"Now what I value most in a poet," she said, "is a certain quality of soul. That is why I love Shelley and Lamartine, and dislike this Heine. Oh, I know what you'll say, the Nordsee and the rest. No one knows my debt to him better than I; but he's like Deutz, who sold your Duchesse de Berry, and I always feel I want to offer him the tribute of my admiration with a pair of tongs." She took the book from me and looked through it. I had no idea what time it was. Suddenly a whiff of air, with that sharp nip in it that heralds the dawn, was wafted in through the open window behind the curtains. The smoke of the incense trembled like a tottering pillar. Buried in the _Reisebilder_, the Grand Duchess had forgotten my presence. Melusine put a finger on her smiling lips and took me out without her mistress noticing that we had gone. It was very cold outside. To the east the blue sky was undergoing a magic change, slowly turning to violet, then green, then orange. I sat down on a seat by the door beneath the Grand Duchess's window, indulging in a kind of mournful ecstasy. For it was the very spot whither I had come so many evenings solely in order to be near her. Then, languid and monotonous, but pure as the icy waters of a mountain stream, came the sound of a voice. The Grand Duchess was singing to the accompaniment of Melusine's guzla. She was the very incarnation of harmony, and her voice was, indeed, the voice of my dreams. She was singing Ilse's romance, the best of the _Reisebilder_. And because we had just been speaking of it together I seemed to be still with her in her room: ILSA The Princess Ilsa am I named, my home dark Ilsen's rock; Oh come within my castle gate; there we shall happy be. My sunlit waves shall bring a balm to soothe thine aching brow, Thy deep-set griefs thou shalt forget, poor youth all sick with care. I'll kiss thee and I'll hold thee fast, as once I held and kissed The Emperor Henry, my heart's love; ah me! He is no more. The dead are dead; they only live who are alive today; I still am fair and full of grace; my heart still smiles and throbs. My heart still smiles and throbs.... Come see within my crystal halls My maids and knights together dance, my squires right glad at play. There's rustling of their silken trains, the clink of golden spurs, My merry dwarfs their cymbals clash, their lutes and trumpets sound, But thee my foam-white arms shall clasp, as once they clasped the King, When with my hands I stopped his ears against the clarion's call. * * * * * * I was in the middle of an ancient history lesson with my pupil when the Grand Duke came in. He beckoned to us to sit down and told me not to stop.