Minna/Book 2, Chapter 8
I found Minna waiting for me in the little sitting-room of the hotel. She poured out the coffee from a tarnished pot, and we sat down at the table just like a newly married couple, as if, indeed, the bowl of honey on the tray was a symbol of honeymoon days. The room was rather gloomy, for the mist, like a blind, obscured the windows. The unusually early hour at which I had been obliged to rise affected my head, and also made me feel rather nervous.
As we stepped outside we could not see the church, and the houses on the other side of the square appeared but dimly, as an indistinct mass. The pavement was greasy; Minna slipped and took my arm. Two street-sweepers moved grotesquely in the milk-white atmosphere. Under the barber's signboard, which seemed to be a free floating moon, a glass door clinked, and was opened with a kick. Near the grocer's, at the corner, a variously mingled and rather spicy smell impregnated the air for a certain distance; we suddenly stepped into it, and just as suddenly out of it.
We arrived in good time for the steam launch.
Hardly had it left the bridge before the bank had disappeared, and we might easily have imagined ourselves at sea. We only saw the little waves shining like scales close to us, with the mist passing over them like steam. The sooty coal-smoke from the funnel struck down over the deck. The whistle sounded continually, sometimes with long hissing sounds, sometimes in short staccato shrieks and sighs. At times another whistle or a long shout replied to our warnings, and a big dark shape glided by like a phantom.
Minna drew closer to me and pressed my arm.
"I hope a collision will not take place."
"Surely not!" I assured her.
But why, I asked myself, should this little steamer not be run down? One drowns as easily in the middle of the Elbe as in the Atlantic.
This feeling of danger united us more closely than all the dreams of the future. But the same mist that had created the danger soon dispelled it by chilling us through and through. Fear of colds and coughs drowned the romantic terror, and with it the hope of being united in a sudden death.
So confusing was this journey in the bewildering mist that when a bump announced that we had landed, we were in such a state of perplexity that we thought that we had returned to Schandau. When we stood on the platform and the Dresden train puffed in, we imagined that it was the one going to Bodenbach.
We quickly, however, discovered that it was really our train, and, thanks to a well-invested tip, we were soon by ourselves in a second-class compartment. Over the misty white pane of the window flew grey shadows of leaves, branches, and bushes, and one drop after another rolled slowly down it.
The train shook so much that our shoulders constantly met, but Minna hardly responded to the pressure of my hand, and she spoke very little. I wanted to draw her to me, but she moved away and pointed with a shy look to the window, which was darkened by the figure of the conductor.
When our tickets had been collected and I, after having closed the window, turned round, pleased by the idea that we were now to be undisturbed, Minna got up. A sudden jerk of the train threw me down on the soft cushion, and immediately Minna was kneeling at my feet. I laughingly wanted to lift her up, but was stopped by a frightened and imploring expression in her face.
"Harald! I have something I must tell you. But promise me not to be angry.… No, no, you must not promise anything; perhaps you won't be able to help it."
"But, Minna, what does all this mean? Do get up, my dear!"
"No, no, you must first listen. I was so nasty yesterday.… I have deceived you all, and also told lies to you."
"But what do you mean? When?"
"Have you no idea? Can't you guess? "
"No, I assure you."
"Just think of it!" she continued, with a heart-broken expression upon her face, "you cannot imagine that I can be so false.… And when you hear it you will perhaps fear that I am always so."
"But what is it, then? So far you have told me nothing."
"Well, it was yesterday evening. It was my fault that we were too late for the ferry steamer. I knew quite well that the steamer for the train went earlier than I said it did, and I pretended"
"But is that all?" I interrupted laughingly.
"You are making fun of me! It would be much better if you would beat me! Is it nice to get a wife who can tell lies and deceive you like that?… Don't you think that it was at all wrong? "
I made some kind of explanation, but she continued rapidly—
"And the good old Hertz who was so troubled, evidently he felt the responsibility of having drawn us into the adventure. I also forgot that I, without permission, must make use of your purse, and that perhaps you had not money enough, and might be put into a most awkward position. All this was very wrong. But the worst of all was, when you yourself began to talk about the fortunate mistake and I had not the courage to confess, but continued telling lies to my own dear friend. Then I was quite disgusted with myself."
"But why did you not dare 'to confess,' as you call it?"
"At that time I could not possibly dare to do so, but now I cannot do anything else. Though I had really made up my mind never to tell, or at any rate not until much, much later.… Oh, perhaps you cannot understand it at all! But isn't it true that we enjoyed being alone together—for so far we really had not been able to speak in private—more than being ferried in a boat filled with people, and stuffed into a nasty train. That train is always overcrowded, horrid, you know! And then"—her voice sank to a whisper, and she rested her face on my knees—"was it not also a little—just a little—sweet to be so near to each other in the night?"
I bent over her.
"And when you tapped the wall."
"Hush!" she exclaimed, putting her forefinger to her lips, and looking at me with a queer and somewhat terrified face. But suddenly her expression became almost sulky.
"But you calmly said that it did not matter whether the rooms were on the same floor or not."
"Before the waiter, dearest."
"Yes, yes, I understand."
She jumped to her feet and suddenly gave me an eager kiss; it was as if I had been hit in the face by a soft ball.
"Then you are not angry any longer?"
I lifted her to the seat by my side.
"Any longer? But I assure you, Minna, I have not been angry at all."
"But you really might have been; yes, you ought to have been."
"Oh, nonsense! I only think it much sweeter now that I know that it was not an accident but your wish."
"There is nothing to be done with you; you will absolutely spoil me, and I can't imagine what the end of it will be!" Minna exclaimed, and pressed me tenderly to her. "But look how the weather is clearing. We shall have a fine day after all."
Outside, on the white sheet of mist which was stretched in front of the window, appeared dusky crowns of fruit trees, pointed fir-tops, and the margin of a roof with a tiny shining skylight, everything becoming indistinct as it approached the ground, just like the pictures of a magic-lantern that are beginning to take shape.
And above all this appeared a dark mass; it was the rock plateau of Lilienstein, floating like an island in the air with the mist stream gliding round its rough stone sides, with long dark purple clefts, and with myriads of little fir-tops pointing up towards the sky, which shone through with the bluish tint of an opal.
"And what shall we do to-day?" I asked. "To-morrow afternoon we are going to meet at the Hertzes', but I really must see you before then."
"Yes, indeed, we must use the time—'Our pleasant sojourn in Aranjuez is coming to an end.'[1] So you really go away the day after to-morrow?"
"Yes, my sweet Minna; it is after all for the best. The holidays are over, and my landlady has let my room."
"Well, in a week I am also as free as a bird.… Let me see, I will take the children out for a walk. If your many engagements do not prevent, you can expect me on the forest path, the one turning off to the left, you know, just beyond the school-house. I will walk on until I meet you."
The train whistled and stopped. We had already reached Rathen.
As we went down to the ferry, the mist only fluttered, like torn bits of cobweb, over the wet grass which was glittering in the sun.
- ↑ Schiller, "Don Carlos."