Page:Karl Gjellerup - Minna, A novel - 1913.djvu/63



day as we were sitting in the summer-house after coffee, Minna handed me a note-book and asked me to draw the capitals of the Doric and Ionic columns with the entablature appertaining, and add the names, all of which she thought most peculiar. While I was sharpening a pencil, the wind turned over a page, and I saw an unsuccessful attempt at the same thing on the page before me.

"No, you must not," she said, her face quite flushed and imploring, as she tore the book from my hands; "you will only laugh at me! I will see myself if it is rightly done. Of course it isn't, and the names I could not remember at all."

I promised not to look at her attempt, and started on my own, which, I assured her, would seem very poor in the eyes of an architect. It did not indeed take long before I began to get muddled; for it is simple enough to know what architrave, triglyph, and metope mean; but when one has, for the first time, to express oneself on paper, many minor difficulties arise which are not easily overcome. It was therefore a welcome suggestion when Mrs. Hertz asked Minna to help her to clear away and to wash up the cups. She was sitting near me, evidently to watch, and had not anticipated being called away before the drawing was finished. Hesitatingly she responded to this summons, and before she went she seemed more than once to have something on her lips, which she could not bring herself 55