Friends and Memories

urn:iso:std:iso:639:ed-3:eng

269

text excerpt

But never, to my dying day, shall I forget the gipsies I heard that same night in Pesth. They came and played in the hall of the hotel where we had arranged to stay for two or three days. The landlord said to me, “Ah, you are in luck ! There is no such other ‘Zigeuner’ band in the whole country. When Liszt was here he kept them playing half through the night.” And so did I! I half-ruined myself over them. Never have I spent money so recklessly - felt I really could not bear to let them go. More than ever did I feel as though I had suddenly been brought face to face with my Doppelgänger, as if some impassioned lover of happiness and freedom, who had once been myself, had threaded her way through the wild mazes of that mad, fantastic music to look into my eyes, to claim recognition, to remind me of those splendid, vanished days ! Ah! she needn’t have been afraid of my denying her ! Every drop of blood in my veins claimed her as my own - my very own ! I longed to lay my hand in hers, to shake the dust of cities off my feet, and wander carelessly again through the beautiful world of golden days and starry nights, and drink deep draughts of ecstasy, and quench my thirst for ever and ever !

But never, to my dying day, shall I forget the gipsies I heard that same night in Pesth. They came and played in the hall of the hotel where we had arranged to stay for two or three days. The landlord said to me, “Ah, you are in luck ! There is no such other ‘Zigeuner’ band in the whole country. When Liszt was here he kept them playing half through the night.” And so did I! I half-ruined myself over them. Never have I spent money so recklessly - felt I really could not bear to let them go. More than ever did I feel as though I had suddenly been brought face to face with my Doppelgänger, as if some impassioned lover of happiness and freedom, who had once been myself, had threaded her way through the wild mazes of that mad, fantastic music to look into my eyes, to claim recognition, to remind me of those splendid, vanished days ! Ah! she needn’t have been afraid of my denying her ! Every drop of blood in my veins claimed her as my own - my very own ! I longed to lay my hand in hers, to shake the dust of cities off my feet, and wander carelessly again through the beautiful world of golden days and starry nights, and drink deep draughts of ecstasy, and quench my thirst for ever and ever !

excerpt from 'Friends and Memories' pp. 269 (239 words)

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1452187482526