Page:Karl Gjellerup - Minna, A novel - 1913.djvu/160

 pathways and small lawns lay in monotonous shadow. In a neighbouring garden some young boys were running to and fro, in another several little girls were playing; in one place some drying clothes waved gently. The little garden beneath was empty. In a bed, in front of the vine-covered summer-house, roses were flowering; an acacia and a pretty cherry-tree stretched their branches over almost the whole space, and the elder-tree was not missing, "der Hollunder," in the absence of which, since the days of Kleist, one cannot imagine German love-scenes, and in the presence of which one cannot avoid thinking of them. It is true that the tree was not in flower, but at the end of August it could scarcely be blamed for that.

On the first floor a faded visiting-card in a small frame announced that College-teacher Jagemann lived there. I rang the bell time after time, but in vain. As I could not decide to leave this place, the only one in the beautiful town where I could find anything that was associated with Minna, I went into the garden and sat down in the summer-house.

It was almost as quiet as if one had been in the country, for only now and then did the heavy rumble of a cart remind me that I was in a town. From the garden in which the small girls were playing, voices could be heard constantly singing

This childish play made me think of what had happened in these gardens ten years before.

One of these voices was Minna's, and it was her pink dress which, through the bushes, I saw turning round like