Debit and Credit: Translated from the German of Gustav FreytagFreytag, Gustav
General
Debit and Credit: Translated from the German of Gustav Freytag
Freytag, Gustav
German fiction -- Translations into English; Mercantile system -- Germany -- Fiction; Social classes -- Germany -- Fiction
"You can not expect me to wear burs," replied she; "but you shall have
your wish." She led him back to a group of sunflowers in the shrubbery,
and, gathering a few of them, she made a kind of helmet, which she
laughingly put on. "Now for your cap," commanded she. Bernhard obeyed,
and his thoughtful, deeply-marked features, black coat, and white cravat
looked so strange and incongruous beneath the cap of burs, that Lenore
could not help laughing. "Come with me," said she; "you shall look at
yourself in the lake." And she led him past the site of the factory--a
rough place, with heaps of earth, tiles, beams, in utmost confusion. It
was a holiday; all the laborers had left, but some village children were
playing about and collecting chips. A few steps farther on they came to
a little bay, covered with water-lilies and surrounded by brushwood.
"How desolate it looks!" said Lenore; "the bushes half pulled
away--even the trees injured: all the result of this building. We seldom
come here on account of the strange workmen. The village children, too,
are become so bold, they make this their play-ground, and there is no
keeping them away."
That moment a boat came in sight. A little village girl, a red-faced
chubby thing, stood up tottering in it, while her older brother tried to
get as far from shore as with one oar he could. "Look!" cried Lenore,
angrily, "the little wretches have actually taken our boat. Come back
instantly to the shore." The children were startled, the boy dropped the
oar, the little girl tottered more than before, and, in the terror of a
guilty conscience, lost her balance and fell into the water. Her brother
drifted helplessly into the bay. "Save the child!" screamed Lenore.
Bernhard ran into the lake forgetting that he could not swim, waded in a
few steps, and then stood up to the breast in mud and water. He
stretched out his arms to the spot where the child had sunk, but could
not reach it. Meanwhile Lenore had sprung, quick as lightning, behind a
bush. After a few seconds she returned and ran to a projecting bank.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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