Easter Walk (Germany & Prussia)
"From the ice they are freed, the stream and brook…"
"Is that so? It snowed just a few days ago!"
"…by the Spring's enlivening, lovely look."
"Are you frickin' kidding me? It's about 46°F outside! The sun may be shining, but it's darn cold."
"The valley greens with joys of hope."
"Nothing greens! Except for that meadow, but that was green all the while."
"The Winter old and weak ascends…"
"Weak? Weak? May I remind you of that darned storm we just had?"
"…back to the rugged mountain slope."
"If I tell Roddy you babbled something about 'rugged mountain slopes' in Berlin, he'll just laugh at you! Really, little brother, you sometimes go overboard with your purportedly Faustian German soul!"
…
"Stop spoiling my Easter walk, Gilbert, and just imagine it wasn't only sunny but also warm!"
—
Notes
All right, I won't win a prize for particular creativity with that, but I simply liked the idea…
Ludwig's lines, except for his last one, are taken from Faust and Wagner's Easter walk in "Faust I" by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (towards the beginning of the scene "Vor dem Tor", i.e. "In Front of the Gate"). I used the translation by Edgar Alfred Bowring (1853) with one slight alteration ("the valley greens" instead of "the valley's green"; Prussia's remark wouldn't have made any sense otherwise).