Page:Karl Gjellerup - Minna, A novel - 1913.djvu/64

 to say; her anxious glance also clearly told me not to examine this mysterious book, on the homely linen cover of which was printed, in very clumsy golden letters, "Poesy," and I reassured her with a smile.

I sat alone gnawing my pencil, wondering whether the architrave in the Doric order was parted or not, when the draught again turned the leaves, and on this occasion to written pages farther back. Both prose and poetry revealed themselves. I did not imagine for a moment that Minna was the author of these compositions, but that made me wish all the more to see what favourite sentences and extracts she had liked to preserve, and in this way to gain an insight into her character and knowledge. Twice I resisted the temptation; but a longer piece of prose remained open before me until, half against my will, I caught sight of a few words which whetted my curiosity too much.

I made sure that I was not watched, and read in German the following extracts, written in a fine, rather sloping Gothic handwriting:—

"Between a young couple, who by nature are in harmony with one another, nothing can add more to a pleasant intercourse than for the girl to be anxious to learn, and the young man willing to teach. It produces a profound and agreeable relationship between them. She sees in him the creator of her spiritual existence, and he in her a creation, which owes its perfection not to nature, accident, or a single will, but to a union of wills; and the interchange of thought is so beautiful, that from such a meeting of two natures, the strongest passions, bringing as much happiness as misfortune, have sprung, at which we cannot wonder. So it has been since the old and the new Abelard."

In reading these last words I heard a door being closed