“Quite right. The others are ahead of us—Herr Permaneder is climbing lustily.”
The shady forest road grew level, and it was not long before they reached the “spring,” a pretty, romantic spot with a wooden bridge over a little ravine, steep cliffs, and overhanging trees with their roots in the air. The Frau Consul had brought a silver collapsible cup, and they scooped up the water from the little stone basin directly under the source and refreshed themselves with the iron-impregnated spring. And here Herr Permaneder had a slight attack of gallantry, and insisted on Frau Grünlich tasting his cup before presenting it to him. He ran over with friendliness and displayed great tact in chatting with the Frau Consul and Thomas, as well as with Gerda and Tony, and even with little Erica. Gerda, who had up to now been suffering from the heat and a kind of silent and rigid nervousness, began to feel like herself again. They came back to the inn by a shorter way, and sat down at a groaning table on the second of the wooded terraces; and it was Gerda who gave expression in friendly terms to the general regret over Herr Permaneder’s early departure, now that they were just becoming a little acquainted and finding less and less difficulty with the language. She was ready to swear that she had heard her friend and siste-rin-law, Tony, use several times the most unadulterated Munich dialect!
Herr Permaneder forebore to commit himself on the subject of his departure. Instead, he devoted himself for the time to the dainties that weighted down the table—dainties such as he seldom saw the other side of the Danube.
They sat and consumed the good things at their leisure—what little Erica liked far better than anything else were the serviettes made of tissue paper, much nicer than the big linen ones at home. With the waiter’s permission she put a few in her pocket as a souvenir. When they had finished, they still sat; Herr Permaneder smoked several very black cigars with his beer, Thomas smoked cigarettes, and the whole family
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