But the harmonica soon filled this darkness again with meteorological apparitions of worlds. Ah, why, then, must it needs strike precisely that melody which woke such restless yearnings in my Victor, the "Forget-me-not," which sounded out to him the verses, as if he repeated them to Clotilda. "Forget me not, now that fate sternly calls thee away from me. Forget me not, when the cool earth one day rests lightly upon this heart, that fondly beat for thee. Think it is I, when some soft voice shall whisper to thy thought, Forget me not." ... And O, when these tones intertwine themselves with waving flowers, when they flow backward from one past to another, when they ripple more and more faintly through the past years that repose back of man's memory,--at last only murmur under the dawn of life,--only well up inaudibly under the cradle of man,--and stiffen in our cold twilight and dry up in the midnight, when each of us was not,--then does man, deeply moved, cease any longer to conceal his sighs and his infinite pangs. The still angel at Victor's side could no longer veil them, and Victor heard Clotilda's first sigh. Ay, then he took her hand as if he would sustain her, hovering over an open grave. She gave up her hand to him, and her pulse throbbed trembling in unison with his. Finally only the last lingering tone of the song still flung out its melodious circles in the ether, and its wake undulated away over a whole past,--then a distant echo wrapped it up in a fluttering breath of air, and wafted it away through deeper echoes, and finally over to the last which lay round about heaven,--then the tone expired and flew as a soul into one of Clotilda's sighs. Then the first tear escaped from her, and fell like a hot heart on Victor's hand. Her friend was overpowered,--she was carried away,--he pressed the soft hand,--she drew it out of his,--and went slowly out of the chamber, in order to come again to the help of the too tender heart, over whose sweet signs night hung her veil....