There is nothing more
beautiful to see than placid water as it reflects a summer's twilight.
The blue Danube! Who has heard that magic name without the remembrance
of a face close to your own, an arm, bare, white, dazzling, resting and
gleaming like marble on your broadcloth sleeve, and above all, the
dreamy, swinging strains of Strauss? There was a face once which had
rested near mine. Heigho! I lingered with my cigar and watched the
night reveal itself. I lay at the foot of a tree, close to the water's
edge, and surrendered to the dream-god. Some of my dreams knew the
bitterness of regret. "Men have died and worms have eaten them, but
not for love." Yet, no man who has loved and lost can go through his
allotted time without the consciousness that he has missed something,
something which leaves each triumph empty and incomplete.
And then, right in the midst of my dreams, a small foot planted itself.
I turned my head and saw a woman. On seeing the bright end of my
cigar, she stopped. She stood so that the light of the moon fell full
upon her face.
My cigar trembled and fell.
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