"

But suddenly the room fell silent. It was a silence that a moment

before one wouldn't have thought possible; it went on, it intensified;

and there rose from within it her voice. (Abelone, I thought,

Abelone.) This time the voice was strong and full and not at all

heavy; all of a piece, no break, seamless. It was an unknown German

song. She sang it in a way that was both simple and strange, as if it

:were something vital. She sang

 

'You, whom I do not tell

I lie weeping

In the night,

Lulled by your being,

Like a child in a cradle.

You do not tell me when it wakes,

for my sake:

What if this glory grew in our hearts

And was not silent

"


Rilke, notebooks of malte.'