Page:Karl Gjellerup - Minna, A novel - 1913.djvu/93

 had been obliged to climb up the mountain; really she appeared to have no thought for anything but her exuberant mood, and perhaps also for mine, and for Nature's, which with scent and twitter met us from the mountain wood we now entered.

The strong, incense-like perfume, which the sun had drawn out from the slope, was refreshed by the rain; and, intoxicated by the sweetness, the birds sang as if it were spring-time. The evening sun cast its rays between the firs, the bent, fringed branches of which glittered as if hung with stars. Underneath, between the trunks, one saw the river as a gliding light, and above, the gently nodding tree-tops were surmounted by a bark-coloured, grooved and cleft rock, bounded by a bluish rim of weather-beaten firs mounting upwards towards the cloudless sky.

Now and then the soughing of the wind, like a wave approaching us, was heard from above, big drops fell on us, and Minna's skirt fluttered aside. It was of a soft pale chamois-coloured material, which hung in loose folds from her leather belt. She walked cautiously on the sloping ground, which, wherever it had remained dry, was made very slippery by the fir needles and the cone shells; she often slid, stretching out her right arm with a little scream, so that the wide sleeve was caught up over the dimple of the elbow, while the other one, with its ungloved and sunburnt hand, seized hold of the moss.

Suddenly I burst out laughing, and as she turned with a questioning smile, I pointed to her shadow, which, in a stout unshapely form, showed itself on the perpendicular stone surface next to her; she answered with an even heartier laugh, and pointed out mine, which, longer legged than a stork, stretched up a height. For a long while we could not get away from this place, as by the smallest