"What shall we sing?" she asks.
"Must we part, beloved maid?"--he suggests.
She shakes her head. "Nothing about love," she says rather pointedly, "that's all so stupid."
He looks at her astonished and after some deliberation she starts a hunting song. He joins in lustily and their voices blend and unite like two waves in the ocean. They themselves marvel at such harmony; they have never sung so well. But they soon come to an end. The Germans have not many folk-songs which are not at the same time love ditties. And finally she has to submit.
"Rose-bush and elder-tree,
When my love comes to me!"
she begins, tacking on a "Jodler." He smiles and looks at her, she blushes and turns away.--She has let herself be caught now.
The two voices grow full of wonderful animation, as though their hearts' pulsation were throbbing through the notes. They swell heavenwards as though impelled by waves of passion, they die down as though the bourne of life were stagnant through intensity of hidden woe.
"No words can e'er express my love,
In silent longing I adore.
Question my eyes, for they will speak;
I love thee now and evermore!"
Why do their eyes suddenly meet? What occasion is there for them both to tremble as though an electric current were passing through their bodies?...
"There is never an hour in my sleeping
When my thoughts are not waking.
Their flight to thee taking,
To thank thee for placing forever
Thy heart in my keeping!"