ROCK CRYSTAL[10] (1846)
TRANSLATED BY LEE M. HOLLANDER, PH.D.
Among the high mountains of our fatherland there lies a little village
with a small but very pointed church-tower which emerges with red
shingles from the green of many fruit-trees, and by reason of its red
color is to be seen far and away amid the misty bluish distances of the
mountains. The village lies right in the centre of a rather broad valley
which has about the shape of a longish circle. Besides the church it
contains a school, a townhall, and several other houses of no mean
appearance, which form a square on which stand four linden-trees
surrounding a stone cross. These buildings are not mere farms but house
within them those handicrafts which are indispensable to the human race
and furnish the mountaineers with all the products of industry which
they require. In the valley and along the mountain-sides many other huts
and cots are scattered, as is very often the case in mountain regions.
These habitations belong to the parish and school-district and pay
tribute to the artisans we mentioned by purchasing their wares. Still
other more distant huts belong to the village, but are so deeply
ensconced in the recesses of the mountains that one cannot see them at
all from the valley. Those who live in them rarely come down to their
fellow-parishioners and in winter frequently must keep their dead until
after the snows have melted away in order to give them a burial. The
greatest personage whom the villagers get to see in the course of the
year is the priest.
[Illustration: ADALBERT STIFTER DAFFINGER]
They greatly honor him, and usually he himself through a longer
sojourn becomes so accustomed to the solitude of the valley that he not
unwillingly stays and simply lives on there. At least, it has not
happened in the memory of man that the priest of the village had been a
man hankering to get away or unworthy of his vocation.
No roads lead through the valley. People use their double-track
cart-paths upon which they bring in the products of their fields in
carts drawn by one horse. Hence, few people come into the valley, among
them sometimes a solitary pedestrian who is a lover of nature and dwells
for some little time in the upper room of the inn and admires the
mountains; or perhaps a painter who sketches the small, pointed spire of
the church and the beautiful summits of the rocky peaks. For this reason
the villagers form a world by themselves. They all know each other by
name and their several histories down from the time of grandfather and
great-grandfather; they all mourn when one of them dies; know what name
the new-born will receive; they have a language differing from that of
the plains; they have their quarrels, which they settle among
themselves; they assist one another and flock together when something
extraordinary has happened.
They are conservative and things are left to remain as they were.
Whenever a stone drops out of a wall, the same stone is put back again,
the new houses are built like the old ones, the dilapidated roofs are
repaired with the same kind of shingles, and if there happen to be
brindled cows on a farm, calves of the same color are raised always, so
that the color stays on the farm.
To the south of the village one sees a snow-mountain which seems to lift
up its shining peaks right above the roofs of the houses. Yet it is not
quite so near. Summer and winter it dominates the valley with its
beetling crags and snowy sides. Being the most remarkable object in the
landscape, this mountain is of main interest to the inhabitants and has
become the central feature of many a story.
There is not a young man or graybeard in the village but can tell of the
crags and crests of the mountain, of its crevasses and caves, of its
torrents and screes, whether now he knows it from his own experience or
from hearsay. The mountain is the boast of the villagers as if it were a
work of theirs and one is not so sure, however high one may esteem the
plain-spokenness and reputation for truth-telling of the natives,
whether they do not fib, now and then, to the honor and glory of their
mountain. Besides being the wonder of the valley, the mountain affords
actual profit; for whenever a company of tourists arrives to ascend the
mountain the natives serve as guides; and to have been a guide, to have
experienced this or that, to know this or that spot, is a distinction
every one likes to gain for himself. The mountain often is the object of
their conversation at the inn, when they sit together and tell of their
feats and wonderful experiences; nor do they omit to relate what this or
that traveler had said and what reward they had received from him for
their labor. Furthermore, the snowy sides of the mountain feed a lake
among its heavily forested recesses, from which a merry brook runs
through the valley, drives the saw-mill and the flour-mill, cleanses the
village and waters the cattle. The forests of the mountain furnish
timber and form a bulwark against the avalanches.
The annual history of the mountain is as follows: In winter, the two
pinnacles of its summit, which they call horns, are snow-white and, when
visible on bright days, tower up into the blackish blue of the sky in
dazzling splendor, and all its shoulders are white, too, and all slopes.
Even the perpendicular precipices, called walls by the natives, are
covered with white frost delicately laid on, or with thin ice adhering
to them like varnish, so that the whole mass looms up like an enchanted
castle from out of the hoary gray of the forests which lie spread out
heavily about its base. In summer, when the sun and warm winds melt the
snow from their steep sides, the peaks soar up black into the sky and
have only beautiful veins and specks of white on their flanks–as the
natives say. But the fact is, the peaks are of a delicate, distant blue,
and what they call veins and specks is not white, but has the lovely
milk-blue color of distant snow against the darker blue of the rocks.
When the weather is hot, the more elevated slopes about the peaks do not
lose their covering of eternal snow. On the contrary it then gleams with
double resplendence down upon the green of the trees in the valley; but
the winter’s snow is melted off their lower parts. Then becomes visible
the bluish or greenish iridescence of the glaciers which are bared and
gleam down upon the valley below. At the edge of this iridescence, there
where it seems from the distance like a fringe of gems, a nearer view
reveals confused masses of wild and monstrous boulders, slabs, and
fragments piled up in chaotic fashion. In very hot and long summers, the
ice-fields are denuded even in the higher regions, and then a much
greater amount of blue-green glacier-ice glances down into the valley,
many knobs and depressions are laid bare which one otherwise sees only
covered with white, the muddy edge of the ice comes to view with its
deposit of rocks, silt, and slime, and far greater volumes of water than
usual rush into the valley. This continues until it gradually becomes
autumn again, the waters grow less, and one day a gray continuous gentle
rain spreads over all the valley. Then, after the mists have dispersed
about the summits, the mountain is seen to have draped itself again in
its soft robe of snow, and all crags, cones, and pinnacles are vested in
white. Thus it goes on, year after year, with but slight divergences,
and thus it will go on so long as nature remains the same, and there is
snow upon the heights and people live in the valleys. But to the natives
these changes seem great, they pay much attention to them and calculate
the progress of the seasons by them.
The ascent of the mountain is made from our valley. One follows a fine
road which leads south to another valley over a so-called “neck.” Neck
they call a moderately high mountain-ridge which connects two
mountain-ranges of considerable magnitude and over which one can pass
from one valley to another between the mountains. The neck which
connects our snow-mountain with another great mountain-mass is
altogether covered with pine-forests. At its greatest elevation, where
the road begins gradually to descend into the valley beyond, there
stands a post erected to commemorate a calamity. Once upon a time a
baker carrying bread in a basket slung around his neck was found dead on
that spot. They painted a picture of the dead baker with his basket and
the pine-trees round about, and beneath it an explanation with a request
for prayer from the passer-by, and this picture they fastened to a
wooden post painted red, and erected it at the spot where the accident
occurred. At this post, then, one leaves the road and continues along
the ridge of the “neck” instead of crossing it and descending into the
valley beyond. There is an opening among the pine-trees at that spot, as
if there were a road between them. In fact, a path is sometimes made in
that direction which then serves to bring down timber from the higher
regions, but which is afterward overgrown again with grass. Proceeding
along this way, which gently ascends, one arrives at last at a bare,
treeless region. It is barren heath where grows nothing but heather,
mosses, and lichens. It grows ever steeper, the further one ascends; but
one always follows a gully resembling a rounded out ditch which is
convenient, as one cannot then miss one’s way in this extensive,
treeless, monotonous region. After a while, rocks as large as churches
rise out of the grassy soil, between whose walls one climbs up still
farther. Then there are again bleak ridges, with hardly any vegetation,
which reach up into the thinner air of higher altitudes and lead
straight to the ice. At both sides of this path, steep ledges plunge
down, and by this natural causeway the snow-mountain is joined to the
“neck.” In order to surmount the ice one skirts it for some distance
where it is surrounded by rock-walls, until one comes to the old
hard snow which bridges the crevasses and at most seasons of the year
bears the weight of the climber.
[Illustration: A MOUNTAIN SCENE _From the Painting by H. Reifferscheid_]
From the highest point of this snowfield, two peaks tower up, of which
the one is higher and, therefore, the summit of the mountain. These
pinnacles are very hard to climb. As they are surrounded by a chasm of
varying width–the bergschrund–which one must leap over, and as their
precipitous escarpments afford but small footholds, most of the tourists
climbing the mountain content themselves with reaching the bergschrund
and from there enjoy the panorama. Those who mean to climb to the top
must use climbing-irons, ropes, and, iron spikes.
Besides this mountain there are still others south of the valley, but
none as high. Even if the snow begins to lie on them early in fall and
stays till late in spring, midsummer always removes it, and then the
rocks gleam pleasantly in the sunlight, and the forests at their base
have their soft green intersected by the broad blue shadows of these
peaks which are so beautiful that one never tires of looking at them.
On the opposite, northern, eastern, and western sides of the valley the
mountains rise in long ridges and are of lower elevation: scattered
fields and meadows climb up along their sides till rather high up, and
above them one sees clearings, chalets, and the like, until at their
edge they are silhouetted against the sky with their delicately serrated
forest–which is indicative of their inconsiderable height–whereas the
mountains toward the south, though also magnificently wooded, cut off
the shining horizon with entirely smooth lines.
When one stands about in the centre of the valley it would seem as if
there were no way out or into the basin; but people who have often been
in the mountains are familiar with this illusion: the fact is, diverse
roads lead through the folds of the mountains to the plains to the
north, some of them with hardly a rise; and to the south where the
valley seems shut in by precipitous mountain-walls, a road leads over
the “neck” mentioned above.
The village is called Gschaid and the snow-mountain looking down upon
it, Gars.
On the other side of the “neck” there lies a valley by far more
beautiful and fertile than that of Gschaid. At its entrance there lies a
country-town of considerable size named Millsdorf which has several
industrial enterprizes and carries on almost urban trade and business.
Its inhabitants are much more well-to-do than those of Gschaid and,
although only three hours away, which for these labor-loving
mountaineers used to great distances is only a bagatelle, yet manners
and customs are so different in the two valleys and even their external
appearance is so unlike that one might suppose a great number of miles
lay between. This is of common occurrence in the mountains and due not
only to the more or less favored position of the valleys but also to the
spirit of the natives who by reason of their differing occupations are
inclined this way or that. But in this they all agree, that they adhere
to established customs and the usages of their forefathers, lightly bear
the absence of great traffic, cling to their native valley with an
extraordinary love; in fact, can hardly live out of it.
Months, ay a whole year may pass without a native of Gschaid setting
foot into the valley beyond and visiting the town of Millsdorf. The same
is true of the people of Millsdorf, although they have more intercourse
with the country beyond and hence live in less seclusion than the
villagers of Gschaid. A road which might be called a high-road leads
through the length of their valley and many a traveler passes through it
without suspecting in the least that to the north of him, on the other
side of the snow-mountain towering high above him, there is another
valley with many scattered houses and the village with its pointed
church-tower.
Among the trades of the village which supply the necessities of the
valley is that of the shoemaker, indispensible indeed to man excepting
in his most primitive condition.
But the natives are so high raised above that condition that they stand
in need of very good and durable footgear for the mountains. The
shoemaker is the only one of his trade in the valley–with one
inconsiderable exception. His house stands on the public square of
Gschaid where most of the larger dwellings are situated and its gray
walls, white window-frames, and green shutters face the four
linden-trees. On the ground-floor are the workshop, the workmen’s room,
a larger and a smaller sitting-room, the shop, and then the kitchen and
pantry; the first story or, more properly, the attic-space, contains the
“upper-room” which is also the “best room.” In it there stand two beds
of state, beautifully polished clothes-presses; there is a china-closet
with dishes, a table with inlaid work, upholstered easy-chairs, a
strong-box for the savings. Furthermore there hang on the walls pictures
of saints, two handsome watches, being prizes won in shooting-matches,
and finally there are some rifles both for target-firing and hunting,
with all the necessary paraphernalia, carefully hung up in a special
case with a glass-door.
Added to the shoemaker’s house there is a smaller house, built exactly
like it and, though separated from it by an arched gateway, belonging to
it like part of a whole. It has only one large room with some closets.
Its purpose is to serve the owner of the larger house as habitation for
the remainder of his days, after having left the property to his son or
successor; there to dwell with his wife until both are dead and the
little house stands empty again and is ready for another occupant. To
the rear of the shoemaker’s house are stable and barn; for every dweller
in the valley carries on farming along with his regular occupation and
makes a good living from it. Behind these buildings, finally, is the
garden which is lacking to none of the better houses of Gschaid, and
from which the villagers obtain their vegetables, their fruit, and the
flowers necessary for festive occasions. And, as quite commonly in the
mountains, apiculture is pursued also in the gardens of Gschaid.
The small exception alluded to, and the only competitor of the shoemaker
is a man of the same trade, old Tobias, who is not a real rival, though,
because he only cobbles and is kept quite busy with that. Nor would he
ever think of competing with the gentleman shoemaker of the township,
especially as the latter frequently provides him gratuitously with
leather-cuttings, sole strips, and the like. In summertime, old Tobias
sits under a clump of elder-bushes at the end of the village and works
away. All about him are shoes and lace-boots, all of them, however,
gray, muddy, and torn. There are no high boots because these are not
worn in the village and its surroundings; only two personages own such
boots, the priest and the schoolteacher, both of whom have their new
work and repairing done by the shoemaker. In winter, old Tobias sits in
his cot behind the elder-bushes and has it comfortably warm, because
wood is not dear in Gschaid.
Before entering into possession of his house, the shoemaker had been a
chamois-poacher–in fact, had not exactly been a model in youth, so the
people of Gschaid said. In school, he had always been one of the
brightest scholars. Afterwards, he had learned his father’s trade and
had gone on his journeyman wanderings, finally returning to the village.
Instead of wearing a black hat, as befits a tradesman, and as his father
had done all his life, he put on a green one, decorated it with all the
feathers obtainable and strutted around in the very shortest homespun
coat to be found in all the valley; whereas his father always had worn a
coat of dark, even black cloth with very long tails to indicate his
station as tradesman. The young shoemaker was to be seen on all dancing
floors and bowling alleys. Whenever any one gave him a piece of good
advice he merely whistled. He attended all shooting-matches in the
neighborhood with his target-rifle and often brought back a prize, which
he considered a great victory. The prize generally consisted of coins
artistically set. To win them, he frequently had to spend more coins of
the same value than the prize was worth–especially as he was very
generous with his money. He also participated in all the chases of the
surrounding country and won a name as a marksman. Sometimes, however, he
issued alone with his double-barreled gun and climbing irons, and once,
it is said, returned with an ugly wound in his head.
In Millsdorf there lived a dyer who carried on a very notable industry.
His works lay right at the entrance of the town at the side toward
Gschaid. He employed many people and even worked with machines, which
was an unheard of thing in the valley. Besides, he did extensive
farming. The shoemaker frequently crossed the mountain to win the
daughter of this wealthy dyer. Because of her beauty, but also because
of her modesty and domesticity she was praised far and near.
Nevertheless the shoemaker, it is said, attracted her attention. The
dyer did not permit him to enter his house; and whereas his beautiful
daughter had, even before that, never attended public places and
merry-makings, and was rarely to be seen outside the house of her
parents, now she became even more retiring in her habits and was to be
seen only in church, in her garden, or at home.
Some time after the death of his parents, by which the paternal house
which he inhabited all alone became his, the shoemaker became an
altogether different man. Boisterous as he had been before, he now sat
in his shop and hammered away day and night. Boastingly, he set a prize
on it that there was no one who could make better shoes and footgear. He
took none but the best workmen and kept after them when they worked in
order that they should do as he told them. And really, he accomplished
his desire, so that not only the whole village of Gschaid, which for the
most part had got its shoes from neighboring valleys, had their work
done by him, but the whole valley also. And finally he had some
customers even from Millsdorf and other valleys. Even down into the
plains his fame spread so that a good many who intended to climb in the
mountains had their shoes made by him for that purpose.
He ordered his house very neatly and in his shop the shoes, lace-boots,
and high boots shone upon their several shelves; and when, on Sundays,
the whole population of the valley came into the village, gathering
under the four linden trees of the square, people liked to go over to
the shoemaker’s shop and look through the panes to watch the customers.
On account of the love he bore to the mountains, even now he devoted his
best endeavor to the making of mountain lace-shoes. In the inn he used
to say that there was no one who could show him any one else’s mountain
boots that could compare with his own. “They don’t know,” he was
accustomed to add, “and they have never learned it in all their life,
how such a shoe is to be made so that the firmament of the nails shall
fit well on the soles and contain the proper amount of iron, so as to
render the shoe hard on the outside, so that no flint, however sharp,
can be felt through, and so that it on its inside fits the foot as snug
and soft as a glove.”
The shoemaker had a large ledger made for himself in which he entered
all goods he had manufactured, adding the names of those who had
furnished the materials and of those who had bought the finished goods,
together with a brief remark about the quality of the product. Footgear
of the same kind bore their continuous numbers, and the book lay in the
large drawer of his shop.
Even if the beautiful daughter of the Millsdorf dyer did not take a step
outside her parents’ home, and even though she visited neither friends
nor relatives, yet the shoemaker of Gschaid knew how to arrange it so
that she saw him from afar when she walked to church, when she was in
her garden, and when she looked out upon the meadows from the windows of
her room. On account of this unceasing spying the dyer’s wife by dint of
her long and persevering prayers had brought it about that her obstinate
husband yielded and that the shoemaker–as he had, in fact, become a
better man–led the beautiful and wealthy Millsdorf girl home to
Gschaid as his wife. However, the dyer was a man who meant to have his
own way. The right sort of man, he said, ought to ply his trade in a
manner to prosper and ought, therefore, to be able to maintain his wife,
children, himself, and his servants, to keep house and home in good
condition, and yet save a goodly amount–which savings were, after all,
the main aids to honor and dignity in the world. Therefore, he said, his
daughter would receive nothing from home but an excellent outfit; all
else it was and remained the duty of the husband to provide. The dyeing
works in Millsdorf and the farming he carried on were a dignified and
honorable business by themselves which had to exist for their own sake.
All property belonging to them had to serve as capital, for which reason
he would not give away any part of them. But when he, the dyer, and his
wife, were deceased, then both the dye-works and the farm in Millsdorf
would fall to their only daughter, the shoemaker’s wife in Gschaid, and
she and her husband could do with the property what they pleased: they
would inherit it, however, only if worthy of inheriting it; if unworthy,
it would go to their children, and if there were none, to other
relatives, with the exception of the lawful portion. Neither did the
shoemaker demand anything, but proudly gave the dyer to understand that
he had cared but for his beautiful daughter and that he was able to
maintain her as she had been maintained at home. And when she was his
wife, he gave her clothes not only finer than those the women of Gschaid
and the Gschaid valley owned, but also than she had ever worn at home.
And as to food and drink, he insisted on having it better, and her
treatment more considerate than she had enjoyed in her own father’s
house. Moreover, in order to show his independence of his father-in-law,
he bought more and more ground with his savings so that he came to own a
goodly property.
Now, the natives of Gschaid rarely leave their valley, as has been
remarked–hardly even traveling to Millsdorf from which they are
separated by customs as well as by mountain-ridges; besides, it never
happens that a man leaves his valley to settle in a neighboring
one–though settlements at greater distances do take place; neither does
a woman or a girl like to emigrate from one valley into another, except
in the rather rare cases when she follows her love and as wife joins her
husband in another valley. So it happened that the dyer’s daughter from
Millsdorf was ever considered a stranger by all the people of Gschaid,
even after she had become the shoemaker’s wife; and although they never
did her any ill, ay, even loved her on account of her beautiful ways,
yet they always seemed to keep their distance, or, if you will, showed
marked consideration for her, and never became intimate or treated her
as their equal, as men and women of Gschaid did men and women of their
own valley. Thus matters stood and remained, and were not mended by the
better dress and the lighter domestic duties of the shoemaker’s wife.
At the end of the first year, she had born to her husband a son, and
several years afterward, a daughter. She believed, however, that he did
not love his children as she thought he ought to, and as she knew she
loved them herself; for his face was mostly serious and he was chiefly
concerned with his work. He rarely fondled or played with the children
and always spoke seriously to them as one does to adults. With regard to
food and clothes, and other material things, his care for them was above
reproach.
At first, the dyer’s wife frequently came over to Gschaid, and the young
couple in their turn visited Millsdorf on occasion of country-fairs and
other festivities. But when the children came, circumstances were
altered. If mothers love their children and long for them, this is
frequently, and to a much higher degree, the case with grandmothers;
they occasionally long for their grandchildren with an intensity that
borders on morbidness. The dyer’s wife very frequently came over to
Gschaid now, in order to see the children and to bring them presents.
Then she would depart again after giving them kindly advice. But when
her age and health did not any longer permit of these frequent journeys
and the dyer for this reason objected to them, they bethought themselves
of another plan; they changed about, and now the children visited their
grandmother. Frequently, the mother herself took them over in their
carriage; at other times, they were bundled up warmly and driven over
the “neck” under the care of a servant girl. But when they were a little
older, they went to Millsdorf on foot, either in the company of their
mother or of some servant; indeed, when the boy had become strong,
clever, and self-reliant, they let him travel the well-known road over
the “neck” by himself; and, when the weather was specially beautiful and
he begged them, they permitted his little sister to accompany him. This
is customary in Gschaid as the people are hardy pedestrians, and because
parents–especially a man like the shoemaker–like to see their children
able to take care of themselves.
Thus it happened that the two children made the way over the pass more
frequently than all the other villagers together; and inasmuch as their
mother had always been treated as half a stranger in Gschaid, the
children, by this circumstance, grew up to be strangers’ children to the
village folks; they hardly were Gschaid children, but belonged half to
Millsdorf.
The boy, Conrad, had already something of the earnest ways of his
father, and the girl, Susanna, named so after her mother, or Sanna for
brevity, had great faith in his knowledge, understanding, and strength,
and unquestioningly followed where he led, just as her mother absolutely
trusted her husband whom she credited with all possible insight and
ability.
On beautiful mornings, one could see the children walk southward through
the valley, and traverse the meadows toward the point where the forest
of the “neck” looks down on them. They would enter the forest, gain the
height on the road, and before noon come to the open meadows on the
side toward Millsdorf. Conrad then showed Sanna the pastures that
belonged to grandfather, then they walked through his fields in which he
explained to her the various kinds of grain, then they saw the long
cloths wave in the wind and blow into antic shapes as they hung to dry
on poles under the eaves; then they heard the noises of the fullery and
of the tannery which the dyer had built by the brook, then they rounded
a corner of the fields, and very soon entered the garden of the dyer’s
establishment by the back gate, where they were received by grandmother.
She always had a presentiment when the children were coming, looked out
of the windows, and recognized them from afar, whenever Sanna’s red
kerchief shone brightly in the sun.
She led the children through the laundry and the press into the
living-room and had them sit down, not letting them take off their
neckcloths or coats lest they should catch cold, and then kept them for
dinner. After the meal they were allowed to go into the open and play,
and to walk about in the house of their grandparents, or do whatever
else they cared to, provided it was not improper or forbidden. The dyer,
who always ate with them, questioned them about school and impressed
upon them what they ought to learn. In the afternoon, they were urged by
their grandmother to depart even before it was time, so that they should
in no case reach home too late. Although the dyer had given his daughter
no dowry and had vowed not to give away anything of his fortune before
his death, his wife did not hold herself so strictly bound. She not only
frequently made the children presents of pieces of money, sometimes of
considerable value, but also invariably tied two bundles for them to
carry in which there were things she believed were necessary or would
give the children pleasure. And even if the same things were to be found
in the shoemaker’s house and as good as one might wish, yet grandmother
made presents of them in her joy of giving, and the children carried
them home as something especially fine. Thus it happened that the
children on the day before Christmas unwittingly carried home the
presents–well sealed and packed in paste-board boxes–which were
intended for them as their Christmas presents the very same night.
Grandmother’s pressing the children to go before it was time, so that
they should not get home late, had only the effect that they tarried on
the way, now here, now there. They liked to sit by the hazelwoods on the
“neck” and open nuts with stones; or, if there were no nuts, they played
with leaves or pegs or the soft brown cones that drop from the branches
of fir-trees in the beginning of spring. Sometimes, Conrad told his
little sister stories or, when arrived at the red memorial post, would
lead her a short distance up the side-road and tell her that here one
could get on the Snow-Mountain, that up there were great rocks and
stones, that the chamois gamboled and great birds circled about up
there. He often led her out beyond the forest, when they would look at
the dry grass and the small bushes of the heather; but then he returned
with her, invariably bringing her home before twilight, which always
earned him praise.
One winter, on the morning before Christmas, when the first dawn had
passed into day, a thin dry veil was spread over the whole sky so that
one could see the low and distant sun only as an indistinct red spot;
moreover, the air that day was mild, almost genial, and absolute calm
reigned in the entire valley as well as in the heavens, as was indicated
by the unchanging and immobile forms of the clouds. So the shoemaker’s
wife said to her children: “As today is pleasant and it has not rained
for a long time and the roads are hard, and as father gave you
permission yesterday, if the weather continued fine, you may go to visit
grandmother in Millsdorf; but ask father once more.”
The children, who were still standing there in their little nightgowns,
ran into the adjoining room where their father was speaking with a
customer and asked him again for his permission, because it was such a
fine day. It was given and they ran back to their mother.
The shoemaker’s wife now dressed the children carefully, or rather, she
dressed the little girl in snug-fitting warm dresses; for the boy began
to dress himself and was finished long before his mother had the little
girl straightened out. When they were both ready she said: “Now, Conrad,
be nice and careful. As I let your little sister go with you, you must
leave betimes and not remain standing anywhere, and when you have eaten
at grandmother’s you must return at once and come home; for the days are
very short now and the sun sets very soon.”
“Yes, I know, mother,” said Conrad.
“And take good care of Sanna that she does not fall or get over-heated.”
“Yes, mother.”
“Well, then, God bless you, now go to father and tell him you are
leaving.”
The boy slung a bag of calfskin, artfully sewed by his father, about his
shoulders by a strap and the children went into the adjoining room to
say farewell to their father. Soon they issued again and merrily skipped
along the village street, after their mother had once more made the sign
of the cross over them.
Quickly they passed over the square and along the rows of houses, and
finally between the railings of the orchards out into the open. The sun
already stood above the wooded heights that were woven through with
milky wisps of cloud, and its dim reddish disk proceeded along with them
through the leafless branches of the crab-apple trees.
There was no snow in the whole valley, but the higher mountains that had
been glistening with it for many weeks already were thoroughly covered.
The lower ridges, however, remained snowless and silent in the mantle of
their pine forests and the fallow red of their bare branches. The ground
was not frozen yet and would have been entirely dry, after the long dry
period that had been prevailing, if the cold of the season had not
covered it with a film of moisture. This did not render the ground
slippery, however, but rather firm and resilient so that the children
made good progress. The scanty grass still standing on the meadows and
especially along the ditches in them bore the colors of autumn. There
was no frost on the ground and a closer inspection did not reveal any
dew, either, which signifies rain, according to the country people.
Toward the edge of the meadows there was a mountain brook over which led
a high, narrow wooden bridge. The children walked over it and looked
down. There was hardly any water in the brook, only a thin streak of
intensely blue color wound through the dry white pebbles of its stony
bed, and both the small amount and the color of the water indicated that
cold was prevailing in the greater altitudes; for this rendered the soil
on the mountains dry so that it did not make the water of the brook
turbid and hardened the ice so that it could give off but a few clear
drops.
From the bridge, the children passed through the valleys in the hills
and came closer and closer to the woods. Finally they reached the edge
of the woods and walked on through them.
When they had climbed up into the higher woodlands of the “neck,” the
long furrows of the road were no longer soft, as had been the case in
the valley, but were firm, not from dryness, but, as the children soon
perceived, because they were frozen over. In some places, the frost had
rendered them so hard that they could bear the weight of their bodies.
From now on, they did not persist any longer in the slippery path beside
the road, but in the ruts, as children will, trying whether this or that
furrow would carry them. When, after an hour’s time, they had arrived at
the height of the “neck,” the ground was so hard that their steps
resounded on it and the clods were hard like stones.
Arrived at the location of the memorial post, Sanna was the first to
notice that it stood no longer there. They went up to the spot and saw
that the round, red-painted post which carried the picture was lying in
the dry grass which stood there like thin straw and concealed the fallen
post from view. They could not understand, to be sure, why it had
toppled over–whether it had been knocked down or fallen of itself; but
they did see that the wood was much decayed at the place where it
emerged from the ground and that the post might therefore easily have
fallen of itself. Since it was lying there, however, they were pleased
that they could get a closer look at the picture and the inscription
than they had ever had before. When they had examined all–the basket
with the rolls, the whitish hands of the baker, his closed eyes, his
gray coat and the pine-trees surrounding him–and when they had spelt
out and read aloud the inscription, they proceeded on their way.
After another hour, the dark forest on either side receded, scattered
trees, some of them isolated oaks, others birches, and clumps of bushes,
received them and accompanied them onward, and after a short while the
children were running down through the meadows of the valley of
Millsdorf.
Although this valley is not as high, by far, as the valley of Gschaid
and so much warmer that they could begin harvesting two weeks earlier
than in Gschaid, the ground was frozen here too; and when the children
had come to the tannery and the fulling-mill of their grandfather,
pretty little cakes of ice were lying on the road where it was
frequently spattered by drops from the wheels. That is usually a great
pleasure for children.
Grandmother had seen them coming and had gone to meet them. She took
Sanna by her cold little hands and led her into the room.
She made them take off their heavy outer garments, ordered more wood to
be put in the stove, and asked them what had happened on the way over.
When they had told her she said: “That’s nice and good, and I am very
glad that you have come again; but today you must be off early, the day
is short and it is growing colder. Only this morning there was no frost
in Millsdorf.”
“Not in Gschaid, either,” said the boy.
“There you see. On that account you must hurry so that you will not grow
too cold in the evening,” said grandmother.
Then she asked how mother was and how father was, and whether anything
particular had happened in Gschaid.
After having questioned them she devoted herself to the preparation of
dinner, made sure that it would be ready at an earlier time than usual,
and herself prepared tidbits for the children which she knew would give
them pleasure. Then the master dyer was called. Covers were set on the
table for the children as for grown-up people and then they ate with
grandfather and grandmother, and the latter helped them to particularly
good things. After the meal, she stroked Sanna’s cheeks which had grown
quite red, meanwhile.
Thereupon she went busily to and fro packing the boy’s knapsack till it
was full and, besides, stuffed all kinds of things into his pockets.
Also in Sanna’s little pockets she put all manner of things. She gave
each a piece of bread to eat on the way and in the knapsack, she said,
there were two more pieces of wheat bread, in case they should grow too
hungry.
“For mother, I have given you some well-roasted coffee,” she said, “and
in the little bottle that is stoppered and tightly wrapped up there is
also some black coffee, better than mother usually makes over at your
house. Just let her taste it; it is a veritable medicine tonic, so
strong that one swallow of it will warm up the stomach, so that the body
will not grow cold on the coldest of winter days. The other things in
the pasteboard-box and those that are wrapped up in paper in the
knapsack you are to bring home without touching.”
After having talked with the children a little while longer she bade
them go.
“Take good care, Sanna,” she said, “that you don’t get chilled, you
mustn’t get overheated. And don’t you run up along the meadows and under
the trees. Probably there will be some wind toward evening, and then you
must walk more slowly. Greet father and mother and wish them a right
merry Christmas.”
Grandmother kissed both children on their cheeks and pushed them through
the door. Nevertheless she herself went along, accompanied them through
the garden, let them out by the back gate, closed it behind them, and
went back into the house.
The children walked past the cakes of ice beside grandfather’s mill,
passed through the fields of Millsdorf, and turned upward toward the
meadows.
When they were passing along the heights where, as has been said, stood
scattered trees and clumps of bushes there fell, quite slowly, some few
snow-flakes.
“Do you see, Sanna,” said the boy, “I had thought right away that we
would have snow; do you remember, when we left home, how the sun was a
bloody red like the lamp hanging at the Holy Sepulchre; and now nothing
is to be seen of it any more, and only the gray mist is above the
tree-tops. That always means snow.”
The children walked on more gladly and Sanna was happy whenever she
caught a falling flake on the dark sleeves of her coat and the flake
stayed there a long time before melting. When they had finally arrived
at the outermost edge of the Millsdorf heights where the road enters the
dark pines of the “neck” the solid front of the forest was already
prettily sprinkled by the flakes falling ever more thickly. They now
entered the dense forest which extended over the longest part of the
journey still ahead of them.
From the edge of the forest the ground continues to rise up to the point
where one reaches the red memorial post, when the road leads downward
toward the valley of Gschaid. In fact, the slope of the forest from the
Millsdorf side is so steep that the road does not gain the height by a
straight line but climbs up in long serpentines from west to east and
from east to west. The whole length of the road up to the post and down
to the meadows of Gschaid leads through tall, dense woods without a
clearing which grow less heavy as one comes down on the level again and
issues from them near the meadows of the valley of Gschaid. Indeed, the
“neck,” though being only a small ridge connecting two great mountain
masses, is yet large enough to appear a considerable mountain itself if
it were placed in the plain.
The first observation the children made when entering the woods was that
the frozen ground appeared gray as though powdered with flour, and that
the beards of the dry grass-stalks standing here and there between the
trees by the road-side were weighted down with snow-flakes; while on the
many green twigs of the pines and firs opening up like hands there sat
little white flames.
“Is it snowing at home, too, I wonder?” asked Sanna. “Of course,”
answered the boy, “and it is growing colder, too, and you will see that
the whole pond is frozen over by tomorrow.”
“Yes, Conrad,” said the girl.
She hastened her steps to keep up with the boy striding along.
They now continued steadily up along the serpentines, now from west to
east and again from east to west. The wind predicted by grandmother did
not come; on the contrary, the air was so still that not a branch or
twig was moving. In fact, it seemed warmer in the forest, as, in
general, loose bodies with air-spaces between, such as a forest, are in
winter. The snow-flakes descended ever more copiously so that the ground
was altogether white already and the woods began to appear dappled with
gray, while snow lay on the garments of the children.
Both were overjoyed. They stepped upon the soft down, and looked for
places where there was a thicker layer of it, in order to tread on them
and make it appear as if they were wading in it already. They did not
shake off the snow from their clothes.
A great stillness had set in. There was nothing to be seen of any bird
although some do flit to and fro through the forest in winter-time and
the children on their way to Millsdorf had even heard some twitter. The
whole forest seemed deserted.
As theirs were the only tracks and the snow in front of them was untrod
and immaculate they understood that they were the only ones crossing the
“neck” that day.
They proceeded onward, now approaching, now leaving the trees. Where
there was dense undergrowth they could see the snow lying upon it.
Their joy was still growing, for the flakes descended ever more densely,
and after a short time they needed no longer to search for places to
wade in the snow, for it was so thick already that they felt it soft
under their soles and up around their shoes. And when all was so silent
and peaceful it seemed to them that they could hear the swish of the
snow falling upon the needles.
“Shall we see the post today?” asked the girl, “because it has fallen
down, you know, and then the snow will fall on it and the red color will
be white.”
“We shall be able to see it though, for that matter,” replied the boy;
“even if the snow falls upon it and it becomes white all over we are
bound to see it, because it is a thick post, and because it has the
black iron cross on its top which will surely stick out.”
“Yes, Conrad.”
Meanwhile, as they had proceeded still farther, the snowfall had become
so dense that they could see only the very nearest trees.
No hardness of the road, not to mention its ruts, was to be felt, the
road was everywhere equally soft with snow and was, in fact,
recognizable only as an even white band running on through the forest.
On all the branches there lay already the beautiful white covering.
The children now walked in the middle of the road, furrowing the snow
with their little feet and proceeding more slowly as the walking became
more tiresome. The boy pulled up his jacket about his throat so that no
snow should fall in his neck, and pulled down his hat so as to be more
protected. He also fastened his little sister’s neckerchief which her
mother had given her to wear over her shoulders, pulling it forward over
her forehead so that it formed a roof.
The wind predicted by grandmother still had not come, on the other hand,
the snowfall gradually became so dense that not even the nearest trees
were to be recognized, but stood there like misty sacks.
The children went on. They drew up their shoulders and walked on.
Sanna took hold of the strap by which Conrad had his calfskin bag
fastened about his shoulders and thus they proceeded on their way.
They still had not reached the post. The boy was not sure about the
time, because the sun was not shining and all was a monotonous gray.
“Shall we reach the post soon?” asked the girl.
“I don’t know,” said the boy, “I can’t see the trees today and recognize
the way, because it is so white. We shall not see the post at all,
perhaps, because there is so much snow that it will be covered up and
scarcely a blade of grass or an arm of the black cross will show. But
never mind. We just continue on our road, and the road goes between the
trees and when it gets to the spot where the post stands it will go
down, and we shall keep on it, and when it comes out of the trees we are
already on the meadows of Gschaid, then comes the path, and then we
shall not be far from home.”
“Yes, Conrad,” said the girl.
They proceeded along their road which still led upward. The footprints
they left behind them did not remain visible long, for the extraordinary
volume of the descending snow soon covered them up. The snow no longer
rustled, in falling upon the needles, but hurriedly and peacefully added
itself to the snow already there. The, children gathered their garments
still more tightly about them, in order to keep the steadily falling
snow from coming in on all sides.
They walked on very fast, and still the road led upward. After a long
time they still had not reached the height on which the post was
supposed to be, and from where the road was to descend toward Gschaid.
Finally the children came to a region where there were no more trees.
“I see no more trees,” said Sanna.
“Perhaps the road is so broad that we cannot see them on account of the
snow,” answered the boy.
“Yes, Conrad,” said the girl.
After a while the boy remained standing and said: “I don’t see any trees
now myself, we must have got out of the woods, and also the road keeps
on rising. Let us stand still a while and look about, perhaps we may see
something.” But they perceived nothing. They saw the sky only through a
dim space. Just as in a hailstorm gloomy fringes hang down over the
white or greenish swollen clouds, thus it was here, and the noiseless
falling continued. On the ground they saw only a round spot of white and
nothing else.
“Do you know, Sanna,” said the boy, “we are on the dry grass I often led
you up to in summer, where we used to sit and look at the pasture-land
that leads up gradually and where the beautiful herbs grow. We shall now
at once go down there on the right.”
“Yes, Conrad.”
“The day is short, as grandmother said, and as you well know yourself,
and so we must hurry.”
“Yes, Conrad,” said the girl.
“Wait a little and I will fix you a little better,” replied the boy.
He took off his hat, put it on Sanna’s head and fastened it with both
ribbons under her chin. The kerchief she had worn protected her too
little, while on his head there was such a mass of dense curls that the
snow could fall on it for a long time before the wet and cold would
penetrate. Then he took off his little fur-jacket and drew it over her
little arms. About his own shoulders and arms which now showed the bare
shirt he tied the little kerchief Sauna had worn over her chest and the
larger one she had had over her shoulders. That was enough for himself,
he thought, and if he only stepped briskly he should not be cold.
He took the little girl by her hand, so they marched on. The girl with
her docile little eyes looked out into the monotonous gray round about
and gladly followed him, only her little hurrying feet could not keep up
with his, for he was striding onward like one who wanted to decide a
matter once for all.
Thus they proceeded with the unremitting energy children and animals
have as they do not realize how far their strength will carry them, and
when their supply of it will give out.
But as they went on they did not notice whether they were going down or
up. They had turned down to the right at once, but they came again to
places that led up. Often they encountered steep places which they were
forced to avoid, and a trench in which they continued led them about in
a curve. They climbed heights which grew ever steeper as they proceeded,
and what they thought led downward was level ground, or it was a
depression, or the way went on in an even stretch.
“Where are we, I wonder, Conrad?” asked the girl.
“I don’t know,” he answered. “If I only could see something with my
eyes,” he continued, “that I could take my direction from.”
But there was nothing about them but the blinding white, white
everywhere which drew an ever narrowing circle about them, passing,
beyond it, into a luminous mist descending in bands which consumed and
concealed all objects beyond, until there was nothing but the
unceasingly descending snow.
“Wait, Sanna,” said the boy, “let us stand still for a moment and
listen, perhaps we might hear a sound from the valley, a dog, or a bell,
or the mill, or a shout, something we must hear, and then we shall know
which way to go.”
So they remained standing, but they heard nothing. They remained
standing a little longer, but nothing came, not a single sound, not the
faintest noise beside their own breath, aye, in the absolute stillness
they thought they could hear the snow as it fell on their eyelashes. The
prediction of grandmother had still not come true; no wind had arisen,
in fact, what is rare in those regions, not a breath of air was
stirring.
After having waited for a long time they went on again.
“Never mind, Sanna,” said the boy, “don’t be afraid, just follow me and
I shall lead you down yet.–If only it would stop snowing!”
The little girl was not faint-hearted, but lifted her little feet as
well as she could and followed him. He led her on in the white, bright,
living, opaque space.
After a time they saw rocks. Darkling and indistinct they loomed up out
of the white opaque light. As the children approached they almost bumped
against them. They rose up like walls and were quite perpendicular so
that scarcely a flake of snow could settle on them.
“Sanna, Sanna,” he said, “there are the rocks, just let us keep on, let
us keep on.”
They went on, had to enter in between the rocks and push on at their
base. The rocks would let them escape neither to left nor right and led
them on in a narrow path. After a while the children lost sight of them.
They got away from the rocks as unexpectedly as they had got among them.
Again, nothing surrounded them but white, no more dark forms interposed.
They moved in what seemed a great brightness and yet could not see three
feet ahead, everything being, as it were, enveloped in a white darkness,
and as there were no shadows no opinion about the size of objects was
possible. The children did not know whether they were to descend or
ascend until some steep slope compelled their feet to climb.
“My eyes smart,” said Sanna.
“Don’t look on the snow,” answered the boy, “but into the clouds. Mine
have hurt a long time already; but it does not matter, because I must
watch our way. But don’t be afraid, I shall lead you safely down to
Gschaid.”
“Yes, Conrad.”
They went on; but wheresoever they turned, whichever way they turned,
there never showed a chance to descend. On either side steep acclivities
hemmed them in, and also made them constantly ascend. Whenever they
turned downward the slopes proved so precipitous that they were
compelled to retreat. Frequently they met obstacles and often had to
avoid steep slopes.
They began to notice that whenever their feet sank in through the new
snow they no longer felt the rocky soil underneath but something else
which seemed like older, frozen snow; but still they pushed onward and
marched fast and perseveringly. Whenever they made a halt everything was
still, unspeakably still. When they resumed their march they heard the
shuffling of their feet and nothing else; for the veils of heaven
descended without a sound, and so abundantly that one might have seen
the snow grow. The children themselves were covered with it so that they
did not contrast with the general whiteness and would have lost each
other from sight had they been separated but a few feet.
A comfort it was that the snow was as dry as sand so that it did not
adhere to their boots and stockings or cling and wet them.
At last they approached some other objects. They were gigantic fragments
lying in wild confusion and covered with snow sifting everywhere into
the chasms between them. The children almost touched them before seeing
them. They went up to them to examine what they were.
It was ice–nothing but ice.
There were snow-covered slabs on whose lateral edges the smooth green
ice became visible; there were hillocks that looked like heaped-up
foam, but whose inward-looking crevices had a dull sheen and lustre as
if bars and beams of gems had been flung pellmell. There rose rounded
hummocks that were entirely enveloped in snow, slabs and other forms
that stood inclined or in a perpendicular position, towering as high as
houses or the church of Gschaid. In some, cavities were hollowed out
through which one could insert an arm, a head, a body, a whole big wagon
full of hay. All these were jumbled together and tilted so that they
frequently formed roofs or eaves whose edges the snow overlaid and over
which it reached down like long white paws. Nay, even a monstrous black
boulder as large as a house lay stranded among the blocks of ice and
stood on end so that no snow could stick to its sides. And even larger
ones which one saw only later were fast in the ice and skirted the
glacier like a wall of debris.
“There must have been very much water here, because there is so much
ice,” remarked Sanna.
“No, that did not come from any water,” replied her brother, “that is
the ice of the mountain which is always on it, because that is the way
things are.”
“Yes, Conrad,” said Sanna.
“We have come to the ice now,” said the boy; “we are on the mountain,
you know, Sanna, that one sees so white in the sunshine from our garden.
Now keep in mind what I shall tell you. Do you remember how often we
used to sit in the garden, in the afternoon, how beautiful it was, how
the bees hummed about us, how the linden-trees smelled sweet, and how
the sun shone down on us?”
“Yes, Conrad, I remember.”
“And then we also used to see the mountain. We saw how blue it was, as
blue as the sky, we saw the snow that is up there even when we had
summer-weather, when it was hot and the grain ripened.”
“Yes, Conrad.”
“And below it where the snow stopped one sees all sorts of colors if one
looks close–green, blue, and whitish–that is the ice; but it only
looks so small from below, because it is so very far away. Father said
the ice will not go away before the end of the world. And then I also
often saw that there was blue color below the ice and thought it was
stones, or soil and pasture-land, and then come the woods, and they go
down farther and farther, and there are some boulders in them too, and
then come meadows that are already green, and then the green
leafy-woods, and then our meadow-lands and fields in the valley of
Gschaid. Do you see now, Sanna, as we are at the ice we shall go down
over the blue color, and through the forests in which are the boulders,
and then over the pasture-land, and through the green leafy-forests, and
then we shall be in the valley of Gschaid and easily find our way to the
village.”
“Yes, Conrad,” said the girl.
The children now entered upon the glacier where it was accessible. They
were like wee little pricks wandering among the huge masses.
As they were peering in under the overhanging slabs, moved as it were by
an instinct to seek some shelter, they arrived at a trench, broad and
deeply furrowed, which came right out of the ice. It looked like the bed
of some torrent now dried up and everywhere covered with fresh snow. At
the spot where it emerged from the ice there yawned a vault of ice
beautifully arched above it. The children continued in the trench and,
entering the vault, went in farther and farther. It was quite dry and
there was smooth ice under their feet. All the cavern, however, was
blue, bluer than anything else in the world, more profoundly and more
beautifully blue than the sky, as blue as azure glass through which a
bright glow is diffused. There were more or less heavy flutings, icicles
hung down pointed and tufted, and the passage led inward still farther,
they knew not how far; but they did not go on. It would also have been
pleasant to stay in this grotto, it was warm and no snow could come in;
but it was so fearfully blue that the children took fright and ran out
again. They went on a while in the trench and then clambered over its
side.
They passed along the ice, as far as it was possible to edge through
that chaos of fragments and boulders.
“We shall now have to pass over this, and then we shall run down away
from the ice,” said Conrad.
“Yes,” said Sanna and clung to him.
From the ice they took a direction downward over the snow which was to
lead them into the valley. But they were not to get far. Another river
of ice traversed the soft snow like a gigantic wall bulging up and
towering aloft and, as it were, reaching out with its arms to the right
and the left. It was covered by snow on top, but at its sides there were
gleams of blue and green and drab and black, aye, even of yellow and
red. They could now see to larger distances, as the enormous and
unceasing snowfall had abated somewhat and was only as heavy as on
ordinary snowy days. With the audacity of ignorance they clambered up on
the ice in order to cross the interposing tongue of the glacier and to
descend farther behind it. They thrust their little bodies into every
opening, they put their feet on every projection covered by a white
snow-hood, whether ice or rock, they aided their progress with their
hands, they crept where they could not walk, and with their light bodies
worked themselves up until they had finally gained the top of the wall.
They had intended to climb down its other side.
There was no other side.
As far as the eyes of the children reached there was only ice. Hummocks,
slabs, and spires of ice rose about them, all covered with snow. Instead
of being a wall which one might surmount and which would be followed by
an expanse of snow, as they had thought, new walls of ice lifted up out
of the glacier, shattered and fissured and variegated with innumerable
blue sinuous lines; and behind them were other walls of the same nature,
and behind them others again, until the falling snow veiled the distance
with its gray.
“Sanna, we cannot make our way here,” said the boy. “No,” answered his
sister.
“Then we will turn back and try to get down somewhere else.”
“Yes, Conrad.”
The children now tried to climb down from the ice-wall where they had
clambered up, but they did not succeed. There was ice all about them, as
if they had mistaken the direction from which they had come. They turned
hither and thither and were not able to extricate themselves from the
ice. It was as if they were entangled in it. At last, when the boy
followed the direction they had, as he thought, come, they reached more
scattered boulders, but they were also larger and more awe-inspiring, as
is usually the case at the edge of the glacier. Creeping and clambering,
the children managed to issue from the ice. At the rim of the glacier
there were enormous boulders, piled in huge heaps, such as the children
had never yet seen. Many were covered all over with snow, others showed
their slanting under-sides which were very smooth and finely polished as
if they had been shoved along on them, many were inclined toward one
another like huts and roofs, many lay upon one another like mighty
clods. Not far from where the children stood, several boulders were
inclined together, and over them lay broad slabs like a roof. The little
house they thus formed was open in front, but protected in the rear and
on both sides. The interior was dry, as not a single snow-flake had
drifted in. The children were very glad that they were no longer in the
ice, but stood on the ground again.
But meanwhile it had been growing dark.
“Sanna,” said the boy, “we shall not be able to go down today, because
it has become night, and because we might fall or even drop into some
pit. We will go in under those stones where it is so dry and warm, and
there we will wait. The sun will soon rise again, and then we shall run
down from the mountain. Don’t cry, please, don’t cry, and I shall give
you all the things to eat which grandmother has given us to take
along.”
The little girl did not weep. After they had entered under the stone
roof where they could not only sit comfortably, but also stand and walk
about she seated herself close to him and kept very quiet.
“Mother will not be angry,” said Conrad, “we shall tell her of the heavy
snow that has kept us, and she will say nothing; father will not,
either. And if we grow cold, why then we must slap our hands to our
bodies as the woodcutters did, and then we shall grow warm again.”
“Yes, Conrad,” said the girl.
Sanna was not at all so inconsolable because they could not run down the
mountain and get home as he might have thought; for the immense
exertion, of whose severity the children hardly had any conception, made
the very sitting down seem sweet to them, unspeakably sweet, and they
did not resist.
But now hunger asserted itself imperiously. Almost at the same time,
both took their pieces of bread from their pockets and began to eat.
They ate also the other things, such as little pieces of cake, almonds,
raisins, and other trifles, which grandmother had put into their
pockets.
“Sanna, now we must clean the snow from our clothes,” said the boy, “so
that we shall not become wet.”
“Yes, Conrad,” replied Sanna.
The children went before their little house. Conrad first brushed off
his little sister. He grasped the corners of her coat and shook them,
took off the hat he had put on her head, emptied it of snow and wiped
off the snow that remained in it. Then he rid himself as best he could
of the snow that lay on him.
At that time it had entirely stopped snowing. The children could not
feel one flake descending.
They returned into their stone-hut and sat down. Getting up had showed
them how tired they really were, and they were glad to sit down again.
Conrad laid down the calfskin bag which he had strapped on his
shoulders. He took out the cloth in which grandmother had wrapped a
pasteboard-box and several paper packages and put it about his
shoulders for greater warmth. He also took the two pieces of wheat-bread
out of his wallet and gave Sanna both. The child ate them most eagerly.
A part of them, however, she gave back to Conrad as she saw he was not
eating anything. He accepted it and ate it.
From that time on, the children merely sat and looked. As far as the eye
could reach in the twilight there was nothing but snow, whose minute
crystals began to scintillate in a strange manner as if they had
absorbed the light of day and were emitting it again now.
Night fell with the rapidity usual in high altitudes. Soon it was dark
all about, only the snow continued to glimmer faintly. Not only had it
stopped snowing but the clouds began to grow thin and to part, for the
children saw the gleam of a star. As the snow really emitted light, as
it were, and the clouds no longer hung down from the sky, they could see
from their cave how the snowy hillocks round about were sharply outlined
against the dark sky. The cave was warmer than it had been at any other
place during the day, and so the children rested, clinging closely to
each other and even forgot to be afraid of the darkness. Soon the stars
multiplied, they gleamed forth now here, now there, until it seemed that
there was not a single cloud left in the whole sky.
This was the moment when people in the valleys are accustomed to light
their candles. At first, only one is kindled, in order to make light in
the room; or, possibly, only a pine-splinter; or the fire is burning in
the hearth, and all windows of human habitations grow bright and shed
lustre into the snowy night; but all the more tonight, Christmas
evening, when many more lights were kindled, in order to shine full upon
the presents for the children which lay upon the tables or hung on the
trees–innumerable candles were lit; for in nearly every house, every
cot, every room, there were children for whom the Christ-child had
brought presents which had to be shown by the light of candles.
The boy had thought one could very quickly come down from the mountain
and yet, not a single one of the lights burning that night in the valley
shone up to them. They saw nothing but the pale snow and the dark sky,
all else was rendered invisible by the distance. At this hour, the
children in all valleys were receiving their Christmas presents. These
two alone sat up there by the edge of the glacier and the finest
presents meant for them on this day lay in little sealed packages in the
calfskin bag in the rear of the cave.
The snow-clouds had sunk below the mountains on all sides and a vault
entirely dark-blue, almost black, full of densely clustered burning
stars extended above the children; and through the midst of them was
woven a shimmering broad milky band which they had, indeed, seen also
below in the valley, but never so distinctly. The night was advancing.
The children did not know that the stars change their position and move
toward the west, else they might have recognized the hour of night by
their progress. New stars came and the old ones disappeared, but they
believed them to be always the same. It grew somewhat brighter about the
children by the radiance of the stars; but they saw no valley, no known
places, but everywhere white–only white. Only some dark peak, some dark
knob became visible looming up out of the shimmering waste. The moon was
nowhere to be seen in the heavens, perhaps it had set early with the
sun, or it had not yet risen.
After a long time the boy said: “Sanna, you must not sleep; for do you
remember what father said, that if one sleeps in the mountains one will
freeze to death, as the old hunter slept and sat four months dead on
that stone and no one had known where he was.”
“No, I shall not sleep,” said the little girl feebly. Conrad had shaken
her by a corner of her coat, in order to make her listen to his words.
Then there was silence again.
After a little while, the boy felt a soft pressure against his arm which
became ever heavier. Sanna had fallen asleep and had sunk over toward
him.
“Sanna, don’t sleep, please, don’t sleep!” he said.
“No,” she mumbled drowsily, “I shall not sleep.”
He moved farther away from her, in order to make her move; she toppled
over and would have continued sleeping on the ground. He took hold of
her shoulder and shook her. As he moved a little more, he noticed that
he was feeling cold himself and that his arm had grown numb. He was
frightened and jumped up. He seized his sister, shook her more
vigorously and said, “Sanna, get up a little, we want to stand up a
little so that we shall feel better.”
“I am not cold, Conrad,” she answered.
“Yes indeed you are, Sanna, get up,” he cried.
“My fur-jacket is warm,” she said.
“I shall help you up,” he said.
“No,” she replied, and lay still.
Then something else occurred to the boy. Grandmother had said: “Just one
little mouthful of it will warm the stomach so that one’s body will not
be cold on the coldest winter day.”
He reached for his little calfskin knapsack, opened it, and groped
around in it until he found the little flask into which grandmother had
put the black coffee for mother. He took away the wrappings from the
bottle and with some exertion uncorked it. Then he bent down to Sanna
and said: “Here is the coffee that grandmother sends mother, taste a
little of it, it will make you feel warm. Mother would give it to us if
she knew what we needed it for.”
The little girl, who was by nature inclined to be passive, answered, “I
am not cold.”
“Just take a little,” urged the boy, “and then you may go to sleep
again.”
This expectation tempted Sanna and she mastered herself so far that she
took a swallow of the liquor. Then the boy drank a little, too.
The exceedingly strong extract took effect at once and all the more
powerfully as the children had never in their life tasted coffee.
Instead of going to sleep, Sanna became more active and acknowledged
that she was cold, but that she felt nice and warm inside, and that the
warmth was already passing into her hands and feet. The children even
spoke a while together.
In this fashion they drank ever more of the liquor in spite of its
bitter taste as the effect of it began to die away and roused their
nerves to a fever heat which was able to counteract their utter
weariness.
It had become midnight, meanwhile. As they still were so young, and
because on every Christmas eve in the excess of their joy they went to
bed very late and only after being overcome by sleep, they never had
heard the midnight tolling, and never the organ of the church when holy
mass was being celebrated, although they lived close by. At this moment
of the Holy Night, all bells were being rung, the bells of Millsdorf
were ringing, the bells of Gschaid were ringing, and behind the mountain
there was still another church whose three bells were pealing brightly.
In the distant lands outside the valley there were innumerable churches
and bells, and all of them were ringing at this moment, from village to
village the wave of sound traveled, from one village to another one
could hear the peal through the bare branches of the trees; but up to
the children there came not a sound, nothing was heard here, for nothing
was to be announced here. In the winding valleys, the lights of lanterns
gleamed along the mountain-slopes, and from many a farm came the sound
of the farm bell to rouse the hands. But far less could all this be seen
and heard up here. Only the stars gleamed and calmly twinkled and shone.
Even though Conrad kept before his mind the fate of the huntsman who was
frozen to death, and even though the children had almost emptied the
bottle of black coffee–which necessarily would bring on a corresponding
relaxation afterwards, they would not have been able to conquer their
desire for sleep, whose seductive sweetness outweighs all arguments
against it, had not nature itself in all its grandeur assisted them and
in its own depths awakened a force which was able to cope with sleep.
In the enormous stillness that reigned about them, a silence in which no
snow-crystal seemed to move, the children heard three times the bursting
of the ice. That which seems the most rigid of all things and yet is
most flexible and alive, the glacier, had produced these sounds. Thrice
they heard behind them a crash, terrific as if the earth were rent
asunder,–a sound that ramified through the ice in all directions and
seemed to penetrate all its veins. The children remained sitting
open-eyed and looked out upon the stars.
Their eyes also were kept busy. As the children sat there, a pale light
began to blossom forth on the sky before them among the stars and
extended a flat arc through them. It had a greenish tinge which
gradually worked downward. But the arc became ever brighter until the
stars paled in it. It sent a luminosity also into other regions of the
heavens which shed greenish beams softly and actively among the stars.
Then, sheaves of vari-colored light stood in burning radiance on the
height of the arc like the spikes of a crown. Mildly it flowed through
the neighboring regions of the heavens, it flashed and showered softly,
and in gentle vibrations extended through vast spaces. Whether now the
electric matter of the atmosphere had become so tense by the unexampled
fall of snow that it resulted in this silent, splendid efflorescence of
light, or whether some other cause of unfathomable nature may be
assigned as reason for the phenomenon–however that be: gradually the
light grew weaker and weaker, first the sheaves died down, until by
unnoticeable degrees it grew ever less and there was nothing in the
heavens but the thousands upon thousands of simple stars.
The children never exchanged a word, but remained sitting and gazed
open-eyed into the heavens.
Nothing particular happened afterward. The stars gleamed and shone and
twinkled, only an occasional shooting star traversed them.
At last, after the stars had shone alone for a long time, and nothing
had been seen of the moon, something else happened. The sky began to
grow brighter, slowly but recognizably brighter; its color became
visible, the faintest stars disappeared and the others were not
clustered so densely any longer. Finally, also the bigger stars faded
away, and the snow on the heights became more distinct. Now, one region
of the heavens grew yellow and a strip of cloud floating in it was
inflamed to a glowing line. All things became clearly visible and the
remote snow-hills assumed sharp outlines.
“Sanna, day is breaking,” said the boy.
“Yes, Conrad,” answered the girl.
“After it grows just a bit brighter we shall go out of the cave and run
down from the mountain.”
It grew brighter, no star was visible any longer, and all things stood
out clear in the dawn.
“Well, then, let us go,” said the boy.
“Yes, let us go,” answered Sanna.
The children arose and tried their limbs which only now felt their
tiredness. Although they had not slept, the morning had reinvigorated
them. The boy slung the calfskin bag around his shoulder and fastened
Sanna’s fur-jacket about her. Then he led her out of the cave.
As they had believed it would be an easy matter to run down from the
mountain they had not thought of eating and had not searched the bag, to
see whether it contained any wheat-bread or other eatables.
The sky being clear, Conrad had wanted to look down from the mountain
into the valleys in order to recognize the valley of Gschaid and descend
to it. But he saw no valleys whatever. He seemed not to stand on any
mountain from which one can look down, but in some strange, curious
country in which there were only unknown objects. Today they saw awful
rocks stand up out of the snow at some distance which they had not seen
the day before; they saw the glacier, they saw hummocks and slanting
snow-fields, and behind these, either the sky or the blue peak of some
very distant mountain above the edge of the snowy horizon.
At this moment the sun arose.
A gigantic, bloody red disk emerged above the white horizon and
immediately the snow about the children blushed as if it had been strewn
with millions of roses. The knobs and pinnacles of the mountain cast
very long and greenish shadows along the snow.
“Sanna, we shall go on here, until we come to the edge of the mountain
and can look down,” said the boy.
They went farther into the snow. In the clear night, it had become still
drier and easily yielded to their steps. They waded stoutly on. Their
limbs became even more elastic and strong as they proceeded, but they
came to no edge and could not look down. Snowfield succeeded snowfield,
and at the end of each always shone the sky.
They continued nevertheless.
Before they knew it, they were on the glacier again. They did not know
how the ice had got there, but they felt the ground smooth underfoot,
and although there were not such awful boulders as in the moraine where
they had passed the night, yet they were aware of the glacier being
underneath them, they saw the blocks growing ever larger and coming ever
nearer, forcing them to clamber again.
Yet they kept on in the same direction.
Again they were clambering up some boulders; again they stood on the
glacier. Only today, in the bright sunlight, could they see what it was
like. It was enormously large, and beyond it, again, black rocks soared
aloft. Wave heaved behind wave, as it were, the snowy ice was crushed,
raised up, swollen as if it pressed onward and were flowing toward the
children. In the white of it they perceived innumerable advancing wavy
blue lines. Between those regions where the icy masses rose up, as if
shattered against each other, there were lines like paths, and these
were strips of firm ice or places where the blocks of ice had not been
screwed up very much. The children followed these paths as they intended
to cross part of the glacier, at least, in order to get to the edge of
the mountain and at last have a glimpse down. They said not a word. The
girl followed in the footsteps of the boy. The place where they had
meant to cross grew ever broader, it seemed. Giving up their direction,
they began, to retreat. Where they could not walk they broke with their
hands through the masses of snow which often gave way before their eyes,
revealing the intense blue of a crevasse where all had been pure white
before. But they did not mind this and labored on until they again
emerged from the ice somewhere.
“Sanna,” said the boy, “we shall not go into the ice again at all,
because we cannot make our way in it. And because we cannot look down
into our valley, anyway, we want to go down from the mountain in a
straight line. We must come into some valley, and there we shall tell
people that we are from Gschaid and they will show us the way home.”
“Yes, Conrad,” said the girl.
So they began to descend on the snow in the direction which its slope
offered them. The boy led the little girl by her hand. However, after
having descended some distance, the slope no longer followed that
direction and the snowfield rose again. The children, therefore, changed
their direction and descended toward a shallow basin. But there they
struck ice again. So they climbed up along the side of the basin in
order to seek a way down in some other direction. A slope led them
downward, but that gradually became so steep that they could scarcely
keep a footing and feared lest they should slide down. So they retraced
their steps upward to find some other way down. After having clambered
up the snowfield a long time and then continuing along an even ridge,
they found it to be as before: either the snow sloped so steeply that
they would have fallen, or it ascended so that they feared it would lead
to the very peak of the mountain. And thus it continued to be.
Then they had the idea of finding the direction from which they had come
and of descending to the red post. As it is not snowing and the sky is
bright, thought the boy, they should be able, after all, to see the spot
where the post ought to be, and to descend down from it to Gschaid.
The boy told his little sister his thought and she followed him.
But the way down to the “neck” was not to be found.
However clear the sun shone, however beautifully the snowy heights stood
there, and the fields of snow lay there, yet they could not recognize
the places over which they had come the day before. Yesterday, all had
been veiled by the immense snowfall, so they had scarcely seen a couple
of feet ahead of them, and then all had been a mingled white and gray.
They had seen only the rocks along and between which they had passed;
but today also they had seen many rocks and they all resembled those
they had seen the day before. Today, they left fresh tracks behind them
in the snow; yesterday, all tracks had been obliterated by the falling
snow. Neither could they gather from the aspect of things which way they
had to return to the “neck,” since all places looked alike. Snow and
snow again. But on they marched and hoped to succeed in the end. They
avoided the declivities and did not attempt to climb steep slopes.
Today also they frequently stood still to listen; but they heard
nothing, not the slightest sound. Neither was anything to be seen
excepting the dazzling snow from which emerged, here and there, black
peaks and ribs of rock.
At last the boy thought he saw a flame skipping over a far-away
snow-slope. It bobbed up and dipped down again. Now they saw it, and
then again they did not. They remained standing and steadfastly gazed in
that direction. The flame kept on skipping up and down and seemed to be
approaching, for they saw it grow bigger and skipping more plainly. It
did not disappear so often and for so long a time as before. After
awhile they heard in the still blue air faintly, very faintly, something
like the long note of a shepherd’s horn. As if from instinct, both
children shouted aloud. A little while, and they heard the sound again.
They shouted again and remained standing on the same spot. The flame
also came nearer. The sound was heard for the third time, and this time
more plainly. The children answered again by shouting loudly. After some
time, they also recognized that it was no flame they had seen but a red
flag which was being swung. At the same time the shepherd’s horn
resounded closer to them and the children made reply.
“Sanna,” cried the boy, “there come people from Gschaid. I know the
flag, it is the red flag that the stranger gentleman planted on the
peak, when he had climbed the Gars with the young hunter, so that the
reverend father could see it with his spyglass, and that was to be the
sign that they had reached the top, and the stranger gentleman gave him
the flag afterward as a present. You were a real small child, then.”
“Yes, Conrad.”
After awhile the children could also see the people near the flag, like
little black dots that seemed to move. The call of the horn came again
and again, and ever nearer. Each time, the children made answer.
Finally they saw on the snow-slope opposite them several men with the
flag in their midst coast down on their Alpen-stocks. When they had
come closer the children recognized them. It was the shepherd Philip
with his horn, his two sons, the young hunter, and several men of
Gschaid.
“God be blessed,” cried Philip, “why here you are. The whole mountain is
full of people. Let one of you run down at once to the Sideralp chalet
and ring the bell, that they down below may hear that we have found
them; and one must climb the Krebsstein and plant the flag there so that
they in the valley may see it and fire off the mortars, so that the
people searching in the Millsdorf forest may hear it and that they may
kindle the smudge-fires in Gschaid, and all those on the mountain may
come down to the Sideralp chalet. This is a Christmas for you!”
“I shall climb down to the chalet,” one said.
“And I shall carry the flag to the Krebsstein,” said another.
“And we will get the children down to the Sideralp chalet as well as we
can, if God help us;” said Philip.
One of Philip’s sons made his way downward, and the other went his way
with the flag.
The hunter took the little girl by her hand, and the shepherd Philip the
boy. The others helped as they could. Thus they started out. They turned
this way and that. Now they followed one direction, now they took the
opposite course, now they climbed up, now down, always through snow, and
the surroundings seemed to remain the same. On very steep inclines they
fastened climbing-irons to their feet and carried the children. Finally,
after a long time, they heard the ringing of a little bell that sounded
up to them soft and thin, which was the first sign the lower regions
sent to them again. They must really have descended quite far; for now
they saw a snowy bluish peak lift up its head to a great height above
them. The bell, however, which they had heard was that of the Sideralp
chalet which was being rung, because there the meeting was to be. As
they proceeded farther they also heard in the still atmosphere the faint
report of the mortars which were fired at the sight of the flag; and
still later they saw thin columns of smoke rising into the still air.
When they, after a little while, descended a gentle slope they caught
sight of the Sideralp chalet. They approached. In the hut a fire was
burning, the mother of the children was there, and with a terrible cry
she sank in the snow as she saw her children coming with the hunter.
Then she ran up, looked them all over, wanted to give them something to
eat, wanted to warm them, and bed them in the hay that was there; but
soon she convinced herself that the children were more stimulated by
their rescue than she had thought and only required some warm food and a
little rest, both of which they now obtained.
When, after some time of rest, another group of men descended the
snow-slope while the little bell continued tolling, the children
themselves ran out to see who they were. It was the shoemaker, the
former mountaineer, with Alpen-stock and climbing-irons, accompanied by
friends and comrades.
“Sebastian, here they are!” cried the woman.
He, however, remained speechless, shaking with emotion, and then ran up
to her. Then his lips moved as if he wanted to say something, but he
said nothing, caught the children in his embrace and held them long.
Thereupon he turned to his wife, embraced her and cried “Sanna, Sanna!”
After awhile he picked up his hat which had fallen on the snow and
stepped among the men as if to speak. But he only said: “Neighbors and
friends, I thank you!”
After waiting awhile, until the children had recovered from their
excitement, he said: “If we are all together we may start, in God’s
name.”
“We are not all together yet, I believe,” said the shepherd Philip, “but
those who are still missing will know from the smoke that we have found
the children and will go home when they find the chalet empty.”
All got ready to depart.
The Sideralp chalet is not so very far from Gschaid, from whose windows
one can, in summer time, very well see the green pasture on which stands
the gray hut with its small belfry; but below it there is a
perpendicular wall with a descent of many fathoms which one could climb
in summer, with the help of climbing-irons, but which was not to be
scaled in winter. They were, therefore, compelled to go by way of the
“neck” in order to get down to Gschaid. On their way, they came to the
Sider meadow which is still nearer to Gschaid so that from it one could
see the windows in the village.
As they were crossing these meadows, the bell of the Gschaid church
sounded up to them bright and clear, announcing the Holy
Transubstantiation.
[Illustration: THE BARBER SHOP BENJAMIN VAUTIER]
On account of the general commotion that obtained in Gschaid that
morning, the celebration of the High-mass had been deferred, as the
priest thought the children would soon be found. Finally, however, as
still no news came, the holy mass had to be celebrated.
When they heard the bell announcing the Holy Transsubstantiation, all
those crossing the Sider meadow sank upon their knees in the snow and
prayed. When the tolling had ceased they arose and marched on.
The shoemaker was carrying his little girl for the most part and made
her tell him all.
When they were descending toward the forest of the “neck” they saw
tracks which, he declared, came not from shoes of his make.
The explanation came soon. Attracted probably by the many voices they
heard, another body of men joined them. It was the dyer–ash-gray in the
face from fright–descending at the head of his workmen, apprentices,
and several men of Millsdorf.
“They climbed over the glacier and the crevasses without knowing it,”
the shoemaker shouted to his father-in-law.
“There they are–there they are–praised be the Lord,” answered the
dyer, “I knew already that they had been on the mountain when your
messenger came to us in the night, and we had searched through the whole
forest with lanterns and had not found anything–and then, when it
dawned, I observed that on the road which leads on the left up toward
the snow-mountain, on the spot where the post stands–that there some
twigs and stalks were broken off, as children like to do on their
way–and then I knew it, and then they could not get away, because they
walked in the hollow, and then between the rocks on to the ridge which
is so steep on either side that they could not get down. They just had
to ascend. After making this observation I sent a message to Gschaid,
but the wood-cutter Michael who carried it told us at his return, when
he joined us up there near the ice, that you had found them already,
and so we came down again.”
“Yes,” said Michael, “I told you so because the red flag is hung out on
the Krebsstein, and this was the sign agreed upon in Gschaid. And I told
you that they all would come down this way, as one cannot climb down the
precipice.”
“And kneel down and thank God on your knees, my son-in-law,” continued
the dyer, “that there was no wind. A hundred years will pass before
there will be another such fall of snow that will come down straight
like wet cords hanging from a pole. If there had been any wind the
children would have perished.”
“Yes, let us thank God, let us thank God,” said the shoemaker.
The dyer who since the marriage of his daughter had never been in
Gschaid decided to accompany the men to the village.
When they approached the red post where the side-road began they saw the
sleigh waiting for them which the shoemaker had ordered there, whatever
the outcome. They let mother and children get into it, covered them well
up in the rugs and furs provided for them and let them ride ahead to
Gschaid.
The others followed and arrived in Gschaid by afternoon. Those who still
were on the mountain and had only learned through the smoke that the
signal for returning had been given, gradually also found their way into
the valley. The last to appear in the evening was the son of the
shepherd Philip who had carried the red flag to the Krebsstein and
planted it there.
In Gschaid there was also grandmother waiting for them who had driven
across the “neck.”
“Never, never,” she cried, “will I permit the children to cross the
‘neck’ in winter!”
The children were confused by all this commotion. They received
something more to eat and were put to bed then. Late in the evening,
when they had recovered somewhat, and some neighbors and friends had
assembled in the living-room and were talking about the event, their
mother came into the sleeping-room. As she sat by Sanna’s bed and
caressed her, the little girl said: “Mother, last night, when we sat on
the mountain, I saw the holy Christ-child.”
“Oh, my dear, darling child,” answered her mother, “he sent you some
presents, too, and you shall get them right soon.”
The paste-board boxes had been unpacked and the candles lit, and now the
door into the living-room was opened, and from their bed the children
could behold their belated, brightly gleaming, friendly Christmas tree.
Notwithstanding their utter fatigue they wanted to be dressed partly, so
that they could go into the room. They received their presents, admired
them, and finally fell asleep over them.
In the inn at Gschaid it was more lively than ever, this evening. All
who had not been to church were there, and the others too. Each related
what he had seen and heard, what he had done or advised, and the
experiences and dangers he had gone through. Especial stress was laid on
how everything could have been done differently and better.
This occurrence made an epoch in the history of Gschaid. It furnished
material for conversation for a long time; and for many years to come
people will speak about it on bright days when the mountain is seen with
especial clearness, or when they tell strangers of the memorable events
connected with it.
Only from this day on the children were really felt to belong to the
village and were not any longer regarded as strangers in it but as
natives whom the people had fetched down to them from the mountain.
Their mother Sanna also now was a native of Gschaid.
The children, however, will not forget the mountain and will look up to
it more attentively, when they are in the garden; when, as in the past,
the sun is shining beautifully and the linden-tree is sending forth its
fragrance, when the bees are humming and the mountain looks down upon
them beautifully blue, like the soft sky.