Yes, you are certainly half a fish when you come into the water." "I!" repeated Otto, and was silent; but immediately added, with a kind of embarrassment which was at other times quite foreign to him, and from which one might infer how unpleasant confessing any imperfection was to him, "I do not swim." "That must be learned in summer!" said Wilhelm.
"There is so much to learn," answered Otto; "swimming will certainly be the last thing." He now suddenly turned toward the fortress, and stood still.

"Only see how melancholy and quiet!" said he, and led the conversation again to the surrounding scenery.

"The sentinel before the prison paces so quietly up and down, the sun shines upon his bayonet! How this reminds me of a sweet little poem of Heine's; it is just as though he described this fortress and this soldier, but in the warmth of summer: one sees the picture livingly before one, as here; the weapon glances in the sun, and the part ends so touchingly,--'Ich wollt', er schoesse mich todt!' It is here so romantically beautiful! on the right the animated promenade, and the view over the Sund; on the left, the desolate square, where the military criminals are shot, and close upon it the prison with its beam-fence.

The sun scarcely shines through those windows.

Yet, without doubt, the prisoner can see us walking here upon the wall." "And envy our golden freedom!" said Wilhelm.
"Perhaps he derides it," answered Otto.