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[integer at www.god-emil.dk]

one evening down on the quay the old storyteller cecco began telling 
the following tale -



if it is all right with you ladies and gentlemen, i shall tell you
a very old story about a beautiful lady, a dwarf, and a love potion.
about fidelity and infidelity, love and death, all that is at the heart of
every adventure and tale, whether it be old or new.



signorina margherita cadorin, daughter of the nobleman batista cadorin,
was in her day the most beautiful among all the beautiful women of venice. 
the poems and songs dedicated to her were more numerous than the curved bay
windows of the palaces on the grand canal and more plentiful than the gondolas 
that swim between the ponte del vin and the ponte della dogana on a spring
evening.  hundreds of young and old lords from venice and murano, and just as many 
from padua, could not close their eyes for a single night without dreaming about her. 
nor could they wake up the next morning without yearning for a glimpse of her. 
moreover, 
there were few among the young ladies in the entire city who had not been jealous of 
margherita cadorin at one time or another. since it is impossible for me to describe her, 
i shall content myself with saying that she was blond, tall, and slender like a young 
cypress, that her hair flattered the air, and the soles of her feet, the ground, and that
titian, when he saw her, is said to have wished that he could spend an entire year and 
paint nothing and nobody but this woman.

with regard to clothes, lace, byzantine gold brocade, precious stones,
and jewels, the beautiful signorina lacked nothing. on the contrary, her palace
was rich and splendid. the oriental rugs were thick and colorful. the closets
contained plenty of silver utensils. the tables glistened with their fine damask 
and glorious porcelain. the floors of the rooms were filled with beautiful mosaics, 
and the ceilings and walls were covered partially in gobelin tapestries
made of brocade and silk, and with bright and attractive paintings. in addition, 
there were plenty of gondolas and gondoliers.

of course, all these expensive and pleasant things could also be found
in other houses. there were larger and richer palaces than hers.
more abundantly filled closets, more expensive utensils, rugs, and jewels. 
at that time venice was very wealthy, but young margherita possessed a gem all
to herself that was the envy of many people richer than she...






when martin haberland, a high school student, died at the age
of seventeen from pneumonia, everyone talked about him and
his untimely death. in particular, they regretted that he had not been able
to make something out of his abundant talents and to experience success.

it is true that i, too, felt sorry about the death of the handsome
talented young man, and i thought, with a certain amount of sorrow,
how much enormous talent there must be in the world for nature
simply to toss it away so arbitrarily.  but nature could not care less
what we think about it, and so far as talent is concerned, there is
such an excess that our artists will soon become their own audience, and
audiences made up of ordinary people will no longer exist.

as a result, i cannot mourn the young man's death the same way i might if he
had been harmed and cruelly robbed of the best and beautiful things in the
world that had been destined for him. whoever has happily reached the age
of seventeen in good health and with nice parents has the best part of his life
behind him in many respects. if his life ended too early and did not assume
the form of a beethoven symphony because he had not endured much suffering
or many harsh experiences or gone through wild phases, it could still be
considered a small haydn chamber concerto, and you cannot say such a thing
about many people's lives.

in the case of martin haberland, i am very certain of the circumstances.
the young man did indeed experience the most beautiful things in life that it was
possible for him to experience. he had absorbed the rhythms of such unearthly
music that his death was necessary because his life could have ended only in discord
after that. the fact that the student enjoyed his happiness only in a dream
should not diminish it, for most people experience their dreams more intensely than
their lives. so it was with martin, who had the following dream on the second day
of his sickness as his fever rose, three days before his death...