Several men, of brilliant renown, were grouped in the luminous zone immediately around the piano:  Heine, the saddest of humorists, listened with the interest of a fellow countryman to the narrations made him by Chopin of the mysterious country which haunted his ethereal fancy also, and of which he too had explored the beautiful shores.  At a glance, a word, a tone, Chopin and Heine understood each other; the musician replied to the questions murmured in his ear by the poet, giving in tones the most surprising revelations from those unknown regions, about that “laughing nymph” [Footnote:  Heine.  Saloon- Chopin.] of whom he demanded news:  “If she still continued to drape her silvery veil around the flowing locks of her green hair, with a coquetry so enticing?” Familiar with the tittle-tattle and love tales of those distant lands he asked:  “If the old marine god, with the long white beard, still pursued this mischievous naiad with his ridiculous love?” Fully informed, too, about all the exquisite fairy scenes to be seen down there—­down there, he asked “if the roses always glowed there with a flame so triumphant? if the trees at moonlight sang always so harmoniously?” When Chopin had answered, and they had for a long time conversed together about that aerial clime, they would remain in gloomy silence, seized with that mal du pays from which Heine suffered when he compared himself to that Dutch captain of the phantom ship, with his crew eternally driven about upon the chill waves, and “sighing in vain for the spices, the tulips, the hyacinths, the pipes of sea-foam, the porcelain cups of Holland...’Amsterdam!  Amsterdam! when shall we again see Amsterdam!’ they cry from on board, while the tempest howls in the cordage, beating them forever about in their watery hell.”  Heine adds:  “I fully understand the passion with which the unfortunate captain once exclaimed:  ’Oh if I should ever again see Amsterdam!  I would rather be chained forever at the corner of one of its streets, than be forced to leave it again!’ Poor Van der Decken!”

Heine well knew what poor Van der Decken had suffered in his terrible and eternal course upon the ocean, which had fastened its fangs in the wood of his incorruptible vessel, and by an invisible anchor, whose chain he could not break because it could never be found, held it firmly linked upon the waves of its restless bosom.  He could describe to us when he chose, the hope, the despair, the torture of the miserable beings peopling this unfortunate ship, for he had mounted its accursed timbers, led on and guided by the hand of some enamored Undine, who, when the guest of her forest of coral and palace of pearl rose more morose, more satirical, more bitter than usual, offered for the amusement of his ill humor between the repasts, some spectacle worthy of a lover who could create more wonders in his dreams than her whole kingdom contained.