It is sometimes very lonely for me here in the Winkel. But I know one
remedy for this; at such times I go to still lonelier parts of the
forest; I have been there even at night, have watched sleeping nature,
and have found rest.
Night lies over the woodland. The last breath of the day that has
passed has died away. The birds are resting and dreaming, at the same
time composing songs for the future. The screech-owl hoots, and the
branches sigh. The world has closed her eyes, yet her ear she opens to
the eternal laments of mankind. To what purpose? Her heart is of stone
and impossible to warm. Ah, but she warms us with her peaceful aspect.
Above, constellation presses against constellation, dances its measure
and rejoices in the everlasting day. The morning returns to the forest
also, the branches are already beckoning to it.
The young king approaches from the east upon his steeds of cloud and
with his flaming lance pierces the heart of night; with faint sobs she
falls, and from the rocky height streams the blood.
Alpine glow the people call it, and if I were a poet I would celebrate
it in song.
At this season it would be beautiful on the Graue Zahn. At night, while
below in the dark valley man rests from misery, dreams of misery, and
strengthens himself for new misery--the eternal spires tower aloft,
silently glowing, and at midnight one day reaches its hand to the next
across the Zahn.
"Oh, what a beautiful light is that!" old Ruepel once exclaimed. "To
distant lands it sends its ray, its rosy splendour fills my heart, to
God above it lights my way."
A strange yearning sometimes fills my soul; it is not a longing for
space, for infinity; thirst for light would better express it. My poor
eyes can never satisfy the thirsting soul; they will yet perish in the
sea of light and the thirst will still be unquenched.
A short time since I was on the Graue Zahn again. Soon I shall be tied
to the bell-rope when other people are taking a holiday. The bell-rope
may be compared to a long-drawn breath, always praising God and
proclaiming good-will to man.
From the high mountain I gazed below, but I did not behold the sea. I
looked toward the north to the farthest horizon, whence one might
perhaps see the plain and the city, the turret of the house, and the
gleam of the windows.... And how far my gaze must wander to find the
grave in Saxon-land!...
A sharp wind interrupted my thoughts. Then I once more made my descent.
Beside an overhanging cliff I found something very beautiful.
On the banks of the distant lake I had already heard from the lips of my
parents, and I have repeatedly been informed by the people of these
woodlands, that in the midst of the sun the holy Virgin Mary sits at the
spinning-wheel. She spins wool from a snow-white lamb, like those
pastured in paradise. Once while spinning, she fell asleep and dreamed
of the human race, and a bit of the wool falling to the earth remained
clinging to a high cliff. The people found it and called it
_Edelweiss_.
I picked two of the little stars and placed them on my breast. One of
them, which has a slightly reddish tinge, shall be called
_Heinrich-roth_, the other, snow-white, that ... I will leave its old
name.
As towards evening I descend to the forest and the wood-cutting, I
chance upon something unspeakably lovely. There, not far from my path,
I see a bed of fresh green grass; its perfume is so inviting, that I
think I will rest my weary limbs upon it for a little. And as I
approach the grassy couch, I behold a child sleeping thereon. A
flower-like, tender child wrapped in linen. I remain standing and hold
my breath, that I may not cry out in astonishment and thus waken the
little creature. I can scarcely imagine how it happens that this
helpless, extremely young child should be in this isolated place at such
an hour. Then it is explained. Up from the Thalmulde a load of grass
comes swaying towards me, and under it Aga is panting. She is gathering
fodder for her goats, and the child is her little daughter--my
Waldlilie.
The woman now loads the grass on her back and the child on her arm, and
together we proceed down the valley.
The same evening I entered her hut and drank goat's milk. Berthold came
home late from his wood-cutting. The people lead a hard life; but they
are of good courage, and the young Waldlilie is their happiness.
As Berthold sees the _Edelweiss_ on my breast he says, with a warning
gesture: "Take care, that is a dangerous weed!" As I fail to
understand, he adds: "_Edelweiss_ nearly killed my father and
_Edelweiss_ poisons my love for my dead mother."
"How so, how so, Berthold?" I ask.
He then related the following story to me: On the other side of the
Zahn, beyond the abyss, lived a young forester, who loved a herdsmaid.
She was a proud lass and one day she said to the young man; "I love thee
and wish to be thine, but one proof of thy true love thou must give to
me. Thou art a nimble climber, wilt thou refuse, if I ask for an
_Edelweiss_ from the high cliff?"
"My life, an _Edelweiss_ thou shalt have!" exclaimed the lad, but he
forgot that the high cliff was called the Devil's Mountain, because it
was impossible to climb, and that at its foot stood tablets, telling of
root-diggers and chamois-hunters who had fallen there. And the
herdsmaid did not realise that she was demanding a new tablet.
But it is very true that love drives one mad. The young forester
started on the same day.
He climbs the lower cliff, over which the woodcutter is still obliged to
walk with his axe; he ascends crags where the root-digger digs his
spikenard; he swings himself over ravines and rocks where the
chamois-hunter scarcely dares to venture. And finally he reaches that
horrible place on the Devil's Mountain, with the yawning abyss below and
the perpendicular rocks above.
Upon a neighbouring crag a chamois is standing, which spiritedly raises
its head and looks mockingly across at the lad. It does not flee, up
here the game becomes the hunter and man the helpless game. The chamois
scrapes the ground with its fore-foot, and flaky bits fly into the air
... _Edelweiss_.
The lad well knows that he must shade his eyes to keep from becoming
dizzy. He well knows that if he looks up the rocky wall above, it will
be farewell to the light of heaven; and if his eye glances downwards it
will gaze into his grave.
Not the chamois, but the ground upon which it stands, is the object of
his quest to-day. He thrusts his alpenstock into the earth and turns
and swings himself. A blue mist rises before his eyes. Sparks appear,
circle, and fade away. He no longer sees aught but the smile of the
herdswoman. Now he throws his stick away, now he jumps and makes long
leaps. With a start the chamois springs wildly over his head and the
young man sinks upon the white bed of _Edelweiss_.
On the second day after this, the head forester sent to ask the people
if the lad had been seen. On the third day they saw the herdsmaid
running in the woods with flowing hair. And on the evening of the same
day the young forester walked through the valley leaning upon a staff.
How he came down from the Devil's Mountain, he told no one, perhaps he
could not tell. He had _Edelweiss_ with him--a bunch on his breast--a
wreath on his head; his hair had become snow-white--_Edelweiss_.
And the herdswoman, who in her arrogance had caused this to happen to
the brown curly head, now loved and cherished the white locks until
years later her own had become white as well.
Berthold told the story almost beautifully and finally he added that he
was the child of the young forester and the herdswoman.