Page:Works of Heinrich Heine 01.djvu/131

Rh So these and the rest of the numerical folk drove by hurried and hungry, while more grimly droll a funeral passed not far off, past the houses of the Jungfernstieg. As a melancholy, masquerading show there walked on after the hearse, stilted on their little, thin, black silk legs, the well-known council-servants, the privileged civic mourners, in a parodied old Burgundian costume, short black cloaks and black plumped breeches, white wigs, and cravats, out of which the red mercenary faces stared comically, short steel rapiers on their hips, with green umbrellas on their arms.

But more uncanny and bewildering than these figures which went silently by were the sounds which rang in my ears from the other side. They were shrill, harsh, creaking, metallic tones, a crazy screeching, a painful splashing and despairing gulping, a gasping and tumbling, and groaning and wailing bitterly—an indescribable ice-cold cry of pain. The basin of the Alster was frozen up, only that near the shore was a large square cut in the ice, and the terrible tones which I had heard came from the windpipes of the poor white creatures which swam round in it, and screeched in horrible agony; and oh, they were the same swans who once had cheered my heart so softly and merrily. Ah! the beautiful white