Page:Hoffmann's Strange Stories - Hoffman - 1855.djvu/33

Rh To the rose that I cherish Carry joy that will nourish; For her that I burn, Take the kiss of return.

Should I die ere her I see, And she asks for me, Say that in her love perished Is the heart that she cherished.

When Frederick had sung, he took from his wallet a little piece of wax, softened it with his breath, and moulded with his fingers a pretty hundred-leafed rose; and whilst doing this delicate work, he repeated, in a low voice, the couplets of his song, without noticing another young man standing before him, and very attentively examining his work.

"Well, truly, my friend," said the new comer, "that is a charming work that you are doing there." Frederick raised his eyes, and fixing on the stranger a look of sweet and calm expression—"How can you, my dear sir," said he to him, "find any merit in what is to me nothing but a passing amusement?"

"The devil!" continued the unknown; "if you call amusement the work that you are now doing with such piquant perfection, you must be some artist of high renown. I am doubly charmed with the chance that has caused our meeting, for I am moved by the delicious song that you were warbling after the style of Martin Haescher; and I admire besides the address with which you sieze the ideal of form. How far do you think of going this evening?"

"The destination is before us," answered Frederick. "I am returning to my country; I am going back to Nuremberg. But the sun is setting, night is falling, and I am going to seek for shelter in the next village. To-morrow's dawn will find me on the way to Nuremberg."

"Let us then finish the trip together," exclaimed the unknown. "We will share the same lodging to-night, and to-morrow we will enter Nuremberg together."