[Illustration: Permission F Bruckmann A.-G. Munich
BATHING BOYS Adolph von Menzel]
She nodded. "It is as you say, and I must confess that I have seen nothing in my life that made me feel so sad. Let us give up entirely our search for rooms. I can't stay here."
"And yesterday it seemed to you a Gulf of Naples and everything beautiful you could think of."
"Yes, yesterday."
"And today? No longer a trace of Sorrento?"
"Still one trace, but only one. It is Sorrento on the point of dying."
"Very well, then, Effi," said Innstetten, reaching her his hand. "I do not want to worry you with Rügen and so let us give it up. Settled. It is not necessary for us to tie ourselves up to Stubbenkammer or Sassnitz or farther down that way. But whither?"
"I suggest that we stay a day longer and wait for the steamer that comes from Stettin tomorrow on its way to Copenhagen. It is said to be so pleasurable there and I can't tell you how I long for something pleasurable. Here I feel as though I could never laugh again in all my life and had never laughed at all, and you know how I like to laugh."
Innstetten showed himself full of sympathy with her state, the more readily, as he considered her right in many regards. Really everything, though beautiful, was melancholy.
They waited for the Stettin boat and in the very early morning of the third day they landed in Copenhagen. Two hours later they were in the Thorwaldsen Museum, and Effi said: "Yes, Geert, this is beautiful and I am glad we set out for here." Soon thereafter they went to dinner and at the table made the acquaintance of a Jutland family, opposite them, whose daughter, Thora von Penz, was as pretty as a picture and attracted immediately the attention and admiration of both Innstetten and Effi. Effi could not stop looking at her large blue eyes and flaxen blonde hair, and when they left the table an hour and a half later the Penz family, who unfortunately had to leave Copenhagen the same day, expressed the hope that they might have the privilege of entertaining the young Prussian couple in the near future at Aggerhuus Castle, some two miles from the Lym-Fiord. The invitation was accepted by the Innstettens with little hesitation.