Page:Ernestus Berchtold or the Modern Œdipus.djvu/34

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ERNESTUS BERCHTOLD.

a ribbond with which she was playing; that, as I said, I might wear it in remembrance of her who had made me decide upon joining the patriots. Blushing, she looked at her father, who smiled consent, and she bound round my arm the scarf which she had worn during the morning. I have often heard that song again; I have often seen that form; and many are the years I have worn that scarf:—they have been years of misery and grief. Memory has no moment to look back to between the present and that happy day. Yet, for such another moment of enthusiasm I would undergo all my miseries afresh. I revert to it as the Arab, in the midst of the rising sands, turns to his visions of the green speck upon the desert’s sandy ocean; amidst dangers, that is his hope; in anguish, that is his refuge. That moment seemed to bestow upon me the happiness which my fancy had so long pictured in the future. But every moment since has