During all the sixteen years since I have been in the Winkel forests, I
have seen no such snow as we have this winter. For days not a single
child has come to school. The windows of my room resemble targets.
Should this state of things last much longer, we shall all be snowed in
together. From here to the parsonage a path is shoveled twice a day,
passing by Grassteiger's house, where we, the priest and I, take our
midday meal. Each prepares his own breakfast at home. In the evening
we always meet either at the parsonage or at the schoolhouse. I wonder
how the people are faring over at Karwaesser and Graben! There the
snow-storms are much more furious than in the Winkel. Just now many
poor souls are lying sick in their huts, and it is impossible to keep
the paths open, so that the people may help one another. And crossing
the Lauterhoehe is quite out of the question. The signposts which stand
by the cliffs are nearly buried in the snow; the branches and trunks of
trees are torn off and broken by the heavy burden. There is no end to
the snow. It falls no longer in flakes; it is like a heavy, dense
whirlwind of dust. The caps upon the branches and sign-posts and upon
the gables of the roofs are growing higher every moment.
If the wind should rise, it might perhaps save the forest, but it would
be our destruction. One hour of wind over the loose banks of snow, and
we should be buried.
The priest has engaged all the workmen that are accessible to make paths
in Lautergraeben, Karwaesser, and even from one hut to another. They
succeeded in breaking the path in one direction, but were obliged to
perform their labour a second time on their return. However, the
snow-bound people over there will not suffer; their world is within
their huts. In a cabin in Karwaesser the corpse of an old man is said to
have been lying for five days.
To-day the priest bound snow-shoes on his feet in order to make visits
among the sick. But the snow was too soft, and he was obliged to turn
back. Now he is making up little bundles from our landlord's pantry,
and some sturdy wood-cutters are to carry them to the sick people in
Lautergraeben.
These are short days and yet so long. I have my zither, I have the new
violin given to me by the priest on my last birthday, I have other
things with which to distract myself. But now nothing interests me.
For hours at a time I walk up and down the room and wonder what the
result of this winter will be. There are many huts in Graben where the
men have not been with their shovels. We are anxious about the
condition of things over there.
In order to relieve myself from the oppressive inactivity, I opened
to-day the chest which is under the bench by the stove, and took out the
leaves of my old journal, to see what had been the fortunes of this
parish since its beginning.
And I find that nothing has been written for ten years. There may have
been two reasons for this interruption in my records. In the first
place, I no longer felt the need of writing out my thoughts and
feelings, for in our priest I have found a friend in whom I can confide
unreservedly, as he has confided in me, telling me the strange story of
his life before we were even acquainted. He is one of the few who,
refined by suffering, have emerged from the entanglements and mistakes
of the world pure and noble. The woodspeople love him devotedly; he
leads them not by words alone but by his deeds. His Sunday sermons he
puts into practice during the week. He sacrifices himself, he is
everything to the people. His hair is no longer black, as at that time
in the Felsenthal; his face is earnest, and bright as the gleam of a
rainbow. Those who are sorrowful gaze into his eyes and find comfort
there.
When we are all sitting together, he likes to tell us of the distant,
beautiful world--of strange foreign countries, of the wonders of nature.
Pipes grow cold while he talks, for everyone listens with the greatest
eagerness. Only the old woman from the Winkelwarden's house declares
that the priest's stories are silly fables; a proper priest, she thinks,
should talk of heaven and purgatory, and not always of the world.
Nevertheless she listens and smiles.
A number of years ago the church authorities brought up the question of
our parish, and refused to recognise our Father Paulus, wishing to
install a new priest in his place. Oh! but the Winkelstegers rebelled
against such a change and the attempt was finally abandoned. To offset
this, however, Winkelsteg is not acknowledged outside as parish and
curacy, but simply as a settlement of half-savage, ruined men, such as
it was in former times.
At first this was a great trial to me, we would so gladly have united
with the main body; but since they repulse us, I am finally reconciled
and say: All the better; then they will leave us in peace.
The second cause of neglecting my journal is the great amount of work
which my calling imposes upon me.
At first it was the building of the schoolhouse, which gave me no rest.
For everything has been built exactly as I considered most suitable for
an important project like this. The house is made of wood, for that
retains heat better than stone, and allows of freer ventilation. It was
important that I should erect an appropriate and tasteful wooden
building as a model for the people. To my joy, the light, graceful, and
yet solid design of my schoolhouse, with its convenient arrangement, has
already been copied many times. My windows, doors, masonry, and
locksmith's work are considered as models by the entire population.
About the schoolhouse is an extensive playground fitted out with
implements for physical exercise. The building is provided with a broad,
projecting roof to guard against injury from storms, but in such a way
that the interior is in no way darkened. In the schoolroom, before
everything else, thought has been taken for the health of the children.
As to my apartment in the schoolhouse, it is not large but cosey. And
it is made a thousand times cosier by the memory of that winter march
through Russia, which comes back to me sometimes like a wild dream.
Since that dream, however, I have grown many years younger; even as the
storms of the world crushed me to the earth, have I risen again in the
primeval freshness of the forest.
A far more difficult office than that of keeping the school, and a much
greater duty, is the supervision of the spiritual health of those
confided to my care. Easily enough they learn prudence, and how to
think and act to their own advantage; but it is far more difficult for
them to learn to adjust themselves to the whole, and to make their
existence harmonious with that of their fellows and with the outside
world in general. It is a fact, that self-love is the first sign of
life which is revealed in the budding soul of the young child. Whether
love for humanity or selfishness be the result, the education decides.
I have my special ideas in regard to dealing with children and the
conception of the world which should be presented to them. I am not
thinking of the little ones in the Winkel parish alone, but of the
children who are obliged to dwell in cities, where the happiness of
their childhood and the pure pleasures of this world are often
embittered.
*REFLECTIONS[#]*
[#] Under this title an essay was found in the manuscript, the pages of
which were neither dated nor numbered. It had probably been written in
the winter of 1830, and since it bears upon the subject in hand I insert
it here.