Above, in the wastes of the Felsenthal, stands a wooden cross. It is
the same which is said to have grown from the seed of the little bird
that flies into the valley every thousand years.
I consulted with the forester and a few of the older men, and I
afterwards asked the old bearded story-teller Ruepel, who had no other
important business, if he would go with me to Karwaesser and into the
Felsenthal to help bring down the moss-covered cross into the Winkel.
And so we start one bright autumn morning. We are both unspeakably
happy. We thank the shady Winkel brook for its splashing and gurgling.
We thank the green meadow for its verdure; we thank the dew, the birds,
the deer, and the whole forest. We ascend the slippery floor of the
woods, we clamber over mouldering trunks and mossy stones. The trees are
old and wear long beards, and our story-teller stands on a brotherly
footing with each one. Among the webs of moss we find beetles, ants,
and lizards; we greet them all, and we invite airy, glittering
butterflies to accompany us to the cross. The gay little world cares
nothing about it.
My companion is a queer fellow. One has to know him to appreciate him.
But among the woodspeople there are sometimes the strangest characters.
Outside in the cultured and polished world, such men are called
geniuses; here they are fools or imbeciles.
Ruepel is an imbecile of this sort. They also call him Story-teller,
because he always has some kind of a tale to tell, and Rhyme-Ruepel,
because--and that is the peculiarity--he cannot say ten words without
rhyming. It is an absurd habit. On the way he told me the whole story
of his life in rhyme. To be sure the rhymes stumble disgracefully, but
who could avoid stumbling on such stony forest ground? "A chorus boy
was I, as none who read in Holdenschlag the record will deny. I pulled
the rope and made the bells ring out, and as they rung, I sang, and
keeping time, I mocked the clapper with my tongue. Into the chalice for
the priest at service I poured wine, but the sight of water made him
shrink, one drop, in fine, and he would haste away displeased. The
water and the wine together, even as flesh and blood, our highest good
combine, but too much water in the cup, Christ's rosy blood profanes, so
I left the church and the blacksmith's trade I plied for honest gains.
I heard the bellows' rhythmic sound, the merry anvil's ring; the hammer
joined it, keeping time, the sparks flew, everything combined in perfect
harmony, the whole world seemed to sing. But this my master did not
please, so still in rhythmic tide, he seized me by the hair--and lo!
through ringing, singing, side by side, the forge brought forth an
endless rhyme, and though 't was born in peaceful eve, I still am
keeping, keeping time. The forge produces only rhymes, there are no
spades or horseshoes there, the blacksmith chased the rhymster out, to
forest glades and open air. Within the woods I plucked the moss, I
bounded with the deer, and pulled up tangled roots and herbs, the birds
my voice could hear--light as a plume, and, joyous, gay, I singing
passed the time away. A cousin forester of mine feared, with such idle
life, I could but starve, so he transformed my pleasure into strife. A
hunter, shouldering my first gun, the forest was aglee, I shot the game
and hit the air, the deer he looked at me. Then after him in rhythm I
ran, he paused, had I desired, I might have leaped upon his back, but
ever I aspired to keep my life in rhythmic tune, and such uneven gait my
progress would impede I knew, so I preferred to wait. This made my
master sad, the hunter's craft for man like me, he looks upon as bad.
Then for a while I wandered round, attempting more or less, with various
gentlemen I lived, but never won success. Sometimes to leave their
service, they kindly gave me word, sometimes they chased me out of
doors, nor was a protest heard. And so it goes, behold me now, my story
I have told, back to the woods I 've come again, my home is here--I 'm
old. I sing for merry folks and kind, where happy words are said, at
holy service, wedding-feasts, I sing for crumbs of bread. God bless it
unto me! Though it be dry and black, if I am well and my tongue still
moves, for nothing do I lack. And when at last Sir Death doth come, I
'll go, for ripe the time, and learn, when I have travelled home, the
sweetest of all rhyme. And when the singing I do hear, and trumpet,
sounding long, I 'll rise again--and that's the life of Ruepel and his
song."
I should like to name the man the wild harpist or forest singer, or the
sparrow of the New Testament; he sows not, he reaps not, and he does not
beg, yet the good Winkel foresters nourish him, while without in the
wide land singers starve.
After many hours we finally arrive in the Felsenthal. As we walk along
the jagged walls, where in the clefts fear slumbers, and as we see the
cross towering in the midst of the mouldering trunks, my companion
imagines that he sees a human figure disappearing among the stones. But
with the exception of our two selves I notice no one.
Before the cross we pause. It towers upon the boulder as it towered
years ago, as according to the legend of the people, it has stood since
time immemorial. Storms have passed over it and have loosened the bark
from the wood, though they have done it no further injury. But the warm
sunny days have made fissures in the beam. The blue sky arches even
over this remote corner of the world. The sinking sun shines aslant
from behind the rocks, touches the bare, ancient runes, lighting up the
right arm of the cross. A little brown worm crawls over the beam
towards the sunny arm, but has scarcely reached it when the glow
disappears. A beetle runs along the upright beam and hastens under the
remaining bit of bark, perhaps to snatch away the pupa of an ant. To
the one the gleaming cross is a paradise; to the other the battle-ground
of his struggles and pleasures.
For our parish may it be the former!
It is well that no one knows who made and erected the cross, for the
hands that have carved a symbol of divinity may never be folded in
worship before it. From Mount Sinai, Moses brought the tables of the
law down to the people as true image of God. The idol was not created
until the Israelites formed one from their own ornaments and with their
own hands.
As we climb upon the rock to remove the cross, Ruepel covers his face
with both hands. "We are destroying the altar in Felsenkar," he cries
excitedly. "Where shall the tree in the storm now pray, and the hunted
deer that roams astray, on the forest's edge, with the cross away?"
My own hand trembles as we take up our burden. I place it so that the
horizontal beam rests upon my neck like a yoke, Ruepel carrying the
upright beam behind.
And so we go on amid the boulders and the ancient trees. As we come to
the precipice, the shadows of evening are closing in.
The whole night we walk through the forest. In the ravines and narrow
defiles the darkness is appalling, and our cross crashes against many an
old tree-trunk. When our path leads over rising ground, the moonlight
shimmers through the branches, revealing the white mosaics and hearts
which lie upon the earth.
Many times we lay down our burden and wipe the sweat from our brows; we
speak very little with one another. Only once Ruepel breaks the silence
with the words: "The cross is heavy--hard, I 'll bear it till I die, and
o'er my grave a tree shall rise, when they bury me by and by; and green
it shall grow to greet the sun, nor o'er my bones decay, but heavenward
ever soar, increasing day by day."
Once, while we are thus resting, a dark figure glides by us across the
way. It stretches out one hand, pointing to a broad stone, and then
disappears. We both notice this apparition, but do not speak until on
the meadow of the Karwaesser we place the cross upright on the ground,
its dark shadow peacefully resting upon the dewy grass, and then the old
man utters these words: "He bore the cross unto the mount--our Lord--in
bitter grief, and stopped to rest upon a stone, and, resting, found
relief. A Jew stepped out and said: 'This stone belongs to me.' The
Saviour staggered on in pain, the Jew must ever flee; he cannot die, but
e'en to-day, there is no rest at hand--from age to age, in fiery shoes,
he roams from land to land." After a little Ruepel continues: "Because
we 've borne the cross to-night, we 've seen the Wandering Jew--he
begged us rest upon the stone, 't were peace for him, but not for me and
you."
At the coal-pit in upper Lautergraeben, four men await us. Taking the
cross, they lay it upon a bier of green branches and proceed with it
towards the Winkel.
As we approach our valley the day is breaking. And a tone resounds and
trembles through the air, which is not to be compared with song of man,
lute, or any earthly music. It is many years since I have heard a sound
like that, and I scarcely recognise it. We all stop and listen; it is
the bell of our new church. While we were in the Felsenthal, the bells
arrived and were hung.
As I hear them this morning, I cannot refrain from calling out: "My
friends, now we shall never be alone! The parishes outside ring their
bells at this hour; we have the same morning greeting as they, the same
thoughts. We are no longer dumb, we have our united voice in the tower,
which, in joy and in trouble, will proclaim what we feel but are unable
to convey in words. And the eternal thought of God, which everywhere
exists, but which is nowhere truly comprehended, and which no image or
word can ever quite express, assumes form for our senses and becomes
intelligible to our hearts only in the resounding circle of the bell.
And so thou bringest to us, thou sweet music of bells, a comforting
message from without and from within and from above!" The men gaze at
me, wondering at my words and surprised that it is possible to say so
much about the ringing of church bells, which one may hear every day
over in Holdenschlag. Only the good Ruepel hastens away behind the
alder-bushes so that, undisturbed by my hoarse voice he may listen to
the pure tones.
Before the church many people are assembled to hear the bells and see
the cross,--that cross, which sprang from the seed brought by the little
bird, which once in every thousand years flies through the forest.