He listened, as if expecting an answer from the night wind that rustled by. He looked up at the moon, to see if a solution of this mystery of the future could be found in its shining countenance. In his heart the mocking words of his own song were all the while ringing, singing, and laughing in low tones: "Heirathen, Kind, ist wunderlich Wort, Hör' ich's, möcht ich gleich wieder fort!"[39] He repeated these words again and again, as he slowly walked toward the house, endeavoring to convince himself that they embodied his own sentiments. But the moonbeams are strange sorcerers; over the glittering waters of the murmuring cascades, and in every open myrtle-blossom, he saw the countenance of a lovely girl, who seemed to greet him with her dark, starlike eyes, and whose golden hair encompassed her angel countenance as with a halo of beauty and innocence. Goethe smiled, and whispered the following lines of the same song: "Heirathen wir eben, Das übrige wird sich geben!"[40] CHAPTER X. A DREAM OF LOVE. Strong and mighty, harnessed, and full of life, as Minerva had sprung forth from the head of Jupiter, had love suddenly arisen in Goethe's heart. A single day had awakened it, a single night had sufficed to make it strong, mighty, and confident of victory. When Goethe, after having passed a night of delightful dreams, left his apartments on the following morning, and repaired to the large saloon in which the Jesuit general had formerly entertained his devout guests, and in which merry artists and men of the world, and joyous and beautiful women, were now in the habit of assembling, his countenance wore a glad smile. He had bravely resolved to permit himself to be borne onward on the seething, silver waves of feeling, regardless of whither they tended--satisfied that they would bear him to some one of the enchanted isles of bliss, on the fragrant shores of which two white arms would embrace him, and two radiant eyes would whisper wondrous music in his listening heart. He was alone in the large room. The artists had returned at a late hour from their excursion of the previous day, and had not yet left their apartments. Angelica Kaufmann, who, with her husband, the old painter Zucchi, was always the first to take her seat at the breakfast-table, had to-day sent down word that she was tormented with headache, and would breakfast in her apartments. Signora Frezzi avoided the parlor, because she did not desire to meet Goethe, whose abrupt behavior of the day before had offended her. The newspapers that had arrived yesterday were lying around on the little tables. Goethe seated himself at one of these tables, and opened one of the large English papers which are so great a solace to the blue-eyed daughters of Albion. Two joyous, girlish voices interrupted his reading, causing him to throw his paper hastily aside, and sending the hot blood to his cheeks.