The lights of the little farmhouse below had vanished, the yellow specks of ships were gone. Only the pier-light, far away, shone in the black sea like the broken piece of a star. Overhead was a silver-greyness of stars; below was the velvet blackness of the night and the sea. Helena found herself glimmering with fragments of poetry, as she saw the sea, when she looked very closely, glimmered dustily with a reflection of stars.
Tiefe Stille herrscht im Wasser
Ohne Regung ruht das Meer …
She was fond of what scraps of German verse she knew. With French verse she had no sympathy; but Goethe and Heine and Uhland seemed to speak her language.
Die Luft ist kühl, und es dunkelt,
Und ruhig fliesst der Rhein.
She liked Heine best of all:
Wie Träume der Kindheit seh’ ich es flimmern
Auf deinem wogenden Wellengebiet,
Und alte Erinnerung erzählt mir auf’s Neue
Von all dem lieben herrlichen Spielzeug,
Von all den blinkenden Weihnachtsgaben….
As she lay in Siegmund’s arms again, and he was very still, dreaming she knew not what, fragments such as these flickered and were gone, like the gleam of a falling star over water. The night moved on imperceptibly across the sky. Unlike the day, it made no sound and gave no sign, but passed unseen, unfelt, over them. Till the moon was ready to step forth. Then the eastern sky blenched, and there was a small gathering of clouds round the opening gates:
Aus alten Märchen winket es
Hervor mit weisser Hand,
Da singt es und da klingt es
Von einem Zauberland.
Helena sang this to herself as the moon lifted herself slowly among the clouds. She found herself repeating them aloud in in a forgetful singsong, as children do.
“What is it?” said Siegmund. They were both of them sunk in their own stillness, therefore it was a moment or two before she repeated her singsong, in a little louder tone. He did not listen to her, having forgotten that he had asked her a question.