Edelweiss by Berthold Auerbach

"Good morning, Lenz! You have had a good night's rest, just as children do who have cried themselves to sleep. " Thus was Lenz greeted the next morning by Faller's deep bass voice. "O my friend," he answered; "it brings back all my misery to wake up and remember what happened yesterday. But I must be calm. I will proceed at once to write the security for you. Take it to the mayor before he starts on his round, and greet him from me. I remember I dreamed of him last night. Go to Pilgrim's too, if you can, and tell him I shall wait at home for him to-day. Good luck with your house! I am glad to think you will have a roof of your own. "

Faller started off for the valley with the paper, leaving Lenz to his work. But before sitting down to it he wound up one of his musical clocks and made it play a choral. The piece goes well, he said to himself, nodding his head approvingly over the wheel on which he was filing. It was her -- my mother's -- favorite tune. The great musical clock with the handsomely carved nut-wood case, as tall as a good-sized wardrobe, was called "The Magic Flute," from the overture of that opera, which was the longest of five pieces that it played. It was already sold to a large tea-dealer in Odessa. A smaller clock stood beside it, and near that a third, on which Lenz was working. At noon, after laboring uninterruptedly all the morning, he began to feel hungry; but no sooner had he sat down to his solitary meal than all hunger forsook him. He asked the old serving-maid to eat with him, as she used to do in his mother's lifetime.