Original (English)

Part I S'amor non e che dunque e quel ch'io sento? Ma s'egli e amor, per Dio, che cosa e quale? PETRARCH I. One noon in 189-, a young man stood in front of the new Gewandhaus in Leipzig, and watched the neat, grass-laid square, until then white and silent in the sunshine, grow dark with many figures. The public rehearsal of the weekly concert was just over, and, from the half light of the warm-coloured hall, which for more than two hours had held them