Page:Karl Gjellerup - Minna, A novel - 1913.djvu/284

 on the mountain lake in moonlight—was dressing for the ball—was casting herself crying, and sweetly blushing, into her mother's arms.

"Is this book disengaged?" I asked the librarian, who had brought The Three Musketeers. He said that it was, and I took both books home with me. I had not even looked for the author's name—both this and the title I have now forgotten. With regard to its contents and style, the Rathen novel was in comparison a true masterpiece, and I should surely have thrown it aside after reading the first twenty pages, if the heroine had been named Adelheid or Mathilde; but I now read it faithfully through line by line, and the constantly recurring name put me into a rather excited, but still benevolent mood, while the sometimes trivial, sometimes fabulous, incidents that befell only most uninteresting people, just sufficiently occupied my mind to keep me from thinking.

During the afternoon I interrupted the influence of this narcotic in order to call on the Hertzes.

"Is Mr. Hertz still in bed?" I asked the old servant who opened the door.

"Indeed the master is in bed, indeed he is," the old woman answered, and shook her head. "Please step into the drawing-room, Mr. Fenger. I will tell the missis; she will be pleased to hear you are here, sir."

The drawing-room gave the double impression of too great order, and yet a certain disorder, which a room gets when it has not been used for some days. The chairs stood exactly in their places, but on one of them a forgotten duster was lying. On the corner of the table nearest the hall door several newspapers were heaped up, one on the top of the other, as smooth as when they had been delivered. The draught of air from the unclosed