Page:Karl Gjellerup - Minna, A novel - 1913.djvu/44



one who loves German music—and who does not love it?—these shady and well-watered valleys possess a wealth of suggestion which can only be described by music. Men's choruses by Schumann seem to pour forth and meet one from the fir-trunk columns, when evening peacefully falls over the mountain woods; the clear mill-stream, in which trout glide swiftly by, trills out a Schubert melody, and the hunting-horn of Weber echoes in the wild labyrinth of rocks from its "Wolf-pits" to its "Hawk-pinnacles," which seem to be ideal scenery for Der Freischütz. But Wagner requires the grander scenery of the Rhine country.

Notwithstanding this, I stopped one fine day outside a small cave in which was placed a primitive bench, consisting of a plank, a hand's-breadth in width, supported on a couple of thin poles; and on the uneven stone-wall I found that the imposing name "Wotans Ruhe" was painted.

Had this inscription been put by a too naïve Wagnerian, or, perhaps, by a malicious anti-Wagnerian?

This question I addressed to no less a person than Miss Jagemann.

She was not seated on the bench, on which, in fact, no human being could sit, though maybe a god might, for I suppose they are made of a lighter material. She had chosen a more solid seat, a large block of stone, which 36