And in the evening she permitted me to row her about the river.

We were getting on very well under the circumstances.
The week was soon gone, and Gretchen and I became very good friends.
Often when she had nothing to do we would wander along the river through the forests, always, I noticed, by a route which took us away from the village.

Each day I discovered some new accomplishment.
Sometimes I would read Heine or Goethe to her, and she would grow rapt and silent.

In the midst of some murmurous stanza I would suddenly stop, only to see her start and look at me as though I had committed a sacrilege, in that I had spoiled some dream of hers.

Then again I myself would become lost in dreams, to be aroused by a soft voice saying: "Well, why do you not go on ?" Two people of the opposite sexes reading poetry in the woods is a solemn matter.