It
had been occupied by big Sam, the negro shoemaker, and it was neither in
order, nor did it smell very sweet. But I cleaned and aired it, and
sprinkled disinfectant about that I had bought at the drug store.
Then I fetched my books down from Langworth's in a wheelbarrow, and I
set them up in several neat rows.
I lay back on my cot and looked at them in satisfaction and happiness. I
had enough for food and lodging for nearly three months, if I cooked for
myself. Two dollars a week for food and two for rent, and I'd do my own
washing ... say five a week at the most! that would mean twelve weeks of
doing nothing but reading and writing and studying.
The first day of my sojourn over the tinsmith's shop, Sunday, I drew
down from the shelf my Heinrich Heine ... in German ... one of the tasks
I set myself, during that three months, was the making an intensive
study of just how Heine had "swung" the lyric form to such conciseness,
such effectiveness of epigrammatic expression.
I opened the _Buch der Lieder_ at the poem in his preface--the song of
the sphinx in the enchanted wood ... and how it clutched the seeker, the
poet, to its monstrous but voluptuous woman's breasts as it ravished his
soul with kisses. And the nightingale was singing....
"O, shoene Sphinx, O loese mir
Das Raetsel, das wunderbare!
Ich hab' darueber nachgedacht
Schon manche tausand Yahre.
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