The news that Montan was in the neighborhood had made Wilhelm reflect.
He considered that it ought not to be left to chance alone whether he
should meet with so estimable a friend, therefore he inquired of his
landlord if they did not know towards what quarter this traveller had
turned his course. No one had any information on this point; and Wilhelm
had determined to pursue his pilgrimage on the former plan, when Felix
cried, “If father were not so strange, we might soon find Montan.”
“What way?” said Wilhelm.
Felix answered, “Little Fitz told us last night that he could trace out
the stranger gentleman, who had many fine stones with him, and
understood them well.”
After some talking, Wilhelm at last resolved on making the experiment;
purposing, in the course of it, to keep so much the sharper watch on the
suspicious boy. Fitz was soon found; and, hearing what was to be done,
he soon produced mallet and chisel, and a stout hammer, with a little
bag, and set forth, running merrily before the party, in his mining
accoutrements.
The way went to a side, and up the mountains. The children skipped on
together, from crag to crag, over stock and stone, over brook and bourn;
and, without having any path before him, Fitz pressed rapidly upwards,
now looking to the right hand, now to the left. As Wilhelm, and
especially the laden porter, could not follow so fast, the boys often
ran back and forward, singing and whistling. The aspect of some new
trees arrested the attention of Felix, who now, for the first time,
formed acquaintance with larches and fir-cones, and curiously surveyed
the strange gentian shrubs. And thus, in their toilsome wandering, there
lacked not from time to time a little entertainment. But all at once
they were fronted by a barricado of trees, which a storm had hurled
together in a confused mass. “This was not in my reckoning,” said Fitz.
“Wait here till I find my way again, only have a care of the cave up
there: no one goes into it or near it, without getting harm, or having
tricks played on him.”
The boy went off in an ascending direction: the porter, on the other
hand, grumbling at the excessive difficulty of the way, set down his
luggage, and searched sidewards and downwards for some beaten path.
No sooner did Felix see himself alone with his father, than his
curiosity awoke, and he glided softly toward the cave. Wilhelm, who gave
him leave, observed after some time that the child was no longer in
sight. He himself mounted to the cave, at the mouth of which he had last
seen the boy; and, on entering, he found the place empty. It was
spacious, but could be taken in at a glance. He searched for some other
outlet, and found none. The matter began to be serious. He took the
whistle which he wore at his button-hole: an answer to his call came
sounding out of the depth, so that he was uncertain whether he should
take it for an echo, when, shortly afterwards, Felix peeped out of the
ground; for the chink through which he looked was scarcely wide enough
to let through his head.
“What art thou about there?” cried his father.
“Hush!” said Felix: “art thou alone?”
“Quite alone,” answered Wilhelm.
“Then, go quick,” cried the boy, “and fetch me a couple of strong
clubs.”
Wilhelm went to the fallen timber, and, with his hanger, cut off a pair
of thick staves: Felix took them, and vanished, having first called to
his father, “Let no one into the cave!”
After some time Felix cried, “Another pair of staves, and larger ones!”
With these also his father provided him, and waited anxiously for the
solution of his riddle. At length the boy issued rapidly from the cleft,
and brought a little box with him, not larger than an octavo volume, of
rich, antique appearance: it seemed to be of gold, decorated with
enamel. “Put it up, father,” said the boy, “and let none see it.”
Wilhelm had not time to ask many questions, for they already heard the
call of the returning porter; and scarcely had they joined him, when the
little squire also began to shout and wave from above.
On their approach he cried out, “Montan is not far off: I bet we shall
soon meet him.”
“How canst thou know this,” said Wilhelm, “in so wild a forest, where no
human being leaves any trace behind him?”
“That is my knack,” said Fitz; and, like a Will-o’-wisp, he hopped off
hither and thither, in a side direction, to lead his masters the
strangest road.
Felix, in the mean while, highly satisfied in the treasure he had found,
highly delighted at possessing a secret, kept close by his father,
without, as formerly, skipping up and down beside his comrade. He nodded
to Wilhelm with sparkling eyes; glancing towards his companion, and
making significant faces, to indicate how much he was above Fitz now, in
possessing a secret entirely wanting to the other. He carried it so far
at length, that Fitz, who often stopped and looked about, must very soon
have noticed it. Wilhelm therefore said to Felix, “My son, whoever
wishes to keep a secret must hide from us that he possesses one.
Self-complaisance over the concealed destroys its concealment.” Felix
restrained himself; but his former gay, free manner to his comrade he
could not now attain.
All at once little Fitz stood still. He beckoned the rest to him. “Do
you hear a beating?” said he. “It is the sound of a hammer striking on
the rock.”
“We hear it,” answered they.
“That is Montan,” said he, “or some one who will tell us of him.”
Following the sound, which was repeated from time to time, they reached
an opening in the wood, and perceived a steep, high, naked rock,
towering over all the rest, leaving even the lofty forest deep beneath
it. On the top of it they descried a man: he was too far off to be
recognized. Immediately the boys set about ascending the precipitous
path. Wilhelm followed with some difficulty, nay, danger: for the person
that climbs a rock foremost always proceeds with more safety, because he
can look out for his conveniences; he who comes after sees only whither
the other has arrived, but not how. The boys soon reached the top, and
Wilhelm heard a shout of joy. “It is Jarno,” cried Felix to his father;
and Jarno immediately came forward to a rugged spot, stretched out his
hand to his friend, and drew him up. They embraced, and welcomed each
other into the free, skyey air, with the rapture of old friends.
But scarcely had they stepped asunder, when a giddiness came over
Wilhelm, not so much on his own account, as at seeing the boys hanging
over the frightful abyss. Jarno observed it, and immediately bade all
sit down. “Nothing is more natural,” said he, “than that we should grow
giddy at a great sight, which comes unexpectedly before us, to make us
feel at once our littleness and our greatness. But there is not in the
world any truer enjoyment than at the moment when we are so made giddy
for the first time.”
“Are these, then, down there, the great mountains we climbed over?”
inquired Felix. “How little they look! And here,” continued he,
loosening a crumb of stone from the rock, “is the old cat-gold again:
this is found everywhere, I suppose?”
“It is found far and wide,” answered Jarno; “and, as thou art asking
after such things, I may bid thee notice that thou art now sitting on
the oldest mountain, on the earliest rock, of this world.”
“Was the world not made at once, then?” said Felix.
“Hardly,” answered Jarno: “good bread needs baking.”
“Down there,” said Felix, “is another sort of rock; and there again
another, and still again another,” cried he, pointing from the nearest
mountains to the more remote, and so downward to the plain.
It was a beautiful day, and Jarno let them survey the lordly prospect in
detail. Here and there stood several other peaks, similar to the one our
travellers were on. A secondary moderate range of mountains seemed as if
struggling up, but did not by far attain that height. Farther off, the
surface flattened still more; yet again some strangely protruding forms
rose to view. At last, in the remote distance, lakes were visible, and
rivers; and a fruitful country spread itself out like a sea. And, when
the eye came back, it pierced into frightful depths, sounding with
cataracts, and connected with each other in labyrinthic combination.
Felix could not satisfy himself with questions, and Jarno was kind
enough to answer all of them; in which, however, Wilhelm thought he
noticed that the teacher did not always speak quite truly and sincerely.
So, after the unstaid boys had again clambered off, Wilhelm said to his
friend, “Thou hast not spoken with the child about these matters as thou
speakest to thyself.”
“That, indeed, were a heavy requisition,” answered Jarno. “We do not
always speak, even to ourselves, as we think; and it is not fit to tell
others any thing but what they can take up. A man understands nothing
but what is commensurate with him. To fix a child’s attention on what is
present; to give him a description, a name,--is the best thing we can do
for him. He will soon enough begin to inquire after causes.”
“One cannot blame this latter tendency,” observed Wilhelm. “The
multiplicity of objects perplexes every one; and it is easier, instead
of investigating them, to ask directly, whence and whither?”
“And yet,” said Jarno, “as children look at what is present only
superficially, we cannot speak with them of origin and object otherwise
than superficially also.”
“Most men,” answered Wilhelm, “continue all their days in this
predicament, and never reach that glorious epoch in which the
comprehensible appears to us common and insipid.”
“It may well be called glorious,” answered Jarno; “for it is a middle
stage between despair and deification.”
“Let us abide by the boy,” said Wilhelm, “who is, at present, my first
care. He has, somehow, got a fondness for minerals since we began this
journey. Canst thou not impart so much to me as would put it in my power
to satisfy him, at least for a time?”
“That will not do,” said Jarno. “In every new department one must, in
the first place, begin again as a child: throw a passionate interest
over the subject; take pleasure in the shell till one has the happiness
to arrive at the kernel.”
“Tell me, then,” said Wilhelm, “how hast thou attained this knowledge?
For it is not so very long, after all, since we parted.”
“My friend,” said Jarno, “we were forced to resign ourselves, if not
forever, at least for a long season. The first thing that occurs to a
stout-hearted man, under such circumstances, is to begin a new life. New
objects will not suffice him; these serve only for diversion of thought:
he requires a new whole, and plants himself in the middle of it.”
“But why, then,” interrupted Wilhelm, “choose this strangest and
loneliest of all pursuits?”
“Even because of its loneliness,” cried Jarno. “Men I wished to avoid.
To them we can give no help, and they hinder us from helping ourselves.
Are they happy, we must let them persevere in their stolidities; are
they unhappy, we must save them without disturbing these stolidities;
and no one ever asks whether Thou art happy or unhappy.”
“It is not quite so bad with them, surely,” answered Wilhelm, smiling.
“I will not talk thee out of thy happiness,” said Jarno. “Go on thy way,
thou second Diogenes! Let not thy lamp in daylight go out! Down on that
side lies a new world before thee; but, I dare wager, things stand there
as in the old one. If thou canst not pimp, and pay debts, thou availest
nothing.”
“Yet they seem to me more entertaining than thy dead rocks,” said
Wilhelm.
“Not they!” answered Jarno, “for my rocks are at least
incomprehensible.”
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