Page:Karl Gjellerup - Minna, A novel - 1913.djvu/127

 evenings, it was really impossible for me to leave her. Mrs. Hertz, however, who sat on the bench opposite us, sometimes shook her grey curls and smiled while she looked at us, as if this talk tired her, but at the same time with a questioning look, as if searching a secret under this play of words.

In Schandau we scarcely had time for anything except to have supper in the garden of an hotel near the river. Dusk closed in quickly. Hertz reminded us about the home-journey. But Minna assured us that the steamboat, in connection with the train service, started regularly a quarter of an hour before the departure of the train, a fact which we must surely know from the time-table. As the station is situated on the other side of the river and a good half-mile from the centre of the town and the landing-place, the communication is kept up by means of a little steamboat. This combination made old Hertz feel uneasy; he began to get travelling fever, and every minute pulled out his gold watch with its face cover.

Minna admitted at last that it was now time for us to be moving.

There was no boat visible at the little bridge. The black water, which had a shimmer over it from the light of the lanterns that collected in the whirlpools, flowed freely past its empty planks, where there was not so much as a portmanteau or handbag to be seen.

"Surely we have come to the wrong bridge, it must be the steamer bridge," Mrs. Hertz said.

"Not at all, we are only too early," Minna answered, and she seemed to be a little hurt at this want of confidence.

We dawdled up and down for a few minutes, without seeing anybody or anything. Hertz went into the open shed, which served as a waiting-room, and sat down. In