All the confused, arbitrary impressions of life suddenly became full of meaning and beauty. It seemed to me as though a fresh fragrant flower had sprung up in my soul. In place of the weariness, dulness, and indifference toward every thing in the world, which I had been feeling the moment before, I experienced a necessity for love, a fulness of hope, and an unbounded enjoyment of life.
"What dost thou desire, what dost thou long for?" an inner voice seemed to say. "Here it is. Thou art surrounded on all sides by beauty and poetry. Breathe it in, in full, deep draughts, as long as thou hast strength. Enjoy it to the full extent of thy capacity. 'Tis all thine, all blessed!"
I drew nearer. The little man was, as it seemed, a travelling Tyrolese. He stood before the windows of the hotel, one leg a little advanced, his head thrown back; and, as he thrummed on the guitar, he sang his graceful song in all those different voices.
I immediately felt an affection for this man, and a gratefulness for the change which he had brought about in me.
The singer, so far as I was able to judge, was dressed in an old black coat. He had short black hair, and he wore a civilian's hat that was no longer new. There was nothing artistic in his attire, but his clever and youthfully gay motions and pose, together with his diminutive stature, formed a pleasing and at the same time pathetic spectacle.
On the steps, in the windows, and on the balconies of the brilliantly lighted hotel, stood ladies handsomely decorated and attired, gentlemen with polished collars, porters and lackeys in gold-embroidered liveries; in the street, in the semi-circle of the crowd, and farther along on the sidewalk, among the lindens, were gathered groups of well-dressed waiters, cooks in white caps and aprons, and young girls wandering about with arms about each other's waists.
All, it seemed, were under the influence of the same feeling that I myself experienced. All stood in silence around the singer, and listened attentively. Silence reigned, except in the pauses of the song, when there came from far away across the waters the regular click of a hammer, and from the Freshenburg shore rang in fascinating monotone the voices of the frogs, interrupted by the mellow, monotonous call of the quail.
The little man in the darkness, in the midst of the street, poured out his heart like a nightingale, in couplet after couplet, song after song. Though I had come close to him, his singing continued to give me greater and greater gratification.
His voice, which was not of great power, was extremely pleasant and tender; the taste and feeling for rhythm which he displayed in the control of it were extraordinary, and proved that he had great natural gifts.
After he sung each couplet, he invariably repeated the theme in variation, and it was evident that all his graceful variations came to him at the instant, spontaneously.