"Are you sorry for it already?" Thus they both apostrophized the other, as they in a twinkling had reached the river shore and seized hold of each other. And both answered: "No, indeed, how can you think so?"
And carefree they now walked briskly along the river bank, and they outdistanced the hastening waves, for thus keenly they sought a spot where they could stay for a while. For in the trance of their enthusiasm they knew of nothing but the bliss awaiting them in the full possession of each other. The whole worth and meaning of their lives just then condensed itself into that one supreme desire. What was to follow it, death, eternal oblivion, was to them a mere nothing, a puff of air, and they thought less of it than does the spendthrift think of the morrow when wasting his last substance.
"My flowers shall precede me," cried Vreni, "only look! They are quite withered and dusty!" And she plucked them from her bosom, cast them into the water, and sang aloud: "But sweeter far than almonds is my love for thee!"
"Stop!" called out Sali. "Here is our bridal chamber!"
They had reached a road for vehicles which led from the village to the river, and here there was a landing, and a big boat, laden high with hay, was tied to an iron ring in the bank. In a reckless mood Sali instantly set to freeing the ship from the strong ropes that held it to the landing. But Vreni grasped his arm, and she shouted laughing: "What are you about? Are we to wind up by stealing from the peasants their haycock?"
"That is to be the dowry they give us," replied Sali with humor. "See! A swimming bedstead and a couch softer than any royal couple ever had. Besides, they will recover their property unharmed somewhere near the goal whither it was to travel anyway, and they will hardly trouble their hard heads with the question how it got there. Do you notice, dear, how the boat is swaying and rocking? It is impatient to start on the journey."
The ship lay a few paces off the shore in deeper water. Sali lifted Vreni in his arms high up, and began to wade through the water towards the boat. But she caressed him so fervently and wriggled like a fish on the angle, that Sali was losing his footing in the rather strong current. She strained her hands and arms in order to plunge them in the water, crying: "I also want to try the cool water. Do you remember how cold and moist our hands were when we first met? That time we had been catching fish. Now we ourselves will be fish, and two big and handsome ones to boot."
"Keep still, you wriggling darling," said Sali, scarcely able to stand up in the water, with his sweetheart tossing in his arms and the current pulling at him, "or it will drag me under!"
But now he lifted his pretty burden into the boat, and scrambled up its side himself. Then he hoisted her up to the hay, packed in orderly fashion in the middle, sweet-scented and downy like a vast pillow, and next he swung himself up to her. When they both were thus enthroned on their bridal bed the ship drifted gently into the middle of the stream, and then, turning slowly, it headed sluggishly in an easterly direction.
The river flowed through dark woods, shadowing it; it flowed through the fruitful plain, past quiet villages and hamlets and single homesteads; there it broadened out like a still lake and the ship moved but slightly downwards, and here it turned tall rocks and left the slumbering landscape quickly behind. And when dawn broke there was in sight at some distance a town rising with its age-worn towers and steeples above the silver-gray river. The setting moon, red as gold, cast a quivering track of light upstream towards the dim outlines of the ancient city, and into this luminous bed the ship finally turned its prow. When the houses of the town at last approached closely two pale shapes, locked in a tight embrace, glided in the autumnal frost of early morn from off the dark mass of the ship into the silent waters.