Page:Karl Gjellerup - Minna, A novel - 1913.djvu/242

 evening on the small hill in "Grosser Garten," and viewed the distant Lilienstein, did not a melancholy shadow creep upon our hearts, as if we looked back towards a lost Paradise?

In this way the hostile fate seemed to be born at the same time as our compact, and threateningly to have approached, till it now—as Beethoven says—"knocked at the door of our existence." And it was sure to get admittance; the strong one does not threaten in vain.

I forgot that the moment when fate knocks at our door, is the time to show that one is capable of receiving it and, if necessary, of throwing it downstairs; otherwise circumstances, confident of our weakness, might easily take to masking under the cloak of fate.

A prey to such miscellaneous reflections, I was gripped at the same time and with equal force by a state of lethargy, and by a purely physical horror which caused me to rise in agony. I had a vision, I should rather say a feeling, of something enormous and unshapely, of greyish hue, that came out of the darkness and slowly and continuously approached. But even these vague expressions give perhaps a wrong idea of my condition, for this nervous impression was really indescribable, yes, even unfathomable; it seemed to emerge from some part of my own nature which lay under the consciousness, and was as incapable of being bounded by our narrowed conceptions and imaginations, as are the enormous creations of prehistoric times to find a place amongst the now living species.

After awhile I shook off this uncomfortable feeling, dressed, and went out.

It was a cold dawn with mist and fine rain. All the cafés were still closed. Giddy and heavy in my head,