Pictor's Metamorphoses Read Online Free PDF Page B

philosopher furiously champed down on his cigar; Erich Tänzer cast another acrobatic glance toward where the girl had vanished. The three friends, irritated and embarrassed, fell silent.
    To appear to be friendly and to make conversation, the hostess took a flowerpot from the windowsill and brought it over to the men’s table, making a proud display of it. “Just look at this extraordinary flower! It may well be the rarest known to man, and they say that it blooms but once every five or ten years.”
    All eyes turned toward the red-blue flower nodding gently on its long, bare stem, emitting a strangely musty scent. The philosopher became greatly agitated and cast a fiercely cutting glance at the hostess and her flower; but no one noticed this.
    Quite suddenly, Erich sprang to his feet, dashed over to his friends’ table, forcibly seized and tore the flower in two, and with its two halves disappeared into the buffet. Turnabout burst out in a fit of malicious laughter. The hostess let out an ear-piercing shriek and set off after Tänzer, but she caught her dress on a chair and went tumbling to the floor. Ugel, in hot pursuit, stumbled over her, and over him the poet, who, in leaping to his feet, sent both wine goblet and flowerpot crashing to the floor. The philosopher fell upon the helplessly prostrate hostess, shook his fists in her face, bared his teeth, completely oblivious of Ugel and Lauscher, who struggled madly to pull him off by tearing at his coattails. At this moment the innkeeper ran in; the philosopher, as if transformed, helped the woman to her feet. In the doorway of the adjacent room, farmers and carters stood gaping at the scandalous scene. The lovely Lulu could be heard weeping in the buffet, out of which Erich emerged, crumpled flower in hand. Everyone rushed upon him and set to scolding, questioning, threatening, ridiculing him; but he, brandishing the broken flower, desperately cut through the crowd, and, without his hat, attained the outdoors.
    3
    T HE NEXT MORNING , Karl Hamelt, Erich Tänzer, and Ludwig Ugel gathered in Hermann Lauscher’s room at the inn to hear him read his latest poems. Everyone served himself from a big carafe of wine standing on the table. The poet had already recited several charming poems, and now he extracted the last one, written on a small piece of paper, from his breast pocket. He began: “To the Princess Lilia…”
    â€œWhat?” cried Karl Hamelt, rising up from the settee. Somewhat annoyed, Lauscher repeated the title. But Karl, now deep in thought, settled back on the flowery cushions. The poet read:
    I know an ancient roundelay,
    O clear, bright Silversong!
    How softly you are ringing,
    Like fiddle bows across heartstrings,
    Music that sounds of home …
    Hamelt completely distracted the others’ attention from the rest of the song. “Princess Lilia … Silversong … the ancient roundelay…” he said over and over again, shaking his head. Then he rubbed his forehead, stared blankly into the air, and fixed his glowing, intense gaze on the poet.
    When Lauscher finished reading, he looked up to meet this gaze. “What is it?” he asked astonished. “Are you practicing your rattlesnake eye on me, a poor defenseless bird?”
    Hamelt awakened, as if from a deep dream. “Where did that song come from?” he asked the poet in a soft voice. Lauscher shrugged. “Where they all come from,” he replied.
    â€œAnd Princess Lilia?” Hamelt asked on. “And the ancient roundelay? Don’t you see that this is the only real song you have ever composed? All your other poems…”
    Lauscher was quick to interrupt him. “All right, that’s enough; but in fact,” he went on, “in point of fact, my dear friend, the song is an enigma to me, too. I was just sitting around, my mind a complete blank, when, out of habit and to pass the time, I started scribbling