The German Classics of the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries Volume Viii Part 42

When dinner was over, Mina whose turn it was to help her mother to clear away the dishes, tidy the room, and prepare the coffee, asked her sister: "Where are you going, Lina?" "I'll get my sewing and go to the arbor," answered Lina. "Very well," said Mina, "I'll join you there as soon as I'm ready." "And I'll go too," said G.o.dfrey, "for I've got a book I want to finish." "That's right," said Brasig; "it'll be a deuced good entertainment for Lina." G.o.dfrey felt inclined to take the old man to task for using such a word as "deuced," but on second thoughts refrained from doing so, for he knew that it was hopeless to try to bring Brasig round to his opinion, so he followed the girls from the room. "Bless me!" cried Mrs. Nussler.

"What can have happened to my girls? They were as quiet as mice and never said a word to each other till this afternoon, and now they are once more one heart and one soul." "Hush, Mrs. Nussler," said Brasig, "I'll find out all about it for you today. Joseph, come with me; but mind you're not to talk." Joseph followed him to the garden, and when they got there Brasig took his arm: "Now hold your tongue, Joseph," he said, "don't look round, you must appear to be taking a walk after dinner." Joseph did as he was told with much success. When they reached the cherry-tree beside the arbor, Brasig stood still and said: "Now then, Joseph, give me a back--but put your head close to the stem of the tree." Joseph was about to speak, but Brasig pressed down his head, saying: "Hold your tongue, Joseph--put your head nearer the tree." He then stepped on his back, and when standing there firmly, said: "Now straighten yourself--It does exactly!" Then seizing the lower branch with both hands, Brasig pulled himself up into the tree. Joseph had never spoken all this time but now he ventured to remark: "But, Brasig, they're not nearly ripe yet." "What a duffer you are, Joseph," said Brasig, thrusting his red face through the green leaves which surrounded him. "Do you really think that I expect to eat Rhenish cherries at midsummer. But go away now as quickly as you can and don't stand there looking like a dog when a cat has taken refuge in a tree." "Ah well, what shall I do?" said Joseph, going away and leaving Brasig to his fate.

Brasig had not been long in his hiding-place, when he heard a light step on the gravel walk, and, peering down, saw Lina going into the arbor with such a large bundle of work in her arms that if she had finished it in one day it would have been difficult to keep her in sewing. She laid her work on the table and, resting her head on her hand, sat gazing thoughtfully at the blue sky beyond Brasig's cherry-tree. "Ah, how happy I am," she said to herself in the fulness of her grateful heart. "How happy I am. Mina is so kind to me; and so is G.o.dfrey, or why did he press my foot under the table at dinner. What made Brasig stare at us so sharply, I wonder? I think I must have blushed. What a good man G.o.dfrey is. How seriously and learnedly he can talk. How decided he is, and I think he has the marks of his spiritual calling written in his face. He isn't the least bit handsome it is true; Rudolph is much better looking, but then G.o.dfrey has an air with him that seems to say, 'don't disturb me by telling me of any of your foolish worldly little vanities, for I have high thoughts and aspirations, I am going to be a clergyman.' I'll cut his hair short though as soon as I have the power." It is a great blessing that every girl does not set her heart on having a handsome husband, for otherwise we ugly men would all have to remain bachelors; and pleasant looking objects we should be in that case, as I know of nothing uglier than an ugly old bachelor. Lina's last thought, that of cutting G.o.dfrey's hair, had shown so much certainty of what was going to happen, that she blushed deeply, and as at the same moment she heard a slow dignified step approaching, she s.n.a.t.c.hed up her work and began to sew busily.

G.o.dfrey seated himself at a little distance from his cousin, opened his book and began to read, but every now and then he peeped over the edge of it, either because he had read it before, or because he was thinking of something else. That is always the way with Methodistical divinity students even when they firmly believe what they teach. _Before_ the examination they think of nothing but their spiritual calling, but _after_ the examination is well over human nature regains its sway, and they look out for a fitting wife, before they begin to think of a parsonage. G.o.dfrey was like all the rest of his kind, and as no other girls except Mina and Lina had come in his way, and as Lina attended to his admonitions far more docilely than her sister, he determined to make her his helpmate. He was ignorant as to how such matters ought to be conducted, and felt a little shy and awkward. He had got no further in his wooing than pressing his lady-love's foot under the table, and whenever he had done so he was always much more confused than Lina, whose foot had received the pressure.

However he had determined that the whole matter should be settled that day, so he began: "I brought this book out entirely for your sake, Lina.

Will you listen to a bit of it just now?" "Yes," said Lina. "What a slow affair it's going to be," thought Brasig, who could hardly be said to be lying on a bed of roses, his position in the cherry-tree was so cramped and uncomfortable. G.o.dfrey proceeded to read a sermon on Christian marriage, describing how it should be entered into, and what was the proper way of looking upon it. When he had finished he drew a little nearer his cousin and asked: "What do you think of it, Lina?" "It's very nice," said Lina. "Do you mean marriage?" asked G.o.dfrey. "O-oh, G.o.dfrey," said Lina, her head drooping lower over her work. "No, Lina,"

G.o.dfrey went on drawing a little closer to her, "it isn't at all nice. I am thankful to see that you don't regard the gravest step possible in human life with unbecoming levity. Marriage is a very hard thing, that is to say, in the Christian sense of the word." He then described the duties, cares and troubles of married life as if he wished to prepare Lina for taking up her abode in some penal settlement, and Brasig, as he listened, congratulated himself on having escaped such a terrible fate.

"Yes," G.o.dfrey continued, "marriage is part of the curse that was laid on our first parents when they were thrust out of paradise." So saying he opened his Bible and read the third chapter of Genesis aloud. Poor Lina did not know what to do, or where to look, and Brasig muttered: "The infamous Jesuit, to read all that to the child." He nearly jumped down from the tree in his rage, and as for Lina, she would have run away if it had not been the Bible her cousin was reading to her, so she hid her face in her hands and wept bitterly. G.o.dfrey was now quite carried away by zeal for his holy calling; he put his arm round her waist, and said: "I could not spare you this at a time when I purpose making a solemn appeal to you. Caroline Nussler, will you, knowing the gravity of the step you take, enter the holy estate of matrimony with me, and become my Christian helpmeet?" Lina was so frightened and distressed at his whole conduct that she could neither speak nor think; she could only cry.

At the same moment a merry song was heard at a little distance:

"One bright afternoon I stood to look Into the depths of a silver brook, And there I saw little fishes swim, One of them was gray, I look'd at him.

He was swimming, swimming and swimming And with delight seemed overbr.i.m.m.i.n.g; I never saw such a thing in my life As the little gray fish seeking a wife."

Lina struggled hard to regain her composure, and then, in spite of the Bible and the Christian requirements demanded of her, she started up and rushed out of the arbor. On her way to the house she pa.s.sed Mina who was coming out to join her with her sewing. G.o.dfrey followed Lina with long slow steps, and looked as much put out as the clergyman who was interrupted in a very long sermon by the beadle placing the church key on the reading desk and saying that he might lock up the church himself when he had done, for he, the beadle, must go home to dinner. Indeed he was in much the same position as that clergyman. Like him he had wished to preach a very fine sermon, and now he was left alone in his empty church.

Mina was an inexperienced little thing, for she was the youngest of the family, but still she was quick-witted enough to guess something of what had taken place. She asked herself whether she would cry if the same thing were to happen to her, and what it would be advisable for her to do under the circ.u.mstances. She seated herself quietly in the arbor, and began to unroll her work, sighing a little as she did so at the thought of the uncertainty of her own fate, and the impossibility of doing anything but wait patiently. "Bless me!" said Brasig to himself as he lay hidden in the tree. "This little round-head has come now, and I've lost all feeling in my body. It's a horribly slow affair!" But the situation was soon to become more interesting, for shortly after Mina had taken her seat a handsome young man came round the corner of the arbor with a fishing rod over his shoulder and a fish basket on his back. "I'm so glad to find you here, Mina," he exclaimed, "of course you've all finished dinner." "You need hardly ask, Rudolph. It has just struck two." "Ah well," he said, "I suppose that my aunt is very angry with me again."

"You may be certain of that, and she was displeased with you already, you know, even without your being late for dinner. I'm afraid, however, that your own stomach will punish you more severely than my mother's anger could do, you've neglected it so much today." "All the better for you tonight. I really couldn't come sooner, the fish were biting so splendidly. I went to the black pool today, though Brasig always advised me not to go there, and now I know why. It's his larder. When he can't catch anything else--where he's sure of a bite in the black pool. It's cram full of tench. Just look, did you ever see such beauties?" and he opened the lid of his basket as he spoke, and showed his spoil, adding: "I've done old Brasig this time at any rate!" "The young rascal!"

groaned Brasig as he poked his nose through the cherry-leaves, making it appear like a huge pickled capsic.u.m such as Mrs. Nussler was in the habit of preserving in cherry-leaves for winter use. "The young rascal to go and catch my tench! Bless me! what monsters the rogue has caught!"

"Give them to me, Rudolph," said Mina. "I will take them into the house, and will bring you something to eat out here." "Oh no, never mind" "But you musn't starve," she said. "Very well then--anything will do. A bit of bread and b.u.t.ter will be quite enough, Mina." The girl went away, and Rudolph seated himself in the arbor. "The devil take it!" muttered Brasig, stretching his legs softly, and twisting and turning in the vain endeavor to find a part of his body which was not aching from his cramped position. "The wretch is sitting there now! I never saw such goings on!"

Rudolph sat buried in thought, a very unusual circ.u.mstance with him. He was easy-going by nature, and never troubled himself beforehand about vexations that might come to him. He was not in the habit of brooding over his worries, but on the contrary always tried to forget them. He was tall and strongly made, and his mischievous brown eyes had sometimes a look of imperious audacity which was in perfect keeping with the scar on his sunburnt cheek that bore witness that he had not devoted his whole time and energy to the study of dogmatic theology. "Yes," he said to himself as he sat there waiting for his cousin, "I must get myself out of this difficulty! I could bear it as long as it was far off, for there was always plenty of time to come to a decision, but two things must be settled today beyond recall. My father is coming this afternoon.

I only hope that my mother won't take it into her head to come too, or I should never have courage to do it. I'm as well suited to be a clergyman as a donkey is to play the guitar, or as G.o.dfrey is to be colonel of a cavalry regiment. If Brasig were only here, he'd stand by me I know. And then Mina--I wish it were all settled with her." At this moment Mina appeared carrying a plate of bread and b.u.t.ter--Rudolph sprang up, exclaiming: "What a dear good little girl you are, Mina!" and he threw his arm round her waist as he spoke. Mina freed herself from him, saying: "Don't do that. Ah, how could you have been so wicked? My mother is very angry with you." "You mean about the sermon," he answered; "well, yes, it was a stupid trick." "No," said Mina quickly, "it was a wicked trick. You made game of holy things." "Not a bit of it," he replied. "These trial sermons are not holy things, even when they are preached by our pious cousin G.o.dfrey." "But, Rudolph, it was in _church!_" "Ah, Mina, I confess that it was a silly joke. I didn't think sufficiently of what I was doing. I only thought of the sheepish look of amazement G.o.dfrey's face would wear, and that tickled me so much that I was mad enough to play the trick. Now don't let us talk any more about it, Mina," he said coaxingly, as he slipped his arm round her waist again. "No, I won't allow that," said Mina. "And," she went on, "the parson said that if he were to make the story known, you'd never get a living all your life." "Then I hope that he'll tell every one what I did and it'll end all the bother." "What do you mean?" asked Mina, pushing him from her and staring at him in perplexity. "Are you in earnest?"

"Never more so in my life. I've entered the pulpit for the first and last time." "Rudolph!" cried Mina in astonishment. "What's the use of trying to make me a clergy man," said Rudolph quickly. "Look at G.o.dfrey and then look at me. Do you think I should make a good parson? And then, there's another thing, even if I were so well up in theology that I could puzzle the learned professors themselves, they would never pa.s.s me in the examination. All that they care about is having men who can adopt all their cant phrases. If I were the apostle Paul himself they'd refuse to pa.s.s me, if they caught sight of this little scar upon my cheek."

"What are you going to do then?" asked Mina anxiously, and laying her hand upon his arm, she added: "Oh, _don't_ be a soldier!" "I should think not! No, I want to be a farmer." "The confounded young rascal!"

muttered Brasig. "Yes, my own dear little Mina," continued Rudolph, drawing her to his side on the bench, "I intend to be a farmer; a real good, hard-working farmer, and you, dear Mina, must help me to become one." "What!" said Brasig to himself, "is she to teach him to plough and harrow?" "I, Rudolph?" asked Mina. "Yes, my sweet child," he answered, stroking her smooth hair and soft cheeks; then taking her chin in his hand, he raised her face toward him, and looking into her blue eyes, went on: "If I could only be certain that you'd consent to be my little wife as soon as I'd a home to offer you, it would make everything easy to me, and I should be sure of learning to be a good farmer. Will you, Mina, will you?" Mina began to cry softly, and Rudolph kissed away the tears as they rolled down her cheeks, and then she laid her little round-head on his shoulder. Rudolph gave her time to recover her composure, and after a few minutes she told him in a low whisper that she would do as he asked, so he kissed her again and again. Brasig seeing this exclaimed half aloud: "The devil take him! Stop that!"

Rudolph found time to tell her in the midst of his kissing that he intended to speak to his father that afternoon, and said amongst other things that it was a pity Brasig was not there, as he was sure he would have helped him to make his explanation to his father, who, he knew, thought a great deal of Brasig's advice. "The young rascal to catch my fish!" muttered Brasig. Then Mina said: "Brasig was here this morning and dined with us. I daresay he is enjoying an after-dinner sleep now."

"Just listen to little round-head," said Brasig to himself. "An after-dinner sleep indeed! But everything is settled now, and I needn't cramp my bones up here any longer." And while Rudolph was saying that he would like to see the old man before he went into the house, Brasig slipped out of his hiding-place in the cherry-tree, and clinging with both hands to the lowest branch, let his legs dangle in the air, and shouted: "Here he is!" b.u.mp! He came down on the ground, and stood before the lovers with an expression on his red face which seemed to say that he considered himself a competent judge on even the most delicate points of feeling.

The two young people were not a little startled. Mina hid her face in her hands as Lina had done, but she did not cry; and she would have run away like Lina if she and uncle Brasig had not always been on the most confidential terms with each other. She threw herself into uncle Brasig's arms, and in her desire to hide her blushing face, she tried to burrow her little round-head into his waistcoat-pocket, exclaiming: "Uncle Brasig, uncle Brasig, you're a very naughty old man!" "Oh!" said Brasig, "you think so, do you?" "Yes," answered Rudolph, who had mounted his high horse, "you ought to be ashamed of listening to what you were not intended to hear." "Moshoo Rudolph," said the old bailiff stiffly, "I may as well tell you once for all, that shame is a thing that must never be mentioned in connection with me, and if you think that your grand airs will have any effect upon me, you're very much, mistaken."

Rudolph saw clearly that such was the case, and as he did not want to quarrel with the old man for Mina's sake, he relented a little, and said more gently that he would think nothing more of what had occurred, if Brasig could a.s.sure him that he had got into the tree by accident, but still he considered that Brasig ought to have coughed, or done something to make his presence known, instead of sitting still and listening to the whole story from A to Z. "Oh," said Brasig, "I ought to have _coughed,_ you say, but I _groaned_ loud enough, I can tell you, and you couldn't have helped hearing me if you hadn't been so much taken up with what you yourself were about. But _you_ ought to be ashamed of yourself for having fallen in love with Mina without Mrs. Nussler's leave." Rudolph replied that that was his own affair, that no one had a right to meddle, and that Brasig understood nothing about such things.

"What!" said Brasig. "Have you ever been engaged to three girls at once.

I have, Sir, and quite openly too, and yet you say that I know nothing about such things! But sneaks are all alike. First of all you catch my fish secretly in the black pool, and then you catch little Mina in the arbor before my very eyes. No, no, let him be, Mina. He shall not hurt you." "Ah, uncle Brasig!" entreated Mina, "do help us, we love each other so dearly." "Yes, let him be, Mina, you're my little G.o.dchild; you'll soon get over it." "No, Mr. Brasig," cried Rudolph, laying his hand on the old man's shoulder, "no, dear good uncle Brasig, we'll never get over it; it'll last as long as we live. I want to be a farmer, and if I have the hope before me of gaining Mina for my wife some day, and if," he added slyly, "you will help me with your advice, I can't help becoming a good one." "What a young rascal!" said Brasig to himself, then aloud: "Ah yes, I know you! You'd be a latin farmer like Pistorius, and Praetorius, and Trebonius. You'd sit on the edge of a ditch and read the book written by the fellow with the long string of t.i.tles of honor, I mean the book about oxygen, nitrogen, and organisms, whilst the farm-boys spread the manure over your rye-field in lumps as big as your hat. Oh, I know you!

"I've only known one man who took to farming after going through all the cla.s.ses at the high-school, who turned out well. I mean young Mr. von Rambow, Hawermann's pupil." "Oh, uncle Brasig," said Mina, raising her head slowly and stroking the old man's cheek, "Rudolph can do as well as Frank." "No, Mina, he _can't_. And shall I tell you why? Because he's only a gray-hound, while the other is a man." "Uncle Brasig," said Rudolph, "I suppose you are referring to that silly trick that I played about the sermon, but you don't know how G.o.dfrey plagued me in his zeal for converting me. I really couldn't resist playing him a trick." "Ha, ha, ha!" laughed Brasig. "No, I didn't mean that, I was very much amused at that. So he wanted to convert you, and perhaps induce you to give up fishing? He tried his hand at converting again this afternoon, but Lina ran away from him; however that doesn't matter, it's all right." "With Lina and G.o.dfrey?" asked Mina anxiously. "And did you hear all that pa.s.sed on that occasion too?" "Of course I did. It was for her sake entirely that I hid myself in that confounded cherry-tree. But now come here, Moshoo Rudolph. Do you promise never to enter a pulpit again, or to preach another sermon?" "Never again." "Do you promise to get up at three o'clock in the morning in summer, and give out the feeds for the horses?" "Punctually." "Do you promise to learn how to plough, harrow, mow and bind properly? I mean to bind with a wisp, there's no art in doing it with a rope." "Yes," said Rudolph. "Do you promise when coming home from market never to sit in an inn over a punch-bowl while your carts go on before, so that you are obliged to reel after them?" "I promise never to do so," said Rudolph. "Do you promise--Mina, do you see that pretty flower over there, the blue one I mean, will you bring it to me, I want to smell it--do you promise," he repeated as soon as Mina was out of hearing, "never to flirt with any of those confounded farm-girls?" "Oh, Mr. Brasig, do you take me for a scoundrel?" asked Rudolph, turning away angrily. "No, no," answered Brasig, "but I want you to understand clearly from the very beginning that I will strangle you if ever you cause my little G.o.dchild to shed a tear." And as he spoke he looked so determined, that one might have thought he was going to begin the operation at once. "Thank you, Mina," he said, taking the flower from her, and after smelling it putting it in his b.u.t.ton-hole.

"And now come here, Mina, and I will give you my blessing. Nay, you needn't go down on your knees, for I'm not one of your parents, I'm only your G.o.dfather. And, Moshoo Rudolph, I promise to take your part this afternoon when your father comes, and to help you to free yourself from being bound to a profession you don't like. Come away both of you, we must go in now. But, Rudolph, remember you musn't sit on the gra.s.s and read, but must see to the proper manuring of your fields yourself. Look, this is the way the farm-lads ought to hold their pitch-forks, not like that. Bang! and tumble off all that is on it; no, they must shake the fork gently three or four times, breaking and spreading the manure as they do so. When a bit of ground is properly spread it ought to look as smooth and clean as a velvet table-cover." He then went into the house accompanied by the two young people.

[The love affairs of both young couples ran smoothly, since uncle Brasig was on their side. G.o.dfrey and Lina were married first and, when pastor Behrens died, moved into the parsonage of Gurlitz, for G.o.dfrey was elected the dear old man's successor. Rudolph studied agriculture and, when he had mastered his subject, returned to Rexow, where he was intrusted with the management of the farm, and married Mina. No finer wedding had ever been celebrated in the neighborhood. All the rich relatives of Joseph Nussler were present, in addition to the more intimate friends. There was also a horde of young people whom uncle Brasig had been permitted to invite from Rahnstaedt, where he had been living since his retirement on a pension.

Mina looked for all the world like a rosy apple lying on a silver plate surrounded by its green leaves as she stood there in her white satin gown and myrtle wreaths. Uncle Brasig was groomsman, and blew his nose energetically as he said: "My little Mina! My little G.o.dchild! How happy she looks!" and every time one of the fat old Nussler's gave Mina a kiss, he bent down and kissed Mrs. Behrens, as much as to imply that he thought this would prevent any contamination of his G.o.ddaughter by the foolish old Nusslers with their wretched worldly notions. But finally, when Brasig was about to salute her again, she said: "You ought to be ashamed of yourself, Brasig." Then Brasig drew back rather crestfallen and said: "Don't take it ill of me, Mrs. Behrens, my feelings ran away with me."

Those kindly feelings often ran away with him and enabled him to bring happiness to his friends where more cautious people would have been helpless. It was he who unraveled the mystery which had cast a shadow over the good name of Hawermann, and who at the proper moment called Frank von Rambow home from Paris. When Hawermann had received the news that he was cleared, and Mrs. Behrens wished to go to him at once, uncle Brasig drew her gently back to the sofa and said: "Not quite yet, Mrs.

Behrens. You see, I think that Hawermann wants to have a little quiet time to tell G.o.d all about it, and that Louisa is helping him. It's enough for her to be there, for as you know our G.o.d is a jealous G.o.d, and doesn't suffer people to meddle, when he is speaking to a soul that is filled with grat.i.tude to Him." Little Mrs. Behrens gazed at him in speechless amazement. At last she murmured: "Oh, Brasig, I've always looked upon you as a heathen, and now I see that you're a Christian." "I know nothing about that, Mrs. Behrens. I'm sure of this, however, that what little I've been able to do in this matter has been done as an a.s.sessor and not as a Christian." Uncle Brasig, you must know, had recently been appointed an a.s.sessor to the Rahnstaedt court, and he was as proud of his new t.i.tle as he had been of that of "farm-bailiff"

before.

As the years advanced, his friends prospered, while Pomuchelskopp, whom the Gurlitz laborers had badly treated in the revolution of 1848, sold his estates and moved away. Uncle Brasig went about visiting his friends, and on one such visit had an attack of gout that would have been of little consequence, but which seized both legs and then mounted into his stomach, because of a chill he got on his journey home. And that caused his death. Mrs. Behrens, Mrs. Nussler, and his old friend Charles Hawermann came round his bed. He held Mrs. Nussler's hand tight all the while. Suddenly he raised himself and said: "Mrs. Nussler, please put your hand on my head; I have always loved you. Charles Hawermann, will you rub my legs, they're so cold." Hawermann did as he was asked, and Brasig said, very slowly with one of his old smiles: "In style I was always better than you." That was all.]

_ADALBERT STIFTER_

ROCK CRYSTAL[10] (1846)

TRANSLATED BY LEE M. HOLLANDER, PH.D.

Among the high mountains of our fatherland there lies a little village with a small but very pointed church-tower which emerges with red shingles from the green of many fruit-trees, and by reason of its red color is to be seen far and away amid the misty bluish distances of the mountains. The village lies right in the centre of a rather broad valley which has about the shape of a longish circle. Besides the church it contains a school, a townhall, and several other houses of no mean appearance, which form a square on which stand four linden-trees surrounding a stone cross. These buildings are not mere farms but house within them those handicrafts which are indispensable to the human race and furnish the mountaineers with all the products of industry which they require. In the valley and along the mountain-sides many other huts and cots are scattered, as is very often the case in mountain regions.

These habitations belong to the parish and school-district and pay tribute to the artisans we mentioned by purchasing their wares. Still other more distant huts belong to the village, but are so deeply ensconced in the recesses of the mountains that one cannot see them at all from the valley. Those who live in them rarely come down to their fellow-parishioners and in winter frequently must keep their dead until after the snows have melted away in order to give them a burial. The greatest personage whom the villagers get to see in the course of the year is the priest.

[Ill.u.s.tration: ADALBERT STIFTER DAFFINGER]

They greatly honor him, and usually he himself through a longer sojourn becomes so accustomed to the solitude of the valley that he not unwillingly stays and simply lives on there. At least, it has not happened in the memory of man that the priest of the village had been a man hankering to get away or unworthy of his vocation.

No roads lead through the valley. People use their double-track cart-paths upon which they bring in the products of their fields in carts drawn by one horse. Hence, few people come into the valley, among them sometimes a solitary pedestrian who is a lover of nature and dwells for some little time in the upper room of the inn and admires the mountains; or perhaps a painter who sketches the small, pointed spire of the church and the beautiful summits of the rocky peaks. For this reason the villagers form a world by themselves. They all know each other by name and their several histories down from the time of grandfather and great-grandfather; they all mourn when one of them dies; know what name the new-born will receive; they have a language differing from that of the plains; they have their quarrels, which they settle among themselves; they a.s.sist one another and flock together when something extraordinary has happened.

They are conservative and things are left to remain as they were.

Whenever a stone drops out of a wall, the same stone is put back again, the new houses are built like the old ones, the dilapidated roofs are repaired with the same kind of shingles, and if there happen to be brindled cows on a farm, calves of the same color are raised always, so that the color stays on the farm.

To the south of the village one sees a snow-mountain which seems to lift up its shining peaks right above the roofs of the houses. Yet it is not quite so near. Summer and winter it dominates the valley with its beetling crags and snowy sides. Being the most remarkable object in the landscape, this mountain is of main interest to the inhabitants and has become the central feature of many a story.

There is not a young man or graybeard in the village but can tell of the crags and crests of the mountain, of its creva.s.ses and caves, of its torrents and screes, whether now he knows it from his own experience or from hearsay. The mountain is the boast of the villagers as if it were a work of theirs and one is not so sure, however high one may esteem the plain-spokenness and reputation for truth-telling of the natives, whether they do not fib, now and then, to the honor and glory of their mountain. Besides being the wonder of the valley, the mountain affords actual profit; for whenever a company of tourists arrives to ascend the mountain the natives serve as guides; and to have been a guide, to have experienced this or that, to know this or that spot, is a distinction every one likes to gain for himself. The mountain often is the object of their conversation at the inn, when they sit together and tell of their feats and wonderful experiences; nor do they omit to relate what this or that traveler had said and what reward they had received from him for their labor. Furthermore, the snowy sides of the mountain feed a lake among its heavily forested recesses, from which a merry brook runs through the valley, drives the saw-mill and the flour-mill, cleanses the village and waters the cattle. The forests of the mountain furnish timber and form a bulwark against the avalanches.

The annual history of the mountain is as follows: In winter, the two pinnacles of its summit, which they call horns, are snow-white and, when visible on bright days, tower up into the blackish blue of the sky in dazzling splendor, and all its shoulders are white, too, and all slopes.

Even the perpendicular precipices, called walls by the natives, are covered with white frost delicately laid on, or with thin ice adhering to them like varnish, so that the whole ma.s.s looms up like an enchanted castle from out of the h.o.a.ry gray of the forests which lie spread out heavily about its base. In summer, when the sun and warm winds melt the snow from their steep sides, the peaks soar up black into the sky and have only beautiful veins and specks of white on their flanks--as the natives say. But the fact is, the peaks are of a delicate, distant blue, and what they call veins and specks is not white, but has the lovely milk-blue color of distant snow against the darker blue of the rocks.

When the weather is hot, the more elevated slopes about the peaks do not lose their covering of eternal snow. On the contrary it then gleams with double resplendence down upon the green of the trees in the valley; but the winter's snow is melted off their lower parts. Then becomes visible the bluish or greenish iridescence of the glaciers which are bared and gleam down upon the valley below. At the edge of this iridescence, there where it seems from the distance like a fringe of gems, a nearer view reveals confused ma.s.ses of wild and monstrous boulders, slabs, and fragments piled up in chaotic fashion. In very hot and long summers, the ice-fields are denuded even in the higher regions, and then a much greater amount of blue-green glacier-ice glances down into the valley, many k.n.o.bs and depressions are laid bare which one otherwise sees only covered with white, the muddy edge of the ice comes to view with its deposit of rocks, silt, and slime, and far greater volumes of water than usual rush into the valley. This continues until it gradually becomes autumn again, the waters grow less, and one day a gray continuous gentle rain spreads over all the valley. Then, after the mists have dispersed about the summits, the mountain is seen to have draped itself again in its soft robe of snow, and all crags, cones, and pinnacles are vested in white. Thus it goes on, year after year, with but slight divergences, and thus it will go on so long as nature remains the same, and there is snow upon the heights and people live in the valleys. But to the natives these changes seem great, they pay much attention to them and calculate the progress of the seasons by them.

The ascent of the mountain is made from our valley. One follows a fine road which leads south to another valley over a so-called "neck." Neck they call a moderately high mountain-ridge which connects two mountain-ranges of considerable magnitude and over which one can pa.s.s from one valley to another between the mountains. The neck which connects our snow-mountain with another great mountain-ma.s.s is altogether covered with pine-forests. At its greatest elevation, where the road begins gradually to descend into the valley beyond, there stands a post erected to commemorate a calamity. Once upon a time a baker carrying bread in a basket slung around his neck was found dead on that spot. They painted a picture of the dead baker with his basket and the pine-trees round about, and beneath it an explanation with a request for prayer from the pa.s.ser-by, and this picture they fastened to a wooden post painted red, and erected it at the spot where the accident occurred. At this post, then, one leaves the road and continues along the ridge of the "neck" instead of crossing it and descending into the valley beyond. There is an opening among the pine-trees at that spot, as if there were a road between them. In fact, a path is sometimes made in that direction which then serves to bring down timber from the higher regions, but which is afterward overgrown again with gra.s.s. Proceeding along this way, which gently ascends, one arrives at last at a bare, treeless region. It is barren heath where grows nothing but heather, mosses, and lichens. It grows ever steeper, the further one ascends; but one always follows a gully resembling a rounded out ditch which is convenient, as one cannot then miss one's way in this extensive, treeless, monotonous region. After a while, rocks as large as churches rise out of the gra.s.sy soil, between whose walls one climbs up still farther. Then there are again bleak ridges, with hardly any vegetation, which reach up into the thinner air of higher alt.i.tudes and lead straight to the ice. At both sides of this path, steep ledges plunge down, and by this natural causeway the snow-mountain is joined to the "neck." In order to surmount the ice one skirts it for some distance where it is surrounded by rock-walls, until one comes to the old hard snow which bridges the creva.s.ses and at most seasons of the year bears the weight of the climber.

[Ill.u.s.tration: A MOUNTAIN SCENE _From the Painting by H. Reifferscheid_]

From the highest point of this snowfield, two peaks tower up, of which the one is higher and, therefore, the summit of the mountain. These pinnacles are very hard to climb. As they are surrounded by a chasm of varying width--the bergschrund--which one must leap over, and as their precipitous escarpments afford but small footholds, most of the tourists climbing the mountain content themselves with reaching the bergschrund and from there enjoy the panorama. Those who mean to climb to the top must use climbing-irons, ropes, and, iron spikes.

Besides this mountain there are still others south of the valley, but none as high. Even if the snow begins to lie on them early in fall and stays till late in spring, midsummer always removes it, and then the rocks gleam pleasantly in the sunlight, and the forests at their base have their soft green intersected by the broad blue shadows of these peaks which are so beautiful that one never tires of looking at them.

On the opposite, northern, eastern, and western sides of the valley the mountains rise in long ridges and are of lower elevation: scattered fields and meadows climb up along their sides till rather high up, and above them one sees clearings, chalets, and the like, until at their edge they are silhouetted against the sky with their delicately serrated forest--which is indicative of their inconsiderable height--whereas the mountains toward the south, though also magnificently wooded, cut off the shining horizon with entirely smooth lines.

When one stands about in the centre of the valley it would seem as if there were no way out or into the basin; but people who have often been in the mountains are familiar with this illusion: the fact is, diverse roads lead through the folds of the mountains to the plains to the north, some of them with hardly a rise; and to the south where the valley seems shut in by precipitous mountain-walls, a road leads over the "neck" mentioned above.

The village is called Gschaid and the snow-mountain looking down upon it, Gars.