people are little, human life
is little. There is only one big thing--desire. And before it, when it
is big, all is little. It brought Columbus across the sea in a little
boat, UND SO WEITER." Wunsch made a grimace, took his pupil's hand and
drew her toward the grape arbor. "Hereafter I will more speak to you in
German. Now, sit down and I will teach you for your birthday that little
song. Ask me the words you do not know already. Now: IM LEUCHTENDEN
SOMMERMORGEN."

Thea memorized quickly because she had the power of listening intently.
In a few moments she could repeat the eight lines for him. Wunsch nodded
encouragingly and they went out of the arbor into the sunlight again. As
they went up and down the gravel paths between the flowerbeds, the white
and yellow butterflies kept darting before them, and the pigeons were
washing their pink feet at the drip and crooning in their husky bass.
Over and over again Wunsch made her say the lines to him. "You see it is
nothing. If you learn a great many of the LIEDER, you will know the
German language already. WEITER, NUN." He would incline his head gravely
and listen.

"IM LEUCHTENDEN SOMMERMORGEN
GEH' ICH IM GARTEN HERUM;
ES FLUSTERN UND SPRECHEN DIE BLUMEN,
ICH ABER, ICH WANDTE STUMM.

"ES FLUSTERN UND SPRECHEN DIE BLUMEN
UND SCHAU'N MITLEIDIG MICH AN:
'SEI UNSERER SCHWESTER NICHT BOSE,
DU TRAURIGER, BLASSER MANN!'"

(In the soft-shining summer morning
I wandered the garden within.
The flowers they whispered and murmured,
But I, I wandered dumb.

The flowers they whisper and murmur,
And me with compassion they scan:
"Oh, be not harsh to our sister,
Thou sorrowful, death-pale man!")

Wunsch had noticed before that when his pupil read anything in verse the
character of her voice changed altogether; it was no longer the voice
which spoke the speech of Moonstone. It was a soft, rich contralto, and
she read quietly; the feeling was in the voice itself, not indicated by
emphasis or change of pitch. She repeated the little verses musically,
like a song, and the entreaty of the flowers was even softer than the
rest, as the shy speech of flowers might be, and she ended with the
voice suspended, almost with a rising inflection. It was a nature-voice,
Wunsch told himself, breathed from the creature and apart from language,
like the sound of the wind in the trees, or the murmur of water.