Page:Karl Gjellerup - Minna, A novel - 1913.djvu/124

 but, all the same, there lies the interest. It is supposed to be stronger in expressions, and is very likely one of the first sketches. A queer old man, he is a pensioned colonel, inherited it, God knows how long ago, from a great-aunt or some one like that, who, at the Court in Weimar, was—well, how intimate with Goethe I really cannot say! And it doesn't very much matter. By the way, there you have our modern military Germany! He inherits a chest with letters and papers in which, if he had not been an ignoramus, he might have guessed there were things from Goethe; but contempt for everything literary prevents him from even opening the chest. He is in want of money, a spendthrift of course, and must throw himself into the arms of the moneylender, though all the time he has a treasure in his loft, with which he could buy a castle. And it is not as though no hint had been given him, for we had an idea that something might be there, perhaps not a manuscript, but letters and information—I have written to him myself. But no, family papers, defamatory secrets perhaps, and he would see that they were not given into the hands of those damned literary fellows, of course he reasoned like this. So he contents himself with Johannisberger-Dorf in his cellar, it is notorious that he was a skilled connoisseur of wine. And all the time a castle in his loft. That is Nemesis! Oh, how this fellow has annoyed us! Well, he is dead now, thank goodness, and the manuscript has been found. That I should not be there! But to-day, dear friend, I received a letter calling me in, so to speak, as an authority, and you can imagine …"

Just as no smile of Minna's escaped me, nor any of her movements, so no word of his account was lost upon me. I felt a vastness and elasticity of mind, as if at the same time it could hold all sorts of impressions, so long as