Presently he was lying on his back perfectly still . . . stretched at full length on a mossy rock on the bank of the Rhine, watching the fleecy clouds shaped like the ruins of a castle against patches of deep blue . . . What bird was that singing so melodiously? No, it was not a bird—it was the string instruments at the Swiss Pavilion on the Jungfernstieg—the leader of the orchestra had a funny nose that looked like a suckling pig’s snout, and it wiggled like one . . . And Miriam was standing on a pedestal in front of the palace at Sans Souci. Miriam had no arms and there was a strange smile on her lovely lips . . . He was glad that he was all alone in the Louvre—not a soul around . . . . He rose on his tip-toes and kissed those beautiful cool lips, the moonlight shining over his left shoulder . . . His mother said he must not kiss marble statues . . . His mother—poor mother—the old house in Hamburg must be very cold in the winter . . . She was in tears because her pearls were gone . . . He, too, was in tears and . . . his sister was playing the piano . . . . Was the door bell ringing? Somebody was coming to visit him. He began to count the mounting footsteps—“forty-one, forty-two, forty-three, forty-four”—The footsteps stopped. Someone must have called on the floor below . . . Yes, people called on everybody but no one called on him . . . no one . . . not even curiosity seekers . . .
Suddenly all melancholy thoughts left him and he breathed easier. He felt no pain at all. Strange that all at once he was well again and he was promenading indolently, dreamily along the Rhine. He was strolling, swinging his cane and humming a song . . . No, he was flying . . . He had never realized that one needed no wings to fly . . . He was flying over the Hartz Mountains, over the dark firs of the Black Forest, over the slender silver birches silhouetted in the moonlight, in his ears the babbling of brooks, the laughter of girls, the song of the nightingale . . . and he was sailing . . . sailing . . . sailing through the purest air . . . .
The End.
TRANSCRIBER NOTES
Misspelled words and printer errors have been corrected. Where multiple spellings occur, majority use has been employed.
Punctuation has been maintained except where obvious printer errors occur.