Читать книгу The Song of Songs - Hermann Sudermann - Страница 12

I sought him whom my soul loved,

I sought him, but I found him not.

I called him,

But he gave me no answer.

The watchman that went about the city found me.

They smote me, they wounded me.

The keepers of the walls took away my veil from me.

She sang in a soft, uncertain voice, loud enough, however, to be heard through the window. But when she peeped from her observatory to convince herself that he was listening, she no longer saw him standing there.

She sang louder and leaned out. She tore open her tight-fitting dress to expose her bare breast to the rain drops.

Then all of a sudden she was overcome by a feeling of wretchedness; why, she did not know, but so strong it was she thought she would die of it. She felt how the cruel watchers seized her; she felt the smart of the wound which rude hands caused her; she felt how the veil was being torn away which concealed from the eyes of the world the holy nakedness of her body. In shameless nudity, yet weeping drops of blood for bitter shame, she tottered through the streets, and sought and sought, yet he was farther off than ever.

She sank on her knees at the window-sill, and pressing her face on its edge, wept bitterly in sweet dark sympathy with that image of herself straying through Jerusalem's nocturnal streets.

Yet all this was sheer happiness!