CHAPTER XXVIII 418
scene was as silent as if all the figures had been shadows and the firelit apartment a picture : so hushed was it , I could hear the cinders fall from the grate , the clock tick in its obscure corner ; and I even fancied I could distinguish the click-click of the woman ' s knitting-needles . When , therefore , a voice broke the strange stillness at last , it was audible enough to me .
" Listen , Diana ," said one of the absorbed students ; " Franz and old Daniel are together in the night-time , and Franz is telling a dream from which he has awakened in terror -- listen !" And in a low voice she read something , of which not one word was intelligible to me ; for it was in an unknown tongue -- neither French nor Latin . Whether it were Greek or German I could not tell .
" That is strong ," she said , when she had finished : " I relish it ." The other girl , who had lifted her head to listen to her sister , repeated , while she gazed at the fire , a line of what had been read . At a later day , I knew the language and the book ; therefore , I will here quote the line : though , when I first heard it , it was only like a stroke on sounding brass to me -- conveying no meaning : -
"' Da trat hervor Einer , anzusehen wie die Sternen Nacht .' Good ! good !" she exclaimed , while her dark and deep eye sparkled . " There you have a dim and mighty archangel fitly set before you ! The line is worth a hundred pages of fustian . ' Ich wage die Gedanken in der Schale meines Zornes und die Werke mit dem Gewichte meines Grimms .' I like it !"
Both were again silent .
" Is there ony country where they talk i ' that way ?" asked the old woman , looking up from her knitting .
" Yes , Hannah -- a far larger country than England , where they talk in no other way ."