But then it calms down. Calm in the moonlight, under broken clouds there flourish for him once more the sweet things, the saved things— the marble joys of Vicenza, Roman fountains, the lovely foolish virgins on Freiburg cathedral, the Chartres rose and Goethe’s garden by the river Stern.

And he thinks he has never seen it so beautiful, so full of promises. And he thinks his eyes are brighter than a mourner’s eyes, and his hands are stronger than a mourner’s hands, and he thinks his own heart is full of life.

And he wants to cry out, shout into the world, looking for something solid, so that not for the sake of peace, not for the sake of one who will come not for this will they strangle, put out the happiness of the eyes, the freedom of the spirit, the upheaval of the heart, the same old lonely voice of the watcher in his tower.

He cries out, he cries out into the world, the dream wanderer, but no answer sounds back to him. Only the bells, that sing storm and sing peace, sing death and sing Noël, the mysterious inexplicable bells still call midnight—

68