I had no idea what time it was. Suddenly a whiff of air, with that sharp nip in it that heralds the dawn, was wafted in through the open window behind the curtains. The smoke of the incense trembled like a tottering pillar.
Buried in the Reisebilder, the Grand Duchess had forgotten my presence. Melusine put a finger on her smiling lips and took me out without her mistress noticing that we had gone.
It was very cold outside. To the east the blue sky was undergoing a magic change, slowly turning to violet, then green, then orange. I sat down on a seat by the door beneath the Grand Duchess's window, indulging in a kind of mournful ecstasy. For it was the very spot whither I had come so many evenings solely in order to be near her.
Then, languid and monotonous, but pure as the icy waters of a mountain stream, came the sound of a voice. The Grand Duchess was singing to the accompaniment of Melusine's guzla. She was the very incarnation of harmony, and her voice was, indeed, the voice of my dreams.
She was singing Ilse's romance, the best of the Reisebilder. And because we had just been speaking of it together I seemed to be still with her in her room:
ILSA
The Princess Ilsa am I named, my home dark Ilsen's rock;
Oh come within my castle gate; there we shall happy be.
My sunlit waves shall bring a balm to soothe thine aching
brow,
Thy deep-set griefs thou shalt forget, poor youth all sick with
care.
I'll kiss thee and I'll hold thee fast, as once I held and kissed
The Emperor Henry, my heart's love; ah me! He is no more.
The dead are dead; they only live who are alive today;
I still am fair and full of grace; my heart still smiles and
throbs.