bare and
the roan-tree was wonderful with its heavy scarlet cluster of berries.
And the sky was so blue, so blue, and the wood seemed so much bigger,
one could look so far between the trunks. And then of course one could
not help thinking that soon all this would be of the past. Wood, field,
sky, open air, and everything soon would have to give way to the time of
the lamps, the carpets, and the hyacinths. For this reason the councilor
from Cape Trafalgar and his daughter were walking down to the lake,
while their carriage stopped at the bailiff's.

The councilor was a friend of nature, nature was something quite
special, nature was one of the finest ornaments of existence. The
councilor patronized nature, he defended it against the artificial;
gardens were nothing but nature spoiled; but gardens laid out in
elaborate style were nature turned crazy. There was no style in nature,
providence had wisely made nature natural, nothing but natural. Nature
was that which was unrestrained, that which was unspoiled. But with the
fall of man civilization had come upon mankind; now civilization had
become a necessity; but it would have been better, if it had not
been thus. The state of nature was something quite different, quite
different. The councilor himself would have had no objection to
maintaining himself by going about in a coat of lamb-skin and shooting
hares and snipes and golden plovers and grouse and haunches of venison
and wild boars. No, the state of nature really was like a gem, a perfect
gem.

The councilor and his daughter walked down to the lake. For some time
already it had glimmered between the trees, but now when they turned the
corner where the big poplar stood, it lay quite open before them. There
it lay with large spaces of water clear as a mirror, with jagged tongues
of gray-blue rippled water, with streaks that were smooth and streaks
that were rippled, and the sunlight rested on the smooth places and
quivered in the ripples. It captured one's eye and drew it across its
surface, carried it along the shores, past slowly rounded curves, past
abruptly broken lines, and made it swing around the green tongues of
land; then it let go of one's glance and disappeared in large bays, but
it carried along the thought--Oh, to sail! Would it be possible to hire
boats here?

No, there were none, said a little fellow, who lived in the white
country-house near by, and stood at the shore skipping stones over the
surface