I shouted aloud when I once more saw the
Danube before me; we hurried aboard, the captain gave the signal, and
away we glided in the brilliant morning sunshine past the meadows and
the mountains.
The birds in the woods were singing, and the morning bells echoed afar
from the villages on each side of us, while overhead the larks' clear
notes were now and then heard. On the boat a canary-bird in its cage
trilled and twittered back so that it was a delight to listen to it.
It belonged to a pretty young girl who was on the boat with us. She
kept the cage close beside her, and under the other arm she had a
small bundle of linen; she sat by herself, quite still, looking in
great content, now at her new traveling-shoes, which peeped out from
beneath her petticoats, and now down at the water, while the morning
sun shone on her white forehead, above which the hair was neatly
parted. I noticed that the students would have liked to engage her in
polite discourse, for they kept passing to and fro before her, and the
cornetist, whenever he did so, cleared his throat, and settled, first
his cravat, and then his three-cornered hat. But their courage failed
them, and moreover the girl cast down her eyes as soon as they,
approached her.
They seemed, besides, to stand in special awe of the elderly gentleman
in the gray overcoat, who was now sitting on the other side of the
boat, and whom they took for a divine.
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