| Sitting on a grassy grave, beneath one of the windows of the church, was a little girl.(1) With her head bent back(2) she was gazing up at the sky and singing, while one of her little hands was pointing to a tiny cloud that hovered like a golden feather above her head. The sun, which had suddenly become very bright, shining on her glossy hair, gave it a metallic luster, and it was difficult to say what was the color, dark bronze or black. So completely absorbed was she in watching the cloud to which her strange song or incantation seemed addr0ssed, that she did not observe me when I rose and went towards her.(3) Over her head, high up in the blue, a lark that was soaring towards' the same gauzy cloud was singing, as if in rivalry(4). As I slowly approached the child, I could see by her forehead, which, in the sunshine seemed like a globe of pearl, and especially by her complexion, that she was uncommonly lovely. Her eyes, which at one moment seemed blue-gray, at another violet(5), were shaded by long black lashes, curving backward in a most peculiar way, and these matched in hue her eyebrows, and the tress- es that were tossed about her tender throat and were quivering in the sunlight. All this I did not take in(6) at once; for at first I could see nothing but those quivering, glittering, changeful eyes turned up into my face. Gradually the other features, especially the sensitive full-lipped mouth, grew upon me as I stood silently gazing. Here seemed to me a more perfect beauty than had ever come to me in my loveliest dreams of beauty. Yet it was not her beauty so much as the look she gave me that fascinated me, melted me.(7) |