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FLORENTINE NIGHTS.
43

by moonlight,[1] and then burst out into unbridled rejoicing, as though a thousand bards were sweeping the strings and raising their voices in a song of victory. That was the music which no ear has heard, only the heart can dream it when by night it rests against the heart of the beloved. But it may be that the heart comprehends it even in the clear, bright daylight, when it rejoicing loses itself in the lines of beauty and ovals of a Greek work of art."

"Or when a man had had a bottle too much of champagne," cried a laughing voice, which woke our narrator as if from a dream. As he turned he saw the doctor, who, with black Deborah, had softly entered the room to learn what effect his medicine had had on the invalid.

"I do not like this sleep," said the doctor, as he pointed to the sofa.

Maximilian, who, sunk in the fantasies of his own speech, had not observed that Maria had long been asleep, bit his lips as if vexed.

"This sleep," continued the doctor, "gives the face an appearance which has all the character of death. Does it not look like one of

  1. This seems to have been suggested by a very wild and beautiful German song and melody:—

    "There is a hunter who blows his horn,
    And ever by the night!
    He blows the deer from out the corn,
    And ever by the night!"