out in their
glory in the clear firmament, the whole neighbourhood
was bathed in silver moonUght and I, quite forgetting the
painter beside me, began thinking of my gracious lady

82

and of my distant homeland. Now and again Master
Eckbrecht was obliged to re-tune the guitar, which
always vexed him greatly. He twisted and tugged at the
instrument until suddenly a string snapped, at which he
threw away the guitar and jumped up. Only now did I
perceive that my painter had meanwhile laid his arm on
the table and fallen fast asleep. Master Eckbrecht flung
round his shoulders a white cloak, which hung on a
branch near the table; a sudden thought struck him and
he gave a few sharp glances at my painter and then at me,
sat firmly down on the table opposite me, cleared his
throat, straightened his neckerchief and began to deliver
me a speech.

*Beloved listener and fellow countryman!' he said. *As
the bottles are now almost empty and morality is incon-
testably the citizen's first concern when virtue is in
decline, I feel myself driven, out of sympathy to a fellow
countryman, to bring to your attention certain moral
precepts. One might think,' he went on, 'that you were a
mere youth, whereas your frock-coat is long past its
prime; one might perhaps suppose that you were leaping
about like a satyr this evening. Some might even maintain
that you were a vagabond, because you are strolling
about the countryside and playing the fiddle; but I pay
no heed to such superficial judgements: I judge by your
pointed nose and I say you are a wandering genius.' I was
angered by his teasing manner and I was about to retort,
but he left me no time to speak. *There,' he said, 'you see
how you have already puffed yourself up on that little bit
of praise. Examine yourself and ponder on the dangerous
profession you have chosen ! We geniuses — for I am one

83

too — care as little for the world as the world cares for us,
rather we stride on heedlessly into eternity in our seven-
league boots, with which we are born. Oh, it is a deplor-
able, uncomfortable posture, one leg in the future with
nothing but dawn light and the faces of unborn children
around you and the other leg in the midst of the Pia^^a
del Popolo in Rome, where everybody loves you when
things are going well and clings so tightly to your boot
that you feel your leg is being pulled off! And so much
agony, so much wine-drinking and going hungry — all
for the sake of immortality and eternity! Look at my
fellow artist there on the bench, who is also a genius ; he
finds life such hard work that he will be worn out before
he reaches eternity. Yes, my dear fellow genius, you and
I and the sun, we were all up early this morning, we
brooded and painted all day long and everything was
fine — and now the sleepy night is sweeping her sable
arm across the world and has smothered all our colours.*
He went on and on in this vein, looking as pale as a
corpse in the moonlight, his hair in disorder from so
much dancing and drinking.

His wild rhetoric filled me with horror and when he
turned and addressed the sleeping artist I seized the
opportunity and slipped unnoticed round the table, out of
the garden and sped thankfully away past the vineyards
and down through the broad moonlit valley.

From the city the clocks could be heard striking ten.
Behind me I could still hear a few guitar chords ringing
through the silent night and occasionally the voices of
the two artists, who had also set off homewards, could be
heard in the distance. I therefore ran as fast as I could,

84

lest they overtake me and ply me with more questions.

At the city gate I immediately turned to the right into
the street I was seeking and hurried on, with beating
heart, between the silent houses and gardens. I was
amazed, however, when all at once I came upon the
square with the fountain, which in daylight that morning
I had been unable to find. There in the glorious moonlight
stood the lonely house in its garden and my gracious lady,
too, was in the garden singing again the same Italian song
that she had sung yesterday evening. In great excitement
I ran first to the little door, then to the front door and
finally to the garden gate, but everything was locked. Only
now did I recall that it had not yet struck eleven. Vexed
though I was at the slow march of time, for the sake of
polite behaviour I did not wish to climb over the garden
gate as I had done the evening before. I thus walked up
and down for a while in the deserted square and finally
sat down again, pensive and full of silent expectation, on
the edge of the stone fountain. The stars were twinkling
in the sky, all was still and deserted in the square as I
listened entranced to the singing of my gracious lady in
the garden, her song mingling with the babbling of the
fountain. Suddenly I caught sight of a white figure,
coming from the other side of the square and making
straight for the little doorway into the garden. I stared
hard at it through the flickering moonlight — it was the
wild artist in his white cloak. He pulled out a key, un-
locked the door and in a flash he was in the garden.

This artist had piqued me from the very beginning with
his extravagant talk; now I was quite beside myself with
anger. This pathetic genius is obviously drunk again,

85

thought I, he has acquired the key from the chambermaid
and now he intends to creep up on my lady, betray her,
attack her — and so I rushed through the Httle doorway,
which he had left open, and into the garden.

As I entered all was silent and deserted within. The
door of the summer-house was open, a milky- white beam
of light shone out and played on the grass and the
flowers in front of the doorway. From where I stood I
stared inside. There, in a magnificent green chamber only
barely lit by a white lamp, lay my gracious lady, her
guitar on her arm, on a silken chaise-longue, all innocent
of the dangers lurking outside.

I had not looked for long before I noticed the white
figure stalking cautiously behind the bushes towards the
summer-house. All this time my lady was singing with
such sadness that it melted the very marrow of my bones.
I hesitated no longer, broke off a stout branch and
charged with it straight for the white cloak, shouting
aloud 'Mordio!' in a voice that made the whole garden
tremble.

The artist, seeing my unexpected approach, took to his
heels with a fearful scream. I screamed even louder, he
ran towards the house, myself in pursuit — I had almost
got him when I caught my foot in some stupid flower-
stems and fell flat on my face in front of the door.

'So it is you, you fool!' I heard a voice shout above me.
*You almost frightened me to death.' I picked myself up
and as I wiped the sand and earth out of my eyes, the
chambermaid was standing before me, the white cloak
having fallen from her shoulders with her last bounds.
'But,' said I in amazement, 'was not the artist here?'

86

'Indeed he was,' she replied in her pert voice, *at least his
cloak was, which he lent to me when I met him at the gate
because I was cold.' Aroused by the noise, my lady too
had jumped up from her sofa and came toward us. My
heart thumped as if it would burst — but what was my
horror when I looked closely and all at once saw instead
of my beautiful, gracious lady a total stranger !

She was a somewhat tall, corpulent, powerfully-built
woman with a proud, aquiline nose and arching black
eyebrows, handsome though intimidating. She looked at
me so majestically with her great flashing eyes that I was
stricken helpless with awe. In utter confusion I could do
nothing but bow and try to kiss her hand, but she
snatched her hand away and said to the chambermaid
something in Italian which I could not understand.

In the meantime the noise of our encounter had begun
to waken the whole neighbourhood. Dogs barked,
children started to cry, whilst here and there men's voices
could be heard coming nearer and nearer the garden. Then
the lady gave me another look as if she would bore
through me with her two burning orbs, turned quickly
back into her room with a haughty, false laugh and
slammed the door in my face. The chambermaid pulled
me away from the door and began dragging me towards
the garden gate. 'Well, you have made a fool of yourself
again,' she said angrily to me as we went. By now I was
feeling aggrieved. 'Devil take you,' said I, 'was it not
you yourself who told me to come here?' 'But of course,'
cried the chambermaid, 'my countess does her best to be
kind to you, throws flowers over you from the window,
sings songs for you — and this is her reward! You are

87

impossible; when good fortune comes your way you
greet it with nothing better than kicks.' *But,' I repHed,
'I was expecting the countess from Germany, my gracious
lady/ 'Oh/ she interrupted me, *she has long since
returned to Germany, still cherishing your stupid love for
her — so if I were you I should run after her. She is pining
for you; she and you may play the fiddle together and
gaze at the moon — do anything, but never let me see you
again!'

Now a terrible noise and disturbance arose behind us.
Men with clubs were climbing over the wall from the
next-door garden, others were cursing and searching the
pathways, desperate night-capped faces stared here and
there in the moonlight and looked over the hedges as if
the devil and his horde were hiding somewhere in the
bushes. The chambermaid acted quickly. 'There, there is
the thief!' she cried to the men, pointing towards the
opposite side of the garden. Then she quickly pushed me
out of the garden and slammed the gate behind me.

Once more I stood, alone as God made me under the
heavens in that empty square, just as I was when I had
arrived only the day before. The fountain, which had
seemed to splash gaily in the moonlight as though angels
were climbing up and down it, still played on but now I
had lost all delight in it. I resolved to turn my back for
ever on faithless Italy with its mad artists, its oranges and
its chambermaids and within the hour I was marching
through the gate and out of the city.

88

^«^^ ^lX/.^^^^^-**^

The faithful guardian hills are stern:
■ 'Whose steps disturb this quiet dawn —
Whose steps from foreign lands are drawn?'
But I their stony glare return.
And laugh for joy with swelling breast.
And cry aloud to break their rest,
Password and war-cry sounding far:
'Long live Austria!'

The mountain guards perceive their son.
Now streams sing welcome, woods and vales.
And birdsong greets me from deep dales
Where Danube's flashing waters run.
And glad to see me at this hour
I think I spy far Stephen's tow'r.
But if I'm wrong: it's now not far^
'Long live Austria I*

Standing on a high mountain from whence one catches
the first sight of Austria, I was joyfully waving my hat
and singing the last verse of my song when all at once
from the woods behind me came the sound of sweet
music from a wind band. I turned round and saw three
young men in long blue cloaks, one of them playing an
oboe, the second a clarinet and the third, wearing an old
three-cornered hat, playing a French horn. They began
to accompany my singing with such gusto that the whole
wood echoed. Not to be outdone I pulled out my fiddle

9 89 (BQ67)

and played and sang with them. At this, one looked
dubiously at the other, and the horn-player was the first
to deflate his puifed-out cheeks and put down his horn;
finally all three ceased playing and stared at me. Sur-
prised, I too stopped and gazed at them in return. *We
thought, sir,' said the horn-player at last, *that because
you wore such a long frock-coat you were an Englishman
on his travels who had come here on foot to admire the
beauties of nature; we hoped to earn ourselves a few
pence for the road. But it seems that you are yourself a
musician.' *A toll-keeper, if truth be told,' I replied. 'I
come straight from Rome, but since I have collected no
tolls for a long time I have managed to pay my way with
my violin.' 'It earns little enough these days,' said the
horn-player, who had meanwhile returned to the wood
and was using his tricorne to fan a little fire that they had
lit. *Wind instruments are better,' he went on. *When
some gentleman sits down to eat at noon and we step
unexpectedly into the gabled porch and all three of us
begin to blow with all our might — a servant at once comes
dashing out with money or food, simply to be rid of
the noise. But would you not care to take some refresh-
ment with us ?'

With the fire crackling cheerfully in the wood, we sat
down in the fresh morning air in a circle on the grass;
two of the musicians removed from the fire a small pot
containing coffee and milk mixed together, brought out
bread from their coat-pockets and took it in turns to sip
from the pot and dip in their crusts. It was a pleasure to
see how they relished it. The horn-player, however, said:
*I cannot abide these black slops.' So saying he handed

90

me the half of a large double slice of bread and butter and
then produced a bottle of wine. 'Would you care for a
mouthful, sir?' I took a generous draught, but put the
bottle down straightaway with the most fearsome
grimace, for it tasted like vinegar. *The local vintage,'
said the horn-player, *but you, sir, will have mined your
German palate in Italy.' At that he rummaged in his
knapsack and finally drew out from among all kinds of
rubbish a tattered old map emblazoned with the emperor
in full regalia, his sceptre in his right, the orb in his left
hand. He carefully spread it out on the ground, the others
drew closer and they discussed which route they should
take. *The vacations will soon be over,' said one, *we
must turn to the left at Lin2 if we are to reach Prague in
good time.' *But tell me,' cried the horn-player, *who will
you find there to listen to our music? Nothing but
forests and coal-miners, no taste for art and not a hope
of a decent free bed.' 'Oh, fiddlesticks!' countered the
other, 'it is just the peasants that I prefer; they know
where the shoe pinches and they are not so particular
when you blow a wrong note now and again.' 'That
shows that you have no point d'honneur,* said the horn-
player, ''odi projanum vulgus et arceo, as the Latins have it.'
'Well, at least we must choose a route where there are a
few churches,' put in the third, 'then we may put up for
the night at the vicarage.' *I humbly beg your pardon,'
said the horn-player, 'but they give precious little money
and precious long sermons exhorting us to cease this idle
vagabondage and to apply ourselves instead to the sciences,
especially when they think they see in me a future
colleague. No, no, ckricus clericum non decimat. But why

91

should we be in such haste? Our professors are still
sitting in Karlsbad and do not keep term too carefully
themselves/ *Yes, distinguendum est inter et inter ^ answered
the second musician, 'quod licet J ovi^ non licet boviV

I saw now that they were students from Prague and felt
a proper respect for them, particularly for the way the
Latin tripped off their tongues. 'And you, sir, have you
studied ?' the horn-player asked me. I answered modestly
that I had always wished to take up my studies but had
lacked the funds. 'That makes no difference,' cried the
horn-player, 'we too have neither ^noney nor rich friends,
but heaven helps him who helps himself. Aurora musis
arnica, which means in plain German that you should not
spend too much of your precious time over breakfast.
But when the bells ring out at noon from steeple to
steeple and from hill to hill over the city and the students
burst shouting out of their gloomy old college and swarm
down the streets in the sunlight — then we run over to the
good Brother Cook at the Capuchin friary and find the
table laid for us. Even if it is not laid, there is a bowl of
stew for each one, we take it gratefully, we eat and we
poHsh up our Latin at the same time. So you see, sir, we
study, as it were, from hand to mouth. And when at last
it is vacation time again and the others drive or ride away
home to their parents, we set off with our instruments
under our cloaks, through the streets and out at the city
gate — and the world is ours.*

As he described his life a great sadness came over me
that such learned people as they should be all alone in the
world. I thought of myself, of how I was in much the
same pHght myself and the tears started to my eyes. The

92

horn-player stared at me. *I like my life/ he went on
again, *I would not care for travelling as the rich do —
horses and coffee, clean beds, night-caps and bootboys
all bespoken in advance. That is the beauty of it, that
when we set off at daybreak with the birds of passage
flying high above us we never know whose chimney
shall smoke for us that day nor what fortune may have in
store for us by that evening.' *Yes,' said the other, 'and
when we arrive and bring out our instruments we spread
joy around us and when we stop at noon at some country
mansion and blow a serenade in the porch, the maids
dance and the master leaves the dining-room door ajar,
the better to hear the music, and through the crack comes
the clatter of plates and the smell of roast meat served
among the cheerful bustle and the young ladies at table
almost twist their necks off from craning to see the
musicians outside.' Torsooth,' cried the horn-player, his
eyes flashing, *let those who wish sit indoors and con their
books — we meanwhile are studying God's own picture-
album. Believe me, sir, it is we who will make parsons of
the right mettle, we who can match the peasants in telHng
a tale and bang the pulpit so hard that the turnip-heads
down in their pews will burst with shame and exaltation!'
As we talked I felt a great wish to be a student myself. I
could not have enough of their talk, for I love to con-
verse with learned men, as there is often profit in it. On
this occasion, however, the conversation never grew
interesting, for one of the students was in some distress
that the vacation would so soon be over. He promptly put
together his clarinet, laid some music across his knees and
began practising a difficult passage from a mass, which

93

he was due to play in the church band on his return to
Prague. There he now sat, fingering and puffing away
and often blowing such painfully wrong notes that I could
not hear myself speak.

Suddenly the horn-player pointed at the map beside
him and exclaimed in his bass voice: 'I have it!' The
clarinettist looked up for a moment from his industrious
blowing and stared at him in astonishment. 'Listen,' said
the horn-player, 'not far from Vienna there is a castle; at
that castle is a porter and that porter is my cousin! We
must go there, brothers of the road, pay our respects to
my dear cousin and he will see to it that we are put on the
right road for the next stage of our journey.' When I
heard this I jumped up. 'Does he not play the bassoon,' I
cried, 'and is he not tall and upright in bearing with a
great nobleman's nose?' The horn-player nodded and I
embraced him with such joy that the tricorne fell from
his head and we resolved there and then to take the
posting- wherry and sail down the Danube to the castle of
my fairest countess.

As we reached the riverbank all was ready for sailing.
The fat innkeeper, before whose inn the sailing-barge had
moored for the night, was standing stout and cheerful
in his front doorway, which he filled completely, sending
out a volley of jokes and shouts of farewell, while a girl's
head stuck out at every window to say goodbye to the
sailors who were loading the last packages aboard. An
elderly gentleman in grey overcoat and black scarf, who
also intended to take ship, was standing on the bank and
talking very earnestly to a slim young lad in front of him
mounted on a magnificent EngUsh thoroughbred and

94

wearing long leather hose and a short scarlet jacket. To
my surprise I noticed that now and again they both looked
in my direction and seemed to be talking about me.
Finally the old man laughed, the slim youth flicked his
riding-crop and galloped off through the fresh morning
air, racing against the larks above him to be oflF and away
over the shining hills.

The students and I had meanwhile combined our re-
sources of cash. The captain laughed and shook his head
when the horn-player paid our fares entirely in coppers,
which we had laboriously collected together from our
pockets. I shouted with joy to see the Danube before me
again; we jumped aboard, the captain gave the signal and
away we sailed down-river between the sparkling hills and
meadows. The birds sang in the woods and from both
sides came the sound of morning bells from distant
villages, whilst an occasional lark added his joyous
song from high in the air. The chorus was completed
by the chirping and twittering of a canary on board our
ship.

The canary belonged to a pretty girl who was sailing
with us. She had put down the cage beside her and under
her other arm she held a bundle of clothes. There she sat,
in prim silence, glancing first at her new travelling shoes
which peeped out from beneath her skirt, then down at
the water, while the morning sunlight shone on her
white forehead and her neatly parted hair. I noticed that
the students would gladly have struck up a conversation
with her, for they were constantly walking past her. The
horn-player cleared his throat and straightened his
neckerchief or his three-cornered hat as he went by, but

95

they lacked the right sort of courage and every time they
approached her the girl cast down her eyes.

She appeared to be particularly embarrassed by the
elderly gentleman in the grey overcoat, who had seated
himself on the other side of the ship and whom she
obviously took for a cleric. He was holding a breviary
from which he was reading, but often looked up at the
beautiful landscape. The gold tooling and the many
brightly-coloured pictures of saints in his book shone
gorgeously in the morning sunshine. He observed every-
thing that was happening on board and had soon recog-
nized the birds by their plumage, for it was not long
before he addressed one of the students in Latin, whereat
they all three approached him, doffed their hats and
repUed likewise in Latin.

I had meanwhile taken up station in the very bow of
the ship, where I amused myself by letting my legs dangle
over the water and watched as the ship clove its way
forward through the foaming, rushing water. Now a
tower, now a castle would loom up among the green of
the banks, would seem to grow and grow until at last it
vanished astern. If only I had wings ! I thought and from
sheer impatience I drew out my beloved violin and
played all my favourite pieces which I had learned at
home and in my days at the castle of my gracious lady.

Suddenly I felt a hand on my shoulder. It was the
clerical gendeman, who had put away his book and had
been Hstening to me for a while. 'How now,' he said to
me with a laugh, *our master of the revels must not
forget to eat and drink.' He then bade me put away my
fiddle, invited me to take a bite with him and led me to a

96

delightful little bower which the sailors had constructed
in the middle of the ship from birch and pine branches.
There he had ordered a table to be set up and I, the
students and the young girl took our places on barrels
and bales around it.

The reverend gentleman unpacked a large joint of
roast meat and some slices of bread and butter, which
were neatly wrapped in paper, and produced several
bottles of wine from a box together with a beaker of
silver, which was gilded inside; he poured out, tasted it
first, sniffed it, sipped it again and then passed it round
to each of us in turn. The students sat bolt upright on
their barrels and ate and drank very little, so much were
they in awe of their host. The girl, too, scarcely dipped
her little mouth into the beaker, gazing sh^dy at me and at
the students as she did so, but the oftener she looked at
us the bolder she gradually became.

She finally told the clergyman that she was leaving
home for the first time to enter service and that she was
travelling to the castle of her new master and mistress. I
blushed as she said this, for she named the castle of my
gracious lady. So this was to be my future chambermaid!
thought I and stared at her, feeling slightly faint. 'There
is soon to be a great wedding at the castle,' said the
clerical gentleman. 'Yes,' repUed the girl, who would
have liked to hear more of the story, 'they say that it is an
old and secret love, to which the countess has never
confessed.' The clergyman only answered 'Hm, hm' as
he filled his beaker and sipped from it with thoughtful
mien. I had leaned right over the table on both arms the
better to hear what they were saying. The cleric noticed

97

this. *I think I may tell you/ he began again, *that the
two countesses have sent me to find out whether the
bridegroom may not already be in these parts. A lady
from Rome has written to say that he left there long ago.'
When he mentioned the lady from Rome I blushed again.
*Does your reverence then know the bridegroom ?' I said
in some confusion. *No,' answered the old gentleman,
*but he is said to be a gay young spark.' 'Oh, yes,' I said
hastily, 'he is like a bird which flies out of every cage at
the first chance and sings merrily as soon as he is free
again.' *And wanders abroad,' went on the old gentleman
calmly, 'walks the streets at dead of night and sleeps on
doorsteps.' This piqued me very much. 'Reverend sir,' I
cried with some heat, 'you have been falsely informed.
The bridegroom is a sUm, morally impeccable and
promising youth, who has lived the grand Hfe in a castle
in Italy, whose companions were countesses, famous
artists and chambermaids, who manages his money very
well — when he has any; who . . .' 'Well, well, I had no
notion that you knew him so well,' the clergyman
interrupted me here and laughed so heartily that he
turned quite blue in the face and the tears rolled down his
eyes. 'I have heard, though,' put in the girl, 'that the
bridegroom is a great and extremely well-to-do gentle-
man.' 'My goodness me, yes! Ah, what a mystery and
confusion it is, to be sure!' cried the clergyman, still
laughing so hard that he ended in a fit of coughing. When
he had recovered himself slightly, he raised his tumbler
and cried: 'Long live the happy couple 1' I knew not what
to make of this cleric and his chatter, but I was too
ashamed of his story of Rome to admit to him in front of

98

so many people that I myself was the happy, if prodigal
bridegroom.

The tumbler went the round once more, the reverend
gentleman talking the while in the most friendly way, the
general shyness dissolved and soon we were all in happy
conversation. Even the students grew more and more
talkative and described their travels in the moimtains;
finally they brought out their instruments and began to
blow a jolly tune. The cool river air wafted through the
branches of the bower, the evening sun was already
gilding forest and valley as they rapidly glided past
us, whilst the banks echoed to the sound of the French
horn.

Our clerical friend was greatly charmed by the music
and began telling gay stories of his youth : how he too
had wandered over hill and dale during his vacations,
how he had often been hungry and thirsty but always
cheerful and how one's student years were indeed one
long holiday between school, so cramped and gloomy,
and the serious practice of a profession. At this the
students drank another round and struck up a new song
with such vigour that the mountains rang with the sound :

As southward birds are turning.

And all at once take flight.

The wanderers are burning

To stride through morning light.

The students yell with pleasure

And leave their hearths and home.

They play a farewell measure

For far they mean to roam.

Youthful voices gaily ringing.

To Prague a last farewell are singing,

Et habeat bonam pacem.

Qui sedet post fornacemi

99

As through bright windows glancing.

At night, in distant towns.

We watch fair ladies dancing

In soft and shing gowns ;

We blow a tune of greeting

And earn a welcome thirst.

Let music mark this meeting.

But, host, some liquor first 1

Soon our hearts are warm and glowing.

And free the wine is flowing.

Venit ex sua domo —

Beatus ille homol

And when bare branches quiver
While Northern blasts blow cold.
In snow-lined fields we shiver —
Our shoes are torn and old ;
Our shabby cloaks set flying.
We tramp through sodden lanes.
Some music — let's keep trying 1
And the brave refrains:
Beatus ille homo.
Qui sedet in suo domo,
Et sedet post fornacem
Et habet bonam pacemi

The sailors, the girl and I, although none of us knew
any Latin, all joined in, shouting the chorus of each verse,
but it was I who carolled with the greatest gusto for I had
just espied in the distance my little toll-house and soon
afterwards in the evening sunlight I saw the castle
emerging through the trees.

loo

lO

The ship touched the bank, we sprang ashore and set off
in our several directions through the greenwood hke
birds when the cage door is suddenly opened. The
clerical gentleman bade us a hasty adieu and strode off
towards the castle. The students, on the other hand,
made for some secluded bushes where they set to beating
the dust out of their cloaks, washed themselves in the
neighbouring stream and started shaving one another.
The new chambermaid finally made off with her canary
and the bundle of clothes under her arm towards the inn
at the foot of the castle hill in order to seek a room from
the innkeeper's wife, whom I had recommended to her
as a good hostess, where she might change into a better
dress before presenting herself at the castle. The beauty
of the evening raised my spirits and when all the others
had hastened away I wasted little time in thought and at
once ran off towards the castle garden.

My toll-keeper's house, which I had to pass, was still
standing in its old spot, the tall trees from the estate
garden still rustled above it and a yellow-hammer, who
had always triUed his evening song at sunset in the chest-
nut tree outside my window, was singing still as though
nothing in the world had happened since my departure.

lOI

The toll-house window was open and I tan joyfully
towards it and put my head inside. No one was in, but the
clock on the wall was still ticking calmly away, the desk
stood by the window and the long pipe was in its corner
as ever. I could not resist jumping in through the window
and sat down at the desk in front of the great ledger. The
sunlight fell golden-green through the chestnut branches
on to the figures in the open book, the bees buzzed to and
fro past the open window while the yellow-hammer sang
merrily from the tree. Suddenly the door opened and a tall,
elderly toll-keeper walked in, wearing my polka-dotted
dressing gown. He stopped in the door at the unexpected
sight of me. Not a little frightened by his appearance, I
sprang up without a word and ran out of doors through
the little garden, where I soon caught my foot in a
vexatious potato plant which the old toll-keeper had, as I
saw, planted on the porter's advice in place of my flowers.
I could hear him running out of the door and cursing
after me, but by then I was sitting high up on the garden
wall and looking down into the castle garden with
pounding heart.

All was sweet scent, glow of colour and rejoicing of
birds; the lawns and pathways were empty, but the
gilded treetops bowed to me in the evening breeze as if
to bid me welcome and from the valley on one side came
the flash of the Danube through the trees. All at once I
heard someone singing from a little way off in the garden:

Man's loud joy at last is still.
Earth stirs gently as though dreaming.
Leaves are sighing, moonlight gleaming.
And the heart with secret skill

1 02

For old sadness now beats quicker.
Showers pass, dead moments flicker
Like the lightning on the hi HI

The voice and the song sounded so wonderful and yet
so familiar, as though I had heard it once in a dream. For
a long while I pondered. *It is Master Guido!' I finally-
shouted, quickly swinging myself down into the garden
— it was the same song which he had sung that summer
evening on the balcony of that Italian tavern where I had
last seen him. He sang on and I leaped over hedge and

"^flowerbed towards the song, but as I passed between the
last few rosebushes I stopped at once as though be-
witched. On the green lawn beside the swan's lake, in the
light of the evening sun, there on a stone bench sat my
gracious lady in a magnificent dress, a garland of white

-and red roses in her black hair, her eyes downcast,
playing with her riding-switch, just as she had done in
the skiff when they had made me sing her the song of the
gracious lady. Opposite her sat another young lady,
whose white, rounded nape with its cascade of brown
curls was turned towards me as she sang to a guitar while
the swans slowly circled on the calm waters of the lake.
Suddenly my dear lady lifted her eyes and cried aloud
as she caught sight of me. The other turned so quickly
towards me that her curls swung over her face and when
she saw who I was broke out in a great laugh, jumped up
from the bench and clapped her hands three times. At
that moment a troop of little girls in short, snow-white
dresses with green and red ribbons came slipping through
the rose bushes, leaving me to wonder whence they had
come. Holding a long garland of flowers, they made a

103

circle round me, danced around me and sang as they
danced:

To you a maiden's wreath we bring
With silks of lilac threaded.
For you we lead the dance, we sing
Young joys of those new-wedded.
Greenest garland of the Spring,
Silks with lilac threaded.

The song was from the Freischlit^. I now recognized a
few of the little songstresses, who were girls from the
village. I pinched their cheeks and would have gladly
escaped from the circle, but the pert little things would
not let me out. Not knowing what this performance
might mean, I stood there quite perplexed.

Suddenly a young man in gorgeous hunting habit
stepped out from the bushes. I could hardly believe my
eyes: it was the gay Master LeonhardI The little girls
opened their circle and stood motionless on one htde leg,
as though bewitched, the other stretched out, holding
the garland with both arms high over their heads. Then
Master Leonhard grasped my gracious lady by the hand,
led her towards me and said:

■ *Love — and on this all our sages agree — is one of the
bravest quahties of the human heart. With one fiery
glance it will shatter the bastions of rank and degree. For
love the whole world is too small, eternity too short.
Indeed, it is Uke a poet's mantle which every person
gifted with imagination puts on in a cold world to make
his journey to Arcadia. And the further away two parted
lovers wander, the grander the billow of that shimmering
mantle behind the traveller, the bolder and richer its
pattern of folds, and that robe uniting the lovers grows to

104

such lengths that others may scarcely walk abroad without
treading on many such a train. Worthy master toll-
keeper and bridegroom — although you, clad in this
mantle of love, wandered as far as the banks of the Tiber,
yet the little hand of your present bride was holding fast
to the furthest hem of your train and dance, fiddle and
intrigue as you might, you were drawn back into the
silent spell of her beautiful eyes. And now that it has come
to pass, draw the mantle about you, you two dear, dear
foolish people and shut out the rest of the world — love
each other like two doves and be happy!'

Master Leonhard had scarcely finished his graceful
speech when the other young lady, who earlier had sung
the song, approached me, laid a wreath of fresh myrtle
on my head and as she set the wreath straight in my hair
she sang in a teasing voice, her little face close to mine:

Why am I with love still sighing ?
Why bring garlands for your hair?
From your bow, the swift darts flying
Find my heart and tremble there.

then stepped back a few paces.

*Do you recognize the two robbers who shook you
down from the tree?' she said, dropping me a curtsey
and looking at me with such a merry grace that my heart
rejoiced. Then, without waiting for my reply, she walked
round me. *Yes, he's quite our old friend, without a trace
of the Italian about him. But no — look at those bulging
pockets r She suddenly cried to my lady. * Violin, change
of linen, razor, travelling bag — all in disorder together!'
She turned me round and round on all sides, quite unable
to stop laughing. Meanwhile my gracious lady stood

8 105 (H967)

there quite still and unable to open her eyes for shyness
and embarrassment. I had the feeling that she was
secretly vexed at so much speech-making and joking. In
the end the tears came welling from her eyes and she hid
her face in the breast of the other lady, who at first looked
astonished and then embraced her tenderly. I stood there
in utter amazement, for the harder I looked at the
unknown lady, the more clearly I recognized her as
indeed none other than — the young artist Master Guido !

I did not know what to say and was just about to ask
more questions when Master Leonhard stepped up and
whispered something to her. 'Does he still not know?'
I heard him ask. She shook her head. He pondered for a
moment. 'No, no,' he said at last, 'he must be told
everything at once, otherwise there will be nothing but
more gossip and confusion.'

'Master toll-keeper', he turned to me, *we have not
much time now, but do me the favour of satisfying your
curiosity here and now lest afterwards you aggravate
people's curiosity with questions, surmise, invention and
supposition!' With these words he drew me further into
the bushes, whilst the other lady played with my lady's
discarded riding-switch and shook her curls over her face
behind which, however, I could see that she was blushing
to her forehead. 'Well now,' said Master Leonhard, 'Miss
Flora, who is pretending that she can. hear nothing and
knows nothing about the whole story, had given her
heart to someone. There then came another who offered
her his heart, with speeches, drums and trumpets,
demanding her heart in return. But her heart was already
given to someone, that someone's heart was hers and the

1 06

someone did not wish to have his heart back, nor she
hers. Everyone had joined in the argument — but have
you never read a novel ?' I denied it. 'Well, you have been
taking part in one. In short — there was such confusion
about the hearts that the someone — that is, myself — was
obliged to take action. One warm summer night I swung
myself on to my horse, put Miss Flora disguised as Master
Guido on to another and off we set for the south in order
to hide her in one of my remote castles in Italy until the
uproar about the hearts had died down. On the way,
however, they picked up our trail and Flora suddenly
caught sight of our pursuers from the balcony of that
ItaUan inn, in front of which you were keeping such a
good watch — asleep.' *You mean the hunch-backed
signor?' *Yes, he was a spy. We therefore withdrew
secretly into the forest and let you drive on alone in the
mail coach already ordered for us. This deceived our
pursuers and what is more it deceived my people at the
castle in the mountains, who were hourly expecting the
disguised Flora and who, with more zeal than good sense,
took you for the young lady. Even here at Vienna it was
believed that Flora was living in the mountain-top castle,
inquiries were made, a letter was written to her — did you
not receive a note?' At these words I pulled the note
from my pocket in a flash. 'Do you mean this letter ?' *It
is addressed to me,' said Miss Flora, who until now had
appeared to ignore our conversation, as she snatched the
paper from my hand, read it and stuck it into her bosom.
*And now,' said Master Leonhard, *we must hasten to
the castle, where they are all waiting for us. And so
finally, in conclusion, as is right and proper in every self-

107

respecting novel, revelation, repentance and reconcilia-
tion. We are all happily re-united and the wedding is to
be the day after tomorrow.'

As he spoke there emerged from the shrubbery a
spectacular rout of drums and trumpets, horns and trom-
bones; mortars were discharged amid shouts of hurrah!
The little girls began dancing again and from every bush
arose one head after another as though they were
sprouting from the ground. Amidst all the noise and
distraction I sprang hither and thither but it being
already dark it was only gradually that I recognized all
the old faces. The old gardener was playing the kettle-
drums, the students from Prague in their cloaks were
playing and beside them was the porter blowing away at
his bassoon like a madman. Seeing him there so un-
expectedly I at once ran up to him and embraced him
heartily. This threw him quite off his stroke. *Well, he may
have been to the end of the world and back, but he is as
much of a fool as ever!' he cried to the students and
puffed on in a fury.

In the meantime my gracious lady had sHpped away
from this spectacle and flown like a startled hind over the
lawn into the depths of the garden. I caught sight of her
in time and ran after her with all speed. The musicians
were so busy that they did not notice us run away, but
thought that we had made our way to the castle, whither
the whole band now marched off with music and drums.

At almost the same moment she and I reached a
secluded summer-house with windows that opened to
look out over a broad, deep valley below. The sun had
long since set behind the hills and only the afterglow

io8

shone like a faint red vapour in the warm, declining
evening air and the rustling of the Danube's waters grew
ever louder as the countryside fell gradually silent. I
gazed steadily at the beautiful young countess as she
stood before me flushed with running, so close that I
could hear her very heart-beats. Finding myself suddenly
alone with her, such was my respect that I did not know
what to say. At last I found my courage, took her little
white hand — and then she drew me to her and fell on my
neck and I clasped her firmly in my two arms.

She quickly disengaged herself, however, and, some-
what abashed, she leaned out of the window to cool her
glowing cheeks in the evening air. *Ah,* I cried, *my
heart is near breaking with joy, but I can scarcely grasp it
all, I feel as though I were dreaming!' *So do I,' said my
gracious lady. *When I left Rome last summer with the
countess/ she continued after a while, 'and we had found
Miss Flora safe and happy and brought her back with us,
but could find no trace of you, I never imagined that all
this would come to pass. It was only today that the
jockey, fast and fleet as he is, arrived breathless in the
courtyard this afternoon and brought the news that you
were coming with the posting-wherry.' She laughed
softly to herself. *Do you remember,' she said, *when you
last saw me on the balcony ? It was a moment like this —
just such a calm evening and music in the garden.' *Who
is it, though, who has died?' I quickly asked. *Died —
what can you mean?' said my fairest, looking at me in
astonishment. *Your grace's husband,' I replied, *who
was standing on the balcony with you that night.' She
blushed deeply. *What curious notions you have I' she

109

cried. *That was the countess's son, who had just returned
from his travels and as he happened to arrive on my
, birthday he took me with him out on to the balcony that
L I might share in the shouts of hurrah. But is that why
you ran away from here?' 'By heaven, indeed it was!' I
exclaimed and slapped my brow with my hand. She only
shook her head and laughed heartily.

I was so happy listening to her chatting to me so gaily
and intimately, that I could have sat there till morning.
In this mood of pleasure I pulled a handful of almonds
out of my pocket which I had brought with me from
Italy. She took some too and we sat together happily
cracking nuts and gazing out into the silent landscape.
*Do you see,' she said after another pause, 'that little
white mansion shining over there in the moonlight ? The
count has given it to us as a wedding present together
with the gardens and vineyards, and we are to live
there. He has long known that we loved each other
and he feels deeply indebted to you, for had you not
been with him when he abducted his love from her
boarding-school, they would both have been discovered
before she had had the opportunity of being reconciled
with the countess and everything would have befallen
otherwise.' *Oh, my fairest, most gracious countess,' I
exclaimed, *your story is so full of unexpected surprises
that my head is spinning. What about Master Leonhard ?'
*Yes, yes,' she broke in, 'he called himself by that name in
Italy; those are his estates over yonder and he is now to
marry the daughter of our coimtess, the fair Flora. But
why do you call me countess ?' I stared at her. 'But I am
no countess,' she went on, 'our gracious countess only

no

took me in and brought me up in the castle because my
uncle the porter brought me here as a poor little orphan
child.'

At this I felt as if a stone had fallen from my heart.
*God bless the porter/ I exclaimed in delight, 'for being
our uncle! I have always thought highly of him.' *He
thinks well of you too/ she repHed, *if only you would
behave with a Uttle more decorum, as he always says.
You must dress more elegantly now.' *Oh,' I cried joy-
fully, *an English frock-coat, straw hat, breeches and
spurs! And straightaway after the wedding we shall
travel to Italy, to Rome, where the beautiful fountains
play and take the Prague students with us — and the
porter!' She smiled gently and the music played on from
afar; in the still night air rockets flew up from the castle
over the garden, from a distance came the rustle of the
Danube waters and all, all was welll

III

r

Eiciiencorff

PT-

The life of a good-for-nothing

1856
.A92S
G4

5p"

X:.).

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