"It's all the same to me," I said and stretched myself. "Whether it's heaven or hell—it will be a new experience."
But the sound that had awakened me had nothing in common with the metallic blare of trumpets which religious guides have taught us to expect.
Gentle and insinuating, now like the tones of flutes played by children, now like the sobbing of a girl's voice, now like the caressing sweetness with which a mother speaks to her little child—so infinitely manifold but always full of sweet and yearning magic—alien and yet dear and familiar—such was the music that came to my ear.
"Where have I heard that before?" I asked myself, listening.
And as I thought and thought, an evening of spring arose before my soul—an evening out of a far and perished time…. I had wandered along the bank of a steaming river. The sunset which shone through the jagged young leaves spread a purple carpet over the quiet waters upon which only a swift insect would here and there create circular eddies. At every step I took the dew sprang up before me in gleaming pearls, and a fragrance of wild thyme and roses floated through the air….
There it must have been that I heard this music for the first time.
And now it was all clear: The nightingale was singing … the nightingale.
And so spring has come to the upper world.
Perhaps it is an evening of May even as that which my spirit recalls.
Blue flowers stand upon the meadows…. Goldenrod and lilac mix their blossoms into gold and violet wreaths…. Like torn veils the delicate flakings of the buttercups fly through the twilight….