Читать книгу The Song of Songs - Hermann Sudermann - Страница 20

"I sought him whom my soul loveth, but I could not find him; I called him, but he gave me no answer. The watchmen 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 the familiar words in a sweet, uncertain voice, not too subdued to be heard through the window. But when she looked through her peep-hole, to assure herself that he was listening, he had gone. Now she sang louder and leaned out, tearing open her tight-fitting bodice, and letting the raindrops fall on her bare breast.

An unspeakable wretchedness suddenly took possession of her. She could not account for it, but she felt as if she must die. It was she whom the cruel watchmen were seizing; the wounds their rough hands made on her soft skin smarted; she could feel how they tore off the garments which veiled her nakedness from the world. In shameless nakedness, yet weeping tears of blood from bitter shame, she tottered through the streets, seeking and seeking her Soul's Beloved; but he was further off, more unattainable than ever.

She dropped down on her knees at the window, and, burying her face in the sill, wept bitterly out of sweet compassion for that symbol of herself wandering through Jerusalem's streets at night. And, after all, what made her feel like this was happiness--sheer happiness.