Explore "Rothenburg on the Tauber" by Paul Heyse on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
It was Easter Tuesday. The people who had celebrated this feast of resurrection by an open-air excursion in the gayly blossoming springtime were thronging back to their houses and the work-day troubles of the morrow. All the highroads swarmed with carriages and pedestrians, and the railroads were overcrowded in spite of the extra trains; for it was many years since there had been such continuously lovely Easter weather.
The evening express, standing in the Ansbach station ready to depart in the direction of Wuerzburg, was twice as long as usual. Nevertheless, every seat appeared to be occupied, when a straggler of the second class, trying to enter at the last moment, knocked in vain at every door, and peered into each _coupe_, meeting everywhere a more or less ungracious or mischievous shrug of the shoulders. Finally, the guard at his side made a sudden decision, opened a _coupe_ of the first class, shoved the late-comer into the dim interior, and slammed the door just as the train began to move.