English Translation

1/9 Until deep into the night we sat opposite each other, and the two bottles of Rheinwein, which you had provided for this evening as a greeting from the land of our dreams, had long since been emptied. The last word before our departure did not want to be settled, and if we had been allowed into the morning. It was as if something unspeakable had yet to be said, something for which the depth or violence of a word had been too shallow or weak. You too felt it. Therefore, you stood up, took your beloved violin out of the box already artfully attached to a suitcase and began to play. Without speaking a word before, you put the bow on the strings. With your face half to me, half to the window, through which you could see the broad and ruhigly flowing Vltava on the small side and up to the Hradshin, over which the full moon had its brightest silver light flooded, you stood there dream-dark. You conjured the tones of Handel's immortal Largo out of your instrument. The strings were calm and festive, dark, deep-saturated tones filled the room. How wonderful, how deep and sonorous the melody flowed! All the fibres of the noble violin wood swung along and gave the masterly sound that touched me just at night like cusik from an unreal world. With all your devotion you read this your favorite piece of music to come alive. You didn't need any notes, you got them out of memory, out of the fiefs of the soul. Like a soothing shadow, like the cool evening after a hot summer day, this music, so calm, balancing, refreshing came over me. That was the word we couldn't find! From further, great German past you brought it here into your study room, in the years all the big