I went nearer. The little man seemed to be an itinerant singer from the Tyrol. He stood before the windows of the hotel with one foot advanced, his head thrown back, and while thrumming his guitar was singing his graceful song in those different voices. I immediately felt an affection for him, and gratitude for the change he had brought about in me. As far as I could see, he was dressed in an old black coat, had short black hair, and wore a very ordinary old cap on his head. There was nothing artistic about his attire, but his jaunty, childishly merry pose and movements, with his diminutive stature, produced a touching yet amusing effect. On the steps, at the windows, and on the balconies of the brilliantly lighted hotel, stood ladies resplendent in full-skirted dresses, gentlemen with the whitest of collars, a porter and footmen in gold-embroidered liveries; in the street, in the semicircle of the crowd, and farther along the boulevard among the lime-trees, elegantly dressed waiters, cooks in the whitest of caps and blouses, girls with their arms around one another, and passers-by, had gathered and stopped. They all seemed to experience the same sensation that I did, and stood in silence round the singer, listening attentively. All were quiet, only at intervals in the singing, from far away across the water came the rhythmic sound of a hammer, and from the Freschenburg shore the staccato trills of the frogs intermingling with the fresh, monotonous whistle of the quails.
In the darkness of the street the little man warbled like a nightingale, couplet after couplet and song after song. Though I had drawn close to him, his singing continued to give me great pleasure. His small voice was extremely pleasing, and the delicacy, the taste, and the sense of proportion with which he managed that voice were extraordinary, and showed immense natural gifts. He sang the refrain differently after each couplet and it was evident that all these graceful variations came to him freely and instantaneously.
Among the throng, above in the Schweizerhof and below on the boulevard, appreciative whispers could often be heard, and a respectful silence reigned. The balconies and windows kept filling, and by the hotel lights more and more elegantly dressed men and women could be seen leaning out picturesquely. The passers-by stopped and everywhere in the shadows on the embankment groups of men and women stood under the lime-trees. Near me, separated from the rest of the crowd and smoking cigars, stood an aristocratic waiter and the chef. The chef seemed to feel the charm of the music strongly and at every high falsetto note rapturously winked, nodded, and nudged the waiter in ecstatic perplexity, with a look that said: ‘How he sings, eh?’ The waiter, by whose broad smile I detected the pleasure the singing gave him, replied to the chef’s nudgings by shrugging his shoulders to show that it was hard to surprise him, and that he had heard much better things than this.
In an interval of the singing, while the singer was clearing his throat, I asked the waiter who the man was and whether he came there often.
‘Well, he comes about twice a summer,’ replied the waiter. ‘He is from Aargau – just a beggar.’
‘And are there many like him about?’ I asked.
‘Oh, yes,’ replied the man not having at first understood what I was asking, but having afterwards made it out, he added: ‘Oh no, he is the only one I know of. There are no others.’
Just then the little man, having finished his first song, briskly turned his guitar over and said something in his German patois, which I could not understand but which caused the crowd to laugh.
‘What did he say?’ I asked.
‘He says his throat is dry and he would like some wine,’ replied the waiter near me.
‘Well, I suppose he is fond of drink.’
‘Yes, such people are all like that,’ answered the waiter with a depreciatory gesture of his hand.
The singer raised his cap and with a flourish of the guitar went up to the hotel. Throwing back his head he addressed the gentlefolk at the windows and on the balconies: ‘Messieurs et Mesdames,’ he said with a half-Italian and half-German accent and the intonation conjurors employ when addressing their audience: ‘Si vous croyez que je gagne quelque chose, vous vous trompez; je ne suis qu’un pauvre tiable.’2 He paused and waited a moment in silence, but as no one gave him anything, he again jerked his guitar and said: ‘A présent, messieurs et mesdames, je vous chanterais l’air du Righi.’3
The audience up above kept silent, but continued to stand in expectation of the next song; below, among the throng, there was laughter, probably because he expressed himself so queerly and because no one had given him anything. I gave him a few centimes, which he threw nimbly from one hand to the other, and put into his waistcoat pocket. Then putting on his cap again he began to sing a sweet and graceful Tyrolese song which he called ‘l’air du Right’. This song, which he had left to the last, was even better than the others, and on all sides among the now increased crowd one heard sounds of appreciation. He finished the song. Again he flourished his guitar, took off his cap, held it out, made two steps towards the windows, and again repeated his incomprehensible phrase: ‘Messieurs et Mesdames, si vous croyez que je gagne quelque chose —’ which he evidently considered very smart and witty, but in his voice and movements I now detected a certain hesitation and childlike timidity which were the more noticeable on account of his small figure. The elegant audience still stood just as picturesquely grouped in the windows and on the balconies, the lights shining on their rich attire. A few of them talked in decorously subdued voices, apparently about the singer who was standing before them with outstretched hand, others looked with attentive curiosity down at the little black figure; on one balcony could be heard a young girl’s merry laughter.
In the crowd below the talking and laughter grew louder and louder. The singer repeated his phrase a third time, in a still feebler voice, and this time he did not even finish it, but again held out his cap, and then drew it back immediately. And for the second time not one of those hundreds of brilliantly dressed people who had come to hear him threw him a single penny. The crowd laughed unmercifully. The little singer seemed to me to shrink still more into himself. He took the guitar in his other hand, lifted his cap above his head, and said: ‘Messieurs et Mesdames, je vous remercie, et je vous souhaite une bonne nuit.’4 Then he replaced his cap. The crowd roared with merry laughter. The handsome men and women, quietly conversing, gradually disappeared from the balconies. The strolls on the boulevard were resumed. The street that had been quiet during the singing again became animated, only a few persons looked at the singer from a distance and laughed. I heard the little man mutter something to himself. He turned and, seeming to grow still smaller, went quickly towards the town. The merry strollers, still watching him, followed him at a certain distance, and laughed.
My mind was in a whirl. I was at a loss to understand what it all meant, and without moving from the spot where I had been, I senselessly gazed into the darkness after the tiny retreating figure of the man as he went striding rapidly towards the town and at the laughing strollers who followed him. I felt pained, grieved, and above all ashamed for the little man, for the crowd, and for myself, as if it were I who had been asking for money and had received nothing, and had been laughed at. I, too, without looking back and with an aching heart, moved off with rapid steps and went to the entrance of the Schweizerhof. I could not yet account for my emotions, but only knew that something heavy and unsolved filled my heart and oppressed me.