With these words she ran out of the door.
He listened till the sound of her quick steps died away below, then a shadow of sorrowful thought flitted over his face. He went to a drawer that was constructed in the lower part of his turning-lathe, and unlocking it, took out a portfolio containing scattered leaves which seemed to be covered with verses. Turning them over he read a little here and there for a time, then placing Reginchen's almost untasted glass of wine before him, he sat down, and occasionally taking a sip from the glass, began to write a poem.
Reginchen and Balder.
About an hour elapsed in this manner. His delicate, almost girlish features grew brighter; from time to time, with an eager gesture, he tossed back his thick fair hair, gazed out at the sun-gilded top of the acacia-tree and up at the patch of blue sky, that peered in upon him over the old roof. Happiness, repose, and a divine cheerfulness beamed, the longer he wrote, on brow and cheeks.
They say I am ill. And it well may be;
Yet I feel no sorrow, from pain am free.
The current of life flowing swiftly on
In sunlight I see,
And sit on the shore, where the flowers bloom.