Page:Karl Gjellerup - Minna, A novel - 1913.djvu/196

 glorious metallic colours that shone and glittered between one another in the whirling of the river, until far away it bent into a golden arch in front of the blue vine-hills. Or we walked on the quay, which is ornamented by a long row of small curly poplars that seemed to be taken from a child's box of toys.

I remember a gloomy day when the sun in the last minute broke through the bank of clouds, and the sudden illumination of the windows gleamed down over the stream; it was as if Mother Elbe had unveiled her banqueting hall—a colonnade of twisted columns embossed in the purest gold.

Twice we went on board one of the little steamboats and sailed out to the idyllic vine-trailed Loschwitz, the native town of "Don Carlos," or to the Schiller garden of its neighbour Blasewitz, where Gustel of "the Camp of Wallenstein" lived.

On the way back through the town Minna usually had to make some purchases for our supper. I waited outside the sausage-maker's dainty shop while she did her catering at the marble counter.

One evening, when we returned after a long walk, her mother had gone out, and Minna had no key. We were both very hungry, and, as we had warm sausages with us, we did not hesitate long; Minna went off to the baker at the one corner and I to the beer-house at the other, and bringing respectively a "Zeilen-Semmel" and a tankard of "Kulmbacher" we met in triumph. In the dark summer-house we enjoyed with jokes and laughter the best supper I had ever eaten.

We did not visit the picture-gallery. Minna never mentioned it, and I dared not propose it for fear of bringing back painful recollections. But we often went to see the