FROM THE LIFE OF A GOOD-FOR-NOTHING

Chapter One

Now the wheel of my father’s mill was roaring and booming right merrily; snow dripped busily from the roof, and sparrows twittered and darted around. I sat on the doorstep and rubbed the sleep from my eyes; I felt so at home in the warm sunshine. Then my father stepped out of the house; since the break of day he had been rumbling about in the mill, and, his nightcap skew-whiff on his head, he said to me:

“You good-for-nothing! There you are sunning yourself again, straightening and stretching your bones tired and leaving me to do all the work on my own. I can’t feed you here any longer. Spring is at the door; you go on out into the world and earn your own bread.”

“Right,” I said, “if I’m a good-for-nothing, that’s fine, I’ll go out into the world and make my fortune.”

Actually, I was really chuffed about this; for a short time earlier, I had hit on the notion of going travelling when I heard the yellowhammer – who in autumn and winter had kept up his sad song at our window, “Miller hire me, miller hire me!” – sing out proudly and lustily with the lovely springtime: “Miller, stuff your service!”

So I went into the house and took my fiddle – which I played pretty nicely – down from the wall; my father gave me a few pennies for the road, and then I strolled along the sprawling village. Secretly, it gave me great pleasure to see all my old friends and companions there, going off right and left to work, digging and ploughing – as they had done yesterday and the day before that, and as they will do for evermore – while there was I, rambling out into the free world. Satisfied and as proud as punch, I shouted adieus on all sides to the poor people, but none of them took any particular notice. I felt as though every day was going to be Sunday. And when at last I came out into the open country, I took up my beloved fiddle; and walking down the highroad, I played and sang:

When God will show a man true favour,

He sends him into distant lands,

Where wood and mountain, field and river

All show the wonder of His hands.

No rousing flush of morning glows

On sluggards who remain in bed;

Their thoughts are filled with cares and woes,

With little mouths and little bread.

The runnels from the mounts fall springing,

Up high the darting larks rejoice;

Now what’s there to stop me from singing

Full-throated airs with heartfelt voice?

I leave dear God to rule and reign;

Who brooks and larks and wood and lea

And Earth and Heaven can maintain,

I’ll say he knows what’s best for me!

While I was taking in all the sights, a splendid travelling-coach passed close by me; no doubt it had been travelling behind me for some time without my noticing it (my heart being so full of melody), for it was moving really slowly. And two distinguished ladies, having stuck their heads out, were listening to my song. One was especially beautiful, and younger than the other; but if truth be told they were both easy on the eye. Now when I stopped singing, the elder lady called a halt before sweetly addressing me:

“Well, my merry little man! You know how to sing some very pretty songs.”

As quick as you please, I answered: “Serving Your Ladyship, I could sing much lovelier ones.”

Whereupon she asked me: “And where exactly are you wandering to, so early in the morning?”

Then I felt ashamed, for I did not know that myself; so I boldly said, “To V.”

Then the two spoke together in a strange language I did not understand. The younger shook her head a few times, but the other one laughed incessantly, and finally called to me: “Jump up on the back, we too are going to V.”

Who was happier than I? Making an obeisance, I was up with one leap on the back of the coach; the coachman cracked his whip, and we flew along the shining road, the wind whistling through my hat.

Now villages, gardens and church towers disappeared behind me, and fresh villages, castles and mountains sprang up before; below me young crops, bushes and meadows flying past in a blaze of colour, above me countless larks in the clear blue sky. I was shy of shouting aloud, but my heart was exultant, and I leapt and danced around on the footboard, needing little to lose my fiddle, which I held under my arm. But when the sun rose higher and higher, and heavy white midday clouds gathered around the horizon; when the air, and everything on the broad plain, became so empty and muggy and still above the gently waving cornfields – then, for the first time, I remembered my village and my father and our mill, and how cosily cool it was there by the shady pond, and how far, far behind me all that lay now. This put me in so strange a mood that I felt as if I had to turn back; I tucked my fiddle between my coat and waistcoat, sat down full of thoughts on the footboard, and fell asleep.

When I opened my eyes, the coach had come to a halt beneath some tall lime-trees, behind which a broad flight of steps led between pillars to a magnificent castle. Looking sideways through the trees, I could see the towers of V. The ladies, it appeared, had alighted a long time since; and the horses had been unhitched. It gave me a mighty shock to suddenly find myself sitting there all alone, so I ran swiftly into the castle – when I heard laughter from a window above.

I had some strange experiences in this castle. First of all, there I was, looking around in the wide, cool entrance-hall, when somebody tapped me on the shoulder with a stick. I quickly span around, there before me was standing a big man in gala dress, a broad, golden, silk bandoleer slung over his shoulder down to his hips, a silver-tipped staff in his hand and an extraordinarily long, hooked and electoral nose on his face; as stout and splendid as a puffed-up turkey-cock, who was asking me what I was doing here. I was totally stunned and too shocked and astonished to find my tongue. Thereupon several servants came running from upstairs and downstairs; they said not a word, but just looked me up and down. Then a lady’s-maid (as I afterwards discovered) came straight up to me and said: I was a charming youth, and the master wished to know if I wanted to serve here as gardener’s lad?

I clutched at my waistcoat; my few pennies had gone, Heaven knows they must have jumped out of my pocket when I was dancing about on the coach; I had nothing but my fiddling, for which the gentleman with the staff, as he remarked to me in passing, would not give me a brass farthing. So, anxious at heart, I told the lady’s-maid Yes, looking sideways all the while at the sinister figure who was wandering constantly up and down the hall like the pendulum of a tower-clock, and at that moment approaching majestic and terrible from the background.

At last the gardener arrived, muttered something in his beard about riff-raff and country oafs, and led me to the garden, giving me a long sermon on the way: how I must be nice and sober, and industrious, not stravaig around the world, not indulge in any labours of love or useless rubbish; then, perhaps, with time, I could come to something. – There were yet more very charming, well-chosen, and helpful nuggets of advice; I just seem to have forgotten nearly all of them in the meantime. Anyhow, I’m not actually certain how all this happened; I just kept saying, “Yes” to everything, for I felt like a bird whose wings have been drenched. – And so I had, thank God, a living.

Life in the garden was very pleasant; every day I had enough hot meals and more money than I needed for wine; it was just unfortunate that I had rather a heavy workload. As for the temples, pergolas and other leafy walks, they all really caught my fancy; if only I had been free to stroll around inside them and discourse rationally, like the ladies and gentlemen who entered there every day. Whenever the gardener had gone and I was alone, I straightaway pulled out my short pipe, sat down, and thought up some fine, courtly phrases with which I could entertain the beautiful young lady who had brought me along to the castle, if I were a cavalier walking around with her here. Or I would lie down on my back, on sultry afternoons when all was so still that only the buzzing of bees could be heard, and watch the clouds above me flying towards my village and the grass and flowers swaying, and think about the lady; and then it often happened that the lovely lady actually passed through the garden, in the distance, with a guitar or a book, as quiet and serene as an angel, so that I couldn’t be certain whether I was dreaming or waking.

And one day, just as I was passing one of the summerhouses on my way to work, I sang to myself:

What sights my eyes may lure,

In wood and field and wold,

From mountain to the azure,

Then, lady fair and pure,

I greet you thousandfold.

Then I saw, sparkling out from between the half-opened jalousies of the cool, dark summerhouse and the flowers on the ledge, two beautiful, bright young eyes. I was quite startled; I did not finish my song, but went on to my work, without looking back.

One evening – it was a Saturday, and there I was, standing with my fiddle at the garden-shed window, in joyful anticipation of the coming Sunday, and still thinking about those sparkling eyes – when suddenly the lady’s-maid came sweeping up out of the twilight.

“Here’s something for you from our beautiful mistress, you’re to drink it to her health. And have a good night!”

With that she quickly set down a bottle of wine on the window-sill then immediately disappeared like a lizard between the flowers and the hedges.

I stood for a long time before the wondrous bottle, not knowing what had happened to me. – And if before that time I had bowed the fiddle merrily, now I really began to play and sing; I sang the song about the lovely lady to the very last note, and all the songs I had in my head, until outside every nightingale awoke and the moon and the stars had long been shining down on the garden. Yes, that was a good, a beautiful night!

No man’s fate is foretold at his cradle; the blind hen sometimes finds a grain of corn; he who laughs last, laughs longest; much of what’s been was not foreseen; man reflects and God directs – so I meditated when, on the following day, I was sitting again in the garden with my pipe and it almost seemed to me, as I attentively looked myself up and down, that I really was a right rogue. – By this time, in total contrast to my usual custom, I would get up very early every day, before even the gardener and the other workers were stirring. It was so gorgeous out in the garden at that hour. The flowers, the fountains, the rose-bushes, indeed all the garden glittered in the morning sun like pure gold and gemstones. And in the tall beech avenues, all was yet as still, cool and solemn as a church; only birds fluttered about and pecked at the sand. Immediately before the castle, directly beneath the windows where the lovely lady lived, there was a blossoming bush. I always went there at the crack of dawn and ducked behind the branches, so I could look up at the windows; for I did not have the courage to show myself in the open. Every time, I saw the loveliest of ladies, still warm and half asleep, emerge in a snow-white dress at the open window. Now she plaited her dark-brown hair, her gracefully playful gaze sweeping over bushes and garden all the while; now she bent and bound the flowers which stood before her window, or she took her guitar into her white arms and sang along so wondrously, across and out of the garden, that even now my heart nigh turns over from melancholy when one of her songs returns every now and then to my remembrance – and oh, all that is long ago!

This went on for perhaps a week or longer. But then on one occasion – she was standing there at the window and there was silence all around – a cursed fly buzzed up my nose and I launched into a shocking sneezing fit that seemed to have no end. She leant far out of the window and saw me, miserable wretch, eavesdropping behind the bush. – Well, I was ashamed, and I did not go back for many days.

Eventually I dared to return, but this time the window remained shut; I sat behind the bush for four, five, six mornings, but she did not come to the window again. Then time hung heavy on my hands, so I took heart and started to walk, as open as you like, below the windows along the front of the castle every morning. But the dear, lovely lady was never, never to be seen. A little further on I always saw the other lady standing at her window. I had never seen her in so much detail before. She was actually pretty rosy and fat, and with a really splendid and proud appearance, like a tulip. I always gave her a low bow, and, I have to say, she thanked me every time, and as she nodded her eyes would twinkle in a quite extraordinarily courteous manner. – Only once did I think that I saw the beautiful lady standing at her window behind the curtains and furtively peering out.

However, many days passed without my seeing her. She no longer came into the garden, she no longer came to the window. The gardener called me a lazy rascal, I was morose, the tip of my nose was in my way when I looked out into God’s free world.

So I was lying in the garden one Sunday afternoon, looking into the blue clouds rising from my pipe and getting annoyed at my not having settled on another trade, one that would at least have given me a blue Monday to look forward to on the following day. The other lads had all gone off, smartly decked out, to the dances in the nearby suburb. There everyone was surging and seething enthusiastically back and forth, in their Sunday best, between the bright houses and the turning hurdy-gurdies. Whereas I was sitting like a bittern among the reeds of a lonely lake in the garden, rocking myself in the boat that was moored there, while the vesper-bells pealed over the garden from the city and the swans slowly glided up and down the water beside me. I was almost dead with yearning.

In the meantime I heard from afar all kinds of voices, cheerfully chattering all at once, and laughter, coming ever nearer; then red and white shawls, hats and feathers shimmered through the greenery, and suddenly a bright and breezy crowd of young ladies and gentlemen from the castle was heading towards me over the meadow, both my ladies in the midst of them. I stood up, about to leave, when the elder of the lovely ladies caught sight of me. “Well, here’s just the man we need!” she shouted to me with laughing lips, “row us across the lake to the far bank!” Now the ladies climbed cautiously and timorously into the boat, one after the other; the gentlemen gave them a hand and made themselves look rather consequential with their boldness on the water. When the ladies had all settled themselves on the side-benches, I pushed off from the bank. One of the young gentlemen, standing in the bows, began to surreptitiously rock the boat. Then the ladies turned anxiously from side to side; several even screamed. The lovely lady, a lily in her hand, sat close to the boat’s edge, gazing with a serene smile down into the clear waves, which she touched with the lily, so that her entire form was reproduced between the reflected clouds and trees, like an angel softly moving across the deep blue floor of Heaven.

And while I was looking at her, the other of my two ladies – the jovial, fat one – suddenly hit on the idea that I should sing them a ditty during the crossing. At once a very dainty young gentleman with a pair of glasses on his nose, who was sitting beside her, swivelled round, gently kissed her hand, and said: “I thank you for your apropos suggestion! A folk-song, sung by the populace in the open field and forest, is an alpine rose on an alpine meadow – the Wonder-horns are herbariums, herbariums -, is the soul of the national soul.” But I said I knew no songs lovely enough for such polite society. Then the saucy lady’s-maid, who was standing close beside me with a basket full of cups and bottles, and whom I hadn’t noticed at all until that moment, said: “But you do know a really pretty ballad about a deeply lovely woman.” – “Yes, yes, sing that out nice and loud,” cried the lady the next instant. I went red all over. – Meanwhile the lovely lady suddenly raised her eyes from the water and fixed me with a look that shot through me, body and soul. So hesitating no longer, I plucked up courage and belted out gung-ho with swelling lungs:

Wherever my eyes may be,

In wood or field or wold,

From mountain down to the gay lea,

Then, pure and lovely lady,

I greet you thousandfold.

Within my garden are bands

Of flowers, fair and sought;

I wind them into garlands,

And weave a thousand snar strands

Of greetings, blooms and thought.

I dare not hand one thither,

She is too fair, too high;

Theirs is to fade and wither,

But love, one like no other,

Lives in the heart for aye.

I teem with merry chatter,

And bustle to and fro;

And, though my heart may shatter,

I dig and clunk and clatter

And help my grave to grow.

We ran against the shore, and all the company disembarked; while I was singing, many of the young gentlemen – oh yes, I noticed them – had been mocking me in front of the ladies with sly looks and whispers. The gentleman with glasses seized my hand as he was leaving and said to me – I can’t remember what – and the elder of my ladies looked at me very approvingly. The lovely lady, having cast down her eyes for the duration of my song, now walked away without uttering a single word. – As for me, the tears were in my eyes before my song was ended, its lines led my heart to burst with shame and anguish; all of a sudden I clearly realised everything – how she is so beautiful and I am so poor and mocked and forsaken by the world -, and once they had all disappeared behind the bushes, I could hold out no longer, but threw myself down on the grass and burst into bitter tears.

Chapter Two

Close to the comital garden passed the high-road; only a high wall separated them. A really neat little toll-house with a red tiled roof had been built there; behind it was a little garden, enclosed by a brightly coloured fence which jutted through a gap in the castle garden wall into its shadiest, most secluded part. The toll-collector who had always lived there had just died. Then early one morning, when I was still lying sound asleep, the clerk from the castle called on me and ordered me to come to the steward on the double. I dressed quickly and ambled along behind the happy-go-lucky clerk, who broke off a rose now here, now there on the way and stuck it into the front of his coat, then fenced the air with a little walking-stick and wasted his breath prattling all kinds of things to me, none of which I caught, for my eyes and ears were still full of sleep. When I stepped into the office, where it was not yet quite light, the steward looked at me from behind an enormous ink-pot, piles of papers and books and an impressive wig, like an owl peering out of her nest, and began: “What is your name? Where are you from? Can you read, write, and count?” When I affirmed that I could, he retorted: “Well, the master, in view of your good behaviour and especial merits, has decided that you shall fill the vacant post of collector.” I quickly ran over my previous behaviour and manners in my mind and, I had to admit, I myself came to the conclusion that the steward was right. – And so, before you could say Jack Robinson, I really was the toll-collector.

Then I moved into my new dwelling without more ado, and in no time at all I had settled in. I found some paraphernalia which the late collector had left his successor; among other things, a splendid red dressing-gown with yellow spots, a pair of green slippers, a nightcap and several long-stemmed pipes. I had wished to possess all of these in my days at home, whenever I saw the priest going around in such comfort. All day (I had nothing else to do) I sat on the little bench before my house, in dressing-gown and nightcap, smoked tobacco from the longest pipe the late collector had left, and watched the people walking and riding to and fro along the country road. I just kept wishing that a few people from my village, who had always claimed that I would never come to anything, would pass this way too, and see me in my present state. – The dressing-gown suited me very nicely, and indeed everything pleased me greatly. So I sat there and thought about various things, that the start is always the hardest part, that a more genteel life is actually right comfortable, and I formed a secret revolve to desist from travelling from that point on, to save money like other people, and assuredly achieve something great in the world with time. Meanwhile, my resolutions, concerns and duties did not make me forget the gorgeous lady in the slightest.

I threw out the potatoes and other vegetables I found in my little garden and planted the whole area with the most select flowers; which caused the porter from the castle, he with the large electoral nose, who had often paid me a visit since the time I came to live here and had become my intimate friend, to apprehensively give me a sidelong glance and take me for someone whom sudden good fortune had robbed of his reason. But I didn’t let that trouble me. For not far from me, in the comital garden, I heard the sound of refined voices, among which I believed I recognised that of my lovely lady, although I could not see anyone because of the thick bushes. So every day I would make up a bouquet of the most beautiful flowers I had; and every evening, when it grew dark, I would climb over the wall and lay the bouquet down on a stone table which stood in the middle of an arbour. And every evening, when I brought a fresh bouquet, the old one had gone from the table.

One evening the society had gone riding on the hunt; the sun was just setting, bathing all the land with a radiant shimmer; the Danube meandered splendidly along, like pure gold and fire, into the far distance; from the mountains, deep into the land, sounded the vintagers’ jubilant song. I sat with the porter on the little bench in front of my house, taking pleasure in the mild air and the merry day which was darkening and fading away so slowly before us. Suddenly the horns of the returning hunters were heard in the distance, answering one another delightfully at intervals from the mountains opposite. I was delighted in my heart of hearts and I leapt up and shouted, as if bewitched and enraptured with joy: “Aye, that’s what I call a profession, the noble sport of hunting!” The porter, however, calmly knocked out his pipe and said: “That’s just how you imagine it to be. But I’ve taken part in one; you barely earn the cost of the soles you wear through, and you simply can’t shake off the coughs and colds, they come from eternally having wet feet.” – I don’t know why, I was gripped by a foolish anger which made me quake all over. Suddenly, everything about the man – his boring coat, his everlasting feet, his snuff, his big nose, and the rest – was repellent to me. I seized him by the breast, as if beside myself, and said: “Porter, either you beat it back home right now, or I’ll thrash you on the spot!” At these words the porter was struck by his old opinion that I had lost my senses. He looked at me anxiously and with secret fear, freed himself from my grasp without uttering a word, and walked, casting sinister looks back at me all the while, with long strides back to the castle, where he breathlessly announced that, this time, I was mad for certain.

In the end, though, I had to laugh out loud, and I was heartily glad to be rid of my know-all companion; for it was precisely the hour at which I used to lay the bouquet in the arbour. And today was no exception; I quickly sprang over the wall and was just heading towards the little stone table when I heard the clopping of horse’s hooves at a little distance. It was too late to make my escape, for my lovely lady herself, in a green hunting-habit and with nodding plumes in her hat, was at that moment riding down the avenue, slowly, and apparently in deep thought. I felt as I always used to when reading about the beautiful Magelone in the old books at my father’s, how she would emerge from between the tall trees, with the huntsmen’s horns resounding ever nearer, and the changing evening light – I was rooted to the spot. She, however, gave a violent start when she suddenly noticed me and, almost involuntarily, came to a halt. I was drunk with fear, palpitation and great joy; and when I noticed that she was really wearing my yesterday’s bouquet on her breast, I could restrain myself no longer, but said, totally flustered: “My dear, beautiful lady, take this bouquet from me, along with all the flowers in my garden and everything I have. Oh, if only I could jump into fire for you!” Right at the outset she had looked at me so gravely, almost crossly, that it shot right through me; but then, while I was speaking, she kept her eyes cast fixed on the ground. Just at that moment the sound of voices and horses’ hooves could be heard in the bushes. Then she quickly snatched the bunch out of my hand and presently, without saying a word, disappeared at the far end of the curving road.

After that evening I had neither rest nor respite. My mood was constantly as it always used to be when spring was dawning – so restless and joyful, without my knowing why, as if there were a great piece of good fortune or some other extraordinary occurrence in store for me. In particular, I just couldn’t get my head round the odious calculations any longer, and when the sunshine fell through the chestnut-tree before the window in green and gold upon the figures, and added up from Brought Forward to Total, and up and down again, so quickly, I had extremely strange thoughts, so that I sometimes became utterly confused and was truly unable to count up to three. For the Eight always appeared to me as my fat, tightly-laced lady with the wide head-dress, the wicked Seven was the spitting image of a signpost pointing eternally backwards, or of a gallows. – The Nine afforded me the greatest fun, merrily turning itself onto its head as a Six before I realised what was happening, while the Two, like a question-mark, looked so sly, as if she wanted to ask me: What’s going to happen to you in the end, you poor Nought? Without her, this slender One and everything, why, you will remain nothing for ever!

Sitting outside in front of the door no longer gave me pleasure, either. To have a more comfortable time of it, I took a stool out with me and stretched my legs out on it; I mended an old parasol of the collector’s and spanned it over me, like a Chinese summerhouse, against the sun. But it was no use. It seemed to me, as I sat there smoking and speculating, that my legs were growing gradually longer and longer from boredom and my nose grew from doing nothing when I looked down at it for hours on end. – And then, when a post-chaise on occasion came by before day had even broken, and I stepped out into the cool air half asleep, and a sweet little face, of which only the sparkling eyes could be seen in the twilight, bent forward inquisitively out of the carriage and cordially wished me good morning; in the villages all around the cocks crowed so cheerily across the lightly waving cornfields, and some larks, awakened too early, were already roving between the stripes of morning high in the sky, and the postilion took his post-horn and drove on and blew and blew – then I stood a long time following the coach with my eyes, and I felt that I just had to go away at once, far, far into the world. –

In the meantime I continued to lay my bouquets on the stone table in the dark arbour as soon as the sun had set. But that was precisely the problem: it was all over with this since that evening. – Nobody troubled themselves with them; whenever I went to look in the early morning, the flowers still lay where they had been the previous day and looked at me really sadly with their wilted, drooping little heads, which dew-drops clung to, as if they were crying. This irked me sorely. I did not tie another bouquet. The weeds in my garden were free to flourish as they liked, and I left the flowers in peace to grow until the wind scattered their petals. After all, everything was just as wild, confused, and disturbed in my heart.

Then, at this critical juncture, it so happened that one day, just as I was lying by the window in my house and gazing out morosely into empty space, the lady’s-maid from the castle came mincing across the road. Seeing me, she quickly headed towards me and stopped before the window. – “The master returned from his travels yesterday,” she said zealously. “So?” I retorted, astonished – for I had cared about nothing for several weeks now and did not even know that the master had been on a journey – “then his daughter, the young lady, will be greatly pleased.” – The lady’s-maid looked me over from top to toe, so strangely that I really had to reflect on whether I had dropped a stupid remark. – “You don’t know anything,” she said at last, turning up her little nose. “Now,” she continued, “this evening, to honour the master, there is to be a dance and a masquerade in the castle. My mistress will also be masquerading, as a gardener – understand this clearly – as a gardener. Now the lady has seen that you have especially beautiful flowers in your garden.” – That is odd, I thought to myself, for at present you can hardly see any flowers for weeds. – But she went on: “Now, as the lady requires beautiful flowers for her costume, but quite fresh, just picked from their bed, you’re to bring her some this evening, after dusk, and wait with them under the big pear-tree in the castle-garden; then she’ll come and collect the flowers.”

I was quite stunned with joy at this news and ran, in my delight, from the window out to the lady’s-maid. – “Ugh, that nasty dressing-gown!” she exclaimed, on suddenly seeing me in this get-up out of doors. That annoyed me; not wanting to be found behind in gallantry, I cut some fancy capers to grab and kiss her. But unfortunately, the dressing-gown, which was far too long for me, got tangled up under my feet in the process, and I fell down flat on my face. By the time I had picked myself up, the lady’s-maid was far away; and even over that distance I could hear her laughing so hard that she had to hold her sides.

Now, however, I had something to make me ponder and rejoice. She still thought about me and my flowers! I went into my little garden, hastily tore all the weeds out of the beds and threw them away, high over my head into the shimmering air, as if I were pulling out all evil and melancholy by the root. Now the roses were like her mouth, the sky-blue bindweed like her eyes, the snow-white lily, with its head bowed in melancholy, looked exactly like her. I piled them all together in my little basket. It was a still, lovely evening, without a cloud in the sky. A few stars already shone in the firmament, the murmuring Danube could be heard from afar across the fields; in the tall trees in the comital garden beside me numberless birds sang merrily all at once. Ah, I was so happy!

When night finally fell, I took my little basket on my arm and made my way to the great garden. Everything in the basket was in such a colourful and charming muddle, white, red, blue and fragrant, that my heart laughed soundly at the sight.

Full of cheerful thoughts, I walked in the lovely moonlight down the silent, clean and sand-strewn paths over the small white bridges, under which the swans sat sleeping on the water, past the elegant arbours and summerhouses. I found the large pear-tree in no time at all, for it was the same tree I would lie under, when I was the gardener’s lad, on sultry afternoons.

It was so dark and lonely here. Only a tall aspen shook and whispered incessantly with its silver leaves. Sometimes dance music rang over from the castle. I also heard human voices from time to time in the garden; they often came up quite close to me, then all was suddenly silent again.

My heart pounded. I felt uneasy and strange, as though I meant to rob someone. For a long time I stood stock-still, leaning against the tree, and listening on all sides; but because no one showed any signs of ever appearing, I could bear it no longer. I hung my basket on my arm and quickly climbed up the pear-tree, to draw breath in the open again.

Up there, the dance music really rang out towards me over the tree-tops. My gaze passed over all of the garden and directly into the brightly-lit castle windows. There the chandeliers revolved slowly like wreaths of stars, countless spruce ladies and gentlemen surged and waltzed and reeled in a colourful, indecipherable confusion, like figures in a shadow dance; at times some leaned against a window and looked down into the garden. In front of the castle, the lawns, bushes and trees seemed to be bathed in gold from the many lights in the room, so that the flowers and birds actually appeared to wake up. Further away, around and behind me, the garden lay so dark and silent.

She is dancing there now, I thought to myself, up in the tree, and has no doubt long forgotten about you and your flowers once more. Everybody is so happy, and no one has a thought for you. – And this is what happens to me everywhere and always. Everyone has marked out his own little spot on the Earth, his warm stove, his cup of coffee, his wife, his glass of wine in the evening, and is quite content with that; even the porter is quite comfortable in his long skin. – I don’t feel at ease anywhere. It is as if I always arrive a second too late, as if all the world had utterly failed to take me into account. –

As I was philosophising thus, I suddenly heard something rustling along below me in the grass. Two refined voices were speaking softly together in the near distance. Soon afterwards the branches in the bushes parted, and the lady’s-maid stuck her little face between the foliage, looking around on all sides. The moonlight sparkled directly on to her sly eyes as they peeped out. I held my breath and gazed fixedly down. And I had not long to wait before the ‘gardener’, dressed exactly as the lady’s-maid had described to me yesterday, did step out from between the trees. My heart thumped fit to burst. She was wearing a mask and looked around her, it seemed to me, in astonishment. – Then it occurred to me that she might not after all be so slim and dainty. – At last she walked up quite close to the tree and took her mask off. – It was actually the other, older lady!

How glad I was now, when I had recovered from the initial shock, that I was situated up here in safety. How on earth, I thought, has she come here just now? When the dear, beautiful lady comes to collect the flowers – that will be a fine how-do-you-do! In the end, I could have cried with vexation at the whole affair.

Meanwhile the disguised gardener below began: “It is so suffocatingly hot up there in the hall, I had to come to cool down a little in the lovely open country.” As she spoke she fanned herself continually with the mask and puffed vigorously. In the bright moonlight I could clearly see that the tendons in her neck were very swollen; she looked quite furious and brick-red in the face. The lady’s-maid, in the meantime, was searching behind all the hedges, as though she had lost a pin. –

“And I urgently need more fresh flowers for my disguise,” the gardener continued anew, “now where is he!” - The lady’s-maid went on with her search, giggling to herself the whole time. “Did you say something, Rosette?” the gardener asked pointedly. – “I say what I’ve said all along,” replied the maid, looking serious and innocent, “that collector is and always will be a downright oaf; I don’t doubt he’ll be lying fast asleep behind one of these bushes.”

Every part of me itched to leap down and save my reputation – when suddenly a great drumming and playing of instruments and noisemaking came from the castle.

Now the lady could control herself no longer. “The company,” she flared out, “are giving the master the vivat. Come, we shall be missed!” – And with this she quickly put on her mask and walked furiously away towards the castle with the lady’s-maid. The trees and bushes pointed strangely after her, as if with long noses and fingers; the moonlight danced rapidly up and down over her broad figure, as over a keyboard; and so she made, just like the divas I have occasionally seen on the stage, a hasty exit, with a fanfare and a flourish.

Whereas I, up in my tree, really was not entirely sure about what had happened to me, and from that point on I fixed my gaze steadfastly on the castle; for a circle of tall lanterns at the foot of the entrance steps cast a peculiar light over the flashing windows and far out into the garden. It was the servants, who were in the process of serenading their young master. In their midst the porter, splendidly decked out like a minister of state, stood before a music-stand and zestfully emptied his lungs into a bassoon.

Just as I was settling myself to listen to the harmonious serenade, the double doors up on the castle balcony were flung open. A tall gentleman, handsome and imposing in uniform, with many sparkling stars, stepped out onto the balcony, holding the hand of – the beautiful young lady, dressed all in white, like a lily at night, or like the moon passing across the clear heavens.

I could not wrest my eyes from the scene, and gardens, trees and fields sank from my senses as she stood there, tall and slim, so wondrously lit by the torches, now talking pleasantly with the handsome officer, now nodding amiably down to the musicians. The people below were beside themselves with joy, and in the end I too could contain myself no longer, but kept shouting vivat with them as loud as my lungs would allow.

But when, shortly afterwards, she disappeared from the balcony, then down below one torch after the other went out and the music-stands were cleared away, and now the garden all around fell dark again and rustled as before – then, then I realised everything – it suddenly sent my heart plunging, that it was really only the aunt who had ordered my flowers, that the fair one hadn’t spared me the slightest thought, was married long since, and I, myself, was a great fool.

All of this made me tumble deep into an abyss of cogitation. I curled myself together, like a hedgehog, in the spines of my own thoughts; the dance music sounded over from the castle less frequently, the clouds drifted, lonely, over the dark garden and away. And so I sat up in the tree, like a night-owl, in the ruins of my happiness all night long.

The cool morning air aroused me at last from my reveries. I was thoroughly amazed when I suddenly looked around me. The music and dancing were long over; in the castle, and around the castle on the lawns and stone steps and pillars, everything looked so peaceful, cool and solemn; the fountain before the entrance kept up a lonely splashing, but that was all. Here and there in the branches beside me birds were already awakening; they shook their colourful feathers and, stretching their little wings, looked with curiosity and wonder at their strange sleeping companion. Sparkling beams of morning light roved merrily over the garden and on to my breast.

Then I sat up straight in my tree and, for the first time in a long while, I looked out really far across the land, and I saw several ships sailing down the Danube between the vineyards and the yet empty highroads sweeping out over mountains and valleys into the far distance like bridges over the gleaming land.

I do not know how it came about – but all of a sudden my old wanderlust gripped me again; all the old melancholy and desire and great expectations. At the same time it occurred to me that the lovely lady was now slumbering between flowers and under silken covers up there in the castle, and an angel was sitting at her bedside in the peacefulness of morning. – “No,” I cried, “I must get away from here, farther and farther away, as far as the sky is blue!”

And with this I took my basket and threw it high up into the air, so that it was really delightful to see how the flowers lay around in a blaze of colours between the branches and on the green lawn below. Then I myself quickly descended and walked through the silent garden to my house. Many times I would stop and stand at a place where I thought I had once seen her, or had lain in the shadows and thought of her.

In and around my little house everything was just as I had left it the previous day. The square of garden had been plundered and was desolate; in the room the ledger lay open, my fiddle, which I had almost totally forgotten, hung covered in dust on the wall. But a morning ray passed flashing through the window opposite and landed directly on the strings. That struck a real chord in my heart. Yes, I said, come to me, my faithful instrument! Our Kingdom is not of this world! –

And so I took my fiddle from the wall, left ledger, dressing-gown, slippers, pipe and parasol lying there and wandered out of my house, as poor as I had entered, and away along the shining highroad.

I looked back often; I felt quite strange, so sad and yet again so exceedingly happy, like a bird tearing out of its cage. And once I had covered a considerable stretch, I took out my fiddle, in the open air, and sang:

I leave dear God to rule and reign;

Who brooks and larks and wood and lea

And Earth and Heaven can maintain,

I’ll say he knows what’s best for me!

The castle, the garden, and the towers of V. had already become immersed behind me in the morning mist; above me, high in the air, countless larks sang joyfully; and so I moved on, between green hills and past merry towns and villages, down towards Italy.

Chapter Three

But this was awful! I hadn’t given the least thought to the fact that I did not actually know the correct road. Moreover, there was no sign of anyone anywhere in the quiet morning hour whom I could have asked; and not far ahead of me the highroad divided into many new highways, which went far, far away over the highest mountains, as if they were leading out of the world, so that I felt quite dizzy when my gaze tried to follow them.

At last a farmer came along the road, on his way, I believed, to church, today being Sunday, in an old-fashioned frock-coat with large silver buttons and a long cane with a solid knob which could be spotted from afar sparkling in the sun. I at once asked him most courteously: “Could you perhaps tell me which is the way to Italy?” The farmer halted, looked at me, reflected, his lower lip thrust far forward, then looked at me again. Once more, I said, “To Italy, where the bigarades grow?” “Ah, what have thy bigarades to do with me?” said the farmer, and he strode doughtily away. I had credited the man with more manners, for he had presented a really distinguished appearance.

Now what was I to do? Turn on my heels and go back to my village? Then the people would point at me, and the lads would leap around me: “Well, a thousand welcomes back from the World! And how are things in the World? Hasn’t he brought us gingerbread back from the World?” The porter with the electoral nose, who actually had an extensive knowledge of world history, often said to me: “Highly-esteemed Collector! Italy is a beautiful land, where the good Lord provides for everyone, where a man can lie on his back in the sunshine and grapes will fall into his mouth; and when a tarantula stings you, you dance with tremendous agility, even if you’ve never danced a step before.” – “No, to Italy, to Italy!” I cried out with joy and ran, without thinking about the various ways, down the road at my feet.

When I had journeyed thus for some distance, I saw an extremely beautiful orchard on the right of the road, where the morning sun shimmered so merrily through the branches and tree-tops that it looked as though the lawn were laid with golden carpets. As I could not see a soul, I climbed over the low garden-fence and settled down quite comfortably on the grass under an apple-tree, for all my limbs were still aching from yesterday’s bivouac in the pear-tree. From there I could see far out into the land; and because it was Sunday, chimes rang out from the far distance across the still fields, and all around spruce country folk were passing between meadows and bushes to church. I was really happy at heart, the birds sang above me in the tree, I thought of my mill and the lovely lady’s garden, and how all that was so, so far away now – until in the end I fell asleep. Then I dreamt that the lovely lady came walking to me from the marvellous region – actually, she came in slow flight between the chimes with long white veils which fluttered with the dawn. And then it seemed that we were not in a strange land at all, but near my village, in the deep shade by the mill. But there all was silent and empty, as on Sunday when folk are in church, and only the notes of the organ came through the trees, so that I was sad to the depths of my heart. The lovely lady, however, was very kind and friendly; she held my hand and walked with me, singing all the while in this solitude the sweet song she would sing, to her guitar, at her open window in the early morning; and as she sang I saw her reflection in the still pond, many thousand times more beautiful, but with strange, large eyes which looked at me so fixedly that I almost felt afraid. – When suddenly the mill began to turn, with slow and single revolutions at first, then ever faster and more fiercely until it was thundering; the pool darkened and broke into ripples, the lovely lady went quite pale, and her veils grew longer and longer, and their long peaks flapped appallingly, like streaks of mist, high into the sky; the roaring increased continually, it often seemed that the porter was blowing along on his bassoon, until I finally awoke, my heart pounding furiously.

A wind had indeed arisen and was blowing softly through the apple-tree above me; but the booming and rumbling was caused by neither the mill nor the porter, but by that same farmer who had just now refused to show me the way to Italy. He had taken off his Sunday finery and was standing before me in a white jerkin. “Well,” he said, while I was rubbing the sleep from my eyes, “so thou’rt after picking buggerades, trampling all over me lovely grass instead of going to church, thou layabout!” – Now I was annoyed that the boor had wakened me. I leapt to my feet in a rage and quickly retorted: “What, thou dar’st upbraid me? I was a gardener before thou thought of such a thing, and a toll-collector, and if thou hadst travelled to town thou wouldst have had to doff thy greasy nightcap to me, and I had my house and my red dressing-gown with yellow spots.” – But the clodhopper couldn’t have cared less about this; placing his hands on his hips, he just said: “And what dost thou want? Heigh! Heigh!” By this time I had noted that he was, in actual fact, a short, stocky, bandy-legged fellow with protruding, goggling eyes and a red, rather crooked nose. And as he continued to say nothing more than “Heigh! – Heigh!”, coming a step closer to me each time – then such a strange, horrible fear came over me that I quickly took to my heels; jumping over the fence, I ran, and ran, across the country, never once looking back, my fiddle ringing in my pocket.

When at last I came to a halt to recover my wind, the garden and all of the valley had disappeared, and I was standing in a beautiful forest. But I took little enough notice of that, for now I was really annoyed by the scene and the fellow’s always thee- and thouing me; and I quietly cursed to myself for a long time. With such thoughts I passed rapidly on, moving further and further away from the high-road, right into the heart of the mountains. The logging-path I had been running along came to an end, and now there was only a narrow, little-trod footpath before me. All around there was neither sight nor sound of anyone. This aside, it was a really pleasant walk; the tree-tops swished, and birds sang very beautifully. And so I commended myself to God’s guidance, took out my violin and played through all my favourite pieces, sending a really cheerful sound ringing through the lonely forest.

The playing, however, did not last long, for at every instant I tripped over the cursed tree-roots; also, I finally began to grow hungry, and the forest seemed endless. So I wandered around the whole day long, and the sun was shining slantwise between the tree-trunks by the time I at last emerged onto a small meadow-clothed valley, completely surrounded by mountains and full of red and yellow flowers, over which countless butterflies were fluttering in the golden light of evening. Here it was as lonely as if the world were some hundred miles away. House-crickets were chirping, and a shepherd lay in the tall grass on the far side, playing such melancholy tunes on his shawm that the hearer’s heart could have burst with yearning. Aye, I thought to myself, who has it so good as a layabout like that! The likes of us must struggle around through strange lands, constantly on our guard. – Because a lovely clear stream lay between us, and I could not cross over, I shouted to him from a distance: Where was the nearest village? But he refused to let me disturb him and merely raised his head a little from the grass, pointed towards the other forest with his shawm, and calmly resumed his playing.

Meanwhile I marched busily onwards, for dusk was already falling. The birds, who had all been making a racket as the last rays of sunlight glimmered through the wood, fell suddenly silent; and I almost began to feel afraid in the eternal, lonely murmurs of the forest. I upped my pace, the wood became ever more sparse, and a little later I was looking through the last trees at a lovely green lawn, on which a crowd of children were dinning and romping around a great lime-tree standing in the dead centre. Further ahead, there was an inn on the lawn, with several farmers sitting around a table in front, playing cards and smoking tobacco. On the other side, before the door, sat young lads and maids, the latter with their arms rolled inside their aprons, chatting together in the cool evening.

Without a moment’s hesitation I pulled my fiddle from my pocket and quickly struck up a merry country-dance as I stepped out of the wood. The maids were astonished, and the old folk laughed so hard that the forest depths echoed with the sound. But when I had reached the lime-tree and, leaning back against it, kept on with my playing, a secret murmuring and whispering passed between the young people; the lads finally put aside their Sunday pipes, each took his girl, and before I knew what was happening the young farmers were spinning with gusto around me, dogs barked, skirts flew, and the children encircled me, staring with curiosity at my face and my rapidly dancing fingers.

When the first round was over, I really learnt how good music goes to the limbs. The country lads, who had been spread out on the benches, pipe in mouth, stretching their stiff legs, were now suddenly like new men; letting their colourful handkerchiefs hang down low from their buttonholes, they caprioled so courteously around the maids that it was a downright joy to see. One of them, who doubtless considered himself to be of some consequence, poked around in his waistcoat pocket for a long time to catch the others’ attention, then finally produced a small, silver coin which he wanted to press into my palm. This annoyed me, even though my pockets were empty at that precise moment. I told him to hold on to his pennies; I was only playing from joy at being among people again. Soon afterwards, a trim maid came up to me with a large rummer of wine. “Musicians like a drink,” she said with a friendly smile; and her pearl-white teeth gleamed really charmingly through her red lips, which I would dearly have liked to plant a kiss on. She dipped her little mouth into the wine, her eyes twinkling at me over the glass, and then handed me the rummer. I drained the glass and started to play afresh, and soon everyone was merrily revolving around me.

In the meantime the old folk had broken off their game, and the young ones, beginning to grow tired, were dispersing; and so, little by little, all became silent and deserted before the inn. The maid who had handed me the wine also headed for the village, but she walked very slowly, looking around from time to time as if she had forgotten something. Finally she came to a stop and searched for something on the ground; but I could clearly see that, as she bent down, she looked back at me through the gap between arm and body. Having learnt manners at the castle, I quickly ran up to her and said: “Have you lost something, fair lady?” “Ah, no,” she said, blushing all over, “it was only a rose – dost thou want it?” I thanked her and fixed the rose in my buttonhole. She looked at me with smiling eyes and said: “Thou playest really beautifully.” “Yes,” I replied, “it’s a gift from God.” “Musicians are very rare in this region,” the maid began, then hesitated, her gaze fixed firmly on the ground. “Thou couldst earn a good sum of money here – my father plays the fiddle a little and likes hearing tales of foreign parts – and my father is very rich.” – Then she burst out laughing and said: “If only thou didst not keep making those grimaces with thy head when thou fiddlest!” – “Dearest maiden,” I replied, “first of all: do not keep thee- and thouing me; and as for the head-wagging, there is no getting away from it, it’s something we virtuosi all do.” – “Oh, I see,” replied the maid. She was about to speak further, but a dreadful rumpus suddenly arose in the inn, the front door opened with a bang and a thin fellow came flying out like a discharged ramrod, whereupon the door was at once slammed shut behind him.

At the first sound the maid had skipped away like a deer and disappeared into the darkness. As for the figure before the door, he quickly picked himself up off the ground and launched into a flurried volley of curses at the house which was really astonishing to hear. “What!” he yelled, “I’m drunk? I haven’t paid the chalk-marks on your smoke-darkened door? Rub them out, rub them out! Didn’t I, only yesterday, shave you over a cooking-spoon[1] and snick your nose, making you bite the rotten spoon in two? The shave crosses one stroke out – another stroke for the cooking-spoon – plaster on the nose, another stroke – how many of these currish strokes do you want payment for? But fine, no problem! I’ll leave the whole village, the whole world unshaven. For all I care, you can run around in your beards, and on Judgement Day the dear Lord won’t know whether you’re Christians or Jews! Yes, hang yourselves by your beards, you shaggy oafs!” At this point he suddenly burst out crying pitifully, then continued in a wretched, piping voice: “So I’m to swig water, like a miserable fish? is that brotherly love? Am I not a human being and an experienced army barber-surgeon? Oh, I’m in a rage today! My heart is full of emotion and love of mankind!” All this while he had been retreating, little by little, for nothing had stirred in the house. When he caught sight of me, he ran at me with open arms; thinking the madman meant to embrace me, I jumped aside, and he stumbled onwards; and for a long time I could hear him discoursing with himself, now coarsely, now elegantly, through the darkness.

Many thoughts were busy in my head. The maiden who had just now given me the rose was young, beautiful and rich – I could make my fortune there in the flick of a wrist. And mutton and pork, turkey and fat geese stuffed with apples – yes, it even seemed that I could see the porter advancing towards me: “Grab it, collector, grab it! no heart was ever wrung after marrying young; the lucky man leads his bride home, stay in the land and batten.” Sunk in such philosophical thoughts I sat down on a stone on the green – which was now totally deserted – for I did not dare knock at the inn door, having no money on me. The moon shone a splendid light; from the mountains came the sound of trees, rustling in the quiet night; now and then dogs would bark in the village lying further down the valley, seemingly buried beneath the trees and the moonlight. I looked at the firmament, where single clouds drifted slowly through the moonlight and the occasional star fell to earth in the far distance. The moon is shining just so, I thought, over my father’s mill and on the Count’s white castle. All has long been restful there; the lady sleeps, and the fountains and trees in the garden still murmur away as formerly; and it’s all the same to everyone whether I’m still there, or abroad, or dead. – And the world suddenly appeared to me as such an awfully large place, with I so totally alone in it that I could have cried from the bottom of my heart.

While I was sitting there, I suddenly heard hoofbeats coming from some distance inside the wood. I held my breath and listened; the sound came nearer and nearer, until I could hear the horses snorting. Soon afterwards two riders did indeed emerge from among the trees, but halted at the edge of the wood and began to whisper animatedly to each other – as I could see from the shadows which suddenly shot over the moonlit green, pointing long, dark arms now here, now there. – How often, when at home my late mother told me stories of wild woods and martial robbers, had I secretly wished to personally experience just such a story. And here now was the result of my stupid thoughts of derring-do! – I surreptitiously stretched myself as tall as I could against the lime tree I was sitting under until, having reached the lowest bough, I quickly swung myself up. But half of me still dangled down from the bough, and I was just about to fetch my legs up when one of the riders came steadily trotting across the green behind me. Now I screwed my eyes shut, among the dark foliage, and did not move a muscle. – “Who is there?” a voice suddenly cried close behind me. “No one!” I shouted with all my might, terrified that he had caught me after all. But secretly I had to chuckle to myself when I thought of the mistake the fellows would be making as they turned out my empty pockets. – “Well, well,” said the robber, “so who do those two legs hanging down there belong to?” – There was nothing else for it. “They’re nothing more,” I said, “than a pair of poor, lost musician’s legs”; and I let myself quickly down on to the ground, for I was ashamed to hang any longer over the bough like a broken fork.

The rider’s horse shied when I slid down from the tree so suddenly. He patted its neck and said laughing: “Now we too have lost our way, so we are true companions; therefore I would think that you would give us a little help to find the road to B. It won’t be to your disadvantage.” Now it was all very well my averring that I had no idea where B. was and that I would rather enquire at this inn or lead them down into the village. The fellow simply would not listen to reason, but very calmly pulled a pistol, which glittered really prettily in the moonlight, from his belt. “My dear friend,” he said most cordially, now wiping the barrel of the pistol, now testing the sights, “my dear friend, I think you will be good enough to lead the way to B. in person.”

Now I was in a right fix. If I found the road, I was sure to end up among the robber-band and take a beating for having no money on me; if I did not find it – I would take a beating. So without pausing for thought, I took the first road I came to, the one which came from the village and ran past the inn. The rider quickly thundered back to his companion, then both followed me slowly at a distance. So we really proceeded quite foolishly, by guess and by God, into the moonlit night. The road ran through the wood, on a mountain-slope. Now and then you could look out over the tops of the fir-trees, which reached up darkly stirring from the depths, far into the deep, silent valleys; here and there a nightingale burst into song, and dogs barked in distant villages. A river murmured incessantly down in the valley and flashed every so often in the moonlight. And there was the monotonous clip-clopping and the confused buzzing of the riders behind me, who chatted non-stop together in a strange language, and the bright moonlight and the long shadows of the tree-trunks intermittently flying over both riders, making them appear now black, now bright, now small, and now gigantic. My thoughts were thoroughly befuddled, as though I lay in a dream and was quite unable to wake up. I kept marching hard ahead. We must surely, I thought, eventually come out of the wood and out of the night.

At last, long rosy streams of light began to fly across the sky, from time to time, very faintly, like breath on a mirror; and a lark was singing high above the still valley. This dawn-greeting at once lifted the load from my heart, and all fear vanished. But both riders had a stretch and looked all around; and they now seemed to realise, for the first time, that we might not be on the correct road. They chatted a great deal, and it was obvious that they were talking about me; indeed, I had the impression that one of them was beginning to fear me, as though I were secretly a knight of the road planning to lead them astray in the wood. This gave me some amusement, for the lighter it grew all around, the higher my courage rose, particularly as we came out just then on to a beautiful glade. So I looked all around wildly and whistled through my fingers a few times, as rogues do when they want to signal to each other.

“Stop!” shouted one of the riders, so abruptly that I gave a proper start. When I looked around, both had dismounted and tethered their horses to a tree. One of them stepped rapidly up to me, stared me in the face, and burst into immoderate laughter. I must admit that I was annoyed by that stupid laughter. But he said: “Why, it is really the gardener – I mean, the collector – from the castle!”

I stared at him, but could not recall having seen him before; I should have had my work cut out to notice all the young gentlemen who rode to and from the castle. But he continued, with unending laughter: “That is splendid! You are taking time off, I see; now we need a servant, so stay with us, and your life will be one long vacation!”

I was totally stunned and said at last that I was just at this moment in the middle of a journey to Italy.

“To Italy?” the stranger replied, “that’s the very place we’re going to!”

“Well, in that case,” I cried; and I delightedly pulled my fiddle out of my pocket and stroked the strings, waking the birds up in the wood. The gentleman swiftly grabbed his companion and the two waltzed like madmen over the grass.

Then they suddenly came to a halt. “By Heaven,” cried one, “there I can see the church-tower of B.! Well, we’ll get down there in no time.” Taking out his repeater, he let it strike, shook his head, then let it strike again. “No,” he said, “that won’t do, we’ll arrive there too soon, things could get serious!”

After that they fetched cakes, meat and bottles of wine from their saddle-bags, spread out a handsome brightly-coloured cloth on the green grass, lay down on it, and enjoyed a very pleasurable feast; and they shared everything very generously with me, which did me the world of good, as I had not had a proper meal for several days.

“And so that you know – ” one began, “you don’t know us, do you?”

I shook my head.

“Well then, so that you know: I am the artist Leonardo, and this here is – again an artist – by the name of Guido.”

Now I looked at both artists more closely in the light of dawn. The one who called himself Herr Leonardo was tall, slim and brown with merry, fiery eyes. The other was much younger, shorter and more delicate, dressed in the old German style – as the porter called it – with a white collar and bare throat, over which hung down the dark-brown curls he often had to shake out of his handsome face.

When the latter had breakfasted his fill, he reached out for my fiddle, which I had laid on the ground by my side, sat down with it on a felled branch, and began to thrum its strings. Then he sang along in a voice as clear as a woodland bird’s, which echoed in my heart:

Dawn’s first ray flies down its path

Through the silent, misty strath;

Wood and hill both rustle wakening,

All the flying creatures take wing!

And the beaming goodman cries,

Cap tossed brightly to the skies:

‘Now, if song gives wings to sound,

I’ll sing out a joyous round!’

And the rosy light of dawn played so charmingly over his rather pale face and black, amorous eyes. But I was so tired that, as he sang, the words and music merged together more and more, until I finally fell fast asleep.

When I gradually came to myself, I heard, as in a dream, both artists still talking beside me and birds singing above me, and the rays of morning glimmered through my closed eyelids, making inside me that mixture of dark and light formed when the sun shines through red silk curtains. “Come è bello!” I heard someone exclaim nearby. Opening my eyes I saw the young artist standing bent over me in the sparkling morning light, only his big, black eyes visible between his flowing curls.

I leapt to my feet, for it was broad daylight by this time. Herr Leonardo seemed to be annoyed; two angry furrows lined his forehead and he was hurriedly urging departure. But the other artist shook his locks out from his face and, bridling his horse, calmly warbled a ditty, until at last Leonardo burst out into loud laughter, quickly grabbed a bottle off the grass, and emptied it into the glasses. “To a happy arrival!” he cried, and they clinked glasses, giving rise to a beautiful sound. Then Leonardo hurled the empty bottle high into the air, where it glittered merrily in the morning light.

Finally they mounted their horses, and I marched vigorously by their side. Directly before us lay a valley, stretching out further than the eye could see, into which we now descended. All around there was light flashing and shimmering, and the sound of rustling and joyful birdsong! I felt so cool, so happy, as if I were about to fly from the mountains into that marvellous land.

Chapter Four

Now adieu, mill and castle and porter! We were going so fast that the wind whistled around my hat. Villages, towns and vineyards flew past on the right and left, images which danced before my eyes; behind me both artists in the coach, before me four horses with a splendid postilion; and I up above, on the coach-box, being bounced yards high into the air.

This had come to pass as follows: on arriving before B., a long, scrawny, morose man in a green frieze coat came out towards us, kow-towed many times to the artists, and led us into the village. Under the tall lime-trees, in front of the post-house, was a splendid carriage with four horses. On the way Herr Leonardo opined that I had outgrown my clothes; so he swiftly took other garments out of his portmanteau, and I had to put on a brand-new tail-coat and waistcoat which were very stylish and becoming, apart from their being too long and broad for me and therefore hanging loosely in baggy folds. I received a spanking-new hat as well, which sparkled in the sun as though spread with fresh butter. Then the morose stranger took the bridles off the artists’ horses, the artists sprang into the carriage, I on to the box, and then we flew away, just as the postmaster was sticking his nightcapped head out the window. The postilion gave a round of merry blasts on his horn, and thus we set off breezily for Italy.

I really had a marvellous life up there, like a bird on the wing but without the effort of flying. I had nothing further to do than to sit on the box night and day and occasionally fetch food and drink from the inn; for the artists never spoke a word, and by day they closed the carriage windows so tightly you would think they were afraid of being stabbed by the sun’s rays. Only now and then did Herr Guido stick his handsome head out the window, discourse amiably with me, then laugh at Herr Leonardo, who would not suffer this and grew angry every time we engaged in a long discourse. On a few occasions I almost quarrelled with my masters. The first time was on a lovely, starry night, when I started playing my fiddle up on the box; and another time because of sleep. Now that was quite astonishing! I wanted to get a thorough look at Italy, so I opened my eyes wide every quarter of an hour. But barely had I sat for a few moments gazing ahead than the sixteen hooves in front of me became so confused and tangled, backwards then forwards then crossways, like a net, that my eyes immediately closed, and finally I fell into such a dreadful and irresistible sleep that I was at my wits’ end. It might be night or day, sunshine or rain, the Tyrol or Italy, I hung over the box, now to the right, now to the left, now on my back; why, sometimes I dipped my head towards the ground with such vehemence that my hat flew off and Herr Guido shrieked out loud in the carriage.

In this way had I travelled – exactly how, I myself do not know – through half of Italy, which the locals there call Lombardy, when we halted before a country inn one beautiful evening. The time for which the post-horses had been ordered to arrive from the adjacent village-station was still a few hours away, so the artists alighted and were conducted to a private room where they were able to rest a little and write several letters. As for me, I was very pleased with this and proceeded at once to the traveller’s room, to finally get a bite to eat and a drop to drink in a little peace and comfort once again. Everything there was on the slovenly side. The maids went about with tousy hair, their kerchiefs untidily hanging around their yellow hide. The house-servants sat in blue smocks at a round table, eating their supper and gawping sideways at me from time to time. They all sported short, thick pigtails and looked just as refined as young aristocrats. Now here you are, I thought to myself as I ploughed into my meal, here you finally are in that land from which strange people kept coming to visit our priest with mousetraps and barometers and pictures. What discoveries a man makes when he leaves his fireside behind!

As I was eating and meditating thus, a manikin who had been sitting over his glass of wine in a dark corner suddenly whisked out of his nook towards me like a spider. He was very short and hunchbacked, but had a large, hideous head with a long, aquiline Roman nose and thin red whiskers, and his powdered hair was sticking up on all sides as if a whirlwind had passed through it. What was more, he was wearing an old-fashioned, faded jacket, short, plush breeches and completely yellowed silk stockings. He had been to Germany once and thought that he knew German wonderfully well. Sitting down beside me, he asked now this, now that, taking snuff all the while: Was I the servitore? When we arreeve? Were we koing to Rome? But I did not know any details myself, nor could I in the least understand his double Dutch. In my anxiety I finally asked him: “Parlez-vous français?” He shook his large head – which was most welcome to me, for I knew no French. But it was all to no avail. He had firmly set his sights on me, and the questions kept coming; the more we exercised our tongues, the less the one understood the other, until at last we both grew so heated that it sometimes appeared that the Signor was about to peck me with his eagle’s beak, and the maids, who had been listening to our babelish discourse, laughed heartily at both of us. I, however, quickly laid down my knife and fork and walked out the front door. For I felt, in this strange land, as if I had sunk a thousand fathoms deep in the sea with my German tongue and all kinds of unknown critters were wriggling and hissing in the loneliness around me and goggling and snapping at me.

Outside it was a warm summer’s night, ideal for a stroll. From the distant vineyards there came at occasions the sound of a vintager singing; in between these bursts, lightning flashed far away, and the whole region trembled and murmured in the moonlight. Indeed, I sometimes had the impression that a long, dark figure was slipping along behind the hazels in front of the house and peering through the branches – then all was still again.

Just at that moment Herr Guido walked out on to the inn balcony. He did not notice me, but began to play with great skill on a zither he must have found in the house; then he sang along like a nightingale:

Silence falls on man’s loud zest;

Dreamlike Earth feels forces stir her

Forests with a magic murmur,

What the heart but glimpsed or guessed;

Distant ages, gentle grieving, -

Tremors shimmer softly heaving

Sheets of lightning through the breast.

I do not know if there was any more to his song, for I had lain down on the bench before the inn door and fallen asleep from sheer weariness in the mild night.

A few hours may well have flown by before I was awakened by a posthorn which had been blowing merrily into my dreams before I had quite come to my senses. Finally I leapt up; day was dawning over the mountains and the morning air made my limbs shiver. Then it suddenly occurred to me that we should have been well on our way by this time. Oho, I thought, today the waking and laughter fall to me for once. How Herr Guido, with his sleepy, curly head, will jump up when he hears me outside! So I went into the little inn-garden, close under the window of my masters’ room, had a good stretch in the morning light, and sang in high spirits:

When the hoopoe pipes his call,

Day’s about to fall;

When the sun throws off night�