"Ich grolle nicht, und wenn das Herz auch bricht,
Ewig verlornes Lieb! ich grolle nicht.
Wie du auch strahlst in Diamantenpracht,
Es fallt kein Strahl in deines Herzens Nacht."
There was a pathos and passion in her voice which fairly startled me, and when I hastened to her side to thank her for the pleasure she had given me, she accepted my compliments with a beautiful, unaffected enthusiasm, as if they were meant only for the composer, and were in no respect due to her.
"There is such a depth of suffering in every word and note," she said with glowing cheeks. "He bears her no ill-will, he says, and still you feel how the suppressed bitterness is still rankling within him."
She then sang "Auf Flügeln des Gesanges," whereupon we sat down and talked music and Heine for the rest of the evening. Mr. Pfeifer, reclining in his capacious easy-chair, smoked on with slow, brooding contentment, and now and then threw in a disparaging remark regarding our favorite poet.
"He blackguarded his country abominably," he said. "And I have no respect for a man who can do that. Besides, he was a miserable, renegade Jew, and as I never like to have any more to do with Jews than I can possibly help, I have never read any of his books."
"But, uncle," retorted his niece, warmly, "he certainly could not help being a Jew. And there was no one who loved Germany more ardently than he, even though he did say severe things about it."
"That is a thing about which you can have no opinion, Hildegard," said Pfeifer, with paternal decision; and he blew a dense cloud of smoke toward the ceiling.