STREET MUSICIANS.

When I returned to the Locanda della Grande Europa, when I had ordered a good Pranzo, I was so sad at heart that I could not eat,—and that means a great deal. I seated myself before the door of the neighboring Botega, refreshed myself with an ice, and said within myself:

“Capricious Heart! thou art now forsooth in Italy—why singest thou not like the lark? Perhaps the old German Sorrows, the little serpents, that hid themselves deep within thee have come with us into Italy, and are making merry now, and their common jubilee awakens in my breast that picturesque sorrow, which so strangely stings and dances and whistles? And why should not the old sorrows make merry for once? Here in Italy it is indeed so beautiful, suffering itself is here so beautiful,—in these ruinous marble palaces sighs sound far more romantically, than in our neat brick houses,—beneath yon laurel trees one can weep far more voluptuously, than under our surly, jagged pines,—and gaze with looks of far sweeter longing at the ideal cloud-landscapes of celestial Italy, than at the ash-gray, German work-day heaven, where the very clouds wear the looks of decent burghers, and yawn so tediously down upon us! Stay then in my heart, ye sorrows! Nowhere will you find a better lodging. You are dear and precious to me; and no man knows better how to father and cherish you, than I; and I confess to you, you give me pleasure. And after all, what is pleasure? Pleasure is nothing else than a highly agreeable Pain.”

I believe that the music, which, without my taking note of it, sounded before the Botega, and had already drawn round itself a circle of spectators, had melo-dramatically accompanied this monologue. It was a strange trio, consisting of two men, and a young girl, who played the harp. One of the men, warmly clad in a white shaggy coat, was a robust fellow, with a dark-red bandit-face, that gleamed from his black hair and beard, like a portentous comet; and between his legs he held a monstrous bass-viol, upon which he sawed as furiously, as if he had thrown down a poor traveller in the Abruzzi, and was in haste to fiddle his windpipe in two. The other was a tall, meagre graybeard, whose mouldering bones shook in their thread-bare, black garments, and whose snow-white hair formed a lamentable contrast with his buffo song and his foolish capers. It is sad enough, when an old man must barter for bread the respect we owe to his years, and give himself up to buffoonery; but more melancholy still, when he does this before or with his own child! For that girl was the daughter of the old Buffo, and accompanied with the harp the lowest jests of her gray-headed father; or, laying her harp aside sang with him a comic duet, in which he represented an amorous old dotard and she the young coquettish inamorata. Moreover the girl seemed hardly to have passed the threshold of childhood; as if the child, before it had grown to maidenhood, had been made a woman, and not an honest woman. Hence that pallid, faded look, and the expression of nervous discontent in her beautiful face, whose proudly rounded features as it were disdained all show of compassion;—hence the secret sorrowfulness of the eyes, that from beneath their black, triumphal arches flashed forth such challenges;—hence the deep mournful voice, that so strangely contrasted with the laughing, beautiful lips, from which it fell;—hence the debility of those too delicate limbs, around which a short, anxious-looking robe of violet-colored silk, fluttered as low as it possibly could. In addition to this, gay, variegated satin ribbands flaunted from her faded straw hat, and emblematic of herself, her breast was adorned with an open rose-bud, which seemed rather to have been rudely torn open, than to have bloomed forth from its green sheath by its own natural growth. Still in this unhappy girl, in this Spring which Death had already breathed upon and blasted,—lay an indescribable charm, a grace, which revealed itself in every look, in every motion, in every tone. The bolder her gestures became, the deeper grew my compassion; and when her voice rose from her breast so weak and wondrous, and as it were implored forgiveness; then triumphed in my breast the little serpents, and bit their tails for joy. The Rose likewise seemed to look at me imploringly; once I saw it tremble and grow pale,—but at the same moment rose the trills of the girl so much the more laughingly aloft, the old man wooed still more amorously, and the red comet-face murdered his viol so grimly, that it uttered the most terrifically droll sounds, and the spectators shouted more madly than ever.

* * * *

The little harper must have remarked, that while she was singing and playing, I looked often at the rose upon her breast; and as I afterwards threw upon the tin plate, with which she collected her honorarium, a piece of gold, and not of the smallest, she smiled slily, and asked me secretly, if I wanted her rose.

* * * *

Think no evil, dear reader. It had grown dark, and the stars looked so pure and pious down into my heart. In that heart itself, however, trembled the memory of the dead Maria. I thought again of that night, when I stood beside the bed, where lay her beautiful, pale form, with soft, still lips—I thought again of the strange look the old woman cast at me, who was to watch by the dead body, and surrendered her charge to me for a few hours—I thought again of the night-violet, that stood in a glass upon the table, and smelt so strangely. Again I shuddered with the doubt, whether it were really a draft of wind, that blew the lamp out?—or whether there were a third person in the chamber!

Reisebilder, Vol. 3.

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The minor poems of Heine, like most of his prose writings, are but a portrait of himself. The same melancholy tone,—the same endless sigh,—pervades them. Though they possess the highest lyric merit they are for the most part fragmentary;—expressions of some momentary state of feeling,—sudden ejaculations of pain or pleasure, of restlessness, impatience, regret, longing, love. They profess to be songs, and as songs must they be judged, and as German Songs. Then these imperfect expressions of feeling,—these mere suggestions of thought,—this “luminous mist,” that half reveals, half hides the sense,—this selection of topics from scenes of every day life, and in fine this prevailing tone of sentimental sadness, will not seem affected, misplaced nor exaggerated. At the same time it must be confessed that the trivial and common-place recur too frequently in these songs. Here, likewise, as in the prose of Heine, the lofty aim is wanting; we listen in vain for the spirit-stirring note—for the word of power—for those ancestral melodies, which, amid the uproar of the world, breathe in our ears forever-more the voices of consolation, encouragement and warning. Heine is not sufficiently in earnest to be a great poet.