The voice of the beautiful youth had in his ear something inexpressibly touching, because it seemed like one he knew; it went deep into his heart, like the melody of a song that sounds up from childhood. He could rest freely with the steady gaze of love upon that face, that looked out into an eternal night; he wanted to kiss those childish lips full of melodies, and still he hesitated. But as he went out of the house again in quest of Emanuel, and when the bells began to chime again,--for they sounded whenever the door opened, to announce to the blind one every arrival,--then he could no longer restrain himself amidst the lovely music, but he touched the mouth of the blind one, as he leaned at the open window, with a kiss as soft as a breath. "Ah, angel! art thou, then, come down again from heaven?" said the blind one, confounding him with some well-known being or other. How good was it to be out of doors! The evening-bell of the village sounded its call over the slumbering fields, and a distant soul was inclining its ear, perhaps, to catch the dying echoes of its broken tones. The evening wind, rustling through twigs full of green fruits, joined in. The evening star--the moon of our twilight--rested kindly on the road of the sun and of the moon, and sent its solace in the interval during the absence of both.--"Where mayst thou be at this moment, my Emanuel? Art thou resting, perhaps, in the sight of the evening-red,--or gazing into the starry sea?--art thou in the ecstasy we call a prayer,--or ..."