This winter I have suffered from a severe illness, caused by frequently
visiting Marcus Jager, who had been shot by a gamekeeper in
Lautergraeben. As fever threatened to appear in the wound and as there
was no one else who would or could nurse the sick man, I often went over
to see him. The people here, instead of cleansing a wound with tepid
water and lint, apply all kinds of salves and ointments. It must indeed
be a powerful constitution which can recover in spite of such
hindrances, and I had a hard struggle keeping Jager alive.
The last time I was with him was a stormy March day. On the way back
the paths were blocked with snow. In places it reached to my shoulders.
For a number of hours I struggled along, but as night approached I was
still far from the Winkel valley. An indescribable weariness came over
me, which I resisted a long time, but at last could not conquer. My only
thought was that I must perish there in the midst of the snow, and that
I should be found in the spring and be carried past the new church in
the Winkel to Holdenschlag. Here in the forest I should like to lie,
but I would far rather be walking about within it.
Not until weeks afterwards did I know that I was not frozen, that on the
same evening two wood-cutters came to meet me on snow-shoes, found me
unconscious and carried me into the house of the Winkel-warden; and as I
lay for many days seriously ill, it seems that once they even called the
doctor from Holdenschlag. The messenger who brought him was also
commissioned, as he himself has since told me, to speak at once with the
grave-digger. The latter said, "If the man would only do me the favour
not to die now; one can't dig a hole in this hard, frozen ground."