In short, to our Anton, brought up as he had been in a small town, it all appeared beauteous and stately in the extreme.

He sat down behind a bushy lilac, and gave himself up to the contemplation of the scene.

How happy the inhabitants must be! how noble! how refined! A certain respect for every thing of acknowledged distinction and importance was innate in the son of the accountant; and when, in the midst of the beauty around him, his thoughts reverted to himself, he felt utterly insignificant, a species of social pigmy scarcely visible to the naked eye.
For some time he sat and looked in perfect stillness; at last the picture shifted.

A lovely lady came out on the balcony clad in light summer attire, with white lace sleeves, and stood there like a statue.
When a gay paroquet flew out of the room and lighted on her hand, Anton's admiration went on increasing; but when a young girl followed the bird, and wound her arms around the lovely lady's neck, and the paroquet kept wheeling about them, and perching now on the shoulder of one, and then on that of the other, his feeling of veneration became such that he blushed deeply, and drew back further into the lilac-tree's shadow.
Then, with his imagination filled by what he had seen, he went with elastic step along the broad walk, hoping to find a way of exit.
Soon he heard a horse's feet behind him, and saw the younger of the two ladies come riding after him, mounted upon a black pony, and using her parasol as a whip.

Now the ladies of Ostrau were not in the habit of riding.