Page:Karl Gjellerup - Minna, A novel - 1913.djvu/322

 a bad name,' you know. I suppose you haven't forgotten that I told you that she had had a sort of"

"Yes, yes, I remember it quite well."

"And you have not seen her in Denmark? The country is not so very big."

"I have lived all the time in England."

"Oh, I see! I always thought you had got something English about you."

I made him talk about the flood and the damage it caused the poor people, and he told me that in all probability only the two innkeepers and the owners of the three houses by the river would suffer any loss.

When we came down into Rathen itself, I bade him good-bye, allowing the "English" side of my nature to come to the fore, so that the honest German did not feel inclined to force himself upon me any longer.

The flood of the Elbe had not proceeded so far, but the brook was very swollen. The simple planks that led over it were, however, still undisturbed. I went over to the Zedlitz Villa, which, of course, was closed, came past the little birch avenue, and stood suddenly at my destination, the grotto "Sophien-Ruhe." The benches had been taken in; I sat down on the stone table. The birds twittered gaily round me, the bushes breathed the soft spring air with their little green gills, and the buds of the trees showed white in the sunshine against the blue sky.

Again I had that queer feeling of not being able to understand anything: I neither understood that I was here nor that she was not here. Into my head came the remembrance of the little glow-worm, which evening after evening had sat on the same corner of the stone steps, signalling for a mate; and it seemed to me that if I could only sit here,