Minna/Book 1, Chapter 10
The afternoon sun shed its full glare on the rocks, but over them dark clouds were hanging, and the rain suddenly began to fall in such big drops that its stormy character could not be mistaken. We were obliged to hurry over the shrub-covered bank to the smithy of the quarry. This effort gave Minna back her strength, and she, who a minute before had hardly been able to support herself, now ran the last few steps through the pouring rain, as if her nerves had not been in the least shaken.
It was a great change to come from the vast, bright space, with its white, sunlit rocks, into a small room overcrowded with workmen, and enveloped in a sooty and black obscurity which was only relieved by red-glowing flames. A strikingly handsome young man stood by the forge; he stretched up his muscular arm, caught a rope, and pulled the long bent pole which worked the bellows. The heap of coal flared brightly, he poked it, threw on another shovelful, put a pickaxe with a blunt end into it, and took out another one with a red-hot point; then he spat on one of his fingers, with which he skimmed the hot metal, and dipped it into a trough of water, causing it to frizzle and send up a white steam.
Minna laughed.
"Just now we saw Siegfried fighting with the dragon, and here we have him alive in the forest smithy."
She had again been speaking Danish to me, and the workmen looked at us wonderingly, astonished at this gibberish. The smith did not seem to pay any attention to it; just at that moment he laid the smouldering pick, which was beginning to turn grey, on to the anvil, and worked it with his hammer, so that the sparks flew about, and we stepped back a few yards out of the way. Minna looked at him with an admiration which did not please me.
"Don't you think him handsome?" she asked. "As he stands there at his work, one cannot imagine anything more picturesque. If only Gudehus[1] looked like that!"
"Of course he is good-looking, but you will spoil him by admiring him so openly. He will be so conceited, that the poor little village maidens will never be able to please him again."
"He is occupied with his work, surely he does not notice it."
"Then the others will tell him."
"But, really it is so delightful to see something absolutely perfect!"
However justifiable this might have been, I did not like it.
"I wonder if he is a Saxon?" she said, a little while after.
"No, miss, I am from Schleswig," the workman answered quite calmly in Danish, throwing the pick aside, and occupying himself by blowing the bellows.
One would have thought that he blew the flush on to her cheek, so red did she turn. The workmen about chuckled a little, and seemed to have understood the situation. At first I enjoyed her confusion, as a fitting punishment, but soon I began to pity her, for she did not seem to have the courage to lift her eyes from the ground. Fortunately the rain had nearly ceased. We bade goodbye to our kind landlord and the red-bearded giant; the gnome scowled from a corner, and the Adonis of the smithy sent a gay "Farvel" after us."
We were, of course, not inclined to risk going down the same way up which we had crawled. So the little Hans was ordered to show us the way through the neighbouring quarries, but I soon told our youthful guide that I could manage for myself, and eventually succeeded in escaping from him.
Most of the quarries were deserted by the workmen. One saw everywhere the same white ground and walls, shrub-covered banks, rows of hewn stone, gigantic masses of rough blocks, which had the appearance of ruins, and here and there parts of rocks that had fallen over, remains of the much more extensive winter-blasting by which, at times, the river gets blocked. By keeping as close as possible to the rock-wall, we had little difficulty in finding a fairly good pathway. The quarries were separated from one another by waste ground covered with chips of stone, that moved and gave way under one's feet, for which reason there was often an opportunity to support Minna, who screamed and laughed on the unsafe ground, stretching out her arms to me either to find support, or when she thought that I was slipping. The sad recollections on which she had dwelt, the nervous excitement while the blasting was going on, and, lastly, her confusion in the smithy, seemed but to have dammed her stream of gaiety, which now burst forth with still greater force. Once we both fell, she on the top of me—fortunately I was the only one at all hurt; Minna got up laughing, and helped me without any sign of shyness. Perhaps at this moment she would even have forgotten to send me on in front if we 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 movement the two shadows cut a more and more ridiculous figure. When at last we moved on, and came to a place where the incline grew less steep and the wood had been allowed to spread, the shadows again began to play their funny tricks; now lying over the green turf, then jumping from trunk to trunk, and bounding directly from a tree close to us to one lit up far away in the density.
"Do you know?" said Minna, "what a good thing it is that you are not Peter Schlemihl, for in that case you would now be discovered!"
"Without doubt I should be, and what then?"
"Well, then—? Anyhow, I should not like it at all."
Her little ear had turned quite red, and this could not have been due to transparency, as the sun was behind us. My heart danced with joy, for I could not doubt that she thought of the place in the immortal book, where the poor shadowless man, Schlemihl, walks at night in the garden with his beloved, and suddenly comes to a spot where the moon shines, and where only her shadow is to be seen stretching out before their feet. She had also instantly understood that my—apparently—very simple "and what then?" was more bold than stupid, for she herself had lately lent me the book—a volume of those classical periodicals of which she had spoken.
Yes, suppose my shadow had not been visible, then she would have fallen into a faint, and I should have been obliged to leave her for ever; but now, being perfectly alive and playing hide-and-seek with her shadow in the forest, suffused by the evening glow, what obstacle was there in my way? Sure enough, I had no inexhaustible purse in my pocket, but my shadow was complete enough. Did it not stand just now on the sloping stone surface, black and white, as an indisputable proof that I was an honest fellow with no devilry about me? And the little lobe of the ear in front, which was so rosy red, did it not say that it belonged to a woman who loved me just a little? Why then should not my heart jump for joy?
"Do tell me, are you as thirsty as I am?" Minna suddenly asked.
"That's a question I cannot answer, but I am very thirsty."
"Well, over there I see lots of bilberries, and I do not know why we should let them dry up and be of no use."
I was quite of her opinion, and we began to plunder the small bushes as quickly as we could. As it was too uncomfortable to stand for long in a bending position, we went down on our knees and crept from bush to bush on all-fours. Soon it became too much trouble to pluck off the berries one by one, so we tore off stalks and pulled them through our mouths, and in thus satisfying our thirst we for the first time realised how great it had been. Minna almost hugged herself, and even began to make a purring sound like a contented little animal. Seeing that this amused me, she carried the joke further, and snapped the berries from the bushes with her lips, not using her hands, which were spread out, like paws, upon the ground. Then she glanced up at me with a very humorous expression, at the same time purring and shaking her head, with some little curls dancing round her brow. Her lips were dark blue, and her smile showed a row of bluish teeth. Whether it was this rustic négligé which rendered her mouth less unapproachable than my respect had previously found it, or whether this colour, as a sign of our childish mood, aided my natural diffidence, I know not; but it is certain that it gave me an irresistible desire to kiss her. At this moment we both discovered a berry as big as a small cherry, and our heads collided; while I still laughed and rubbed mine, she snatched the berry, and, immediately afterwards, my lips pressed a long kiss on hers, and my glance pierced her eyes, which grew quite small and in their depths had a gleam of the last golden sunbeam. Only our lips met, our arms rested on the ground like fore-legs; and just as I wanted to make a more human use of them, and place them round her shoulders, half unconscious and intoxicated as I was by the heavenliness of the first kiss, she jumped to her feet and ran down the path. Before I could overtake her, she had already reached a spot where I could not walk by her side, as the path was only a foot in breadth, and the slope was steep. Aware of this, she walked quietly.
"Minna!" I called softly and diffidently.
She did not seem to hear me.
"Were you unable to find my shadow?" I asked, trying to make a joke of it, "since you so suddenly ran away from me. Just look behind, and you will see that I still have it, though it has turned much paler, but so has yours."
Still no answer.
"Are you angry with me?"
She shook her head, but neither stopped nor looked back. The manner of her answer had, however, calmed me; I did not know what to say, nor did I wish to bother her, though this silent march, one behind the other, was dreadfully painful to me. At last we came near the place where the tiny mountain-path, between the outer firs, sloped down to the meadow near the river, only a few minutes' walk from Rathen. There I should, at any rate, be able to see the expression on her face.
Like a deer which is brought to bay, she turned to face me.
"I will now say good-bye. We are near home, and you are not to come any farther with me."
"But why not? What do you mean?"
"Let me alone! Do let me go by myself this time, it is the only thing I ask of you, because I let you, because you …"
"But, any way, tell me …"
"Good-bye, good-bye!"
She ran rather than walked down the stones, and over the meadow, where her steps grew noiseless; only the leather belt round her waist creaked with her quick movement, just like the girth of a horse's saddle. It had creaked like that whilst she crept amongst the bilberries. I grew quite sad when I could not hear it any longer.
There I remained on the same spot, gazing after her as long as I could see her light dress.
- ↑ Famous Wagner singer (Siegfried) in Dresden.