Page:Karl Gjellerup - Minna, A novel - 1913.djvu/70

 "To-morrow would suit me admirably; my pupils are going with their mother to see an aunt at Pirna. Wouldn't you also like to see this performance?"

Naturally I had nothing whatever to say against such a proposal.

A long "Oh," into which the little boy suddenly burst, made us look away from the quarries and turn round. The rainbow column had grown to a perfect arch, a reflection of which was just forming, but the lower part only stood clear, while the arch itself was very faint and broken in places. Soon afterwards this also became perfect, and the two bows formed the outer and inner brilliant edge of a broad violet band. Under this bridge the encircled sky-ground was darker than that above it, where the blue soon shone through; in the middle of this dark ground, under the glorious arch, and lit up by the sun, which shed its rays under the clouds through the whole valley, stood Lilienstein, like a smoking stone altar, with the little cloud still resting on its surface. This image had also formed itself in the little boy's imagination, for quite lost in wonder he said: "It's just like in master's picture-bible, where Noah makes his offering."

In perfect harmony with this patriarchal impression, Minna took her stone jar, the plain homely shape of which no old German painter would have hesitated to put into a Rebecca's hand; but her blue skirt, which she lifted with her left hand, might perhaps have been scarcely suitable as a dress for that nomadic lady, though it was neither draped nor trimmed. Bending down over the spring, in order to press the obstinate jar into the water, her one shoe with its non-nomadic heel slipped on the wet stones, and she would have got a cold bath, if I had not caught her round the waist and kept her steady. She let go the jar,