passed into day, a thin dry veil was spread over the whole sky so that
one could see the low and distant sun only as an indistinct red spot;
moreover, the air that day was mild, almost genial, and absolute calm
reigned in the entire valley as well as in the heavens, as was indicated
by the unchanging and immobile forms of the clouds. So the shoemaker's
wife said to her children: "As today is pleasant and it has not rained
for a long time and the roads are hard, and as father gave you
permission yesterday, if the weather continued fine, you may go to visit
grandmother in Millsdorf; but ask father once more."
The children, who were still standing there in their little nightgowns,
ran into the adjoining room where their father was speaking with a
customer and asked him again for his permission, because it was such a
fine day. It was given and they ran back to their mother.
The shoemaker's wife now dressed the children carefully, or rather, she
dressed the little girl in snug-fitting warm dresses; for the boy began
to dress himself and was finished long before his mother had the little
girl straightened out. When they were both ready she said: "Now, Conrad,
be nice and careful. As I let your little sister go with you, you must
leave betimes and not remain standing anywhere, and when you have eaten
at grandmother's you must return at once and come home; for the days are
very short now and the sun sets very soon."
"Yes, I know, mother," said Conrad.
"And take good care of Sanna that she does not fall or get over-heated."
"Yes, mother."
"Well, then, God bless you, now go to father and tell him you are
leaving."
The boy slung a bag of calfskin, artfully sewed by his father, about his
shoulders by a strap and the children went into the adjoining room to
say farewell to their father. Soon they issued again and merrily skipped
along the village street, after their mother had once more made the sign
of the cross over them.
Quickly they passed over the square and along the rows of houses, and
finally between the railings of the orchards out into the open. The sun
already stood above the wooded heights that were woven through with
milky wisps of cloud, and its dim reddish disk proceeded along with them
through the leafless branches of the crab-apple trees.
There was no snow in the whole valley, but the higher mountains that had
been glistening with it for many weeks already were thoroughly covered.
The lower ridges, however, remained snowless and silent in the mantle of
their pine forests and the fallow red of their bare branches. The ground
was not frozen yet and would have been entirely dry, after the long dry
period that had been prevailing, if the cold of the season had not
covered it with a film of moisture. This did not render the ground
slippery, however, but rather firm and resilient so that the children
made good progress. The scanty grass still standing on the meadows and
especially along the ditches in them bore the colors of autumn. There
was no frost on the ground and a closer inspection did not reveal any
dew, either, which signifies rain, according to the country people.
Toward the edge of the meadows there was a mountain brook over which led
a high, narrow wooden bridge. The children walked over it and looked
down. There was hardly any water in the brook, only a thin streak of
intensely blue color wound through the dry white pebbles of its stony
bed, and both the small amount and the color of the water indicated that
cold was prevailing in the greater altitudes; for this rendered the soil
on the mountains dry so that it did not make the water of the brook
turbid and hardened the ice so that it could give off but a few clear
drops.
From the bridge, the children passed through the valleys in the hills
and came closer and closer to the woods. Finally they reached the edge
of the woods and walked on through them.
When they had climbed up into the higher woodlands of the "neck," the
long furrows of the road were no longer soft, as had been the case in
the valley, but were firm, not from dryness, but, as the children soon
perceived, because they were frozen over. In some places, the frost had
rendered them so hard that they could bear the weight of their bodies.
From now on, they did not persist any longer in the slippery path beside
the road, but in the ruts, as children will, trying whether this or that
furrow would carry them. When, after an hour's time, they had arrived at
the height of the "neck," the ground was so hard that their steps
resounded on it and the clods were hard like stones.
Arrived at the location of the memorial post, Sanna was the first to
notice that it stood no longer there. They went up to the spot and saw
that the round, red-painted post which carried the picture was lying in
the dry grass which stood there like thin straw and concealed the fallen
post from view. They could not understand, to be sure, why it had
toppled over--whether it had been knocked down or fallen of itself; but
they did see that the wood was much decayed at the place where it
emerged from the ground and that the post might therefore easily have
fallen of itself. Since it was lying there, however, they were pleased
that they could get a closer look at the picture and the inscription
than they had ever had before. When they had examined all--the basket
with the rolls, the whitish hands of the baker, his closed eyes, his
gray coat and the pine-trees surrounding him--and when they had spelt
out and read aloud the inscription, they proceeded on their way.
After another hour, the dark forest on either side receded, scattered
trees, some of them isolated oaks, others birches, and clumps of bushes,
received them and accompanied them onward, and after a short while the
children were running down through the meadows of the valley of
Millsdorf.
Although this valley is not as high, by far, as the valley of Gschaid
and so much warmer that they could begin harvesting two weeks earlier
than in Gschaid, the ground was frozen here too; and when the children
had come to the tannery and the fulling-mill of their grandfather,
pretty little cakes of ice were lying on the road where it was
frequently spattered by drops from the wheels. That is usually a great
pleasure for children.
Grandmother had seen them coming and had gone to meet them. She took
Sanna by her cold little hands and led her into the room.
She made them take off their heavy outer garments, ordered more wood to
be put in the stove, and asked them what had happened on the way over.
When they had told her she said: "That's nice and good, and I am very
glad that you have come again; but today you must be off early, the day
is short and it is growing colder. Only this morning there was no frost
in Millsdorf."
"Not in Gschaid, either," said the boy.
"There you see. On that account you must hurry so that you will not grow
too cold in the evening," said grandmother.
Then she asked how mother was and how father was, and whether anything
particular had happened in Gschaid.
After having questioned them she devoted herself to the preparation of
dinner, made sure that it would be ready at an earlier time than usual,
and herself prepared tidbits for the children which she knew would give
them pleasure. Then the master dyer was called. Covers were set on the
table for the children as for grown-up people and then they ate with
grandfather and grandmother, and the latter helped them to particularly
good things. After the meal, she stroked Sanna's cheeks which had grown
quite red, meanwhile.
Thereupon she went busily to and fro packing the boy's knapsack till it
was full and, besides, stuffed all kinds of things into his pockets.
Also in Sanna's little pockets she put all manner of things. She gave
each a piece of bread to eat on the way and in the knapsack, she said,
there were two more pieces of wheat bread, in case they should grow too
hungry.
"For mother, I have given you some well-roasted coffee," she said, "and
in the little bottle that is stoppered and tightly wrapped up there is
also some black coffee, better than mother usually makes over at your
house. Just let her taste it; it is a veritable medicine tonic, so
strong that one swallow of it will warm up the stomach, so that the body
will not grow cold on the coldest of winter days. The other things in
the pasteboard-box and those that are wrapped up in paper in the
knapsack you are to bring home without touching."
After having talked with the children a little while longer she bade
them go.
"Take good care, Sanna," she said, "that you don't get chilled, you
mustn't get overheated. And don't you run up along the meadows and under
the trees. Probably there will be some wind toward evening, and then you
must walk more slowly. Greet father and mother and wish them a right
merry Christmas."
Grandmother kissed both children on their cheeks and pushed them through
the door. Nevertheless she herself went along, accompanied them through
the garden, let them out by the back gate, closed it behind them, and
went back into the house.
The children walked past the cakes of ice beside grandfather's mill,
passed through the fields of Millsdorf, and turned upward toward the
meadows.
When they were passing along the heights where, as has been said, stood
scattered trees and clumps of bushes there fell, quite slowly, some few
snow-flakes.
"Do you see, Sanna," said the boy, "I had thought right away that we
would have snow; do you remember, when we left home, how the sun was a
bloody red like the lamp hanging at the Holy Sepulchre; and now nothing
is to be seen of it any more, and only the gray mist is above the
tree-tops. That always means snow."
The children walked on more gladly and Sanna was happy whenever she
caught a falling flake on the dark sleeves of her coat and the flake
stayed there a long time before melting. When they had finally arrived
at the outermost edge of the Millsdorf heights where the road enters the
dark pines of the "neck" the solid front of the forest was already
prettily sprinkled by the flakes falling ever more thickly. They now
entered the dense forest which extended over the longest part of the
journey still ahead of them.
From the edge of the forest the ground continues to rise up to the point
where one reaches the red memorial post, when the road leads downward
toward the valley of Gschaid. In fact, the slope of the forest from the
Millsdorf side is so steep that the road does not gain the height by a
straight line but climbs up in long serpentines from west to east and
from east to west. The whole length of the road up to the post and down
to the meadows of Gschaid leads through tall, dense woods without a
clearing which grow less heavy as one comes down on the level again and
issues from them near the meadows of the valley of Gschaid. Indeed, the
"neck," though being only a small ridge connecting two great mountain
masses, is yet large enough to appear a considerable mountain itself if
it were placed in the plain.
The first observation the children made when entering the woods was that
the frozen ground appeared gray as though powdered with flour, and that
the beards of the dry grass-stalks standing here and there between the
trees by the road-side were weighted down with snow-flakes; while on the
many green twigs of the pines and firs opening up like hands there sat
little white flames.
"Is it snowing at home, too, I wonder?" asked Sanna. "Of course,"
answered the boy, "and it is growing colder, too, and you will see that
the whole pond is frozen over by tomorrow."
"Yes, Conrad," said the girl.
She hastened her steps to keep up with the boy striding along.
They now continued steadily up along the serpentines, now from west to
east and again from east to west. The wind predicted by grandmother did
not come; on the contrary, the air was so still that not a branch or
twig was moving. In fact, it seemed warmer in the forest, as, in
general, loose bodies with air-spaces between, such as a forest, are in
winter. The snow-flakes descended ever more copiously so that the ground
was altogether white already and the woods began to appear dappled with
gray, while snow lay on the garments of the children.
Both were overjoyed. They stepped upon the soft down, and looked for
places where there was a thicker layer of it, in order to tread on them
and make it appear as if they were wading in it already. They did not
shake off the snow from their clothes.
A great stillness had set in. There was nothing to be seen of any bird
although some do flit to and fro through the forest in winter-time and
the children on their way to Millsdorf had even heard some twitter. The
whole forest seemed deserted.
As theirs were the only tracks and the snow in front of them was untrod
and immaculate they understood that they were the only ones crossing the
"neck" that day.
They proceeded onward, now approaching, now leaving the trees. Where
there was dense undergrowth they could see the snow lying upon it.
Their joy was still growing, for the flakes descended ever more densely,
and after a short time they needed no longer to search for places to
wade in the snow, for it was so thick already that they felt it soft
under their soles and up around their shoes. And when all was so silent
and peaceful it seemed to them that they could hear the swish of the
snow falling upon the needles.
"Shall we see the post today?" asked the girl, "because it has fallen
down, you know, and then the snow will fall on it and the red color will
be white."
"We shall be able to see it though, for that matter," replied the boy;
"even if the snow falls upon it and it becomes white all over we are
bound to see it, because it is a thick post, and because it has the
black iron cross on its top which will surely stick out."
"Yes, Conrad."
Meanwhile, as they had proceeded still farther, the snowfall had become
so dense that they could see only the very nearest trees.
No hardness of the road, not to mention its ruts, was to be felt, the
road was everywhere equally soft with snow and was, in fact,
recognizable only as an even white band running on through the forest.
On all the branches there lay already the beautiful white covering.
The children now walked in the middle of the road, furrowing the snow
with their little feet and proceeding more slowly as the walking became
more tiresome. The boy pulled up his jacket about his throat so that no
snow should fall in his neck, and pulled down his hat so as to be more
protected. He also fastened his little sister's neckerchief which her
mother had given her to wear over her shoulders, pulling it forward over
her forehead so that it formed a roof.
The wind predicted by grandmother still had not come, on the other hand,
the snowfall gradually became so dense that not even the nearest trees
were to be recognized, but stood there like misty sacks.
The children went on. They drew up their shoulders and walked on.
Sanna took hold of the strap by which Conrad had his calfskin bag
fastened about his shoulders and thus they proceeded on their way.
They still had not reached the post. The boy was not sure about the
time, because the sun was not shining and all was a monotonous gray.
"Shall we reach the post soon?" asked the girl.
"I don't know," said the boy, "I can't see the trees today and recognize
the way, because it is so white. We shall not see the post at all,
perhaps, because there is so much snow that it will be covered up and
scarcely a blade of grass or an arm of the black cross will show. But
never mind. We just continue on our road, and the road goes between the
trees and when it gets to the spot where the post stands it will go
down, and we shall keep on it, and when it comes out of the trees we are
already on the meadows of Gschaid, then comes the path, and then we
shall not be far from home."
"Yes, Conrad," said the girl.
They proceeded along their road which still led upward. The footprints
they left behind them did not remain visible long, for the extraordinary
volume of the descending snow soon covered them up. The snow no longer
rustled, in falling upon the needles, but hurriedly and peacefully added
itself to the snow already there. The, children gathered their garments
still more tightly about them, in order to keep the steadily falling
snow from coming in on all sides.
They walked on very fast, and still the road led upward. After a long
time they still had not reached the height on which the post was
supposed to be, and from where the road was to descend toward Gschaid.
Finally the children came to a region where there were no more trees.
"I see no more trees," said Sanna.
"Perhaps the road is so broad that we cannot see them on account of the
snow," answered the boy.
"Yes, Conrad," said the girl.
After a while the boy remained standing and said: "I don't see any trees
now myself, we must have got out of the woods, and also the road keeps
on rising. Let us stand still a while and look about, perhaps we may see
something." But they perceived nothing. They saw the sky only through a
dim space. Just as in a hailstorm gloomy fringes hang down over the
white or greenish swollen clouds, thus it was here, and the noiseless
falling continued. On the ground they saw only a round spot of white and
nothing else.
"Do you know, Sanna," said the boy, "we are on the dry grass I often led
you up to in summer, where we used to sit and look at the pasture-land
that leads up gradually and where the beautiful herbs grow. We shall now
at once go down there on the right."
"Yes, Conrad."
"The day is short, as grandmother said, and as you well know yourself,
and so we must hurry."
"Yes, Conrad," said the girl.
"Wait a little and I will fix you a little better," replied the boy.
He took off his hat, put it on Sanna's head and fastened it with both
ribbons under her chin. The kerchief she had worn protected her too
little, while on his head there was such a mass of dense curls that the
snow could fall on it for a long time before the wet and cold would
penetrate. Then he took off his little fur-jacket and drew it over her
little arms. About his own shoulders and arms which now showed the bare
shirt he tied the little kerchief Sauna had worn over her chest and the
larger one she had had over her shoulders. That was enough for himself,
he thought, and if he only stepped briskly he should not be cold.
He took the little girl by her hand, so they marched on. The girl with
her docile little eyes looked out into the monotonous gray round about
and gladly followed him, only her little hurrying feet could not keep up
with his, for he was striding onward like one who wanted to decide a
matter once for all.
Thus they proceeded with the unremitting energy children and animals
have as they do not realize how far their strength will carry them, and
when their supply of it will give out.
But as they went on they did not notice whether they were going down or
up. They had turned down to the right at once, but they came again to
places that led up. Often they encountered steep places which they were
forced to avoid, and a trench in which they continued led them about in
a curve. They climbed heights which grew ever steeper as they proceeded,
and what they thought led downward was level ground, or it was a
depression, or the way went on in an even stretch.
"Where are we, I wonder, Conrad?" asked the girl.
"I don't know," he answered. "If I only could see something with my
eyes," he continued, "that I could take my direction from."
But there was nothing about them but the blinding white, white
everywhere which drew an ever narrowing circle about them, passing,
beyond it, into a luminous mist descending in bands which consumed and
concealed all objects beyond, until there was nothing but the
unceasingly descending snow.
"Wait, Sanna," said the boy, "let us stand still for a moment and
listen, perhaps we might hear a sound from the valley, a dog, or a bell,
or the mill, or a shout, something we must hear, and then we shall know
which way to go."
So they remained standing, but they heard nothing. They remained
standing a little longer, but nothing came, not a single sound, not the
faintest noise beside their own breath, aye, in the absolute stillness
they thought they could hear the snow as it fell on their eyelashes. The
prediction of grandmother had still not come true; no wind had arisen,
in fact, what is rare in those regions, not a breath of air was
stirring.
After having waited for a long time they went on again.
"Never mind, Sanna," said the boy, "don't be afraid, just follow me and
I shall lead you down yet.--If only it would stop snowing!"
The little girl was not faint-hearted, but lifted her little feet as
well as she could and followed him. He led her on in the white, bright,
living, opaque space.
After a time they saw rocks. Darkling and indistinct they loomed up out
of the white opaque light. As the children approached they almost bumped
against them. They rose up like walls and were quite perpendicular so
that scarcely a flake of snow could settle on them.
"Sanna, Sanna," he said, "there are the rocks, just let us keep on, let
us keep on."
They went on, had to enter in between the rocks and push on at their
base. The rocks would let them escape neither to left nor right and led
them on in a narrow path. After a while the children lost sight of them.
They got away from the rocks as unexpectedly as they had got among them.
Again, nothing surrounded them but white, no more dark forms interposed.
They moved in what seemed a great brightness and yet could not see three
feet ahead, everything being, as it were, enveloped in a white darkness,
and as there were no shadows no opinion about the size of objects was
possible. The children did not know whether they were to descend or
ascend until some steep slope compelled their feet to climb.
"My eyes smart," said Sanna.
"Don't look on the snow," answered the boy, "but into the clouds. Mine
have hurt a long time already; but it does not matter, because I must
watch our way. But don't be afraid, I shall lead you safely down to
Gschaid."
"Yes, Conrad."
They went on; but wheresoever they turned, whichever way they turned,
there never showed a chance to descend. On either side steep acclivities
hemmed them in, and also made them constantly ascend. Whenever they
turned downward the slopes proved so precipitous that they were
compelled to retreat. Frequently they met obstacles and often had to
avoid steep slopes.
They began to notice that whenever their feet sank in through the new
snow they no longer felt the rocky soil underneath but something else
which seemed like older, frozen snow; but still they pushed onward and
marched fast and perseveringly. Whenever they made a halt everything was
still, unspeakably still. When they resumed their march they heard the
shuffling of their feet and nothing else; for the veils of heaven
descended without a sound, and so abundantly that one might have seen
the snow grow. The children themselves were covered with it so that they
did not contrast with the general whiteness and would have lost each
other from sight had they been separated but a few feet.
A comfort it was that the snow was as dry as sand so that it did not
adhere to their boots and stockings or cling and wet them.
At last they approached some other objects. They were gigantic fragments
lying in wild confusion and covered with snow sifting everywhere into
the chasms between them. The children almost touched them before seeing
them. They went up to them to examine what they were.
It was ice--nothing but ice.
There were snow-covered slabs on whose lateral edges the smooth green
ice became visible; there were hillocks that looked like heaped-up
foam, but whose inward-looking crevices had a dull sheen and lustre as
if bars and beams of gems had been flung pellmell. There rose rounded
hummocks that were entirely enveloped in snow, slabs and other forms
that stood inclined or in a perpendicular position, towering as high as
houses or the church of Gschaid. In some, cavities were hollowed out
through which one could insert an arm, a head, a body, a whole big wagon
full of hay. All these were jumbled together and tilted so that they
frequently formed roofs or eaves whose edges the snow overlaid and over
which it reached down like long white paws. Nay, even a monstrous black
boulder as large as a house lay stranded among the blocks of ice and
stood on end so that no snow could stick to its sides. And even larger
ones which one saw only later were fast in the ice and skirted the
glacier like a wall of debris.
"There must have been very much water here, because there is so much
ice," remarked Sanna.
"No, that did not come from any water," replied her brother, "that is
the ice of the mountain which is always on it, because that is the way
things are."
"Yes, Conrad," said Sanna.
"We have come to the ice now," said the boy; "we are on the mountain,
you know, Sanna, that one sees so white in the sunshine from our garden.
Now keep in mind what I shall tell you. Do you remember how often we
used to sit in the garden, in the afternoon, how beautiful it was, how
the bees hummed about us, how the linden-trees smelled sweet, and how
the sun shone down on us?"
"Yes, Conrad, I remember."
"And then we also used to see the mountain. We saw how blue it was, as
blue as the sky, we saw the snow that is up there even when we had
summer-weather, when it was hot and the grain ripened."
"Yes, Conrad."
"And below it where the snow stopped one sees all sorts of colors if one
looks close--green, blue, and whitish--that is the ice; but it only
looks so small from below, because it is so very far away. Father said
the ice will not go away before the end of the world. And then I also
often saw that there was blue color below the ice and thought it was
stones, or soil and pasture-land, and then come the woods, and they go
down farther and farther, and there are some boulders in them too, and
then come meadows that are already green, and then the green
leafy-woods, and then our meadow-lands and fields in the valley of
Gschaid. Do you see now, Sanna, as we are at the ice we shall go down
over the blue color, and through the forests in which are the boulders,
and then over the pasture-land, and through the green leafy-forests, and
then we shall be in the valley of Gschaid and easily find our way to the
village."
"Yes, Conrad," said the girl.
The children now entered upon the glacier where it was accessible. They
were like wee little pricks wandering among the huge masses.
As they were peering in under the overhanging slabs, moved as it were by
an instinct to seek some shelter, they arrived at a trench, broad and
deeply furrowed, which came right out of the ice. It looked like the bed
of some torrent now dried up and everywhere covered with fresh snow. At
the spot where it emerged from the ice there yawned a vault of ice
beautifully arched above it. The children continued in the trench and,
entering the vault, went in farther and farther. It was quite dry and
there was smooth ice under their feet. All the cavern, however, was
blue, bluer than anything else in the world, more profoundly and more
beautifully blue than the sky, as blue as azure glass through which a
bright glow is diffused. There were more or less heavy flutings, icicles
hung down pointed and tufted, and the passage led inward still farther,
they knew not how far; but they did not go on. It would also have been
pleasant to stay in this grotto, it was warm and no snow could come in;
but it was so fearfully blue that the children took fright and ran out
again. They went on a while in the trench and then clambered over its
side.
They passed along the ice, as far as it was possible to edge through
that chaos of fragments and boulders.
"We shall now have to pass over this, and then we shall run down away
from the ice," said Conrad.
"Yes," said Sanna and clung to him.
From the ice they took a direction downward over the snow which was to
lead them into the valley. But they were not to get far. Another river
of ice traversed the soft snow like a gigantic wall bulging up and
towering aloft and, as it were, reaching out with its arms to the right
and the left. It was covered by snow on top, but at its sides there were
gleams of blue and green and drab and black, aye, even of yellow and
red. They could now see to larger distances, as the enormous and
unceasing snowfall had abated somewhat and was only as heavy as on
ordinary snowy days. With the audacity of ignorance they clambered up on
the ice in order to cross the interposing tongue of the glacier and to
descend farther behind it. They thrust their little bodies into every
opening, they put their feet on every projection covered by a white
snow-hood, whether ice or rock, they aided their progress with their
hands, they crept where they could not walk, and with their light bodies
worked themselves up until they had finally gained the top of the wall.
They had intended to climb down its other side.
There was no other side.
As far as the eyes of the children reached there was only ice. Hummocks,
slabs, and spires of ice rose about them, all covered with snow. Instead
of being a wall which one might surmount and which would be followed by
an expanse of snow, as they had thought, new walls of ice lifted up out
of the glacier, shattered and fissured and variegated with innumerable
blue sinuous lines; and behind them were other walls of the same nature,
and behind them others again, until the falling snow veiled the distance
with its gray.
"Sanna, we cannot make our way here," said the boy. "No," answered his
sister.
"Then we will turn back and try to get down somewhere else."
"Yes, Conrad."
The children now tried to climb down from the ice-wall where they had
clambered up, but they did not succeed. There was ice all about them, as
if they had mistaken the direction from which they had come. They turned
hither and thither and were not able to extricate themselves from the
ice. It was as if they were entangled in it. At last, when the boy
followed the direction they had, as he thought, come, they reached more
scattered boulders, but they were also larger and more awe-inspiring, as
is usually the case at the edge of the glacier. Creeping and clambering,
the children managed to issue from the ice. At the rim of the glacier
there were enormous boulders, piled in huge heaps, such as the children
had never yet seen. Many were covered all over with snow, others showed
their slanting under-sides which were very smooth and finely polished as
if they had been shoved along on them, many were inclined toward one
another like huts and roofs, many lay upon one another like mighty
clods. Not far from where the children stood, several boulders were
inclined together, and over them lay broad slabs like a roof. The little
house they thus formed was open in front, but protected in the rear and
on both sides. The interior was dry, as not a single snow-flake had
drifted in. The children were very glad that they were no longer in the
ice, but stood on the ground again.
But meanwhile it had been growing dark.
"Sanna," said the boy, "we shall not be able to go down today, because
it has become night, and because we might fall or even drop into some
pit. We will go in under those stones where it is so dry and warm, and
there we will wait. The sun will soon rise again, and then we shall run
down from the mountain. Don't cry, please, don't cry, and I shall give
you all the things to eat which grandmother has given us to take
along."
The little girl did not weep. After they had entered under the stone
roof where they could not only sit comfortably, but also stand and walk
about she seated herself close to him and kept very quiet.
"Mother will not be angry," said Conrad, "we shall tell her of the heavy
snow that has kept us, and she will say nothing; father will not,
either. And if we grow cold, why then we must slap our hands to our
bodies as the woodcutters did, and then we shall grow warm again."
"Yes, Conrad," said the girl.
Sanna was not at all so inconsolable because they could not run down the
mountain and get home as he might have thought; for the immense
exertion, of whose severity the children hardly had any conception, made
the very sitting down seem sweet to them, unspeakably sweet, and they
did not resist.
But now hunger asserted itself imperiously. Almost at the same time,
both took their pieces of bread from their pockets and began to eat.
They ate also the other things, such as little pieces of cake, almonds,
raisins, and other trifles, which grandmother had put into their
pockets.
"Sanna, now we must clean the snow from our clothes," said the boy, "so
that we shall not become wet."
"Yes, Conrad," replied Sanna.
The children went before their little house. Conrad first brushed off
his little sister. He grasped the corners of her coat and shook them,
took off the hat he had put on her head, emptied it of snow and wiped
off the snow that remained in it. Then he rid himself as best he could
of the snow that lay on him.
At that time it had entirely stopped snowing. The children could not
feel one flake descending.
They returned into their stone-hut and sat down. Getting up had showed
them how tired they really were, and they were glad to sit down again.
Conrad laid down the calfskin bag which he had strapped on his
shoulders. He took out the cloth in which grandmother had wrapped a
pasteboard-box and several paper packages and put it about his
shoulders for greater warmth. He also took the two pieces of wheat-bread
out of his wallet and gave Sanna both. The child ate them most eagerly.
A part of them, however, she gave back to Conrad as she saw he was not
eating anything. He accepted it and ate it.
From that time on, the children merely sat and looked. As far as the eye
could reach in the twilight there was nothing but snow, whose minute
crystals began to scintillate in a strange manner as if they had
absorbed the light of day and were emitting it again now.
Night fell with the rapidity usual in high altitudes. Soon it was dark
all about, only the snow continued to glimmer faintly. Not only had it
stopped snowing but the clouds began to grow thin and to part, for the
children saw the gleam of a star. As the snow really emitted light, as
it were, and the clouds no longer hung down from the sky, they could see
from their cave how the snowy hillocks round about were sharply outlined
against the dark sky. The cave was warmer than it had been at any other
place during the day, and so the children rested, clinging closely to
each other and even forgot to be afraid of the darkness. Soon the stars
multiplied, they gleamed forth now here, now there, until it seemed that
there was not a single cloud left in the whole sky.
This was the moment when people in the valleys are accustomed to light
their candles. At first, only one is kindled, in order to make light in
the room; or, possibly, only a pine-splinter; or the fire is burning in
the hearth, and all windows of human habitations grow bright and shed
lustre into the snowy night; but all the more tonight, Christmas
evening, when many more lights were kindled, in order to shine full upon
the presents for the children which lay upon the tables or hung on the
trees--innumerable candles were lit; for in nearly every house, every
cot, every room, there were children for whom the Christ-child had
brought presents which had to be shown by the light of candles.
The boy had thought one could very quickly come down from the mountain
and yet, not a single one of the lights burning that night in the valley
shone up to them. They saw nothing but the pale snow and the dark sky,
all else was rendered invisible by the distance. At this hour, the
children in all valleys were receiving their Christmas presents. These
two alone sat up there by the edge of the glacier and the finest
presents meant for them on this day lay in little sealed packages in the
calfskin bag in the rear of the cave.
The snow-clouds had sunk below the mountains on all sides and a vault
entirely dark-blue, almost black, full of densely clustered burning
stars extended above the children; and through the midst of them was
woven a shimmering broad milky band which they had, indeed, seen also
below in the valley, but never so distinctly. The night was advancing.
The children did not know that the stars change their position and move
toward the west, else they might have recognized the hour of night by
their progress. New stars came and the old ones disappeared, but they
believed them to be always the same. It grew somewhat brighter about the
children by the radiance of the stars; but they saw no valley, no known
places, but everywhere white--only white. Only some dark peak, some dark
knob became visible looming up out of the shimmering waste. The moon was
nowhere to be seen in the heavens, perhaps it had set early with the
sun, or it had not yet risen.
After a long time the boy said: "Sanna, you must not sleep; for do you
remember what father said, that if one sleeps in the mountains one will
freeze to death, as the old hunter slept and sat four months dead on
that stone and no one had known where he was."
"No, I shall not sleep," said the little girl feebly. Conrad had shaken
her by a corner of her coat, in order to make her listen to his words.
Then there was silence again.
After a little while, the boy felt a soft pressure against his arm which
became ever heavier. Sanna had fallen asleep and had sunk over toward
him.
"Sanna, don't sleep, please, don't sleep!" he said.
"No," she mumbled drowsily, "I shall not sleep."
He moved farther away from her, in order to make her move; she toppled
over and would have continued sleeping on the ground. He took hold of
her shoulder and shook her. As he moved a little more, he noticed that
he was feeling cold himself and that his arm had grown numb. He was
frightened and jumped up. He seized his sister, shook her more
vigorously and said, "Sanna, get up a little, we want to stand up a
little so that we shall feel better."
"I am not cold, Conrad," she answered.
"Yes indeed you are, Sanna, get up," he cried.
"My fur-jacket is warm," she said.
"I shall help you up," he said.
"No," she replied, and lay still.
Then something else occurred to the boy. Grandmother had said: "Just one
little mouthful of it will warm the stomach so that one's body will not
be cold on the coldest winter day."
He reached for his little calfskin knapsack, opened it, and groped
around in it until he found the little flask into which grandmother had
put the black coffee for mother. He took away the wrappings from the
bottle and with some exertion uncorked it. Then he bent down to Sanna
and said: "Here is the coffee that grandmother sends mother, taste a
little of it, it will make you feel warm. Mother would give it to us if
she knew what we needed it for."
The little girl, who was by nature inclined to be passive, answered, "I
am not cold."
"Just take a little," urged the boy, "and then you may go to sleep
again."
This expectation tempted Sanna and she mastered herself so far that she
took a swallow of the liquor. Then the boy drank a little, too.
The exceedingly strong extract took effect at once and all the more
powerfully as the children had never in their life tasted coffee.
Instead of going to sleep, Sanna became more active and acknowledged
that she was cold, but that she felt nice and warm inside, and that the
warmth was already passing into her hands and feet. The children even
spoke a while together.
In this fashion they drank ever more of the liquor in spite of its
bitter taste as the effect of it began to die away and roused their
nerves to a fever heat which was able to counteract their utter
weariness.
It had become midnight, meanwhile. As they still were so young, and
because on every Christmas eve in the excess of their joy they went to
bed very late and only after being overcome by sleep, they never had
heard the midnight tolling, and never the organ of the church when holy
mass was being celebrated, although they lived close by. At this moment
of the Holy Night, all bells were being rung, the bells of Millsdorf
were ringing, the bells of Gschaid were ringing, and behind the mountain
there was still another church whose three bells were pealing brightly.
In the distant lands outside the valley there were innumerable churches
and bells, and all of them were ringing at this moment, from village to
village the wave of sound traveled, from one village to another one
could hear the peal through the bare branches of the trees; but up to
the children there came not a sound, nothing was heard here, for nothing
was to be announced here. In the winding valleys, the lights of lanterns
gleamed along the mountain-slopes, and from many a farm came the sound
of the farm bell to rouse the hands. But far less could all this be seen
and heard up here. Only the stars gleamed and calmly twinkled and shone.
Even though Conrad kept before his mind the fate of the huntsman who was
frozen to death, and even though the children had almost emptied the
bottle of black coffee--which necessarily would bring on a corresponding
relaxation afterwards, they would not have been able to conquer their
desire for sleep, whose seductive sweetness outweighs all arguments
against it, had not nature itself in all its grandeur assisted them and
in its own depths awakened a force which was able to cope with sleep.
In the enormous stillness that reigned about them, a silence in which no
snow-crystal seemed to move, the children heard three times the bursting
of the ice. That which seems the most rigid of all things and yet is
most flexible and alive, the glacier, had produced these sounds. Thrice
they heard behind them a crash, terrific as if the earth were rent
asunder,--a sound that ramified through the ice in all directions and
seemed to penetrate all its veins. The children remained sitting
open-eyed and looked out upon the stars.
Their eyes also were kept busy. As the children sat there, a pale light
began to blossom forth on the sky before them among the stars and
extended a flat arc through them. It had a greenish tinge which
gradually worked downward. But the arc became ever brighter until the
stars paled in it. It sent a luminosity also into other regions of the
heavens which shed greenish beams softly and actively among the stars.
Then, sheaves of vari-colored light stood in burning radiance on the
height of the arc like the spikes of a crown. Mildly it flowed through
the neighboring regions of the heavens, it flashed and showered softly,
and in gentle vibrations extended through vast spaces. Whether now the
electric matter of the atmosphere had become so tense by the unexampled
fall of snow that it resulted in this silent, splendid efflorescence of
light, or whether some other cause of unfathomable nature may be
assigned as reason for the phenomenon--however that be: gradually the
light grew weaker and weaker, first the sheaves died down, until by
unnoticeable degrees it grew ever less and there was nothing in the
heavens but the thousands upon thousands of simple stars.
The children never exchanged a word, but remained sitting and gazed
open-eyed into the heavens.
Nothing particular happened afterward. The stars gleamed and shone and
twinkled, only an occasional shooting star traversed them.
At last, after the stars had shone alone for a long time, and nothing
had been seen of the moon, something else happened. The sky began to
grow brighter, slowly but recognizably brighter; its color became
visible, the faintest stars disappeared and the others were not
clustered so densely any longer. Finally, also the bigger stars faded
away, and the snow on the heights became more distinct. Now, one region
of the heavens grew yellow and a strip of cloud floating in it was
inflamed to a glowing line. All things became clearly visible and the
remote snow-hills assumed sharp outlines.
"Sanna, day is breaking," said the boy.
"Yes, Conrad," answered the girl.
"After it grows just a bit brighter we shall go out of the cave and run
down from the mountain."
It grew brighter, no star was visible any longer, and all things stood
out clear in the dawn.
"Well, then, let us go," said the boy.
"Yes, let us go," answered Sanna.
The children arose and tried their limbs which only now felt their
tiredness. Although they had not slept, the morning had reinvigorated
them. The boy slung the calfskin bag around his shoulder and fastened
Sanna's fur-jacket about her. Then he led her out of the cave.
As they had believed it would be an easy matter to run down from the
mountain they had not thought of eating and had not searched the bag, to
see whether it contained any wheat-bread or other eatables.
The sky being clear, Conrad had wanted to look down from the mountain
into the valleys in order to recognize the valley of Gschaid and descend
to it. But he saw no valleys whatever. He seemed not to stand on any
mountain from which one can look down, but in some strange, curious
country in which there were only unknown objects. Today they saw awful
rocks stand up out of the snow at some distance which they had not seen
the day before; they saw the glacier, they saw hummocks and slanting
snow-fields, and behind these, either the sky or the blue peak of some
very distant mountain above the edge of the snowy horizon.
At this moment the sun arose.
A gigantic, bloody red disk emerged above the white horizon and
immediately the snow about the children blushed as if it had been strewn
with millions of roses. The knobs and pinnacles of the mountain cast
very long and greenish shadows along the snow.
"Sanna, we shall go on here, until we come to the edge of the mountain
and can look down," said the boy.
They went farther into the snow. In the clear night, it had become still
drier and easily yielded to their steps. They waded stoutly on. Their
limbs became even more elastic and strong as they proceeded, but they
came to no edge and could not look down. Snowfield succeeded snowfield,
and at the end of each always shone the sky.
They continued nevertheless.
Before they knew it, they were on the glacier again. They did not know
how the ice had got there, but they felt the ground smooth underfoot,
and although there were not such awful boulders as in the moraine where
they had passed the night, yet they were aware of the glacier being
underneath them, they saw the blocks growing ever larger and coming ever
nearer, forcing them to clamber again.
Yet they kept on in the same direction.
Again they were clambering up some boulders; again they stood on the
glacier. Only today, in the bright sunlight, could they see what it was
like. It was enormously large, and beyond it, again, black rocks soared
aloft. Wave heaved behind wave, as it were, the snowy ice was crushed,
raised up, swollen as if it pressed onward and were flowing toward the
children. In the white of it they perceived innumerable advancing wavy
blue lines. Between those regions where the icy masses rose up, as if
shattered against each other, there were lines like paths, and these
were strips of firm ice or places where the blocks of ice had not been
screwed up very much. The children followed these paths as they intended
to cross part of the glacier, at least, in order to get to the edge of
the mountain and at last have a glimpse down. They said not a word. The
girl followed in the footsteps of the boy. The place where they had
meant to cross grew ever broader, it seemed. Giving up their direction,
they began, to retreat. Where they could not walk they broke with their
hands through the masses of snow which often gave way before their eyes,
revealing the intense blue of a crevasse where all had been pure white
before. But they did not mind this and labored on until they again
emerged from the ice somewhere.
"Sanna," said the boy, "we shall not go into the ice again at all,
because we cannot make our way in it. And because we cannot look down
into our valley, anyway, we want to go down from the mountain in a
straight line. We must come into some valley, and there we shall tell
people that we are from Gschaid and they will show us the way home."
"Yes, Conrad," said the girl.
So they began to descend on the snow in the direction which its slope
offered them. The boy led the little girl by her hand. However, after
having descended some distance, the slope no longer followed that
direction and the snowfield rose again. The children, therefore, changed
their direction and descended toward a shallow basin. But there they
struck ice again. So they climbed up along the side of the basin in
order to seek a way down in some other direction. A slope led them
downward, but that gradually became so steep that they could scarcely
keep a footing and feared lest they should slide down. So they retraced
their steps upward to find some other way down. After having clambered
up the snowfield a long time and then continuing along an even ridge,
they found it to be as before: either the snow sloped so steeply that
they would have fallen, or it ascended so that they feared it would lead
to the very peak of the mountain. And thus it continued to be.
Then they had the idea of finding the direction from which they had come
and of descending to the red post. As it is not snowing and the sky is
bright, thought the boy, they should be able, after all, to see the spot
where the post ought to be, and to descend down from it to Gschaid.
The boy told his little sister his thought and she followed him.
But the way down to the "neck" was not to be found.
However clear the sun shone, however beautifully the snowy heights stood
there, and the fields of snow lay there, yet they could not recognize
the places over which they had come the day before. Yesterday, all had
been veiled by the immense snowfall, so they had scarcely seen a couple
of feet ahead of them, and then all had been a mingled white and gray.
They had seen only the rocks along and between which they had passed;
but today also they had seen many rocks and they all resembled those
they had seen the day before. Today, they left fresh tracks behind them
in the snow; yesterday, all tracks had been obliterated by the falling
snow. Neither could they gather from the aspect of things which way they
had to return to the "neck," since all places looked alike. Snow and
snow again. But on they marched and hoped to succeed in the end. They
avoided the declivities and did not attempt to climb steep slopes.
Today also they frequently stood still to listen; but they heard
nothing, not the slightest sound. Neither was anything to be seen
excepting the dazzling snow from which emerged, here and there, black
peaks and ribs of rock.
At last the boy thought he saw a flame skipping over a far-away
snow-slope. It bobbed up and dipped down again. Now they saw it, and
then again they did not. They remained standing and steadfastly gazed in
that direction. The flame kept on skipping up and down and seemed to be
approaching, for they saw it grow bigger and skipping more plainly. It
did not disappear so often and for so long a time as before. After
awhile they heard in the still blue air faintly, very faintly, something
like the long note of a shepherd's horn. As if from instinct, both
children shouted aloud. A little while, and they heard the sound again.
They shouted again and remained standing on the same spot. The flame
also came nearer. The sound was heard for the third time, and this time
more plainly. The children answered again by shouting loudly. After some
time, they also recognized that it was no flame they had seen but a red
flag which was being swung. At the same time the shepherd's horn
resounded closer to them and the children made reply.
"Sanna," cried the boy, "there come people from Gschaid. I know the
flag, it is the red flag that the stranger gentleman planted on the
peak, when he had climbed the Gars with the young hunter, so that the
reverend father could see it with his spyglass, and that was to be the
sign that they had reached the top, and the stranger gentleman gave him
the flag afterward as a present. You were a real small child, then."
"Yes, Conrad."
After awhile the children could also see the people near the flag, like
little black dots that seemed to move. The call of the horn came again
and again, and ever nearer. Each time, the children made answer.
Finally they saw on the snow-slope opposite them several men with the
flag in their midst coast down on their Alpen-stocks. When they had
come closer the children recognized them. It was the shepherd Philip
with his horn, his two sons, the young hunter, and several men of
Gschaid.
"God be blessed," cried Philip, "why here you are. The whole mountain is
full of people. Let one of you run down at once to the Sideralp chalet
and ring the bell, that they down below may hear that we have found
them; and one must climb the Krebsstein and plant the flag there so that
they in the valley may see it and fire off the mortars, so that the
people searching in the Millsdorf forest may hear it and that they may
kindle the smudge-fires in Gschaid, and all those on the mountain may
come down to the Sideralp chalet. This is a Christmas for you!"
"I shall climb down to the chalet," one said.
"And I shall carry the flag to the Krebsstein," said another.
"And we will get the children down to the Sideralp chalet as well as we
can, if God help us;" said Philip.
One of Philip's sons made his way downward, and the other went his way
with the flag.
The hunter took the little girl by her hand, and the shepherd Philip the
boy. The others helped as they could. Thus they started out. They turned
this way and that. Now they followed one direction, now they took the
opposite course, now they climbed up, now down, always through snow, and
the surroundings seemed to remain the same. On very steep inclines they
fastened climbing-irons to their feet and carried the children. Finally,
after a long time, they heard the ringing of a little bell that sounded
up to them soft and thin, which was the first sign the lower regions
sent to them again. They must really have descended quite far; for now
they saw a snowy bluish peak lift up its head to a great height above
them. The bell, however, which they had heard was that of the Sideralp
chalet which was being rung, because there the meeting was to be. As
they proceeded farther they also heard in the still atmosphere the faint
report of the mortars which were fired at the sight of the flag; and
still later they saw thin columns of smoke rising into the still air.
When they, after a little while, descended a gentle slope they caught
sight of the Sideralp chalet. They approached. In the hut a fire was
burning, the mother of the children was there, and with a terrible cry
she sank in the snow as she saw her children coming with the hunter.
Then she ran up, looked them all over, wanted to give them something to
eat, wanted to warm them, and bed them in the hay that was there; but
soon she convinced herself that the children were more stimulated by
their rescue than she had thought and only required some warm food and a
little rest, both of which they now obtained.
When, after some time of rest, another group of men descended the
snow-slope while the little bell continued tolling, the children
themselves ran out to see who they were. It was the shoemaker, the
former mountaineer, with Alpen-stock and climbing-irons, accompanied by
friends and comrades.
"Sebastian, here they are!" cried the woman.
He, however, remained speechless, shaking with emotion, and then ran up
to her. Then his lips moved as if he wanted to say something, but he
said nothing, caught the children in his embrace and held them long.
Thereupon he turned to his wife, embraced her and cried "Sanna, Sanna!"
After awhile he picked up his hat which had fallen on the snow and
stepped among the men as if to speak. But he only said: "Neighbors and
friends, I thank you!"
After waiting awhile, until the children had recovered from their
excitement, he said: "If we are all together we may start, in God's
name."
"We are not all together yet, I believe," said the shepherd Philip, "but
those who are still missing will know from the smoke that we have found
the children and will go home when they find the chalet empty."
All got ready to depart.
The Sideralp chalet is not so very far from Gschaid, from whose windows
one can, in summer time, very well see the green pasture on which stands
the gray hut with its small belfry; but below it there is a
perpendicular wall with a descent of many fathoms which one could climb
in summer, with the help of climbing-irons, but which was not to be
scaled in winter. They were, therefore, compelled to go by way of the
"neck" in order to get down to Gschaid. On their way, they came to the
Sider meadow which is still nearer to Gschaid so that from it one could
see the windows in the village.
As they were crossing these meadows, the bell of the Gschaid church
sounded up to them bright and clear, announcing the Holy
Transubstantiation.
[Illustration: THE BARBER SHOP BENJAMIN VAUTIER]
On account of the general commotion that obtained in Gschaid that
morning, the celebration of the High-mass had been deferred, as the
priest thought the children would soon be found. Finally, however, as
still no news came, the holy mass had to be celebrated.
When they heard the bell announcing the Holy Transsubstantiation, all
those crossing the Sider meadow sank upon their knees in the snow and
prayed. When the tolling had ceased they arose and marched on.
The shoemaker was carrying his little girl for the most part and made
her tell him all.
When they were descending toward the forest of the "neck" they saw
tracks which, he declared, came not from shoes of his make.
The explanation came soon. Attracted probably by the many voices they
heard, another body of men joined them. It was the dyer--ash-gray in the
face from fright--descending at the head of his workmen, apprentices,
and several men of Millsdorf.
"They climbed over the glacier and the crevasses without knowing it,"
the shoemaker shouted to his father-in-law.
"There they are--there they are--praised be the Lord," answered the
dyer, "I knew already that they had been on the mountain when your
messenger came to us in the night, and we had searched through the whole
forest with lanterns and had not found anything--and then, when it
dawned, I observed that on the road which leads on the left up toward
the snow-mountain, on the spot where the post stands--that there some
twigs and stalks were broken off, as children like to do on their
way--and then I knew it, and then they could not get away, because they
walked in the hollow, and then between the rocks on to the ridge which
is so steep on either side that they could not get down. They just had
to ascend. After making this observation I sent a message to Gschaid,
but the wood-cutter Michael who carried it told us at his return, when
he joined us up there near the ice, that you had found them already,
and so we came down again."
"Yes," said Michael, "I told you so because the red flag is hung out on
the Krebsstein, and this was the sign agreed upon in Gschaid. And I told
you that they all would come down this way, as one cannot climb down the
precipice."
"And kneel down and thank God on your knees, my son-in-law," continued
the dyer, "that there was no wind. A hundred years will pass before
there will be another such fall of snow that will come down straight
like wet cords hanging from a pole. If there had been any wind the
children would have perished."
"Yes, let us thank God, let us thank God," said the shoemaker.
The dyer who since the marriage of his daughter had never been in
Gschaid decided to accompany the men to the village.
When they approached the red post where the side-road began they saw the
sleigh waiting for them which the shoemaker had ordered there, whatever
the outcome. They let mother and children get into it, covered them well
up in the rugs and furs provided for them and let them ride ahead to
Gschaid.
The others followed and arrived in Gschaid by afternoon. Those who still
were on the mountain and had only learned through the smoke that the
signal for returning had been given, gradually also found their way into
the valley. The last to appear in the evening was the son of the
shepherd Philip who had carried the red flag to the Krebsstein and
planted it there.
In Gschaid there was also grandmother waiting for them who had driven
across the "neck."
"Never, never," she cried, "will I permit the children to cross the
'neck' in winter!"
The children were confused by all this commotion. They received
something more to eat and were put to bed then. Late in the evening,
when they had recovered somewhat, and some neighbors and friends had
assembled in the living-room and were talking about the event, their
mother came into the sleeping-room. As she sat by Sanna's bed and
caressed her, the little girl said: "Mother, last night, when we sat on
the mountain, I saw the holy Christ-child."
"Oh, my dear, darling child," answered her mother, "he sent you some
presents, too, and you shall get them right soon."
The paste-board boxes had been unpacked and the candles lit, and now the
door into the living-room was opened, and from their bed the children
could behold their belated, brightly gleaming, friendly Christmas tree.
Notwithstanding their utter fatigue they wanted to be dressed partly, so
that they could go into the room. They received their presents, admired
them, and finally fell asleep over them.
In the inn at Gschaid it was more lively than ever, this evening. All
who had not been to church were there, and the others too. Each related
what he had seen and heard, what he had done or advised, and the
experiences and dangers he had gone through. Especial stress was laid on
how everything could have been done differently and better.
This occurrence made an epoch in the history of Gschaid. It furnished
material for conversation for a long time; and for many years to come
people will speak about it on bright days when the mountain is seen with
especial clearness, or when they tell strangers of the memorable events
connected with it.
Only from this day on the children were really felt to belong to the
village and were not any longer regarded as strangers in it but as
natives whom the people had fetched down to them from the mountain.
Their mother Sanna also now was a native of Gschaid.
The children, however, will not forget the mountain and will look up to
it more attentively, when they are in the garden; when, as in the past,
the sun is shining beautifully and the linden-tree is sending forth its
fragrance, when the bees are humming and the mountain looks down upon
them beautifully blue, like the soft sky.
WILHELM HEINRICH RIEHL
By OTTO HELLER, PH.D.
Professor of the German Language and Literature, Washington University
Wilhelm Heinrich Riehl was born May 6, 1823, in Bieberich on the Rhine,
of parents so poor that after his father's early death his mother had to
deprive herself of every comfort in order to enable the lad to go to the
university. At Bonn he swerved from his theological bent--chiefly
through the influence of two of his professors, Ernst Moritz Arndt and
Ch. F. Dahlmann--and made up his mind to devote his studies henceforth
to the scientific as well as patriotic purpose of comprehending the
character and history of his own people. Even in the many articles
concerning popular ways and manners which he had already contributed to
periodicals he revealed a thorough firsthand acquaintance with the land
and the people, in particular the peasantry, as he had observed them in
the course of numerous holiday tramps.
Soon after leaving the university he drifted into professional
journalism. He held a number of responsible editorial positions, nor did
he wholly withdraw from such work when in 1859 he was called to the
newly created chair of the History of Civilization and of Statistics at
Munich. Both in his professional and publicistic capacity he wrote
prolifically to the very end of his life, November 16, 1897. His works
are classifiable, roughly, under three headings: History of Culture,
Sociology, and Fiction. Of the large number, the following,
chronologically enumerated, are considered the most important.
[Illustration: WILHELM HEINRICH RIEHL]
_The Natural History of the People, being the Elements of German Social
Politics_ (1851-1869), in four volumes; _Musical Character-Portraits
(1853); Culture-historical Stories (1856); The Palatine People (1857);
Studies in the History of Culture, from Three Centuries (1859); German
Work (1861); Tales of the Olden Time (1863); New Story-Book (1868); From
my Nook (1874); At Eventide (1880); Riddles of Life (1888); Religious
Studies of a Worldling (1892-1893); A Whole Man (1897)._
Riehl's position in the literature of Germany cannot be defined solely,
nor even mainly, on the basis of his imaginative writings. As a romancer
he falls far short of Gustav Freytag, whose _Pictures of the German
Past_ served Riehl obviously for a model, and of Jeremias Gotthelf, in
whose manner, though perhaps unconsciously, he likewise strove to write.
It is characteristic of his tales that they invariably play against a
native background, which, however, stretches across more than full ten
centuries, and that, while failing to prove any high poetic vocation for
their author, they demonstrate his singularly acute perception of
cultural tendencies and values. Equally keen is the appreciation shown
in these stories of the dominant national traits, whether commendable or
otherwise: German contentiousness, stubbornness, envy, jealousy and
_Schadenfreude_, i.e., the malicious joy over calamities that befall
others, are impartially balanced against German self-reliance,
sturdiness, love of truth, sense of duty, sincerity, unselfishness,
loyalty, and depth of feeling.
On the whole, the inclusion of Riehl among the most eminent German
writers of the nineteenth century is due far less to his works of
fiction than to a just recognition of his primacy among historians of
culture, on account of the extraordinary reach of his influence. This
influence he certainly owed as much to his rare art of popular
presentation as to his profound scholarship. Nevertheless the intrinsic
scientific worth of these more or less popular writings is vouched for
by the consensus of leading historians and other specially competent
judges who, regarding Riehl's work as epoch-making and in some essential
aspects fundamental, recognize him as one of the organizers of modern
historical science and in particular as the foremost pioneer in the
exploration of the widest area within the territory of human knowledge;
in fine, as the most efficient representative of the History of
Civilization.
_Kulturgeschichte_, as Riehl used the term, connoted a rather ideal
conception, namely, that of an interpretative record of the sum total of
human civilization. It required a high challenge like that to energize
and unify the requisite laborious research in so many different
directions art, letters, science, economics, politics, social life, and
what not. The History of Civilization, as understood by Riehl, embraces
the results gained in all the special branches of historical study,
political history included.
By a formulation so comprehensive and exacting, Riehl himself stood
committed to the investigation of the national life not only in the
breadth and variety of its general aspect, but also in its minuter
processes that had so far been left unheeded. But under his care even
the study of seemingly trite details quickened the approach to that
fixed ideal of a History of Civilization that should have for its
ultimate object nothing less than the revelation of the spirit of
history itself. The goal might never be attained, yet the quest for it
would at all events disclose "the laws under which racial civilizations
germinate, mature, bloom, and perish."
Personally Riehl applied the bulk of his labors to the two contiguous
fields of Folklore and Art History. Folklore (_Volkskunde_) is here
taken in his own definition, namely, as the science which uncovers the
recondite causal relations between all perceptible manifestations of a
nation's life and its physical and historical environment. Riehl never
lost sight, in any of his distinctions, of that inalienable affinity
between land and people; the solidarity of a nation, its very right of
existing as a political entity, he derived from homogeneity as to
origin, language, custom, habitat. The validity of this view is now
generally accepted in theory, while its practical application to
science must necessarily depend upon the growth of special knowledge. In
_The Palatine People_ Riehl presented a standard treatise upon one of
the ethnic types of the German race, an illustration as it were of his
own theorems.
Among Riehl's contributions to the History of Art, the larger number
concern the art of music. He was qualified for this work by a sure and
sound critical appreciation rooted in thorough technical knowledge. Here
again, following his keen scent for the distinguishing racial qualities,
he gave his attention mainly to the popular forms of composition; at the
same time his penetrating historic insight enabled him to account for
the distinctive artistic character of the great composers by a due
weighing of their individual attributes against the controlling
influences of their time. It is hardly necessary to add that in his
reflections music was never detached from its generic connection with
the fine arts, inclusive of industrial, decorative, and domestic art.
Like many another student and lover of the past Riehl was a man of
conservative habits of mind, without, however, deserving to be classed
as a confirmed reactionary. His anti-democratic tendency of thought
sprang plausibly enough from convictions and beliefs which owed their
existence, in some part at least, to strained and whimsical analogies.
His defense of a static order of society rested at bottom upon a sturdy
hatred of Socialism, then in the earliest stage of its rise. This
ingrained aversion to the new, suggested to him a rather curious sort of
rational or providential sanction for the old. He discerned, by an odd
whim of the fancy, in the physical as well as the spiritual constitution
of Germany a preëestablished principle of "trialism.". According to this
queer notion, Germany is in every respect divided _in partes tres_. The
territorial conformation itself, with its clean subdivision into
lowland, intermediate, and highland, demonstrates the natural
tri-partition to which a like "threeness" of climate, nationality, and
even of religion corresponds. Hence the tripartition of the population
into peasantry, bourgeoisie, and nobility should be upheld as an
inviolable, foreordained institution, and to this end the separate
traditions of the classes be piously conserved. Educational agencies
ought to subserve the specific needs of the different ranks of society
and be diversified accordingly. Riehl would even hark back to wholly
out-dated and discarded customs, provided they seemed to him clearly the
outflow of a vital class-consciousness. For instance, he would have
restored the trade corporations to their medieval status; inhibited the
free disposal of farming land, and governed the German aristocracy under
the English law of primogeniture.
Altogether, Riehl's propensity for spanning a fragile analogy between
concrete and abstract phenomena of life is apt to weaken the structural
strength of his argumentation. Yet even his boldest comparisons do not
lack in illuminative suggestiveness. Take, for example, the following
passage from _Field and Forest:_ "In the contrast between the forest and
the field is manifest the most simple and natural preparatory stage of
the multiformity and variety of German social life, that richness of
peculiar national characteristics in which lies concealed the tenacious
rejuvenating power of our nation." (See p. 418 of this volume.)
The predisposition to draw large inferences coupled with that pronounced
conservatism detract in a measure from the authenticity of Riehl's work
in the department of Social Science, which to him is fundamentally "the
doctrine of the natural inequality of mankind." (See p. 417 of this
volume.)
That Riehl, despite his conservative bias, is not a reactionary out and
out has already been stated. He stands for evolutionary, not
revolutionary, social reform; in his opinion the social-economic order
can be bettered by means of the gradual self-improvement of society, and
in no other way. Unless, moreover, the improvement be effected without
the sacrifice of that basic subdivision of society, the needful social
stability is bound to be upset by the "proletariat"--namely, the entire
"fourth estate" reinforced by the ever increasing number of deserters,
renegades, and outcasts who have drifted away from their appointed
social level.
Notwithstanding this rather dogmatic attitude of which, among other
things, a sweeping rejection of "Woman Emancipation," was one corollary,
Riehl's organic theory of society as explicitly stated in his _Civic
Society_ has a great and permanent usefulness for our time because of
its thoroughgoing method and its clear-cut statement of problems and
issues. The leader of the most advanced school of modern historians,
Professor Karl Lamprecht, goes so far as to declare that the social
studies of W.H. Riehl constitute the very corner stone of scientific
Sociology. In this achievement, to which all of his scholarly endeavors
were tributary, Riehl's significance as a historian of culture may be
said to culminate.
WILHELM HEINRICH RIEHL
FIELD AND FOREST[11]
TRANSLATED BY FRANCES H. KING
The intimate connection between a country and its people may well start
with a superficial survey of the external aspects of a country. He sees
before him mountain and valley, field and forest--such familiar
contrasts that one scarcely notices them any longer; and yet they are
the explanation of many subtle and intimate traits in the life of the
people. A clever schoolmaster could string a whole system of folklore on
the thread of mountain and valley, field and forest. I will be content
to invite further meditation by some thoughts on field and forest, the
_tame_ and the _wild_ cultivation of our soil.
In Germany this contrast still exists in all its sharpness, as we still
have a real forest. England, on the contrary, has practically no really
free forest left--no forest which has any social significance. This, of
necessity, occasions at the very outset a number of the clearest
distinctions between German and English nationality.
In every decisive popular movement in Germany the forest is the first to
suffer. A large part of the peasants live in continual secret feud with
the masters of the forest and their privileges; no sooner is a spark of
revolution lighted, then, before everything else, there flares up among
these people "the war about the forest." The insurgent rural proletariat
can raise no barricades, can tear down no royal palaces, but, instead,
lay waste the woodland of their masters; for in their eyes this forest
is the fortress of the great lord in comparison with the little
unprotected plot of ground of the small farmer. As soon as the power of
the State has conquered the rebellious masses, the first thing it
proceeds to do is to restore the forest to its former condition and
again to put in force the forest charters which had been torn up. This
spectacle, modified in accordance with the spirit of the age, repeats
itself in every century of our history, and it will no doubt be of
constant recurrence, always in new forms, for centuries to come.
The preservation, the protection of the forest, guaranteed anew by
charter, is at present (1853) once again a question of the day, and in
German legislative assemblies in recent years weighty words have been
uttered in favor of the forest from the point of view of the political
economist. Thus it is again becoming popular to defend the poor
much-abused forest. The forest, however, has not only an economic, but
also a social-political value. He who from liberal political principles
denies the distinction between city and country should also, after the
English model, seek to do away with the distinction between the field
and the forest. Wherever common possession of the forest continues to
exist side by side with private possession of the field, there will
never be any real social equality among the people. In the cultivation
of the soil the forest represents the aristocracy; the field represents
the middle class.
The concessions made by the different governments in the matter of
forest-clearing, of the preservation of game, the free use of the
forest, etc., form a pretty exact instrument with which to measure the
triumphant advance of the aristocratic or the democratic spirit. In the
year 1848 many a vast tract of forest was sacrificed in order to
purchase therewith a small fraction of popularity. Every revolution does
harm to the forest, but, provided it does not wish to strangle itself,
it leaves the field untouched.
After December 2, 1851, the gathering of fallen leaves in the forest was
countenanced in Alsace in order to make the Napoleonic _coup d' état_
popular. It was cleverly thought out; for the never-resting war about
the forest can be for a government a mighty lever of influence on a
class of the people which is, in general, hard enough to swing round.
The concession permitting the gathering of leaves, and manhood suffrage,
are one and the same act of shrewd Bonapartist policy, only aimed at
different classes. Thus social politics lurks even behind the
forest-trees and beneath the rustling red leaves of last autumn--a
strange circle of cause and effect! The immoderate cultivation of
potatoes contributes not a little to saddle the modern State with the
proletariat, but this same cultivation of potatoes, which deprives the
small peasant of straw, drives him into the forest to seek for withered
leaves in place of straw for his cattle, and thus places again in the
hands of the State authorities a means--based upon the strange historic
ruin of our forest-franchises--of curbing a powerful part of the
proletariat.
Popular sentiment in Germany considers the forest to be the one large
piece of property which has not yet been completely portioned off. In
contrast to field, meadow, and garden, every one has a certain right to
the forest, even if it consists merely in being able to run about in it
at pleasure. In the right, or the permission, to gather wood and dry
leaves and to pasture cattle, in the distribution of the so-called
"loose-wood" from the parish forests, and such acts, lie the historic
foundation of an almost communist tradition. Where else has anything of
the kind been perpetuated except in the case of the forest? The latter
is the root of truly German social conditions. In very truth the forest,
with us, has not yet been completely portioned off; therefore every
political agitator who wishes to pay out in advance to the people a
little bit of "prosperity" as earnest-money of the promised universal
prosperity, immediately lays hands upon the forest. By means of the
forest, and by no other, you can substantially preach communism to the
German peasant. It is well known that the idea of the forest as private
property was introduced at a late date and gained ground gradually among
the German people.
Forest, pasturage, water, are, in accordance with a primitive German
principle of jurisprudence, intended for the common use of all
inhabitants of the same district. The old alliteration "wood, wold and
water," has not yet been entirely forgotten by the people. Thus a dim
and feeble memory, a well-nigh forgotten legend, looking upon the common
claim to general use of the forest as a natural right which had been in
force since the beginning of time, confirms the conclusions of the
historian, according to whom community of possession of the forest was a
true old Germanic idea. Such a line of argument, however, could also
bring us to the further conclusion that this community of possession has
only once been fully realized--namely, by and in the primeval forest.
In times of excitement men have worked out on paper wonderful
arithmetical problems concerning the partition of the soil of the forest
into small plots of ground for the poor. Paper is very forbearing, and
it looks very idyllic and comfortable to see, carefully calculated
before our eyes, how many hundreds of dear little estates could be made
out of the meagre soil of the forest, on which the proletarian could
settle down to the contented patriarchal existence of a farmer.
Practical attempts along this line have not been wanting, but, instead
of diminishing the proletariat, such an increase of small farms only
served to augment it all the more; practice is ahead of theory. The
people should have thanked God that the forest, almost alone, had not
been parceled out; yet, instead, they were ready even to destroy the
forest in order to assist the small farmer! In many parts of Germany the
poor farmer would starve if the traditional free use of the forest did
not form a steady annuity for him. The forest helps in a hundred ways to
place the petty farms on a solid foundation; if, therefore, men destroy
the forests in order to increase the number of petty farms, they are
undermining firmly rooted existences in order, in their place, to plant
new ones upon the sand.
It is a source of great comfort for the social politician that, in
Germany, the contrast of forest and field yet remains so generally
established that we still have a whole group of regular forest lands. A
nation which still holds fast to the forest as a common public
possession along with the field that is divided off into private
property, has not only a present but also a future. Thus in Russia's
impenetrable forests, whose inner thickets are, in the words of the poet
Mickiewicz, such a deep mystery that they are as little known to the eye
of-the huntsman as the depths of the sea are known to the eve of the
fisherman--in these forests is hidden the future of the great Slav
Empire; while in the English and French provinces, where there is no
longer a genuine forest, we are confronted by an already partially
extinct national life. The United States of America whose society is
permeated with materialism, and whose strange national life is made up
of a mixture of youthful energy and of torpor, would rapidly hurry on to
their destruction if they did not have in the background the primeval
forest which is raising up a fresher, more vigorous, race to take the
place of the rapidly degenerating inhabitants of the coast-lands. The
wilderness is an immense dormant capital in ready cash, possessing which
as a basis the North Americans may, for a long time to come, risk the
most daring social and political stock-jobbing. But woe to them should
they consume the capital itself!
The German forest and the privileges and compulsory service connected
with it are a last surviving fragment of the Middle Ages. Nowhere are
the ruins of the feudal elements more plainly visible than in the forest
regulations; the forest alone assures the rural population--in true
medieval style--a subsidy for its existence, untouched by the fury of
competition and small-farming.
Therefore do the demagogues so often try to change the war "about" the
forest into a war "against" the forest; they know that the forest must
first be hewn down before the Middle Ages can be wiped out of Germany,
and, on that account, the forest always fares worse than anything else
in every popular uprising. For though in our rapidly moving century
there is an average interval of fifteen years allowed between one
revolution and another, yet a good forest tree requires a much longer
time to reach full growth. At least the incalculable loss suffered by
our forest property in the year 1848, through lavish waste, plundering,
and wanton ruination, has certainly, up to the present time, not been
made good by natural means.
In Anhalt-Dessau it was decided, in an ordinance of the year 1852, that
all oak-trees standing on private ground should, in accordance with
ancient custom, remain the property of the sovereign. In this conception
the contrast between forest and field is an absolutely ideal one; even
the separate forest tree is in itself still a forest and has
forest-rights, just as in localities where all the forests have been cut
down the peasants still frequently designate a single remaining tree by
the title of their "parish forest."
The political economists argue that the amount of wood which can be
supplied by our present forests is by no means too great for the
satisfaction of the demand--that, if anything, it is too small. Those,
however, whose enmity to the forest is based on political principles
detail to us the yearly increasing substitutes for wood, and point
triumphantly to the not far distant time when forests will no longer be
needed, when all forest land can be turned into cultivated land, so that
every glebe of earth in civilized Europe shall produce sufficient
nourishment for a man. This idea of seeing every little patch of earth
dug up by human hands strikes the imagination of every natural man as
something appallingly uncanny; it is especially repugnant to the German
spirit. When that comes to pass it will be high time for the day of
judgment to dawn. Emmanuel Geibel, in his poem _Mythus_, has symbolized
this natural aversion to the extreme measures of a civilization which
would absorb every form of wild nature. He creates a legend about the
demon of steam, who is chained and forced to do menial service. The
latter will break his bonds again and with his primitive titanic
strength, which has been slumbering in the heart of the world, he will
destroy the very earth itself when once the whole ball has been covered
with the magic network of the railroads. Before that time all the
forests will have been turned into cultivated land.
The advocates of the forest resort to a feeble method of defense when
they demand the preservation of the present moderate forest area solely
on economic grounds. The social-political reasons certainly weigh quite
as heavy. Hew down the forest and you will at the same time destroy the
historic _bourgeois_ society.--In the destruction of the contrast
between field and forest you are taking a vital element away from German
nationality. Man does not live by bread alone; even if we no longer
required any wood we should still demand the forest. The German people
need the forest as a man needs wine, although for our mere necessities
it might be quite sufficient if the apothecary alone stored away ten
gallons in his cellar. If we do not require any longer the dry wood to
warm our outer man, then all the more necessary will it be for the race
to have the green wood, standing in all its life and vigor, to warm the
inner man.
In our woodland villages--and whoever has wandered through the German
mountains knows that there are still many genuine woodland villages in
the German Fatherland--the remains of primitive civilization are still
preserved to our national life, not only in their shadiness but also in
their fresh and natural splendor. Not only the woodland, but likewise
the sand dunes, the moors, the heath, the tracts of rock and glacier,
all wildernesses and desert wastes, are a necessary supplement to the
cultivated field lands. Let us rejoice that there is still so much
wilderness left in Germany. In order for a nation to develop its power
it must embrace at the same time the most varied phases of evolution. A
nation over-refined by culture and satiated with prosperity is a dead
nation, for whom nothing remains but, like Sardanapalus, to burn itself
up together with all its magnificence. The _blasé_ city man, the fat
farmer of the rich corn-land, may be the men of the present; but the
poverty-stricken peasant of the moors, the rough, hardy peasant of the
forests, the lonely, self-reliant Alpine shepherd, full of legends and
songs--these are the men of the future. Civil society is founded on the
doctrine of the natural inequality of mankind. Indeed, in this
inequality of talents and of callings is rooted the highest glory of
society, for it is the source of its inexhaustible vital energy. As the
sea preserves the vigor of the people of the coast-lands by keeping them
in a hardy natural state, so does the forest produce a similar effect on
the people of the interior. Therefore since Germany has such a large
expanse of interior country, it needs just that much more forest-land
than does England. The genuine woodland villagers, the foresters,
wood-cutters, and forest laborers are the strong, rude seamen among us
landlubbers. Uproot the forests, level the mountains, and shut out the
sea, if you want to equalize society in a closet-civilization where all
will have the same polish and all be of the same color. We have seen
that entire flourishing lands which have been robbed of the protecting
forests have fallen prey to the devastating floods of the mountain
streams and the scorching breath of the storms. A large part of Italy,
the paradise of Europe, is a land which has, ceased to live, because its
soil no longer bears any forests under the protection of which it might
become rejuvenated. And not only is the land exhausted, but the people
are, likewise. A nation must die off when it can no longer have recourse
to the back-woodsmen in order to gather from them the fresh strength of
a natural, hardy, national life. A nation without considerable
forest-property is worthy of the same consideration as a nation without
requisite sea-coast. We must preserve our forests not only so that our
stoves shall not be cold in winter, but also that the pulse of the
nation's life shall continue to throb on warmly and cheerfully--in
short, so that Germany shall remain German.
The inhabitants of the German woodland villages have almost always a far
fresher, more individual, mental stamp than the inhabitants of the
villages of the plain. In the latter we find more sleek prosperity side
by side with greater degeneracy of morals, than in the former. The
inhabitant of the woodland villages is often very poor, but the
discontented proletarian dwells far more frequently in the villages of
the plain. The latter is more important in an economic sense, the former
in a social-political one. The forest peasant is rougher, more
quarrelsome, but also merrier than the peasant of the field; the former
often turns out a genial rascal, when the dull peasant of the field in
like case would have turned into a heartless miser. The preservation or
the extinction of ancient popular customs and costumes does not depend
so much on the contrast between mountainous-country and flat-country as
on that between the woodland and the field, if one includes in the
former the heaths, moors, and other wild regions. The forest is the home
of national art; the forest peasant still continues through many
generations to sing his peculiar song along with the birds of the woods,
when the neighboring villager of the plain has long ago entirely
forgotten the folk-song. A village without woods is like a city without
historical buildings, without monuments, without art-collections,
without theatres and music--in short, without emotional or artistic
stimulation. The forest is the gymnasium of youth and often the
banqueting hall of the aged. Does not that weigh at least as heavy as
the economic question of the timber? In the contrast between the forest
and the field is manifest the most simple and natural preparatory stage
of the multiformity and variety of German social life, that richness of
peculiar national characteristics in which lies concealed the tenacious
rejuvenating power of our nation.
The century of the pig-tail possessed no eye for the forest and, in
consequence, no understanding of the natural life of the people.
Everywhere in the German provinces they removed the princely
pleasure-seats from the woody mountains to the woodless flat country.
But then, to be sure, the art of the pig-tail age was almost entirely
un-German. For the artists of the pig-tail the forest was too irregular
in design, too humpbacked in form, and too dark in color. It was shoved
into the background as a flat accessory of the landscape, while, on the
contrary, the landscape painters of the preceding great period of art
drew the inspiration for their forest pictures from the very depths of
the forest solitudes. No painter of Romance origin has ever painted the
forest as Ruysdael and Everdingen did; they in their best pictures place
themselves right in the midst of the deepest thickets. Poussin and
Claude Lorraine have made magnificent studies of the forest, but
Ruysdael knows the forest by heart from his childhood, as he knows the
Lord's Prayer.
The Frenchified lyric poets of the school of Hagedorn and Gleim sing
forest-songs, as though they longed after the forest from hearsay. Then,
with the resurrected folk-song and the resuscitated Shakespeare, who has
poetically explored deeper into the glory of the forest than all others,
the English art of gardening, an imitation of the free nature of the
forest, reaches Germany. At the same time, in German poetry, Goethe
again strikes the true forest-note which he has learned from the
folk-song; and from the moment that the forest no longer appears too
disorderly for the poets, the coarse, vigorous national life no longer
seems to them too dirty and rugged for artistic treatment. The most
recent and splendid revival of landscape painting is intimately
connected with the renewed absorption of the artist in the study of the
forest. We also find that, at the time when Goethe was writing his best
songs, Mozart and Haydn were, with equal enthusiasm, composing music for
the folk-song, as if they had "learned it listening to the birds" that
is to say, to the birds in the woods, not, like one of the new branch
schools of romantic miniature poets, to the birds singing their sickly
songs in gilded cages in a parlor.
The forest alone permits us civilized men to enjoy the dream of a
personal freedom undisturbed by the surveillance of the police. There at
least one can ramble about as one will, without being bound to keep to
the common patented high road. Yes, there a staid mature man can even
run, jump, climb to his heart's content, without being considered a fool
by that old stickler, Dame Propriety. These fragments of ancient
Germanic sylvan liberty have happily been preserved almost everywhere in
Germany. They no longer exist in neighboring lands which have greater
political freedom but where annoying fences very soon put an end to an
unfettered desire to roam at will. What good does the citizen of the
large North American cities get out of his lack of police surveillance
in the streets, if he cannot even run around at will in the woods of the
nearest suburb because the odious fences force him, more despotically
than a whole regiment of police, to keep to the road indicated by the
sign-post? What good do the Englishmen get out of their free laws, since
they have nothing but parks inclosed by chains, since they have scarcely
any free forest left? The constraint of customs and manners in England
and North America is insupportable to a German. As the English no longer
even know how to appreciate the free forest, it is no wonder that they
require a man to bring along a black dress-suit and a white cravat, in
addition to the ticket-money, in order to obtain entrance to the theatre
or a concert. Germany has a future of greater social liberty before her
than England, for she has preserved the free forest. They might perhaps
be able to root up the forests in Germany, but to close them to the
public would cause a revolution.
[Illustration: AN OFFICIAL DINNER IN THE COUNTRY (painting by) BENJAMIN
VAUTIER]
From this German sylvan liberty which peeps forth so strangely from
amidst our other modern conditions, flows a deeper influence upon the
manners and character of every class of the people than is dreamed of
by many a stay-at-home. On the other hand, in a thousand different
characteristics in the life of our great cities we perceive how far the
real forest has withdrawn from these cities, how alienated from the
forest their inhabitants have grown to be. One sees, of late, much more
green in our large German cities; walks on the ramparts and municipal
parks and public gardens have been laid out; open squares, too, have
been decorated with grass plots, bushes and flowers. In no former age
has the art of gardening done so much to enhance the picturesque charm
of our cities as at the present day. I do not by any means wish to
underestimate the high value of such public grounds, but they are
something entirely different from the free forest; they cannot possibly
form any equivalent for it, and the forest unhappily withdraws farther
and farther away from the city. Art and nature have both an equally just
claim upon us; but art can never make up to us for the loss of nature,
not even though it were an art which takes nature itself as the material
upon which to work, like the art of gardening.
The free forest and the free ocean have, with profound significance,
been called by poetry the _sacred_ forest and the _sacred_ ocean, and
nowhere does this sacredness of virgin nature produce a more intense
effect than when the forest rises directly out of the sea. The real,
sacred forest is where the roar of the breaking waves mingles with the
rustling of the tree-tops in one loud hymn; but it is also where, in the
hushed mid-day silence of the German mountain forests, the wanderer,
miles away from every human habitation, hears nothing but the beating of
his own heart in the church-like stillness of the wilderness.
Yet even in the free, sacred forest we find same splendid examples of
the humor of the police. On the Island of Rügen, when one enters what is
celebrated throughout northern Germany as a sort of primeval
beech-forest of the Granitz,[12] from the trunk of a huge tree a
sign-board meets the wanderer's gaze, bearing an inscription stating
that in this forest one may go about only if accompanied by a
forest-keeper of His Highness, the Prince of Putbus, at five silver
groschen the hour. To enjoy the awe of a primeval forest in the company
of a member of the forest-police, at five silver groschen the hour--that
only a born Berliner is capable of!
It is owing to a strange confusion of ideas that many people consider
the uprooting of the forests in the Germany of the nineteenth century to
be still a reclaiming of the soil, an act of inner colonization, by
means of which the uprooted piece of ground is for the first time given
over to cultivation. For us the forest is no longer the wilderness out
of which we must force our way into cleared land, but it is a veritable
magnificent safeguard of our most characteristic national life.
Therefore it was that I called it the wild cultivation of the soil in
contrast to the tame cultivation of the field. In our day, to root out
the soil of the forest no longer means making it arable; it simply means
exchanging one form of cultivation for another. He who estimates the
value of the culture of the soil merely according to the percentage of
clear profit accruing from it, will wish to clear forest-land in order
to make it arable. We, however, do not estimate the various forms of
cultivation of the soil only by the standard of their money value, but
also by that of their ideal worth. The fact that our soil is cultivated
in so many various ways is one of the chief causes of our wealth of
individual social organizations, and therefore of the vitality of our
society itself.
The forest represents the aristocratic element in the cultivation of the
soil. Its value consists more in what it represents than in what it
produces and in the profit which it yields. The rich man alone can
afford to manage and cultivate a forest; indeed, often the richest is
not rich enough to do so, and therefore it is just that the State, as
the sum total of the country's wealth, should be the first and largest
forest proprietor. To cultivate the forest solely in the interest of the
contemporary generation is a wretched sort of copse-wood business;
large trees are raised for future generations. Therefore the forest is,
primarily, a subject of national economy and, secondarily, one of
domestic economy. In the forest the interests of the entire nation must
be considered; it must be, as far as possible, equally distributed over
the whole land, for its treasures interfere with the facilities of
traffic. These are thoughts which might make any genuine forest
proprietor proud of his own particular forest.