THE FOUR SEASONS
[Illustration]
THE
FOUR SEASONS
BY
CARL EWALD
TRANSLATED BY
ALEXANDER TEIXEIRA DE MATTOS
NEW YORK
DODD, MEAD AND COMPANY
1913
COPYRIGHT, 1913,
BY DODD, MEAD AND COMPANY,
_Published, October, 1913_
TRANSLATOR’S NOTE
_The songs in this story have been translated into English verse by
my friend Mr. Osman Edwards, who has successfully accomplished the
difficult task of retaining not only the rhymes, but also the lilting
rhythm of the originals._
A. T. DE M.
CHELSEA, 30 April, 1913.
CONTENTS
PAGE
TRANSLATOR’S NOTE vii
PROLOGUE xi
CHAPTER I
THE FIRST MEETING 1
CHAPTER II
SPRING 25
CHAPTER III
SUMMER 65
CHAPTER IV
AUTUMN 101
CHAPTER V
WINTER 141
CHAPTER VI
THE SECOND MEETING 169
PROLOGUE
PROLOGUE
Lo, nowadays the earth is white or green, according as Winter rules or
Spring. The thrush sings in the grove and the canary in his cage, the
smoke rises from the house-top and the church-bell tolls for evensong.
The monk walks in the meadow and the poet writes verse.
But once things were different.
Once things were so that, had somebody taken a walk on the earth,
nowhere would a dog have run out of a house and barked at him. For
there was not upon all the earth a single dog to run out of a house
nor a single house for a dog to run out of.
He would not have come upon a tree nor a flower nor a blade of grass.
Nor could he have found a drop of water to quench his thirst with.
For there was nobody on the earth--nobody and nothing.
_Had_ there been anybody who wanted to take a walk, he simply could not
have done so. For the earth was mere vapour and mist, so that he would
have fallen plump through her and plunged straight into space, where
the stars float.
And he would not have had much satisfaction from this. For, unless he
had been quite round and nice and bright, he would have cut a foolish
figure among the stars.
Such was the state of things.
But the earth quite understood that she could not go on like this for
ever. She could not have been intended to be never more than smoke. So
she pulled herself together and did her best. But she had to go through
a terrible amount and it was a hard time for her, which she never
forgot and which she bears the marks of to this day.
She had to go through fire and through water too.
For thousands of years, she flew through space like a ball of fire
and, when at length she had a stone crust about her, the rain poured
down upon her nor stopped until she sailed away like an enormous drop
of water.
Meanwhile, the fire in the earth’s interior broke out each moment
through the crust, burst it and split it criss-crosswise and flung the
pieces higgledy-piggledy to every side.
“My poor, dear little Earth!” said the sun and looked at her kindly.
“Why do you bother about that clot?” asked one of the big stars. “Shine
on us, who are worth shining on.”
“The earth is no clot to me,” replied the sun. “She is my child, like
yourself and the others. And she is the youngest and therefore nearest
to my heart. It is not so very many thousand years ago since she broke
loose from me and sallied forth into the universe to tempt fortune
single-handed. If only she behaves pluckily and does not lose heart, I
shall have pleasure enough in her.”
The earth heard this and held out.
Year by year, the stone crust grew thicker, the water sank gradually
into the ground and the land rose to the surface. But, even when the
crust became so thick that the fire could not break through it just
when and where it pleased, but had to make a regular effort when it
wished to create a sensation, even then the earth’s trials were not
over.
There was no order about her at all.
For instance, it was just as warm in Greenland as in Italy. Plenty
of plants grew on the earth, but they were queer ones: ferns and
horse-tails as tall as the tallest trees in the forest nowadays. There
were animals too, but they were strange and uncanny creatures which
we never meet with now except in the old fairy-tales. There were
quadrupeds that were thirty yards long and swam in the water; and
there were dragons that flew in the air and looked horrid.
And so it happened that it became ridiculously cold on the greatest
part of the earth. Wherever one looked lay ice and snow; and the
animals and plants died.
But then the fire broke out again, more violently than ever, and
overturned hills and dales. Great new lands rose up out of the sea; and
the sea swept its broad waves ruthlessly over the old lands.
No one could conceive what the end would be.
“My poor, dear little Earth!” said the sun.
But how all these things were put in order at last--this you shall read
in the fairy-tale of _The Four Seasons_.
THE FIRST MEETING
_The Four Seasons_
CHAPTER I
THE FIRST MEETING
_By the grace of God, conferred on
Princes four, they share Earth’s burden:
Theirs the glory, hers the guerdon._
It happened one day that two princes came walking over the earth of
each in the other’s direction.
One of them came from the North, the other from the South. They were
both tall, taller than men, taller than any champion of romance. They
carried their heads royally and high and set their feet firmly upon
the ground, as if it belonged to them.
The one who came from the North was the elder. He was an old man with a
might of white hair and beard; his naked breast was shaggy, shaggy his
legs and hands. He looked strong and wild, with cold, stern eyes.
The one who came from the South was young, but no less powerful than
the other. His face and hands were burned by the sun, his eyes strong
and gentle as the sun. Over his shoulder he wore a purple cloak, round
his loins a golden girdle. In the girdle was a wonderful red rose.
When the princes saw each other from afar, they stopped for a moment
and then walked quickly on again, as though they longed to meet. But,
when they had come a little closer to each other, they both stood still
once more. The young one shivered when he met the old one’s glance; and
the sweat sprang to the old one’s brow when the young one looked at him.
They stood thus for a time. Then they sat down, each upon a mountain,
and gazed at each other and waited for a while in silence.
The young one was the first to speak:
“You are Winter, I presume?” he asked.
The old one nodded:
“I am Winter, the lord of the earth,” he answered.
The young one laughed till the mountains rang:
“Are you really?” said he. “And I am Summer, the lord of the earth.”
They sat again for a while and measured each other with angry glances.
Then Winter said:
“I came out to meet you and talk to you. But I do not like you.”
“I came intending to talk you into your senses,” said Summer. “But I
can hardly bear to look at you, you are so grim and ugly.”
“Shall we divide the earth between us?” asked Winter. “You come
everywhere with your namby-pamby sunshine and melt my ice and plant
your paltry flowers. I retaliate, as you know. I smother your creatures
in snow and spoil your pleasure. We are both equally strong: shall we
conclude a peace?”
“What would _that_ lead to?” asked Summer, suspiciously.
“Each of us must keep to his own,” replied Winter. “I have my
ice-castle in the North, where you can never come, and you have your
sun-palace down in the South, where my sway does not reach. As we
cannot bear the sight of each other, we had better lay a broad waste
belt between our kingdoms.”
“Nothing shall be waste,” said Summer. “Everything shall be green, as
far as I am concerned. I like to wander out of my summer-palace all
over the earth and I will carry my light and my heat as far into your
ice-fields as I can. I know no greater pleasure than to conjure forth a
green spot in your snow ... even though it be but for a day.”
“You are conceited, because you are in luck’s way for the moment,”
replied Winter. “But you should remember that the times may change. I
_was_ the more powerful once and I may become so again. Do not forget
that I am born of the eternal, unutterable cold of space.”
“And I am the child of the sun and was powerful before you,” said
Summer, proudly.
Winter passed his fingers through his beard; and an avalanche came
rushing down the mountain-side.
“Ugh!” said Summer and wrapped himself closer in his purple cloak.
“Would you like to see my might?” asked Winter.
He raised his arms in the air; and, then and there, the mountain on
which he sat was quite transformed. A wild, blustering storm roared
over it; and the snow swept down from the sky. A brook which had been
leaping gaily over the slope turned suddenly to ice; and the waterfall
which sang and hummed over the precipice fell silent at once and
its water froze into yard-long icicles. When it ceased snowing, the
mountain was white from top to foot.
“Now it’s my turn,” said Summer.
He took the rose from his girdle and flung it on the mountain whereon
he sat; and forthwith the loveliest roses shot up from the ground.
They nodded in the breeze from the point of every rock and filled the
valleys with their fragrance and their colours. In every bush sat merry
nightingales and sang; and from the flower-stalks heavy dew-drops hung
and gleamed in the sun.
“Well?” said Summer.
Winter bent forward and stared hard at the loveliest rose of them all.
Then the dew-drop that hung under the flower froze into an icicle. The
bird that sat in its branches and sang fell stiff and frozen to the
ground; and the rose itself withered and died.
“Well?” said Winter.
But Summer stood up and looked with his gentle eyes at Winter’s
mountain, at the place where the snow lay deepest. And, on the spot at
which he looked, the snow melted and from out the ground sprang the
largest and loveliest Christmas rose that any one could hope to set
eyes upon.
In this wise, the two princes could make no way against each other.
The day wore on; evening came and night. The moon shone upon the
splendid snow-clad mountain, which gleamed and glittered like diamonds.
Across from Summer’s mountain sounded the nightingale’s song; and the
scent of the roses filled all the fair space around.
* * * * *
The next morning, just as the sun was rising, two other princes came
walking towards the place where Winter and Summer sat glaring at each
other.
One of them came from the East, the other from the West. They were
shorter in stature than Winter and Summer and not so strong nor yet so
awful to look at. But they were big enough even then; and there was no
mistaking that they were high lords and mighty men. For they walked the
earth freely and proudly and looked around them as though they feared
no one and nothing.
The one who came from the East was the younger, a mere stripling
without a hair on his chin. His face was soft and round, his mouth was
ever smiling and his eyes dreamy and moist. His long hair was bound
with a ribbon, like a woman’s. He was clad in green from top to toe.
The ribbon round his hair was green, as were the bows to his shoes; and
a lute was slung across his shoulder by a broad green ribbon of silk.
The newcomer walked as gaily and lightly as though his feet did not
touch the ground and, all the time, as he walked, he hummed a tune and
plucked at the strings of his lute.
The one who came from the West was much older. His hair and beard were
dashed with grey; and there were wrinkles on his forehead. But he was
good to look at and he was arrayed in the most splendid attire of them
all. His cloak gleamed red and brown and green and yellow; and, as
he marched towards the sun, he spread it so that it shone in all its
colours. He himself gazed contentedly right into the sun’s radiance, as
if he could never have enough of it. In his hand he carried a mighty
horn.
Now, when these two had neared the others, they bowed low before them.
The one who came from the East bowed lowest before Summer; but the one
who came from the West showed Winter the greatest deference.
Thereupon they sat down, just opposite each other, each on his
mountain, and so they all four sat for a while, in a circle, and said
nothing. Then Winter asked:
“Who may you two be?”
“I am Autumn,” said he who had come from the West.
“I am Spring,” said the other.
Winter looked hard at them and shook his head:
“I don’t know you,” he said.
“I have never heard your names,” said Summer.
“We have come to rule over the earth,” said Spring.
But now Winter grew angry in earnest. He wrapped his head in the most
terrible snow-storm that had ever been seen in the land; and his voice
sounded like thunder from out of the storm:
“Go away, back to whence you came! We do not know you and we have
nothing to say to you. Summer and I are the princes of the earth; and
we already are one prince too many. If more come, it will simply mean
endless trouble.”
“We have not come to cause trouble, but to make peace,” said Autumn,
gently.
“Between Winter and me no peace is possible,” said Summer.
“That is why we want to part you,” said Spring. “We two who have
come to-day well know that we are not so powerful as you. We bow
respectfully before you, because your might is greater, your sway more
firmly established. We do not presume to encroach on your dominions.
But we want to come between you and hinder you from laying waste the
earth.”
“Yes, if you could do _that_!” said Summer.
“Yes, then there would be some sense in it,” growled Winter.
“We can,” said Autumn. “We understand you both, because we have
something of both of you in us. When you approach each other, one of us
two will step in between; and the land where we are shall then be ours.”
“I will never let go my ice-castle in the North!” cried Winter.
“I will suffer no foreign prince in my sun-palace in the South!” cried
Summer.
“No more you shall,” said Autumn. “None shall disturb you in the
places where you reign in your might. But now listen to me. When you
two move over the earth, Spring and I will always come between you and
soften the tracks of the one who is going and clear the way for the one
who is coming. In this wise, we will reign for a while, each in his own
time and each for a fourth part of the year. We will follow after one
another in a circle which shall never be broken nor changed. And thus
the poor earth will gain peace and order in her affairs.”
When the Prince of Autumn had spoken, they were all silent for a while
and looked out before them. Winter and Summer distrusted each other and
neither of them would utter the first word. But Spring and Autumn half
rose from their seats and bowed before the two mighty ones:
“I will spread the cloth for Summer,” said Spring.
“I will make Winter’s bed,” said Autumn.
“I will release earth and water from their icy fetters and prepare them
for your glory, O beauteous Summer,” said Spring.
“I shall bite your heel!” roared Winter.
“And I will make room for your storms and snows, O stern Winter,” said
Autumn. “But first I will bring Summer’s produce home.”
“I shall send my last sunbeams after you and give you lovely days,”
said Summer.
Again the four princes sat silent and gazed out over the earth.
And again evening came and night. The moon shone upon the snow-clad
mountain, Summer’s roses shed their scent, Spring hummed a tune and
plucked at the strings of his lute, Autumn’s motley cloak flapped in
the wind.
* * * * *
The next morning, Winter rose and stood upon his mountain, all tall and
mighty. The other princes did as he did.
“Let it be so then!” said Winter. “For a hundred thousand years it
shall be so and no otherwise. When that time is past, we shall meet
here again and talk of how things have gone.”
Then the four princes bowed to one another and strode away across the
earth.
SPRING