ROCK CRYSTAL[10] (1846)<\/p>\n
TRANSLATED BY LEE M. HOLLANDER, PH.D.<\/p>\n
Among the high mountains of our fatherland there lies a little village<\/p>\n
with a small but very pointed church-tower which emerges with red<\/p>\n
shingles from the green of many fruit-trees, and by reason of its red<\/p>\n
color is to be seen far and away amid the misty bluish distances of the<\/p>\n
mountains. The village lies right in the centre of a rather broad valley<\/p>\n
which has about the shape of a longish circle. Besides the church it<\/p>\n
contains a school, a townhall, and several other houses of no mean<\/p>\n
appearance, which form a square on which stand four linden-trees<\/p>\n
surrounding a stone cross. These buildings are not mere farms but house<\/p>\n
within them those handicrafts which are indispensable to the human race<\/p>\n
and furnish the mountaineers with all the products of industry which<\/p>\n
they require. In the valley and along the mountain-sides many other huts<\/p>\n
and cots are scattered, as is very often the case in mountain regions.<\/p>\n
These habitations belong to the parish and school-district and pay<\/p>\n
tribute to the artisans we mentioned by purchasing their wares. Still<\/p>\n
other more distant huts belong to the village, but are so deeply<\/p>\n
ensconced in the recesses of the mountains that one cannot see them at<\/p>\n
all from the valley. Those who live in them rarely come down to their<\/p>\n
fellow-parishioners and in winter frequently must keep their dead until<\/p>\n
after the snows have melted away in order to give them a burial. The<\/p>\n
greatest personage whom the villagers get to see in the course of the<\/p>\n
year is the priest.<\/p>\n
[Illustration: ADALBERT STIFTER DAFFINGER]<\/p>\n
They greatly honor him, and usually he himself through a longer<\/p>\n
sojourn becomes so accustomed to the solitude of the valley that he not<\/p>\n
unwillingly stays and simply lives on there. At least, it has not<\/p>\n
happened in the memory of man that the priest of the village had been a<\/p>\n
man hankering to get away or unworthy of his vocation.<\/p>\n
No roads lead through the valley. People use their double-track<\/p>\n
cart-paths upon which they bring in the products of their fields in<\/p>\n
carts drawn by one horse. Hence, few people come into the valley, among<\/p>\n
them sometimes a solitary pedestrian who is a lover of nature and dwells<\/p>\n
for some little time in the upper room of the inn and admires the<\/p>\n
mountains; or perhaps a painter who sketches the small, pointed spire of<\/p>\n
the church and the beautiful summits of the rocky peaks. For this reason<\/p>\n
the villagers form a world by themselves. They all know each other by<\/p>\n
name and their several histories down from the time of grandfather and<\/p>\n
great-grandfather; they all mourn when one of them dies; know what name<\/p>\n
the new-born will receive; they have a language differing from that of<\/p>\n
the plains; they have their quarrels, which they settle among<\/p>\n
themselves; they assist one another and flock together when something<\/p>\n
extraordinary has happened.<\/p>\n
They are conservative and things are left to remain as they were.<\/p>\n
Whenever a stone drops out of a wall, the same stone is put back again,<\/p>\n
the new houses are built like the old ones, the dilapidated roofs are<\/p>\n
repaired with the same kind of shingles, and if there happen to be<\/p>\n
brindled cows on a farm, calves of the same color are raised always, so<\/p>\n
that the color stays on the farm.<\/p>\n
To the south of the village one sees a snow-mountain which seems to lift<\/p>\n
up its shining peaks right above the roofs of the houses. Yet it is not<\/p>\n
quite so near. Summer and winter it dominates the valley with its<\/p>\n
beetling crags and snowy sides. Being the most remarkable object in the<\/p>\n
landscape, this mountain is of main interest to the inhabitants and has<\/p>\n
become the central feature of many a story.<\/p>\n
There is not a young man or graybeard in the village but can tell of the<\/p>\n
crags and crests of the mountain, of its crevasses and caves, of its<\/p>\n
torrents and screes, whether now he knows it from his own experience or<\/p>\n
from hearsay. The mountain is the boast of the villagers as if it were a<\/p>\n
work of theirs and one is not so sure, however high one may esteem the<\/p>\n
plain-spokenness and reputation for truth-telling of the natives,<\/p>\n
whether they do not fib, now and then, to the honor and glory of their<\/p>\n
mountain. Besides being the wonder of the valley, the mountain affords<\/p>\n
actual profit; for whenever a company of tourists arrives to ascend the<\/p>\n
mountain the natives serve as guides; and to have been a guide, to have<\/p>\n
experienced this or that, to know this or that spot, is a distinction<\/p>\n
every one likes to gain for himself. The mountain often is the object of<\/p>\n
their conversation at the inn, when they sit together and tell of their<\/p>\n
feats and wonderful experiences; nor do they omit to relate what this or<\/p>\n
that traveler had said and what reward they had received from him for<\/p>\n
their labor. Furthermore, the snowy sides of the mountain feed a lake<\/p>\n
among its heavily forested recesses, from which a merry brook runs<\/p>\n
through the valley, drives the saw-mill and the flour-mill, cleanses the<\/p>\n
village and waters the cattle. The forests of the mountain furnish<\/p>\n
timber and form a bulwark against the avalanches.<\/p>\n
The annual history of the mountain is as follows: In winter, the two<\/p>\n
pinnacles of its summit, which they call horns, are snow-white and, when<\/p>\n
visible on bright days, tower up into the blackish blue of the sky in<\/p>\n
dazzling splendor, and all its shoulders are white, too, and all slopes.<\/p>\n
Even the perpendicular precipices, called walls by the natives, are<\/p>\n
covered with white frost delicately laid on, or with thin ice adhering<\/p>\n
to them like varnish, so that the whole mass looms up like an enchanted<\/p>\n
castle from out of the hoary gray of the forests which lie spread out<\/p>\n
heavily about its base. In summer, when the sun and warm winds melt the<\/p>\n
snow from their steep sides, the peaks soar up black into the sky and<\/p>\n
have only beautiful veins and specks of white on their flanks–as the<\/p>\n
natives say. But the fact is, the peaks are of a delicate, distant blue,<\/p>\n
and what they call veins and specks is not white, but has the lovely<\/p>\n
milk-blue color of distant snow against the darker blue of the rocks.<\/p>\n
When the weather is hot, the more elevated slopes about the peaks do not<\/p>\n
lose their covering of eternal snow. On the contrary it then gleams with<\/p>\n
double resplendence down upon the green of the trees in the valley; but<\/p>\n
the winter’s snow is melted off their lower parts. Then becomes visible<\/p>\n
the bluish or greenish iridescence of the glaciers which are bared and<\/p>\n
gleam down upon the valley below. At the edge of this iridescence, there<\/p>\n
where it seems from the distance like a fringe of gems, a nearer view<\/p>\n
reveals confused masses of wild and monstrous boulders, slabs, and<\/p>\n
fragments piled up in chaotic fashion. In very hot and long summers, the<\/p>\n
ice-fields are denuded even in the higher regions, and then a much<\/p>\n
greater amount of blue-green glacier-ice glances down into the valley,<\/p>\n
many knobs and depressions are laid bare which one otherwise sees only<\/p>\n
covered with white, the muddy edge of the ice comes to view with its<\/p>\n
deposit of rocks, silt, and slime, and far greater volumes of water than<\/p>\n
usual rush into the valley. This continues until it gradually becomes<\/p>\n
autumn again, the waters grow less, and one day a gray continuous gentle<\/p>\n
rain spreads over all the valley. Then, after the mists have dispersed<\/p>\n
about the summits, the mountain is seen to have draped itself again in<\/p>\n
its soft robe of snow, and all crags, cones, and pinnacles are vested in<\/p>\n
white. Thus it goes on, year after year, with but slight divergences,<\/p>\n
and thus it will go on so long as nature remains the same, and there is<\/p>\n
snow upon the heights and people live in the valleys. But to the natives<\/p>\n
these changes seem great, they pay much attention to them and calculate<\/p>\n
the progress of the seasons by them.<\/p>\n
The ascent of the mountain is made from our valley. One follows a fine<\/p>\n
road which leads south to another valley over a so-called “neck.” Neck<\/p>\n
they call a moderately high mountain-ridge which connects two<\/p>\n
mountain-ranges of considerable magnitude and over which one can pass<\/p>\n
from one valley to another between the mountains. The neck which<\/p>\n
connects our snow-mountain with another great mountain-mass is<\/p>\n
altogether covered with pine-forests. At its greatest elevation, where<\/p>\n
the road begins gradually to descend into the valley beyond, there<\/p>\n
stands a post erected to commemorate a calamity. Once upon a time a<\/p>\n
baker carrying bread in a basket slung around his neck was found dead on<\/p>\n
that spot. They painted a picture of the dead baker with his basket and<\/p>\n
the pine-trees round about, and beneath it an explanation with a request<\/p>\n
for prayer from the passer-by, and this picture they fastened to a<\/p>\n
wooden post painted red, and erected it at the spot where the accident<\/p>\n
occurred. At this post, then, one leaves the road and continues along<\/p>\n
the ridge of the “neck” instead of crossing it and descending into the<\/p>\n
valley beyond. There is an opening among the pine-trees at that spot, as<\/p>\n
if there were a road between them. In fact, a path is sometimes made in<\/p>\n
that direction which then serves to bring down timber from the higher<\/p>\n
regions, but which is afterward overgrown again with grass. Proceeding<\/p>\n
along this way, which gently ascends, one arrives at last at a bare,<\/p>\n
treeless region. It is barren heath where grows nothing but heather,<\/p>\n
mosses, and lichens. It grows ever steeper, the further one ascends; but<\/p>\n
one always follows a gully resembling a rounded out ditch which is<\/p>\n
convenient, as one cannot then miss one’s way in this extensive,<\/p>\n
treeless, monotonous region. After a while, rocks as large as churches<\/p>\n
rise out of the grassy soil, between whose walls one climbs up still<\/p>\n
farther. Then there are again bleak ridges, with hardly any vegetation,<\/p>\n
which reach up into the thinner air of higher altitudes and lead<\/p>\n
straight to the ice. At both sides of this path, steep ledges plunge<\/p>\n
down, and by this natural causeway the snow-mountain is joined to the<\/p>\n
“neck.” In order to surmount the ice one skirts it for some distance<\/p>\n
where it is surrounded by rock-walls, until one comes to the old<\/p>\n
hard snow which bridges the crevasses and at most seasons of the year<\/p>\n
bears the weight of the climber.<\/p>\n
[Illustration: A MOUNTAIN SCENE _From the Painting by H. Reifferscheid_]<\/p>\n
From the highest point of this snowfield, two peaks tower up, of which<\/p>\n
the one is higher and, therefore, the summit of the mountain. These<\/p>\n
pinnacles are very hard to climb. As they are surrounded by a chasm of<\/p>\n
varying width–the bergschrund–which one must leap over, and as their<\/p>\n
precipitous escarpments afford but small footholds, most of the tourists<\/p>\n
climbing the mountain content themselves with reaching the bergschrund<\/p>\n
and from there enjoy the panorama. Those who mean to climb to the top<\/p>\n
must use climbing-irons, ropes, and, iron spikes.<\/p>\n
Besides this mountain there are still others south of the valley, but<\/p>\n
none as high. Even if the snow begins to lie on them early in fall and<\/p>\n
stays till late in spring, midsummer always removes it, and then the<\/p>\n
rocks gleam pleasantly in the sunlight, and the forests at their base<\/p>\n
have their soft green intersected by the broad blue shadows of these<\/p>\n
peaks which are so beautiful that one never tires of looking at them.<\/p>\n
On the opposite, northern, eastern, and western sides of the valley the<\/p>\n
mountains rise in long ridges and are of lower elevation: scattered<\/p>\n
fields and meadows climb up along their sides till rather high up, and<\/p>\n
above them one sees clearings, chalets, and the like, until at their<\/p>\n
edge they are silhouetted against the sky with their delicately serrated<\/p>\n
forest–which is indicative of their inconsiderable height–whereas the<\/p>\n
mountains toward the south, though also magnificently wooded, cut off<\/p>\n
the shining horizon with entirely smooth lines.<\/p>\n
When one stands about in the centre of the valley it would seem as if<\/p>\n
there were no way out or into the basin; but people who have often been<\/p>\n
in the mountains are familiar with this illusion: the fact is, diverse<\/p>\n
roads lead through the folds of the mountains to the plains to the<\/p>\n
north, some of them with hardly a rise; and to the south where the<\/p>\n
valley seems shut in by precipitous mountain-walls, a road leads over<\/p>\n
the “neck” mentioned above.<\/p>\n
The village is called Gschaid and the snow-mountain looking down upon<\/p>\n
it, Gars.<\/p>\n
On the other side of the “neck” there lies a valley by far more<\/p>\n
beautiful and fertile than that of Gschaid. At its entrance there lies a<\/p>\n
country-town of considerable size named Millsdorf which has several<\/p>\n
industrial enterprizes and carries on almost urban trade and business.<\/p>\n
Its inhabitants are much more well-to-do than those of Gschaid and,<\/p>\n
although only three hours away, which for these labor-loving<\/p>\n
mountaineers used to great distances is only a bagatelle, yet manners<\/p>\n
and customs are so different in the two valleys and even their external<\/p>\n
appearance is so unlike that one might suppose a great number of miles<\/p>\n
lay between. This is of common occurrence in the mountains and due not<\/p>\n
only to the more or less favored position of the valleys but also to the<\/p>\n
spirit of the natives who by reason of their differing occupations are<\/p>\n
inclined this way or that. But in this they all agree, that they adhere<\/p>\n
to established customs and the usages of their forefathers, lightly bear<\/p>\n
the absence of great traffic, cling to their native valley with an<\/p>\n
extraordinary love; in fact, can hardly live out of it.<\/p>\n
Months, ay a whole year may pass without a native of Gschaid setting<\/p>\n
foot into the valley beyond and visiting the town of Millsdorf. The same<\/p>\n
is true of the people of Millsdorf, although they have more intercourse<\/p>\n
with the country beyond and hence live in less seclusion than the<\/p>\n
villagers of Gschaid. A road which might be called a high-road leads<\/p>\n
through the length of their valley and many a traveler passes through it<\/p>\n
without suspecting in the least that to the north of him, on the other<\/p>\n
side of the snow-mountain towering high above him, there is another<\/p>\n
valley with many scattered houses and the village with its pointed<\/p>\n
church-tower.<\/p>\n
Among the trades of the village which supply the necessities of the<\/p>\n
valley is that of the shoemaker, indispensible indeed to man excepting<\/p>\n
in his most primitive condition.<\/p>\n
But the natives are so high raised above that condition that they stand<\/p>\n
in need of very good and durable footgear for the mountains. The<\/p>\n
shoemaker is the only one of his trade in the valley–with one<\/p>\n
inconsiderable exception. His house stands on the public square of<\/p>\n
Gschaid where most of the larger dwellings are situated and its gray<\/p>\n
walls, white window-frames, and green shutters face the four<\/p>\n
linden-trees. On the ground-floor are the workshop, the workmen’s room,<\/p>\n
a larger and a smaller sitting-room, the shop, and then the kitchen and<\/p>\n
pantry; the first story or, more properly, the attic-space, contains the<\/p>\n
“upper-room” which is also the “best room.” In it there stand two beds<\/p>\n
of state, beautifully polished clothes-presses; there is a china-closet<\/p>\n
with dishes, a table with inlaid work, upholstered easy-chairs, a<\/p>\n
strong-box for the savings. Furthermore there hang on the walls pictures<\/p>\n
of saints, two handsome watches, being prizes won in shooting-matches,<\/p>\n
and finally there are some rifles both for target-firing and hunting,<\/p>\n
with all the necessary paraphernalia, carefully hung up in a special<\/p>\n
case with a glass-door.<\/p>\n
Added to the shoemaker’s house there is a smaller house, built exactly<\/p>\n
like it and, though separated from it by an arched gateway, belonging to<\/p>\n
it like part of a whole. It has only one large room with some closets.<\/p>\n
Its purpose is to serve the owner of the larger house as habitation for<\/p>\n
the remainder of his days, after having left the property to his son or<\/p>\n
successor; there to dwell with his wife until both are dead and the<\/p>\n
little house stands empty again and is ready for another occupant. To<\/p>\n
the rear of the shoemaker’s house are stable and barn; for every dweller<\/p>\n
in the valley carries on farming along with his regular occupation and<\/p>\n
makes a good living from it. Behind these buildings, finally, is the<\/p>\n
garden which is lacking to none of the better houses of Gschaid, and<\/p>\n
from which the villagers obtain their vegetables, their fruit, and the<\/p>\n
flowers necessary for festive occasions. And, as quite commonly in the<\/p>\n
mountains, apiculture is pursued also in the gardens of Gschaid.<\/p>\n
The small exception alluded to, and the only competitor of the shoemaker<\/p>\n
is a man of the same trade, old Tobias, who is not a real rival, though,<\/p>\n
because he only cobbles and is kept quite busy with that. Nor would he<\/p>\n
ever think of competing with the gentleman shoemaker of the township,<\/p>\n
especially as the latter frequently provides him gratuitously with<\/p>\n
leather-cuttings, sole strips, and the like. In summertime, old Tobias<\/p>\n
sits under a clump of elder-bushes at the end of the village and works<\/p>\n
away. All about him are shoes and lace-boots, all of them, however,<\/p>\n
gray, muddy, and torn. There are no high boots because these are not<\/p>\n
worn in the village and its surroundings; only two personages own such<\/p>\n
boots, the priest and the schoolteacher, both of whom have their new<\/p>\n
work and repairing done by the shoemaker. In winter, old Tobias sits in<\/p>\n
his cot behind the elder-bushes and has it comfortably warm, because<\/p>\n
wood is not dear in Gschaid.<\/p>\n
Before entering into possession of his house, the shoemaker had been a<\/p>\n
chamois-poacher–in fact, had not exactly been a model in youth, so the<\/p>\n
people of Gschaid said. In school, he had always been one of the<\/p>\n
brightest scholars. Afterwards, he had learned his father’s trade and<\/p>\n
had gone on his journeyman wanderings, finally returning to the village.<\/p>\n
Instead of wearing a black hat, as befits a tradesman, and as his father<\/p>\n
had done all his life, he put on a green one, decorated it with all the<\/p>\n
feathers obtainable and strutted around in the very shortest homespun<\/p>\n
coat to be found in all the valley; whereas his father always had worn a<\/p>\n
coat of dark, even black cloth with very long tails to indicate his<\/p>\n
station as tradesman. The young shoemaker was to be seen on all dancing<\/p>\n
floors and bowling alleys. Whenever any one gave him a piece of good<\/p>\n
advice he merely whistled. He attended all shooting-matches in the<\/p>\n
neighborhood with his target-rifle and often brought back a prize, which<\/p>\n
he considered a great victory. The prize generally consisted of coins<\/p>\n
artistically set. To win them, he frequently had to spend more coins of<\/p>\n
the same value than the prize was worth–especially as he was very<\/p>\n
generous with his money. He also participated in all the chases of the<\/p>\n
surrounding country and won a name as a marksman. Sometimes, however, he<\/p>\n
issued alone with his double-barreled gun and climbing irons, and once,<\/p>\n
it is said, returned with an ugly wound in his head.<\/p>\n
In Millsdorf there lived a dyer who carried on a very notable industry.<\/p>\n
His works lay right at the entrance of the town at the side toward<\/p>\n
Gschaid. He employed many people and even worked with machines, which<\/p>\n
was an unheard of thing in the valley. Besides, he did extensive<\/p>\n
farming. The shoemaker frequently crossed the mountain to win the<\/p>\n
daughter of this wealthy dyer. Because of her beauty, but also because<\/p>\n
of her modesty and domesticity she was praised far and near.<\/p>\n
Nevertheless the shoemaker, it is said, attracted her attention. The<\/p>\n
dyer did not permit him to enter his house; and whereas his beautiful<\/p>\n
daughter had, even before that, never attended public places and<\/p>\n
merry-makings, and was rarely to be seen outside the house of her<\/p>\n
parents, now she became even more retiring in her habits and was to be<\/p>\n
seen only in church, in her garden, or at home.<\/p>\n
Some time after the death of his parents, by which the paternal house<\/p>\n
which he inhabited all alone became his, the shoemaker became an<\/p>\n
altogether different man. Boisterous as he had been before, he now sat<\/p>\n
in his shop and hammered away day and night. Boastingly, he set a prize<\/p>\n
on it that there was no one who could make better shoes and footgear. He<\/p>\n
took none but the best workmen and kept after them when they worked in<\/p>\n
order that they should do as he told them. And really, he accomplished<\/p>\n
his desire, so that not only the whole village of Gschaid, which for the<\/p>\n
most part had got its shoes from neighboring valleys, had their work<\/p>\n
done by him, but the whole valley also. And finally he had some<\/p>\n
customers even from Millsdorf and other valleys. Even down into the<\/p>\n
plains his fame spread so that a good many who intended to climb in the<\/p>\n
mountains had their shoes made by him for that purpose.<\/p>\n
He ordered his house very neatly and in his shop the shoes, lace-boots,<\/p>\n
and high boots shone upon their several shelves; and when, on Sundays,<\/p>\n
the whole population of the valley came into the village, gathering<\/p>\n
under the four linden trees of the square, people liked to go over to<\/p>\n
the shoemaker’s shop and look through the panes to watch the customers.<\/p>\n
On account of the love he bore to the mountains, even now he devoted his<\/p>\n
best endeavor to the making of mountain lace-shoes. In the inn he used<\/p>\n
to say that there was no one who could show him any one else’s mountain<\/p>\n
boots that could compare with his own. “They don’t know,” he was<\/p>\n
accustomed to add, “and they have never learned it in all their life,<\/p>\n
how such a shoe is to be made so that the firmament of the nails shall<\/p>\n
fit well on the soles and contain the proper amount of iron, so as to<\/p>\n
render the shoe hard on the outside, so that no flint, however sharp,<\/p>\n
can be felt through, and so that it on its inside fits the foot as snug<\/p>\n
and soft as a glove.”<\/p>\n
The shoemaker had a large ledger made for himself in which he entered<\/p>\n
all goods he had manufactured, adding the names of those who had<\/p>\n
furnished the materials and of those who had bought the finished goods,<\/p>\n
together with a brief remark about the quality of the product. Footgear<\/p>\n
of the same kind bore their continuous numbers, and the book lay in the<\/p>\n
large drawer of his shop.<\/p>\n
Even if the beautiful daughter of the Millsdorf dyer did not take a step<\/p>\n
outside her parents’ home, and even though she visited neither friends<\/p>\n
nor relatives, yet the shoemaker of Gschaid knew how to arrange it so<\/p>\n
that she saw him from afar when she walked to church, when she was in<\/p>\n
her garden, and when she looked out upon the meadows from the windows of<\/p>\n
her room. On account of this unceasing spying the dyer’s wife by dint of<\/p>\n
her long and persevering prayers had brought it about that her obstinate<\/p>\n
husband yielded and that the shoemaker–as he had, in fact, become a<\/p>\n
better man–led the beautiful and wealthy Millsdorf girl home to<\/p>\n
Gschaid as his wife. However, the dyer was a man who meant to have his<\/p>\n
own way. The right sort of man, he said, ought to ply his trade in a<\/p>\n
manner to prosper and ought, therefore, to be able to maintain his wife,<\/p>\n
children, himself, and his servants, to keep house and home in good<\/p>\n
condition, and yet save a goodly amount–which savings were, after all,<\/p>\n
the main aids to honor and dignity in the world. Therefore, he said, his<\/p>\n
daughter would receive nothing from home but an excellent outfit; all<\/p>\n
else it was and remained the duty of the husband to provide. The dyeing<\/p>\n
works in Millsdorf and the farming he carried on were a dignified and<\/p>\n
honorable business by themselves which had to exist for their own sake.<\/p>\n
All property belonging to them had to serve as capital, for which reason<\/p>\n
he would not give away any part of them. But when he, the dyer, and his<\/p>\n
wife, were deceased, then both the dye-works and the farm in Millsdorf<\/p>\n
would fall to their only daughter, the shoemaker’s wife in Gschaid, and<\/p>\n
she and her husband could do with the property what they pleased: they<\/p>\n
would inherit it, however, only if worthy of inheriting it; if unworthy,<\/p>\n
it would go to their children, and if there were none, to other<\/p>\n
relatives, with the exception of the lawful portion. Neither did the<\/p>\n
shoemaker demand anything, but proudly gave the dyer to understand that<\/p>\n
he had cared but for his beautiful daughter and that he was able to<\/p>\n
maintain her as she had been maintained at home. And when she was his<\/p>\n
wife, he gave her clothes not only finer than those the women of Gschaid<\/p>\n
and the Gschaid valley owned, but also than she had ever worn at home.<\/p>\n
And as to food and drink, he insisted on having it better, and her<\/p>\n
treatment more considerate than she had enjoyed in her own father’s<\/p>\n
house. Moreover, in order to show his independence of his father-in-law,<\/p>\n
he bought more and more ground with his savings so that he came to own a<\/p>\n
goodly property.<\/p>\n
Now, the natives of Gschaid rarely leave their valley, as has been<\/p>\n
remarked–hardly even traveling to Millsdorf from which they are<\/p>\n
separated by customs as well as by mountain-ridges; besides, it never<\/p>\n
happens that a man leaves his valley to settle in a neighboring<\/p>\n
one–though settlements at greater distances do take place; neither does<\/p>\n
a woman or a girl like to emigrate from one valley into another, except<\/p>\n
in the rather rare cases when she follows her love and as wife joins her<\/p>\n
husband in another valley. So it happened that the dyer’s daughter from<\/p>\n
Millsdorf was ever considered a stranger by all the people of Gschaid,<\/p>\n
even after she had become the shoemaker’s wife; and although they never<\/p>\n
did her any ill, ay, even loved her on account of her beautiful ways,<\/p>\n
yet they always seemed to keep their distance, or, if you will, showed<\/p>\n
marked consideration for her, and never became intimate or treated her<\/p>\n
as their equal, as men and women of Gschaid did men and women of their<\/p>\n
own valley. Thus matters stood and remained, and were not mended by the<\/p>\n
better dress and the lighter domestic duties of the shoemaker’s wife.<\/p>\n
At the end of the first year, she had born to her husband a son, and<\/p>\n
several years afterward, a daughter. She believed, however, that he did<\/p>\n
not love his children as she thought he ought to, and as she knew she<\/p>\n
loved them herself; for his face was mostly serious and he was chiefly<\/p>\n
concerned with his work. He rarely fondled or played with the children<\/p>\n
and always spoke seriously to them as one does to adults. With regard to<\/p>\n
food and clothes, and other material things, his care for them was above<\/p>\n
reproach.<\/p>\n
At first, the dyer’s wife frequently came over to Gschaid, and the young<\/p>\n
couple in their turn visited Millsdorf on occasion of country-fairs and<\/p>\n
other festivities. But when the children came, circumstances were<\/p>\n
altered. If mothers love their children and long for them, this is<\/p>\n
frequently, and to a much higher degree, the case with grandmothers;<\/p>\n
they occasionally long for their grandchildren with an intensity that<\/p>\n
borders on morbidness. The dyer’s wife very frequently came over to<\/p>\n
Gschaid now, in order to see the children and to bring them presents.<\/p>\n
Then she would depart again after giving them kindly advice. But when<\/p>\n
her age and health did not any longer permit of these frequent journeys<\/p>\n
and the dyer for this reason objected to them, they bethought themselves<\/p>\n
of another plan; they changed about, and now the children visited their<\/p>\n
grandmother. Frequently, the mother herself took them over in their<\/p>\n
carriage; at other times, they were bundled up warmly and driven over<\/p>\n
the “neck” under the care of a servant girl. But when they were a little<\/p>\n
older, they went to Millsdorf on foot, either in the company of their<\/p>\n
mother or of some servant; indeed, when the boy had become strong,<\/p>\n
clever, and self-reliant, they let him travel the well-known road over<\/p>\n
the “neck” by himself; and, when the weather was specially beautiful and<\/p>\n
he begged them, they permitted his little sister to accompany him. This<\/p>\n
is customary in Gschaid as the people are hardy pedestrians, and because<\/p>\n
parents–especially a man like the shoemaker–like to see their children<\/p>\n
able to take care of themselves.<\/p>\n
Thus it happened that the two children made the way over the pass more<\/p>\n
frequently than all the other villagers together; and inasmuch as their<\/p>\n
mother had always been treated as half a stranger in Gschaid, the<\/p>\n
children, by this circumstance, grew up to be strangers’ children to the<\/p>\n
village folks; they hardly were Gschaid children, but belonged half to<\/p>\n
Millsdorf.<\/p>\n
The boy, Conrad, had already something of the earnest ways of his<\/p>\n
father, and the girl, Susanna, named so after her mother, or Sanna for<\/p>\n
brevity, had great faith in his knowledge, understanding, and strength,<\/p>\n
and unquestioningly followed where he led, just as her mother absolutely<\/p>\n
trusted her husband whom she credited with all possible insight and<\/p>\n
ability.<\/p>\n
On beautiful mornings, one could see the children walk southward through<\/p>\n
the valley, and traverse the meadows toward the point where the forest<\/p>\n
of the “neck” looks down on them. They would enter the forest, gain the<\/p>\n
height on the road, and before noon come to the open meadows on the<\/p>\n
side toward Millsdorf. Conrad then showed Sanna the pastures that<\/p>\n
belonged to grandfather, then they walked through his fields in which he<\/p>\n
explained to her the various kinds of grain, then they saw the long<\/p>\n
cloths wave in the wind and blow into antic shapes as they hung to dry<\/p>\n
on poles under the eaves; then they heard the noises of the fullery and<\/p>\n
of the tannery which the dyer had built by the brook, then they rounded<\/p>\n
a corner of the fields, and very soon entered the garden of the dyer’s<\/p>\n
establishment by the back gate, where they were received by grandmother.<\/p>\n
She always had a presentiment when the children were coming, looked out<\/p>\n
of the windows, and recognized them from afar, whenever Sanna’s red<\/p>\n
kerchief shone brightly in the sun.<\/p>\n
She led the children through the laundry and the press into the<\/p>\n
living-room and had them sit down, not letting them take off their<\/p>\n
neckcloths or coats lest they should catch cold, and then kept them for<\/p>\n
dinner. After the meal they were allowed to go into the open and play,<\/p>\n
and to walk about in the house of their grandparents, or do whatever<\/p>\n
else they cared to, provided it was not improper or forbidden. The dyer,<\/p>\n
who always ate with them, questioned them about school and impressed<\/p>\n
upon them what they ought to learn. In the afternoon, they were urged by<\/p>\n
their grandmother to depart even before it was time, so that they should<\/p>\n
in no case reach home too late. Although the dyer had given his daughter<\/p>\n
no dowry and had vowed not to give away anything of his fortune before<\/p>\n
his death, his wife did not hold herself so strictly bound. She not only<\/p>\n
frequently made the children presents of pieces of money, sometimes of<\/p>\n
considerable value, but also invariably tied two bundles for them to<\/p>\n
carry in which there were things she believed were necessary or would<\/p>\n
give the children pleasure. And even if the same things were to be found<\/p>\n
in the shoemaker’s house and as good as one might wish, yet grandmother<\/p>\n
made presents of them in her joy of giving, and the children carried<\/p>\n
them home as something especially fine. Thus it happened that the<\/p>\n
children on the day before Christmas unwittingly carried home the<\/p>\n
presents–well sealed and packed in paste-board boxes–which were<\/p>\n
intended for them as their Christmas presents the very same night.<\/p>\n
Grandmother’s pressing the children to go before it was time, so that<\/p>\n
they should not get home late, had only the effect that they tarried on<\/p>\n
the way, now here, now there. They liked to sit by the hazelwoods on the<\/p>\n
“neck” and open nuts with stones; or, if there were no nuts, they played<\/p>\n
with leaves or pegs or the soft brown cones that drop from the branches<\/p>\n
of fir-trees in the beginning of spring. Sometimes, Conrad told his<\/p>\n
little sister stories or, when arrived at the red memorial post, would<\/p>\n
lead her a short distance up the side-road and tell her that here one<\/p>\n
could get on the Snow-Mountain, that up there were great rocks and<\/p>\n
stones, that the chamois gamboled and great birds circled about up<\/p>\n
there. He often led her out beyond the forest, when they would look at<\/p>\n
the dry grass and the small bushes of the heather; but then he returned<\/p>\n
with her, invariably bringing her home before twilight, which always<\/p>\n
earned him praise.<\/p>\n
One winter, on the morning before Christmas, when the first dawn had<\/p>\n
passed into day, a thin dry veil was spread over the whole sky so that<\/p>\n
one could see the low and distant sun only as an indistinct red spot;<\/p>\n
moreover, the air that day was mild, almost genial, and absolute calm<\/p>\n
reigned in the entire valley as well as in the heavens, as was indicated<\/p>\n
by the unchanging and immobile forms of the clouds. So the shoemaker’s<\/p>\n
wife said to her children: “As today is pleasant and it has not rained<\/p>\n
for a long time and the roads are hard, and as father gave you<\/p>\n
permission yesterday, if the weather continued fine, you may go to visit<\/p>\n
grandmother in Millsdorf; but ask father once more.”<\/p>\n
The children, who were still standing there in their little nightgowns,<\/p>\n
ran into the adjoining room where their father was speaking with a<\/p>\n
customer and asked him again for his permission, because it was such a<\/p>\n
fine day. It was given and they ran back to their mother.<\/p>\n
The shoemaker’s wife now dressed the children carefully, or rather, she<\/p>\n
dressed the little girl in snug-fitting warm dresses; for the boy began<\/p>\n
to dress himself and was finished long before his mother had the little<\/p>\n
girl straightened out. When they were both ready she said: “Now, Conrad,<\/p>\n
be nice and careful. As I let your little sister go with you, you must<\/p>\n
leave betimes and not remain standing anywhere, and when you have eaten<\/p>\n
at grandmother’s you must return at once and come home; for the days are<\/p>\n
very short now and the sun sets very soon.”<\/p>\n
“Yes, I know, mother,” said Conrad.<\/p>\n
“And take good care of Sanna that she does not fall or get over-heated.”<\/p>\n
“Yes, mother.”<\/p>\n
“Well, then, God bless you, now go to father and tell him you are<\/p>\n
leaving.”<\/p>\n
The boy slung a bag of calfskin, artfully sewed by his father, about his<\/p>\n
shoulders by a strap and the children went into the adjoining room to<\/p>\n
say farewell to their father. Soon they issued again and merrily skipped<\/p>\n
along the village street, after their mother had once more made the sign<\/p>\n
of the cross over them.<\/p>\n
Quickly they passed over the square and along the rows of houses, and<\/p>\n
finally between the railings of the orchards out into the open. The sun<\/p>\n
already stood above the wooded heights that were woven through with<\/p>\n
milky wisps of cloud, and its dim reddish disk proceeded along with them<\/p>\n
through the leafless branches of the crab-apple trees.<\/p>\n
There was no snow in the whole valley, but the higher mountains that had<\/p>\n
been glistening with it for many weeks already were thoroughly covered.<\/p>\n
The lower ridges, however, remained snowless and silent in the mantle of<\/p>\n
their pine forests and the fallow red of their bare branches. The ground<\/p>\n
was not frozen yet and would have been entirely dry, after the long dry<\/p>\n
period that had been prevailing, if the cold of the season had not<\/p>\n
covered it with a film of moisture. This did not render the ground<\/p>\n
slippery, however, but rather firm and resilient so that the children<\/p>\n
made good progress. The scanty grass still standing on the meadows and<\/p>\n
especially along the ditches in them bore the colors of autumn. There<\/p>\n
was no frost on the ground and a closer inspection did not reveal any<\/p>\n
dew, either, which signifies rain, according to the country people.<\/p>\n
Toward the edge of the meadows there was a mountain brook over which led<\/p>\n
a high, narrow wooden bridge. The children walked over it and looked<\/p>\n
down. There was hardly any water in the brook, only a thin streak of<\/p>\n
intensely blue color wound through the dry white pebbles of its stony<\/p>\n
bed, and both the small amount and the color of the water indicated that<\/p>\n
cold was prevailing in the greater altitudes; for this rendered the soil<\/p>\n
on the mountains dry so that it did not make the water of the brook<\/p>\n
turbid and hardened the ice so that it could give off but a few clear<\/p>\n
drops.<\/p>\n
From the bridge, the children passed through the valleys in the hills<\/p>\n
and came closer and closer to the woods. Finally they reached the edge<\/p>\n
of the woods and walked on through them.<\/p>\n
When they had climbed up into the higher woodlands of the “neck,” the<\/p>\n
long furrows of the road were no longer soft, as had been the case in<\/p>\n
the valley, but were firm, not from dryness, but, as the children soon<\/p>\n
perceived, because they were frozen over. In some places, the frost had<\/p>\n
rendered them so hard that they could bear the weight of their bodies.<\/p>\n
From now on, they did not persist any longer in the slippery path beside<\/p>\n
the road, but in the ruts, as children will, trying whether this or that<\/p>\n
furrow would carry them. When, after an hour’s time, they had arrived at<\/p>\n
the height of the “neck,” the ground was so hard that their steps<\/p>\n
resounded on it and the clods were hard like stones.<\/p>\n
Arrived at the location of the memorial post, Sanna was the first to<\/p>\n
notice that it stood no longer there. They went up to the spot and saw<\/p>\n
that the round, red-painted post which carried the picture was lying in<\/p>\n
the dry grass which stood there like thin straw and concealed the fallen<\/p>\n
post from view. They could not understand, to be sure, why it had<\/p>\n
toppled over–whether it had been knocked down or fallen of itself; but<\/p>\n
they did see that the wood was much decayed at the place where it<\/p>\n
emerged from the ground and that the post might therefore easily have<\/p>\n
fallen of itself. Since it was lying there, however, they were pleased<\/p>\n
that they could get a closer look at the picture and the inscription<\/p>\n
than they had ever had before. When they had examined all–the basket<\/p>\n
with the rolls, the whitish hands of the baker, his closed eyes, his<\/p>\n
gray coat and the pine-trees surrounding him–and when they had spelt<\/p>\n
out and read aloud the inscription, they proceeded on their way.<\/p>\n
After another hour, the dark forest on either side receded, scattered<\/p>\n
trees, some of them isolated oaks, others birches, and clumps of bushes,<\/p>\n
received them and accompanied them onward, and after a short while the<\/p>\n
children were running down through the meadows of the valley of<\/p>\n
Millsdorf.<\/p>\n
Although this valley is not as high, by far, as the valley of Gschaid<\/p>\n
and so much warmer that they could begin harvesting two weeks earlier<\/p>\n
than in Gschaid, the ground was frozen here too; and when the children<\/p>\n
had come to the tannery and the fulling-mill of their grandfather,<\/p>\n
pretty little cakes of ice were lying on the road where it was<\/p>\n
frequently spattered by drops from the wheels. That is usually a great<\/p>\n
pleasure for children.<\/p>\n
Grandmother had seen them coming and had gone to meet them. She took<\/p>\n
Sanna by her cold little hands and led her into the room.<\/p>\n
She made them take off their heavy outer garments, ordered more wood to<\/p>\n
be put in the stove, and asked them what had happened on the way over.<\/p>\n
When they had told her she said: “That’s nice and good, and I am very<\/p>\n
glad that you have come again; but today you must be off early, the day<\/p>\n
is short and it is growing colder. Only this morning there was no frost<\/p>\n
in Millsdorf.”<\/p>\n
“Not in Gschaid, either,” said the boy.<\/p>\n
“There you see. On that account you must hurry so that you will not grow<\/p>\n
too cold in the evening,” said grandmother.<\/p>\n
Then she asked how mother was and how father was, and whether anything<\/p>\n
particular had happened in Gschaid.<\/p>\n
After having questioned them she devoted herself to the preparation of<\/p>\n
dinner, made sure that it would be ready at an earlier time than usual,<\/p>\n
and herself prepared tidbits for the children which she knew would give<\/p>\n
them pleasure. Then the master dyer was called. Covers were set on the<\/p>\n
table for the children as for grown-up people and then they ate with<\/p>\n
grandfather and grandmother, and the latter helped them to particularly<\/p>\n
good things. After the meal, she stroked Sanna’s cheeks which had grown<\/p>\n
quite red, meanwhile.<\/p>\n
Thereupon she went busily to and fro packing the boy’s knapsack till it<\/p>\n
was full and, besides, stuffed all kinds of things into his pockets.<\/p>\n
Also in Sanna’s little pockets she put all manner of things. She gave<\/p>\n
each a piece of bread to eat on the way and in the knapsack, she said,<\/p>\n
there were two more pieces of wheat bread, in case they should grow too<\/p>\n
hungry.<\/p>\n
“For mother, I have given you some well-roasted coffee,” she said, “and<\/p>\n
in the little bottle that is stoppered and tightly wrapped up there is<\/p>\n
also some black coffee, better than mother usually makes over at your<\/p>\n
house. Just let her taste it; it is a veritable medicine tonic, so<\/p>\n
strong that one swallow of it will warm up the stomach, so that the body<\/p>\n
will not grow cold on the coldest of winter days. The other things in<\/p>\n
the pasteboard-box and those that are wrapped up in paper in the<\/p>\n
knapsack you are to bring home without touching.”<\/p>\n
After having talked with the children a little while longer she bade<\/p>\n
them go.<\/p>\n
“Take good care, Sanna,” she said, “that you don’t get chilled, you<\/p>\n
mustn’t get overheated. And don’t you run up along the meadows and under<\/p>\n
the trees. Probably there will be some wind toward evening, and then you<\/p>\n
must walk more slowly. Greet father and mother and wish them a right<\/p>\n
merry Christmas.”<\/p>\n
Grandmother kissed both children on their cheeks and pushed them through<\/p>\n
the door. Nevertheless she herself went along, accompanied them through<\/p>\n
the garden, let them out by the back gate, closed it behind them, and<\/p>\n
went back into the house.<\/p>\n
The children walked past the cakes of ice beside grandfather’s mill,<\/p>\n
passed through the fields of Millsdorf, and turned upward toward the<\/p>\n
meadows.<\/p>\n
When they were passing along the heights where, as has been said, stood<\/p>\n
scattered trees and clumps of bushes there fell, quite slowly, some few<\/p>\n
snow-flakes.<\/p>\n
“Do you see, Sanna,” said the boy, “I had thought right away that we<\/p>\n
would have snow; do you remember, when we left home, how the sun was a<\/p>\n
bloody red like the lamp hanging at the Holy Sepulchre; and now nothing<\/p>\n
is to be seen of it any more, and only the gray mist is above the<\/p>\n
tree-tops. That always means snow.”<\/p>\n
The children walked on more gladly and Sanna was happy whenever she<\/p>\n
caught a falling flake on the dark sleeves of her coat and the flake<\/p>\n
stayed there a long time before melting. When they had finally arrived<\/p>\n
at the outermost edge of the Millsdorf heights where the road enters the<\/p>\n
dark pines of the “neck” the solid front of the forest was already<\/p>\n
prettily sprinkled by the flakes falling ever more thickly. They now<\/p>\n
entered the dense forest which extended over the longest part of the<\/p>\n
journey still ahead of them.<\/p>\n
From the edge of the forest the ground continues to rise up to the point<\/p>\n
where one reaches the red memorial post, when the road leads downward<\/p>\n
toward the valley of Gschaid. In fact, the slope of the forest from the<\/p>\n
Millsdorf side is so steep that the road does not gain the height by a<\/p>\n
straight line but climbs up in long serpentines from west to east and<\/p>\n
from east to west. The whole length of the road up to the post and down<\/p>\n
to the meadows of Gschaid leads through tall, dense woods without a<\/p>\n
clearing which grow less heavy as one comes down on the level again and<\/p>\n
issues from them near the meadows of the valley of Gschaid. Indeed, the<\/p>\n
“neck,” though being only a small ridge connecting two great mountain<\/p>\n
masses, is yet large enough to appear a considerable mountain itself if<\/p>\n
it were placed in the plain.<\/p>\n
The first observation the children made when entering the woods was that<\/p>\n
the frozen ground appeared gray as though powdered with flour, and that<\/p>\n
the beards of the dry grass-stalks standing here and there between the<\/p>\n
trees by the road-side were weighted down with snow-flakes; while on the<\/p>\n
many green twigs of the pines and firs opening up like hands there sat<\/p>\n
little white flames.<\/p>\n
“Is it snowing at home, too, I wonder?” asked Sanna. “Of course,”<\/p>\n
answered the boy, “and it is growing colder, too, and you will see that<\/p>\n
the whole pond is frozen over by tomorrow.”<\/p>\n
“Yes, Conrad,” said the girl.<\/p>\n
She hastened her steps to keep up with the boy striding along.<\/p>\n
They now continued steadily up along the serpentines, now from west to<\/p>\n
east and again from east to west. The wind predicted by grandmother did<\/p>\n
not come; on the contrary, the air was so still that not a branch or<\/p>\n
twig was moving. In fact, it seemed warmer in the forest, as, in<\/p>\n
general, loose bodies with air-spaces between, such as a forest, are in<\/p>\n
winter. The snow-flakes descended ever more copiously so that the ground<\/p>\n
was altogether white already and the woods began to appear dappled with<\/p>\n
gray, while snow lay on the garments of the children.<\/p>\n
Both were overjoyed. They stepped upon the soft down, and looked for<\/p>\n
places where there was a thicker layer of it, in order to tread on them<\/p>\n
and make it appear as if they were wading in it already. They did not<\/p>\n
shake off the snow from their clothes.<\/p>\n
A great stillness had set in. There was nothing to be seen of any bird<\/p>\n
although some do flit to and fro through the forest in winter-time and<\/p>\n
the children on their way to Millsdorf had even heard some twitter. The<\/p>\n
whole forest seemed deserted.<\/p>\n
As theirs were the only tracks and the snow in front of them was untrod<\/p>\n
and immaculate they understood that they were the only ones crossing the<\/p>\n
“neck” that day.<\/p>\n
They proceeded onward, now approaching, now leaving the trees. Where<\/p>\n
there was dense undergrowth they could see the snow lying upon it.<\/p>\n
Their joy was still growing, for the flakes descended ever more densely,<\/p>\n
and after a short time they needed no longer to search for places to<\/p>\n
wade in the snow, for it was so thick already that they felt it soft<\/p>\n
under their soles and up around their shoes. And when all was so silent<\/p>\n
and peaceful it seemed to them that they could hear the swish of the<\/p>\n
snow falling upon the needles.<\/p>\n
“Shall we see the post today?” asked the girl, “because it has fallen<\/p>\n
down, you know, and then the snow will fall on it and the red color will<\/p>\n
be white.”<\/p>\n
“We shall be able to see it though, for that matter,” replied the boy;<\/p>\n
“even if the snow falls upon it and it becomes white all over we are<\/p>\n
bound to see it, because it is a thick post, and because it has the<\/p>\n
black iron cross on its top which will surely stick out.”<\/p>\n
“Yes, Conrad.”<\/p>\n
Meanwhile, as they had proceeded still farther, the snowfall had become<\/p>\n
so dense that they could see only the very nearest trees.<\/p>\n
No hardness of the road, not to mention its ruts, was to be felt, the<\/p>\n
road was everywhere equally soft with snow and was, in fact,<\/p>\n
recognizable only as an even white band running on through the forest.<\/p>\n
On all the branches there lay already the beautiful white covering.<\/p>\n
The children now walked in the middle of the road, furrowing the snow<\/p>\n
with their little feet and proceeding more slowly as the walking became<\/p>\n
more tiresome. The boy pulled up his jacket about his throat so that no<\/p>\n
snow should fall in his neck, and pulled down his hat so as to be more<\/p>\n
protected. He also fastened his little sister’s neckerchief which her<\/p>\n
mother had given her to wear over her shoulders, pulling it forward over<\/p>\n
her forehead so that it formed a roof.<\/p>\n
The wind predicted by grandmother still had not come, on the other hand,<\/p>\n
the snowfall gradually became so dense that not even the nearest trees<\/p>\n
were to be recognized, but stood there like misty sacks.<\/p>\n
The children went on. They drew up their shoulders and walked on.<\/p>\n
Sanna took hold of the strap by which Conrad had his calfskin bag<\/p>\n
fastened about his shoulders and thus they proceeded on their way.<\/p>\n
They still had not reached the post. The boy was not sure about the<\/p>\n
time, because the sun was not shining and all was a monotonous gray.<\/p>\n
“Shall we reach the post soon?” asked the girl.<\/p>\n
“I don’t know,” said the boy, “I can’t see the trees today and recognize<\/p>\n
the way, because it is so white. We shall not see the post at all,<\/p>\n
perhaps, because there is so much snow that it will be covered up and<\/p>\n
scarcely a blade of grass or an arm of the black cross will show. But<\/p>\n
never mind. We just continue on our road, and the road goes between the<\/p>\n
trees and when it gets to the spot where the post stands it will go<\/p>\n
down, and we shall keep on it, and when it comes out of the trees we are<\/p>\n
already on the meadows of Gschaid, then comes the path, and then we<\/p>\n
shall not be far from home.”<\/p>\n
“Yes, Conrad,” said the girl.<\/p>\n
They proceeded along their road which still led upward. The footprints<\/p>\n
they left behind them did not remain visible long, for the extraordinary<\/p>\n
volume of the descending snow soon covered them up. The snow no longer<\/p>\n
rustled, in falling upon the needles, but hurriedly and peacefully added<\/p>\n
itself to the snow already there. The, children gathered their garments<\/p>\n
still more tightly about them, in order to keep the steadily falling<\/p>\n
snow from coming in on all sides.<\/p>\n
They walked on very fast, and still the road led upward. After a long<\/p>\n
time they still had not reached the height on which the post was<\/p>\n
supposed to be, and from where the road was to descend toward Gschaid.<\/p>\n
Finally the children came to a region where there were no more trees.<\/p>\n
“I see no more trees,” said Sanna.<\/p>\n
“Perhaps the road is so broad that we cannot see them on account of the<\/p>\n
snow,” answered the boy.<\/p>\n
“Yes, Conrad,” said the girl.<\/p>\n
After a while the boy remained standing and said: “I don’t see any trees<\/p>\n
now myself, we must have got out of the woods, and also the road keeps<\/p>\n
on rising. Let us stand still a while and look about, perhaps we may see<\/p>\n
something.” But they perceived nothing. They saw the sky only through a<\/p>\n
dim space. Just as in a hailstorm gloomy fringes hang down over the<\/p>\n
white or greenish swollen clouds, thus it was here, and the noiseless<\/p>\n
falling continued. On the ground they saw only a round spot of white and<\/p>\n
nothing else.<\/p>\n
“Do you know, Sanna,” said the boy, “we are on the dry grass I often led<\/p>\n
you up to in summer, where we used to sit and look at the pasture-land<\/p>\n
that leads up gradually and where the beautiful herbs grow. We shall now<\/p>\n
at once go down there on the right.”<\/p>\n
“Yes, Conrad.”<\/p>\n
“The day is short, as grandmother said, and as you well know yourself,<\/p>\n
and so we must hurry.”<\/p>\n
“Yes, Conrad,” said the girl.<\/p>\n
“Wait a little and I will fix you a little better,” replied the boy.<\/p>\n
He took off his hat, put it on Sanna’s head and fastened it with both<\/p>\n
ribbons under her chin. The kerchief she had worn protected her too<\/p>\n
little, while on his head there was such a mass of dense curls that the<\/p>\n
snow could fall on it for a long time before the wet and cold would<\/p>\n
penetrate. Then he took off his little fur-jacket and drew it over her<\/p>\n
little arms. About his own shoulders and arms which now showed the bare<\/p>\n
shirt he tied the little kerchief Sauna had worn over her chest and the<\/p>\n
larger one she had had over her shoulders. That was enough for himself,<\/p>\n
he thought, and if he only stepped briskly he should not be cold.<\/p>\n
He took the little girl by her hand, so they marched on. The girl with<\/p>\n
her docile little eyes looked out into the monotonous gray round about<\/p>\n
and gladly followed him, only her little hurrying feet could not keep up<\/p>\n
with his, for he was striding onward like one who wanted to decide a<\/p>\n
matter once for all.<\/p>\n
Thus they proceeded with the unremitting energy children and animals<\/p>\n
have as they do not realize how far their strength will carry them, and<\/p>\n
when their supply of it will give out.<\/p>\n
But as they went on they did not notice whether they were going down or<\/p>\n
up. They had turned down to the right at once, but they came again to<\/p>\n
places that led up. Often they encountered steep places which they were<\/p>\n
forced to avoid, and a trench in which they continued led them about in<\/p>\n
a curve. They climbed heights which grew ever steeper as they proceeded,<\/p>\n
and what they thought led downward was level ground, or it was a<\/p>\n
depression, or the way went on in an even stretch.<\/p>\n
“Where are we, I wonder, Conrad?” asked the girl.<\/p>\n
“I don’t know,” he answered. “If I only could see something with my<\/p>\n
eyes,” he continued, “that I could take my direction from.”<\/p>\n
But there was nothing about them but the blinding white, white<\/p>\n
everywhere which drew an ever narrowing circle about them, passing,<\/p>\n
beyond it, into a luminous mist descending in bands which consumed and<\/p>\n
concealed all objects beyond, until there was nothing but the<\/p>\n
unceasingly descending snow.<\/p>\n
“Wait, Sanna,” said the boy, “let us stand still for a moment and<\/p>\n
listen, perhaps we might hear a sound from the valley, a dog, or a bell,<\/p>\n
or the mill, or a shout, something we must hear, and then we shall know<\/p>\n
which way to go.”<\/p>\n
So they remained standing, but they heard nothing. They remained<\/p>\n
standing a little longer, but nothing came, not a single sound, not the<\/p>\n
faintest noise beside their own breath, aye, in the absolute stillness<\/p>\n
they thought they could hear the snow as it fell on their eyelashes. The<\/p>\n
prediction of grandmother had still not come true; no wind had arisen,<\/p>\n
in fact, what is rare in those regions, not a breath of air was<\/p>\n
stirring.<\/p>\n
After having waited for a long time they went on again.<\/p>\n
“Never mind, Sanna,” said the boy, “don’t be afraid, just follow me and<\/p>\n
I shall lead you down yet.–If only it would stop snowing!”<\/p>\n
The little girl was not faint-hearted, but lifted her little feet as<\/p>\n
well as she could and followed him. He led her on in the white, bright,<\/p>\n
living, opaque space.<\/p>\n
After a time they saw rocks. Darkling and indistinct they loomed up out<\/p>\n
of the white opaque light. As the children approached they almost bumped<\/p>\n
against them. They rose up like walls and were quite perpendicular so<\/p>\n
that scarcely a flake of snow could settle on them.<\/p>\n
“Sanna, Sanna,” he said, “there are the rocks, just let us keep on, let<\/p>\n
us keep on.”<\/p>\n
They went on, had to enter in between the rocks and push on at their<\/p>\n
base. The rocks would let them escape neither to left nor right and led<\/p>\n
them on in a narrow path. After a while the children lost sight of them.<\/p>\n
They got away from the rocks as unexpectedly as they had got among them.<\/p>\n
Again, nothing surrounded them but white, no more dark forms interposed.<\/p>\n
They moved in what seemed a great brightness and yet could not see three<\/p>\n
feet ahead, everything being, as it were, enveloped in a white darkness,<\/p>\n
and as there were no shadows no opinion about the size of objects was<\/p>\n
possible. The children did not know whether they were to descend or<\/p>\n
ascend until some steep slope compelled their feet to climb.<\/p>\n
“My eyes smart,” said Sanna.<\/p>\n
“Don’t look on the snow,” answered the boy, “but into the clouds. Mine<\/p>\n
have hurt a long time already; but it does not matter, because I must<\/p>\n
watch our way. But don’t be afraid, I shall lead you safely down to<\/p>\n
Gschaid.”<\/p>\n
“Yes, Conrad.”<\/p>\n
They went on; but wheresoever they turned, whichever way they turned,<\/p>\n
there never showed a chance to descend. On either side steep acclivities<\/p>\n
hemmed them in, and also made them constantly ascend. Whenever they<\/p>\n
turned downward the slopes proved so precipitous that they were<\/p>\n
compelled to retreat. Frequently they met obstacles and often had to<\/p>\n
avoid steep slopes.<\/p>\n
They began to notice that whenever their feet sank in through the new<\/p>\n
snow they no longer felt the rocky soil underneath but something else<\/p>\n
which seemed like older, frozen snow; but still they pushed onward and<\/p>\n
marched fast and perseveringly. Whenever they made a halt everything was<\/p>\n
still, unspeakably still. When they resumed their march they heard the<\/p>\n
shuffling of their feet and nothing else; for the veils of heaven<\/p>\n
descended without a sound, and so abundantly that one might have seen<\/p>\n
the snow grow. The children themselves were covered with it so that they<\/p>\n
did not contrast with the general whiteness and would have lost each<\/p>\n
other from sight had they been separated but a few feet.<\/p>\n
A comfort it was that the snow was as dry as sand so that it did not<\/p>\n
adhere to their boots and stockings or cling and wet them.<\/p>\n
At last they approached some other objects. They were gigantic fragments<\/p>\n
lying in wild confusion and covered with snow sifting everywhere into<\/p>\n
the chasms between them. The children almost touched them before seeing<\/p>\n
them. They went up to them to examine what they were.<\/p>\n
It was ice–nothing but ice.<\/p>\n
There were snow-covered slabs on whose lateral edges the smooth green<\/p>\n
ice became visible; there were hillocks that looked like heaped-up<\/p>\n
foam, but whose inward-looking crevices had a dull sheen and lustre as<\/p>\n
if bars and beams of gems had been flung pellmell. There rose rounded<\/p>\n
hummocks that were entirely enveloped in snow, slabs and other forms<\/p>\n
that stood inclined or in a perpendicular position, towering as high as<\/p>\n
houses or the church of Gschaid. In some, cavities were hollowed out<\/p>\n
through which one could insert an arm, a head, a body, a whole big wagon<\/p>\n
full of hay. All these were jumbled together and tilted so that they<\/p>\n
frequently formed roofs or eaves whose edges the snow overlaid and over<\/p>\n
which it reached down like long white paws. Nay, even a monstrous black<\/p>\n
boulder as large as a house lay stranded among the blocks of ice and<\/p>\n
stood on end so that no snow could stick to its sides. And even larger<\/p>\n
ones which one saw only later were fast in the ice and skirted the<\/p>\n
glacier like a wall of debris.<\/p>\n
“There must have been very much water here, because there is so much<\/p>\n
ice,” remarked Sanna.<\/p>\n
“No, that did not come from any water,” replied her brother, “that is<\/p>\n
the ice of the mountain which is always on it, because that is the way<\/p>\n
things are.”<\/p>\n
“Yes, Conrad,” said Sanna.<\/p>\n
“We have come to the ice now,” said the boy; “we are on the mountain,<\/p>\n
you know, Sanna, that one sees so white in the sunshine from our garden.<\/p>\n
Now keep in mind what I shall tell you. Do you remember how often we<\/p>\n
used to sit in the garden, in the afternoon, how beautiful it was, how<\/p>\n
the bees hummed about us, how the linden-trees smelled sweet, and how<\/p>\n
the sun shone down on us?”<\/p>\n
“Yes, Conrad, I remember.”<\/p>\n
“And then we also used to see the mountain. We saw how blue it was, as<\/p>\n
blue as the sky, we saw the snow that is up there even when we had<\/p>\n
summer-weather, when it was hot and the grain ripened.”<\/p>\n
“Yes, Conrad.”<\/p>\n
“And below it where the snow stopped one sees all sorts of colors if one<\/p>\n
looks close–green, blue, and whitish–that is the ice; but it only<\/p>\n
looks so small from below, because it is so very far away. Father said<\/p>\n
the ice will not go away before the end of the world. And then I also<\/p>\n
often saw that there was blue color below the ice and thought it was<\/p>\n
stones, or soil and pasture-land, and then come the woods, and they go<\/p>\n
down farther and farther, and there are some boulders in them too, and<\/p>\n
then come meadows that are already green, and then the green<\/p>\n
leafy-woods, and then our meadow-lands and fields in the valley of<\/p>\n
Gschaid. Do you see now, Sanna, as we are at the ice we shall go down<\/p>\n
over the blue color, and through the forests in which are the boulders,<\/p>\n
and then over the pasture-land, and through the green leafy-forests, and<\/p>\n
then we shall be in the valley of Gschaid and easily find our way to the<\/p>\n
village.”<\/p>\n
“Yes, Conrad,” said the girl.<\/p>\n
The children now entered upon the glacier where it was accessible. They<\/p>\n
were like wee little pricks wandering among the huge masses.<\/p>\n
As they were peering in under the overhanging slabs, moved as it were by<\/p>\n
an instinct to seek some shelter, they arrived at a trench, broad and<\/p>\n
deeply furrowed, which came right out of the ice. It looked like the bed<\/p>\n
of some torrent now dried up and everywhere covered with fresh snow. At<\/p>\n
the spot where it emerged from the ice there yawned a vault of ice<\/p>\n
beautifully arched above it. The children continued in the trench and,<\/p>\n
entering the vault, went in farther and farther. It was quite dry and<\/p>\n
there was smooth ice under their feet. All the cavern, however, was<\/p>\n
blue, bluer than anything else in the world, more profoundly and more<\/p>\n
beautifully blue than the sky, as blue as azure glass through which a<\/p>\n
bright glow is diffused. There were more or less heavy flutings, icicles<\/p>\n
hung down pointed and tufted, and the passage led inward still farther,<\/p>\n
they knew not how far; but they did not go on. It would also have been<\/p>\n
pleasant to stay in this grotto, it was warm and no snow could come in;<\/p>\n
but it was so fearfully blue that the children took fright and ran out<\/p>\n
again. They went on a while in the trench and then clambered over its<\/p>\n
side.<\/p>\n
They passed along the ice, as far as it was possible to edge through<\/p>\n
that chaos of fragments and boulders.<\/p>\n
“We shall now have to pass over this, and then we shall run down away<\/p>\n
from the ice,” said Conrad.<\/p>\n
“Yes,” said Sanna and clung to him.<\/p>\n
From the ice they took a direction downward over the snow which was to<\/p>\n
lead them into the valley. But they were not to get far. Another river<\/p>\n
of ice traversed the soft snow like a gigantic wall bulging up and<\/p>\n
towering aloft and, as it were, reaching out with its arms to the right<\/p>\n
and the left. It was covered by snow on top, but at its sides there were<\/p>\n
gleams of blue and green and drab and black, aye, even of yellow and<\/p>\n
red. They could now see to larger distances, as the enormous and<\/p>\n
unceasing snowfall had abated somewhat and was only as heavy as on<\/p>\n
ordinary snowy days. With the audacity of ignorance they clambered up on<\/p>\n
the ice in order to cross the interposing tongue of the glacier and to<\/p>\n
descend farther behind it. They thrust their little bodies into every<\/p>\n
opening, they put their feet on every projection covered by a white<\/p>\n
snow-hood, whether ice or rock, they aided their progress with their<\/p>\n
hands, they crept where they could not walk, and with their light bodies<\/p>\n
worked themselves up until they had finally gained the top of the wall.<\/p>\n
They had intended to climb down its other side.<\/p>\n
There was no other side.<\/p>\n
As far as the eyes of the children reached there was only ice. Hummocks,<\/p>\n
slabs, and spires of ice rose about them, all covered with snow. Instead<\/p>\n
of being a wall which one might surmount and which would be followed by<\/p>\n
an expanse of snow, as they had thought, new walls of ice lifted up out<\/p>\n
of the glacier, shattered and fissured and variegated with innumerable<\/p>\n
blue sinuous lines; and behind them were other walls of the same nature,<\/p>\n
and behind them others again, until the falling snow veiled the distance<\/p>\n
with its gray.<\/p>\n
“Sanna, we cannot make our way here,” said the boy. “No,” answered his<\/p>\n
sister.<\/p>\n
“Then we will turn back and try to get down somewhere else.”<\/p>\n
“Yes, Conrad.”<\/p>\n
The children now tried to climb down from the ice-wall where they had<\/p>\n
clambered up, but they did not succeed. There was ice all about them, as<\/p>\n
if they had mistaken the direction from which they had come. They turned<\/p>\n
hither and thither and were not able to extricate themselves from the<\/p>\n
ice. It was as if they were entangled in it. At last, when the boy<\/p>\n
followed the direction they had, as he thought, come, they reached more<\/p>\n
scattered boulders, but they were also larger and more awe-inspiring, as<\/p>\n
is usually the case at the edge of the glacier. Creeping and clambering,<\/p>\n
the children managed to issue from the ice. At the rim of the glacier<\/p>\n
there were enormous boulders, piled in huge heaps, such as the children<\/p>\n
had never yet seen. Many were covered all over with snow, others showed<\/p>\n
their slanting under-sides which were very smooth and finely polished as<\/p>\n
if they had been shoved along on them, many were inclined toward one<\/p>\n
another like huts and roofs, many lay upon one another like mighty<\/p>\n
clods. Not far from where the children stood, several boulders were<\/p>\n
inclined together, and over them lay broad slabs like a roof. The little<\/p>\n
house they thus formed was open in front, but protected in the rear and<\/p>\n
on both sides. The interior was dry, as not a single snow-flake had<\/p>\n
drifted in. The children were very glad that they were no longer in the<\/p>\n
ice, but stood on the ground again.<\/p>\n
But meanwhile it had been growing dark.<\/p>\n
“Sanna,” said the boy, “we shall not be able to go down today, because<\/p>\n
it has become night, and because we might fall or even drop into some<\/p>\n
pit. We will go in under those stones where it is so dry and warm, and<\/p>\n
there we will wait. The sun will soon rise again, and then we shall run<\/p>\n
down from the mountain. Don’t cry, please, don’t cry, and I shall give<\/p>\n
you all the things to eat which grandmother has given us to take<\/p>\n
along.”<\/p>\n
The little girl did not weep. After they had entered under the stone<\/p>\n
roof where they could not only sit comfortably, but also stand and walk<\/p>\n
about she seated herself close to him and kept very quiet.<\/p>\n
“Mother will not be angry,” said Conrad, “we shall tell her of the heavy<\/p>\n
snow that has kept us, and she will say nothing; father will not,<\/p>\n
either. And if we grow cold, why then we must slap our hands to our<\/p>\n
bodies as the woodcutters did, and then we shall grow warm again.”<\/p>\n
“Yes, Conrad,” said the girl.<\/p>\n
Sanna was not at all so inconsolable because they could not run down the<\/p>\n
mountain and get home as he might have thought; for the immense<\/p>\n
exertion, of whose severity the children hardly had any conception, made<\/p>\n
the very sitting down seem sweet to them, unspeakably sweet, and they<\/p>\n
did not resist.<\/p>\n
But now hunger asserted itself imperiously. Almost at the same time,<\/p>\n
both took their pieces of bread from their pockets and began to eat.<\/p>\n
They ate also the other things, such as little pieces of cake, almonds,<\/p>\n
raisins, and other trifles, which grandmother had put into their<\/p>\n
pockets.<\/p>\n
“Sanna, now we must clean the snow from our clothes,” said the boy, “so<\/p>\n
that we shall not become wet.”<\/p>\n
“Yes, Conrad,” replied Sanna.<\/p>\n
The children went before their little house. Conrad first brushed off<\/p>\n
his little sister. He grasped the corners of her coat and shook them,<\/p>\n
took off the hat he had put on her head, emptied it of snow and wiped<\/p>\n
off the snow that remained in it. Then he rid himself as best he could<\/p>\n
of the snow that lay on him.<\/p>\n
At that time it had entirely stopped snowing. The children could not<\/p>\n
feel one flake descending.<\/p>\n
They returned into their stone-hut and sat down. Getting up had showed<\/p>\n
them how tired they really were, and they were glad to sit down again.<\/p>\n
Conrad laid down the calfskin bag which he had strapped on his<\/p>\n
shoulders. He took out the cloth in which grandmother had wrapped a<\/p>\n
pasteboard-box and several paper packages and put it about his<\/p>\n
shoulders for greater warmth. He also took the two pieces of wheat-bread<\/p>\n
out of his wallet and gave Sanna both. The child ate them most eagerly.<\/p>\n
A part of them, however, she gave back to Conrad as she saw he was not<\/p>\n
eating anything. He accepted it and ate it.<\/p>\n
From that time on, the children merely sat and looked. As far as the eye<\/p>\n
could reach in the twilight there was nothing but snow, whose minute<\/p>\n
crystals began to scintillate in a strange manner as if they had<\/p>\n
absorbed the light of day and were emitting it again now.<\/p>\n
Night fell with the rapidity usual in high altitudes. Soon it was dark<\/p>\n
all about, only the snow continued to glimmer faintly. Not only had it<\/p>\n
stopped snowing but the clouds began to grow thin and to part, for the<\/p>\n
children saw the gleam of a star. As the snow really emitted light, as<\/p>\n
it were, and the clouds no longer hung down from the sky, they could see<\/p>\n
from their cave how the snowy hillocks round about were sharply outlined<\/p>\n
against the dark sky. The cave was warmer than it had been at any other<\/p>\n
place during the day, and so the children rested, clinging closely to<\/p>\n
each other and even forgot to be afraid of the darkness. Soon the stars<\/p>\n
multiplied, they gleamed forth now here, now there, until it seemed that<\/p>\n
there was not a single cloud left in the whole sky.<\/p>\n
This was the moment when people in the valleys are accustomed to light<\/p>\n
their candles. At first, only one is kindled, in order to make light in<\/p>\n
the room; or, possibly, only a pine-splinter; or the fire is burning in<\/p>\n
the hearth, and all windows of human habitations grow bright and shed<\/p>\n
lustre into the snowy night; but all the more tonight, Christmas<\/p>\n
evening, when many more lights were kindled, in order to shine full upon<\/p>\n
the presents for the children which lay upon the tables or hung on the<\/p>\n
trees–innumerable candles were lit; for in nearly every house, every<\/p>\n
cot, every room, there were children for whom the Christ-child had<\/p>\n
brought presents which had to be shown by the light of candles.<\/p>\n
The boy had thought one could very quickly come down from the mountain<\/p>\n
and yet, not a single one of the lights burning that night in the valley<\/p>\n
shone up to them. They saw nothing but the pale snow and the dark sky,<\/p>\n
all else was rendered invisible by the distance. At this hour, the<\/p>\n
children in all valleys were receiving their Christmas presents. These<\/p>\n
two alone sat up there by the edge of the glacier and the finest<\/p>\n
presents meant for them on this day lay in little sealed packages in the<\/p>\n
calfskin bag in the rear of the cave.<\/p>\n
The snow-clouds had sunk below the mountains on all sides and a vault<\/p>\n
entirely dark-blue, almost black, full of densely clustered burning<\/p>\n
stars extended above the children; and through the midst of them was<\/p>\n
woven a shimmering broad milky band which they had, indeed, seen also<\/p>\n
below in the valley, but never so distinctly. The night was advancing.<\/p>\n
The children did not know that the stars change their position and move<\/p>\n
toward the west, else they might have recognized the hour of night by<\/p>\n
their progress. New stars came and the old ones disappeared, but they<\/p>\n
believed them to be always the same. It grew somewhat brighter about the<\/p>\n
children by the radiance of the stars; but they saw no valley, no known<\/p>\n
places, but everywhere white–only white. Only some dark peak, some dark<\/p>\n
knob became visible looming up out of the shimmering waste. The moon was<\/p>\n
nowhere to be seen in the heavens, perhaps it had set early with the<\/p>\n
sun, or it had not yet risen.<\/p>\n
After a long time the boy said: “Sanna, you must not sleep; for do you<\/p>\n
remember what father said, that if one sleeps in the mountains one will<\/p>\n
freeze to death, as the old hunter slept and sat four months dead on<\/p>\n
that stone and no one had known where he was.”<\/p>\n
“No, I shall not sleep,” said the little girl feebly. Conrad had shaken<\/p>\n
her by a corner of her coat, in order to make her listen to his words.<\/p>\n
Then there was silence again.<\/p>\n
After a little while, the boy felt a soft pressure against his arm which<\/p>\n
became ever heavier. Sanna had fallen asleep and had sunk over toward<\/p>\n
him.<\/p>\n
“Sanna, don’t sleep, please, don’t sleep!” he said.<\/p>\n
“No,” she mumbled drowsily, “I shall not sleep.”<\/p>\n
He moved farther away from her, in order to make her move; she toppled<\/p>\n
over and would have continued sleeping on the ground. He took hold of<\/p>\n
her shoulder and shook her. As he moved a little more, he noticed that<\/p>\n
he was feeling cold himself and that his arm had grown numb. He was<\/p>\n
frightened and jumped up. He seized his sister, shook her more<\/p>\n
vigorously and said, “Sanna, get up a little, we want to stand up a<\/p>\n
little so that we shall feel better.”<\/p>\n
“I am not cold, Conrad,” she answered.<\/p>\n
“Yes indeed you are, Sanna, get up,” he cried.<\/p>\n
“My fur-jacket is warm,” she said.<\/p>\n
“I shall help you up,” he said.<\/p>\n
“No,” she replied, and lay still.<\/p>\n
Then something else occurred to the boy. Grandmother had said: “Just one<\/p>\n
little mouthful of it will warm the stomach so that one’s body will not<\/p>\n
be cold on the coldest winter day.”<\/p>\n
He reached for his little calfskin knapsack, opened it, and groped<\/p>\n
around in it until he found the little flask into which grandmother had<\/p>\n
put the black coffee for mother. He took away the wrappings from the<\/p>\n
bottle and with some exertion uncorked it. Then he bent down to Sanna<\/p>\n
and said: “Here is the coffee that grandmother sends mother, taste a<\/p>\n
little of it, it will make you feel warm. Mother would give it to us if<\/p>\n
she knew what we needed it for.”<\/p>\n
The little girl, who was by nature inclined to be passive, answered, “I<\/p>\n
am not cold.”<\/p>\n
“Just take a little,” urged the boy, “and then you may go to sleep<\/p>\n
again.”<\/p>\n
This expectation tempted Sanna and she mastered herself so far that she<\/p>\n
took a swallow of the liquor. Then the boy drank a little, too.<\/p>\n
The exceedingly strong extract took effect at once and all the more<\/p>\n
powerfully as the children had never in their life tasted coffee.<\/p>\n
Instead of going to sleep, Sanna became more active and acknowledged<\/p>\n
that she was cold, but that she felt nice and warm inside, and that the<\/p>\n
warmth was already passing into her hands and feet. The children even<\/p>\n
spoke a while together.<\/p>\n
In this fashion they drank ever more of the liquor in spite of its<\/p>\n
bitter taste as the effect of it began to die away and roused their<\/p>\n
nerves to a fever heat which was able to counteract their utter<\/p>\n
weariness.<\/p>\n
It had become midnight, meanwhile. As they still were so young, and<\/p>\n
because on every Christmas eve in the excess of their joy they went to<\/p>\n
bed very late and only after being overcome by sleep, they never had<\/p>\n
heard the midnight tolling, and never the organ of the church when holy<\/p>\n
mass was being celebrated, although they lived close by. At this moment<\/p>\n
of the Holy Night, all bells were being rung, the bells of Millsdorf<\/p>\n
were ringing, the bells of Gschaid were ringing, and behind the mountain<\/p>\n
there was still another church whose three bells were pealing brightly.<\/p>\n
In the distant lands outside the valley there were innumerable churches<\/p>\n
and bells, and all of them were ringing at this moment, from village to<\/p>\n
village the wave of sound traveled, from one village to another one<\/p>\n
could hear the peal through the bare branches of the trees; but up to<\/p>\n
the children there came not a sound, nothing was heard here, for nothing<\/p>\n
was to be announced here. In the winding valleys, the lights of lanterns<\/p>\n
gleamed along the mountain-slopes, and from many a farm came the sound<\/p>\n
of the farm bell to rouse the hands. But far less could all this be seen<\/p>\n
and heard up here. Only the stars gleamed and calmly twinkled and shone.<\/p>\n
Even though Conrad kept before his mind the fate of the huntsman who was<\/p>\n
frozen to death, and even though the children had almost emptied the<\/p>\n
bottle of black coffee–which necessarily would bring on a corresponding<\/p>\n
relaxation afterwards, they would not have been able to conquer their<\/p>\n
desire for sleep, whose seductive sweetness outweighs all arguments<\/p>\n
against it, had not nature itself in all its grandeur assisted them and<\/p>\n
in its own depths awakened a force which was able to cope with sleep.<\/p>\n
In the enormous stillness that reigned about them, a silence in which no<\/p>\n
snow-crystal seemed to move, the children heard three times the bursting<\/p>\n
of the ice. That which seems the most rigid of all things and yet is<\/p>\n
most flexible and alive, the glacier, had produced these sounds. Thrice<\/p>\n
they heard behind them a crash, terrific as if the earth were rent<\/p>\n
asunder,–a sound that ramified through the ice in all directions and<\/p>\n
seemed to penetrate all its veins. The children remained sitting<\/p>\n
open-eyed and looked out upon the stars.<\/p>\n
Their eyes also were kept busy. As the children sat there, a pale light<\/p>\n
began to blossom forth on the sky before them among the stars and<\/p>\n
extended a flat arc through them. It had a greenish tinge which<\/p>\n
gradually worked downward. But the arc became ever brighter until the<\/p>\n
stars paled in it. It sent a luminosity also into other regions of the<\/p>\n
heavens which shed greenish beams softly and actively among the stars.<\/p>\n
Then, sheaves of vari-colored light stood in burning radiance on the<\/p>\n
height of the arc like the spikes of a crown. Mildly it flowed through<\/p>\n
the neighboring regions of the heavens, it flashed and showered softly,<\/p>\n
and in gentle vibrations extended through vast spaces. Whether now the<\/p>\n
electric matter of the atmosphere had become so tense by the unexampled<\/p>\n
fall of snow that it resulted in this silent, splendid efflorescence of<\/p>\n
light, or whether some other cause of unfathomable nature may be<\/p>\n
assigned as reason for the phenomenon–however that be: gradually the<\/p>\n
light grew weaker and weaker, first the sheaves died down, until by<\/p>\n
unnoticeable degrees it grew ever less and there was nothing in the<\/p>\n
heavens but the thousands upon thousands of simple stars.<\/p>\n
The children never exchanged a word, but remained sitting and gazed<\/p>\n
open-eyed into the heavens.<\/p>\n
Nothing particular happened afterward. The stars gleamed and shone and<\/p>\n
twinkled, only an occasional shooting star traversed them.<\/p>\n
At last, after the stars had shone alone for a long time, and nothing<\/p>\n
had been seen of the moon, something else happened. The sky began to<\/p>\n
grow brighter, slowly but recognizably brighter; its color became<\/p>\n
visible, the faintest stars disappeared and the others were not<\/p>\n
clustered so densely any longer. Finally, also the bigger stars faded<\/p>\n
away, and the snow on the heights became more distinct. Now, one region<\/p>\n
of the heavens grew yellow and a strip of cloud floating in it was<\/p>\n
inflamed to a glowing line. All things became clearly visible and the<\/p>\n
remote snow-hills assumed sharp outlines.<\/p>\n
“Sanna, day is breaking,” said the boy.<\/p>\n
“Yes, Conrad,” answered the girl.<\/p>\n
“After it grows just a bit brighter we shall go out of the cave and run<\/p>\n
down from the mountain.”<\/p>\n
It grew brighter, no star was visible any longer, and all things stood<\/p>\n
out clear in the dawn.<\/p>\n
“Well, then, let us go,” said the boy.<\/p>\n
“Yes, let us go,” answered Sanna.<\/p>\n
The children arose and tried their limbs which only now felt their<\/p>\n
tiredness. Although they had not slept, the morning had reinvigorated<\/p>\n
them. The boy slung the calfskin bag around his shoulder and fastened<\/p>\n
Sanna’s fur-jacket about her. Then he led her out of the cave.<\/p>\n
As they had believed it would be an easy matter to run down from the<\/p>\n
mountain they had not thought of eating and had not searched the bag, to<\/p>\n
see whether it contained any wheat-bread or other eatables.<\/p>\n
The sky being clear, Conrad had wanted to look down from the mountain<\/p>\n
into the valleys in order to recognize the valley of Gschaid and descend<\/p>\n
to it. But he saw no valleys whatever. He seemed not to stand on any<\/p>\n
mountain from which one can look down, but in some strange, curious<\/p>\n
country in which there were only unknown objects. Today they saw awful<\/p>\n
rocks stand up out of the snow at some distance which they had not seen<\/p>\n
the day before; they saw the glacier, they saw hummocks and slanting<\/p>\n
snow-fields, and behind these, either the sky or the blue peak of some<\/p>\n
very distant mountain above the edge of the snowy horizon.<\/p>\n
At this moment the sun arose.<\/p>\n
A gigantic, bloody red disk emerged above the white horizon and<\/p>\n
immediately the snow about the children blushed as if it had been strewn<\/p>\n
with millions of roses. The knobs and pinnacles of the mountain cast<\/p>\n
very long and greenish shadows along the snow.<\/p>\n
“Sanna, we shall go on here, until we come to the edge of the mountain<\/p>\n
and can look down,” said the boy.<\/p>\n
They went farther into the snow. In the clear night, it had become still<\/p>\n
drier and easily yielded to their steps. They waded stoutly on. Their<\/p>\n
limbs became even more elastic and strong as they proceeded, but they<\/p>\n
came to no edge and could not look down. Snowfield succeeded snowfield,<\/p>\n
and at the end of each always shone the sky.<\/p>\n
They continued nevertheless.<\/p>\n
Before they knew it, they were on the glacier again. They did not know<\/p>\n
how the ice had got there, but they felt the ground smooth underfoot,<\/p>\n
and although there were not such awful boulders as in the moraine where<\/p>\n
they had passed the night, yet they were aware of the glacier being<\/p>\n
underneath them, they saw the blocks growing ever larger and coming ever<\/p>\n
nearer, forcing them to clamber again.<\/p>\n
Yet they kept on in the same direction.<\/p>\n
Again they were clambering up some boulders; again they stood on the<\/p>\n
glacier. Only today, in the bright sunlight, could they see what it was<\/p>\n
like. It was enormously large, and beyond it, again, black rocks soared<\/p>\n
aloft. Wave heaved behind wave, as it were, the snowy ice was crushed,<\/p>\n
raised up, swollen as if it pressed onward and were flowing toward the<\/p>\n
children. In the white of it they perceived innumerable advancing wavy<\/p>\n
blue lines. Between those regions where the icy masses rose up, as if<\/p>\n
shattered against each other, there were lines like paths, and these<\/p>\n
were strips of firm ice or places where the blocks of ice had not been<\/p>\n
screwed up very much. The children followed these paths as they intended<\/p>\n
to cross part of the glacier, at least, in order to get to the edge of<\/p>\n
the mountain and at last have a glimpse down. They said not a word. The<\/p>\n
girl followed in the footsteps of the boy. The place where they had<\/p>\n
meant to cross grew ever broader, it seemed. Giving up their direction,<\/p>\n
they began, to retreat. Where they could not walk they broke with their<\/p>\n
hands through the masses of snow which often gave way before their eyes,<\/p>\n
revealing the intense blue of a crevasse where all had been pure white<\/p>\n
before. But they did not mind this and labored on until they again<\/p>\n
emerged from the ice somewhere.<\/p>\n
“Sanna,” said the boy, “we shall not go into the ice again at all,<\/p>\n
because we cannot make our way in it. And because we cannot look down<\/p>\n
into our valley, anyway, we want to go down from the mountain in a<\/p>\n
straight line. We must come into some valley, and there we shall tell<\/p>\n
people that we are from Gschaid and they will show us the way home.”<\/p>\n
“Yes, Conrad,” said the girl.<\/p>\n
So they began to descend on the snow in the direction which its slope<\/p>\n
offered them. The boy led the little girl by her hand. However, after<\/p>\n
having descended some distance, the slope no longer followed that<\/p>\n
direction and the snowfield rose again. The children, therefore, changed<\/p>\n
their direction and descended toward a shallow basin. But there they<\/p>\n
struck ice again. So they climbed up along the side of the basin in<\/p>\n
order to seek a way down in some other direction. A slope led them<\/p>\n
downward, but that gradually became so steep that they could scarcely<\/p>\n
keep a footing and feared lest they should slide down. So they retraced<\/p>\n
their steps upward to find some other way down. After having clambered<\/p>\n
up the snowfield a long time and then continuing along an even ridge,<\/p>\n
they found it to be as before: either the snow sloped so steeply that<\/p>\n
they would have fallen, or it ascended so that they feared it would lead<\/p>\n
to the very peak of the mountain. And thus it continued to be.<\/p>\n
Then they had the idea of finding the direction from which they had come<\/p>\n
and of descending to the red post. As it is not snowing and the sky is<\/p>\n
bright, thought the boy, they should be able, after all, to see the spot<\/p>\n
where the post ought to be, and to descend down from it to Gschaid.<\/p>\n
The boy told his little sister his thought and she followed him.<\/p>\n
But the way down to the “neck” was not to be found.<\/p>\n
However clear the sun shone, however beautifully the snowy heights stood<\/p>\n
there, and the fields of snow lay there, yet they could not recognize<\/p>\n
the places over which they had come the day before. Yesterday, all had<\/p>\n
been veiled by the immense snowfall, so they had scarcely seen a couple<\/p>\n
of feet ahead of them, and then all had been a mingled white and gray.<\/p>\n
They had seen only the rocks along and between which they had passed;<\/p>\n
but today also they had seen many rocks and they all resembled those<\/p>\n
they had seen the day before. Today, they left fresh tracks behind them<\/p>\n
in the snow; yesterday, all tracks had been obliterated by the falling<\/p>\n
snow. Neither could they gather from the aspect of things which way they<\/p>\n
had to return to the “neck,” since all places looked alike. Snow and<\/p>\n
snow again. But on they marched and hoped to succeed in the end. They<\/p>\n
avoided the declivities and did not attempt to climb steep slopes.<\/p>\n
Today also they frequently stood still to listen; but they heard<\/p>\n
nothing, not the slightest sound. Neither was anything to be seen<\/p>\n
excepting the dazzling snow from which emerged, here and there, black<\/p>\n
peaks and ribs of rock.<\/p>\n
At last the boy thought he saw a flame skipping over a far-away<\/p>\n
snow-slope. It bobbed up and dipped down again. Now they saw it, and<\/p>\n
then again they did not. They remained standing and steadfastly gazed in<\/p>\n
that direction. The flame kept on skipping up and down and seemed to be<\/p>\n
approaching, for they saw it grow bigger and skipping more plainly. It<\/p>\n
did not disappear so often and for so long a time as before. After<\/p>\n
awhile they heard in the still blue air faintly, very faintly, something<\/p>\n
like the long note of a shepherd’s horn. As if from instinct, both<\/p>\n
children shouted aloud. A little while, and they heard the sound again.<\/p>\n
They shouted again and remained standing on the same spot. The flame<\/p>\n
also came nearer. The sound was heard for the third time, and this time<\/p>\n
more plainly. The children answered again by shouting loudly. After some<\/p>\n
time, they also recognized that it was no flame they had seen but a red<\/p>\n
flag which was being swung. At the same time the shepherd’s horn<\/p>\n
resounded closer to them and the children made reply.<\/p>\n
“Sanna,” cried the boy, “there come people from Gschaid. I know the<\/p>\n
flag, it is the red flag that the stranger gentleman planted on the<\/p>\n
peak, when he had climbed the Gars with the young hunter, so that the<\/p>\n
reverend father could see it with his spyglass, and that was to be the<\/p>\n
sign that they had reached the top, and the stranger gentleman gave him<\/p>\n
the flag afterward as a present. You were a real small child, then.”<\/p>\n
“Yes, Conrad.”<\/p>\n
After awhile the children could also see the people near the flag, like<\/p>\n
little black dots that seemed to move. The call of the horn came again<\/p>\n
and again, and ever nearer. Each time, the children made answer.<\/p>\n
Finally they saw on the snow-slope opposite them several men with the<\/p>\n
flag in their midst coast down on their Alpen-stocks. When they had<\/p>\n
come closer the children recognized them. It was the shepherd Philip<\/p>\n
with his horn, his two sons, the young hunter, and several men of<\/p>\n
Gschaid.<\/p>\n
“God be blessed,” cried Philip, “why here you are. The whole mountain is<\/p>\n
full of people. Let one of you run down at once to the Sideralp chalet<\/p>\n
and ring the bell, that they down below may hear that we have found<\/p>\n
them; and one must climb the Krebsstein and plant the flag there so that<\/p>\n
they in the valley may see it and fire off the mortars, so that the<\/p>\n
people searching in the Millsdorf forest may hear it and that they may<\/p>\n
kindle the smudge-fires in Gschaid, and all those on the mountain may<\/p>\n
come down to the Sideralp chalet. This is a Christmas for you!”<\/p>\n
“I shall climb down to the chalet,” one said.<\/p>\n
“And I shall carry the flag to the Krebsstein,” said another.<\/p>\n
“And we will get the children down to the Sideralp chalet as well as we<\/p>\n
can, if God help us;” said Philip.<\/p>\n
One of Philip’s sons made his way downward, and the other went his way<\/p>\n
with the flag.<\/p>\n
The hunter took the little girl by her hand, and the shepherd Philip the<\/p>\n
boy. The others helped as they could. Thus they started out. They turned<\/p>\n
this way and that. Now they followed one direction, now they took the<\/p>\n
opposite course, now they climbed up, now down, always through snow, and<\/p>\n
the surroundings seemed to remain the same. On very steep inclines they<\/p>\n
fastened climbing-irons to their feet and carried the children. Finally,<\/p>\n
after a long time, they heard the ringing of a little bell that sounded<\/p>\n
up to them soft and thin, which was the first sign the lower regions<\/p>\n
sent to them again. They must really have descended quite far; for now<\/p>\n
they saw a snowy bluish peak lift up its head to a great height above<\/p>\n
them. The bell, however, which they had heard was that of the Sideralp<\/p>\n
chalet which was being rung, because there the meeting was to be. As<\/p>\n
they proceeded farther they also heard in the still atmosphere the faint<\/p>\n
report of the mortars which were fired at the sight of the flag; and<\/p>\n
still later they saw thin columns of smoke rising into the still air.<\/p>\n
When they, after a little while, descended a gentle slope they caught<\/p>\n
sight of the Sideralp chalet. They approached. In the hut a fire was<\/p>\n
burning, the mother of the children was there, and with a terrible cry<\/p>\n
she sank in the snow as she saw her children coming with the hunter.<\/p>\n
Then she ran up, looked them all over, wanted to give them something to<\/p>\n
eat, wanted to warm them, and bed them in the hay that was there; but<\/p>\n
soon she convinced herself that the children were more stimulated by<\/p>\n
their rescue than she had thought and only required some warm food and a<\/p>\n
little rest, both of which they now obtained.<\/p>\n
When, after some time of rest, another group of men descended the<\/p>\n
snow-slope while the little bell continued tolling, the children<\/p>\n
themselves ran out to see who they were. It was the shoemaker, the<\/p>\n
former mountaineer, with Alpen-stock and climbing-irons, accompanied by<\/p>\n
friends and comrades.<\/p>\n
“Sebastian, here they are!” cried the woman.<\/p>\n
He, however, remained speechless, shaking with emotion, and then ran up<\/p>\n
to her. Then his lips moved as if he wanted to say something, but he<\/p>\n
said nothing, caught the children in his embrace and held them long.<\/p>\n
Thereupon he turned to his wife, embraced her and cried “Sanna, Sanna!”<\/p>\n
After awhile he picked up his hat which had fallen on the snow and<\/p>\n
stepped among the men as if to speak. But he only said: “Neighbors and<\/p>\n
friends, I thank you!”<\/p>\n
After waiting awhile, until the children had recovered from their<\/p>\n
excitement, he said: “If we are all together we may start, in God’s<\/p>\n
name.”<\/p>\n
“We are not all together yet, I believe,” said the shepherd Philip, “but<\/p>\n
those who are still missing will know from the smoke that we have found<\/p>\n
the children and will go home when they find the chalet empty.”<\/p>\n
All got ready to depart.<\/p>\n
The Sideralp chalet is not so very far from Gschaid, from whose windows<\/p>\n
one can, in summer time, very well see the green pasture on which stands<\/p>\n
the gray hut with its small belfry; but below it there is a<\/p>\n
perpendicular wall with a descent of many fathoms which one could climb<\/p>\n
in summer, with the help of climbing-irons, but which was not to be<\/p>\n
scaled in winter. They were, therefore, compelled to go by way of the<\/p>\n
“neck” in order to get down to Gschaid. On their way, they came to the<\/p>\n
Sider meadow which is still nearer to Gschaid so that from it one could<\/p>\n
see the windows in the village.<\/p>\n
As they were crossing these meadows, the bell of the Gschaid church<\/p>\n
sounded up to them bright and clear, announcing the Holy<\/p>\n
Transubstantiation.<\/p>\n
[Illustration: THE BARBER SHOP BENJAMIN VAUTIER]<\/p>\n
On account of the general commotion that obtained in Gschaid that<\/p>\n
morning, the celebration of the High-mass had been deferred, as the<\/p>\n
priest thought the children would soon be found. Finally, however, as<\/p>\n
still no news came, the holy mass had to be celebrated.<\/p>\n
When they heard the bell announcing the Holy Transsubstantiation, all<\/p>\n
those crossing the Sider meadow sank upon their knees in the snow and<\/p>\n
prayed. When the tolling had ceased they arose and marched on.<\/p>\n
The shoemaker was carrying his little girl for the most part and made<\/p>\n
her tell him all.<\/p>\n
When they were descending toward the forest of the “neck” they saw<\/p>\n
tracks which, he declared, came not from shoes of his make.<\/p>\n
The explanation came soon. Attracted probably by the many voices they<\/p>\n
heard, another body of men joined them. It was the dyer–ash-gray in the<\/p>\n
face from fright–descending at the head of his workmen, apprentices,<\/p>\n
and several men of Millsdorf.<\/p>\n
“They climbed over the glacier and the crevasses without knowing it,”<\/p>\n
the shoemaker shouted to his father-in-law.<\/p>\n
“There they are–there they are–praised be the Lord,” answered the<\/p>\n
dyer, “I knew already that they had been on the mountain when your<\/p>\n
messenger came to us in the night, and we had searched through the whole<\/p>\n
forest with lanterns and had not found anything–and then, when it<\/p>\n
dawned, I observed that on the road which leads on the left up toward<\/p>\n
the snow-mountain, on the spot where the post stands–that there some<\/p>\n
twigs and stalks were broken off, as children like to do on their<\/p>\n
way–and then I knew it, and then they could not get away, because they<\/p>\n
walked in the hollow, and then between the rocks on to the ridge which<\/p>\n
is so steep on either side that they could not get down. They just had<\/p>\n
to ascend. After making this observation I sent a message to Gschaid,<\/p>\n
but the wood-cutter Michael who carried it told us at his return, when<\/p>\n
he joined us up there near the ice, that you had found them already,<\/p>\n
and so we came down again.”<\/p>\n
“Yes,” said Michael, “I told you so because the red flag is hung out on<\/p>\n
the Krebsstein, and this was the sign agreed upon in Gschaid. And I told<\/p>\n
you that they all would come down this way, as one cannot climb down the<\/p>\n
precipice.”<\/p>\n
“And kneel down and thank God on your knees, my son-in-law,” continued<\/p>\n
the dyer, “that there was no wind. A hundred years will pass before<\/p>\n
there will be another such fall of snow that will come down straight<\/p>\n
like wet cords hanging from a pole. If there had been any wind the<\/p>\n
children would have perished.”<\/p>\n
“Yes, let us thank God, let us thank God,” said the shoemaker.<\/p>\n
The dyer who since the marriage of his daughter had never been in<\/p>\n
Gschaid decided to accompany the men to the village.<\/p>\n
When they approached the red post where the side-road began they saw the<\/p>\n
sleigh waiting for them which the shoemaker had ordered there, whatever<\/p>\n
the outcome. They let mother and children get into it, covered them well<\/p>\n
up in the rugs and furs provided for them and let them ride ahead to<\/p>\n
Gschaid.<\/p>\n
The others followed and arrived in Gschaid by afternoon. Those who still<\/p>\n
were on the mountain and had only learned through the smoke that the<\/p>\n
signal for returning had been given, gradually also found their way into<\/p>\n
the valley. The last to appear in the evening was the son of the<\/p>\n
shepherd Philip who had carried the red flag to the Krebsstein and<\/p>\n
planted it there.<\/p>\n
In Gschaid there was also grandmother waiting for them who had driven<\/p>\n
across the “neck.”<\/p>\n
“Never, never,” she cried, “will I permit the children to cross the<\/p>\n
‘neck’ in winter!”<\/p>\n
The children were confused by all this commotion. They received<\/p>\n
something more to eat and were put to bed then. Late in the evening,<\/p>\n
when they had recovered somewhat, and some neighbors and friends had<\/p>\n
assembled in the living-room and were talking about the event, their<\/p>\n
mother came into the sleeping-room. As she sat by Sanna’s bed and<\/p>\n
caressed her, the little girl said: “Mother, last night, when we sat on<\/p>\n
the mountain, I saw the holy Christ-child.”<\/p>\n
“Oh, my dear, darling child,” answered her mother, “he sent you some<\/p>\n
presents, too, and you shall get them right soon.”<\/p>\n
The paste-board boxes had been unpacked and the candles lit, and now the<\/p>\n
door into the living-room was opened, and from their bed the children<\/p>\n
could behold their belated, brightly gleaming, friendly Christmas tree.<\/p>\n
Notwithstanding their utter fatigue they wanted to be dressed partly, so<\/p>\n
that they could go into the room. They received their presents, admired<\/p>\n
them, and finally fell asleep over them.<\/p>\n
In the inn at Gschaid it was more lively than ever, this evening. All<\/p>\n
who had not been to church were there, and the others too. Each related<\/p>\n
what he had seen and heard, what he had done or advised, and the<\/p>\n
experiences and dangers he had gone through. Especial stress was laid on<\/p>\n
how everything could have been done differently and better.<\/p>\n
This occurrence made an epoch in the history of Gschaid. It furnished<\/p>\n
material for conversation for a long time; and for many years to come<\/p>\n
people will speak about it on bright days when the mountain is seen with<\/p>\n
especial clearness, or when they tell strangers of the memorable events<\/p>\n
connected with it.<\/p>\n
Only from this day on the children were really felt to belong to the<\/p>\n
village and were not any longer regarded as strangers in it but as<\/p>\n
natives whom the people had fetched down to them from the mountain.<\/p>\n
Their mother Sanna also now was a native of Gschaid.<\/p>\n
The children, however, will not forget the mountain and will look up to<\/p>\n
it more attentively, when they are in the garden; when, as in the past,<\/p>\n
the sun is shining beautifully and the linden-tree is sending forth its<\/p>\n
fragrance, when the bees are humming and the mountain looks down upon<\/p>\n
them beautifully blue, like the soft sky.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[10],"class_list":["post-78727","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-research-paper-writing","tag-writing"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/papersspot.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/78727","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/papersspot.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/papersspot.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/papersspot.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/papersspot.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=78727"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/papersspot.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/78727\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/papersspot.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=78727"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/papersspot.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=78727"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/papersspot.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=78727"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}