Page:Karl Gjellerup - Minna, A novel - 1913.djvu/347

 animals of the forest. How much had I lamented, in the days of my engagement to Minna, that I could not take her to him, who would have been as sure to be a father to her as she to be a daughter to him. Both were deep and original natures and had so much in common. How fond they both were of plants and animals, how responsive to every beauty of nature! Both, too, had a strain of melancholy and a golden touch of humour. And now they had, as it were, already met; they belonged to another world, and I was left alone—oh, so utterly alone!

But in the last lines Minna was so vividly present that I could hardly realise she was no more where I could reach her. That little humorous touch of hers that gushed forth fountain-like amid thoughts of deepest earnestness and sadness, that note of subtle irony at the expense of the worthy professor, whom she had long found out as the up-to-date man of science, with no mystical nonsense whatever about him, was so thoroughly in her own dear manner, that I almost fancied I could see the arch smile on those sweet lips which now … alas … alas!…

And now there remained but the last page of the tiny manuscript!

At last I took heart of grace to read it.

"But why am I speaking of death and of the beyond the grave to-day? It is strange, for I have not for a very long time been in so hopeful spirits as to-day.

"The weather is so lovely. All the forenoon I have been sitting with my sewing in the Professor's garden. He is an excellent man.

"To-morrow I shall tell you more about how time goes here. But to-night I am not writing any more. I will read Schiller. The other day, when I was turning over the