that obstructed our progress.  But we had to do this ourselves, for the rain pattered down and lashed the ground; no one had any desire to come out in such weather.  The rushes in the marsh bent and waved; it was a real rain feast for them, and it whistled from the tops of the rushes:  “We drink with our feet, we drink with our heads, we drink with the whole body, and yet we stand on one leg, hurra!  We drink with the bending willow, with the dripping flowers on the bank; their cups run over—­the marsh marigold, that fine lady, can bear it better!  Hurra! it is a feast! it pours, it pours; we whistle and we sing; it is our own song.  Tomorrow the frogs will croak the same after us and say, ‘it is quite new!’”

And the rushes waved, and the rain pattered down with a splashing noise—­it was fine weather to travel in to Zaether Dale, and to see its far-famed beauties.  The whip-lash now came off the whip; it was fastened on again, and again, and every time it was shorter, so that at last there was not a lash, nor was there any handle, for the handle went after the lash—­or sailed after it—­as the road was quite navigable, and gave one a vivid idea of the beginning of the deluge.

One poor jade now drew too much, the other drew too little, and one of the splinter bars broke; well, by all that is vexatious, that was a fine drive!  The leather apron in front had a deep pond in its folds with an outlet into one’s lap.  Now one of the linch-pins came out; now the twisting of the rope harness became loose, and the cross-strap was tired of holding any longer.  Glorious inn in Zaether, how I now long more for thee than thy far-famed dale.  And the horses went slower, and the rain fell faster, and so—­yes, so we were not yet in Zaether.

Patience, thou lank spider, that in the ante-chamber quietly dost spin thy web over the expectant’s foot, spin my eyelids close in a sleep as still as the horse’s pace!  Patience? no, she was not with us in the carriage to Zaether.  But to the inn, by the road side, close to the far-famed valley, I got at length, towards evening.

And everything was flowing in the yard, chaotically mingled; manure and farming implements, staves and straw.  The poultry sat there washed to shadows, or at least like stuck-up hens’ skins with feathers on, and even the ducks crept close up to the wet wall, sated with the wet.  The stable-man was cross, the girl still more so; it was difficult to get them to bestir themselves:  the steps were crooked, the floor sloping and but just washed, sand strewn thickly on it, and the air was damp and cold.  But without, scarcely twenty paces from the inn, on the other side of the road, lay the celebrated valley, a garden made by nature herself, and whose charm consists of trees and bushes, wells and purling brooks.