Chapter II: Part 2

Looking at me in great astonishment, he asked, "Where are you going?"

"I do not know, but I must leave this town at once."

The good man told me that I was over excited and ill. What had happened to me, might happen to others as well; he would see that I was cared for, and in the quiet of his home I would soon recover, and in a year pass the examination successfully.

But I persisted in my determination to go away; I was well aware that the cause of my failure was the German speech on the Latin kings, and for this reason I should never be allowed to pass the examination. Heinrich was right.

"Very well, my obstinate sir," concluded the nobleman, "then I release you."

Of whom should I take leave? Of my young pupil? Of the young lady? _Mein Gott_, lead me not into temptation! She was still so young. She dismissed me pleasantly, and in a friendly manner. A poor wretch was leaving to return a made man. I was more defiant than courageous.

I paid one more visit to my aged aunt. And, as I this time appeared in a coarse cotton jacket, instead of a fine coat, and announced my intention of going away, I knew not where,--I all but received my expressive appellation again. "No," she cried, "no, but thou art a--a--most extraordinary man! To think, after having been so good and upright, and now,--oh, dear, be off with thee!"

She was the only relative I had in the world.

Last of all I went to Heinrich: "I thank thee a thousand times for thy love, my faithful friend. Would that I could reward thee for it. Thou knowest what has happened. There is nothing left for me but to go away. When I have accomplished something worthy I will come back and repay thee."

I was very young when I set my foot into the wide world. Heinrich accompanied me a long distance. At parting he forced me to accept his ready money. Heart to heart we swore one another eternal faithfulness, then we separated.

O Heinrich! Thou good heart, true as gold, thou hast kept thy word with me. And I have repaid thee badly--yes, _infernally_, Heinrich!

*TO THE WARS*

The sun moves from east to west; it pointed out my way. "Farewell, old world," I said, "I am going to the Tyrol!" There the people are now uniting against the enemy. The demon Bonaparte is leading in the French, and our fatherland will be entirely crushed.

A few days later I am at Innsbruck. Mounting the citadel steps, I ask the gatekeeper if I may speak with Andreas Hofer.

"Who will hinder you, then?" he replies, striking his sword against the marble with a resounding clash. Entering, I pass through a series of apartments, gorgeous with large mirrors, sparkling chandeliers, and floors which shine like glass and precious wood. Noisy peasant lads, dressed in Alpine costumes, are walking to and fro, singing, whistling, and smoking. At last I find myself in a large room filled with men, apparently peasants. Asking if I may speak with Andreas Hofer, I am informed that I must wait my turn, as he is occupied with affairs of state. I place myself in line, and watch the various people going in and out, until at last I am summoned into his presence.

A man in shirt-sleeves, with a full, heavy beard, rises and asks, "What do you want, then?"

"I want to join the army!" I reply.

The bearded man--he is Hofer all over--observing me closely, remarks in a low voice: "And so young! Have you father and mother?"

"No, sir."

"Are you from the Tyrol?"

"No, but from the immediate neighbourhood."

"A student, I presume! Do you wish to become a clergyman?"

"I should like to join the army, and fight for the fatherland."

Putting his hand into his leather girdle, he takes out some silver pieces. "There my boy, God bless you! you had better go to Vienna and enlist with Carl. You are only an inexperienced youth. And besides, you are no countryman of ours."

I make my salutation and start to go.

"Halloa, there!" he calls after me, holding the money towards me.

"Thank you, I do not want the money."

At this his eye brightens. "Bravo! Bravo!" he cries. "Stay and become my secretary; I need one possessing both a good penmanship and a good conscience."

"My conscience is also good enough for a soldier," I answer gloomily.

"Here, Seppli!" cries Hofer at this, "bring this man rifle and knife! Oh, that 's brave!" and he presses my hand, adding, "We shall soon have work enough."

So I become a warrior, a Tyrolese guardsman. And soon I have work.

The French and the Bavarians and even the Austrians would not suffer a peasant king in the citadel at Innsbruck. The enemy, three times overthrown by the Tyrolese, had invaded the country in hordes. The rifle worked better in my hands than I had supposed possible. Everything in the past was forgotten, but I longed for my friend Heinrich at my side while fighting the enemy. I captured one French flag, and in trying for the second I was taken. Three bearded Frenchmen laughingly disarmed me, enraged boy that I was.... They made me prisoner and dragged me away, through Bavaria and Suabia on into France.

It is painful for me to describe that time. It was a very dog's life,--a dog's life, not because I lay for three years in prison in a foreign land, but because I was a rebel against my own country. In defiance of the Emperor--so it was reported--the Tyrolese had risen against Bavaria to which he had apportioned them. My German fellow-countrymen acknowledged it themselves, and so my unhappiness was complete. Instead of performing an heroic act, thou hast aided in an evil deed, Andreas; not as brave warrior but as deserter thou liest in chains.

A long march to Russia and to the Orient is talked of. Among many others of my countrymen I am liberated. Several try to reach their homes. I know nothing of any home and may know nothing. Poor fools like myself are worse off at home than elsewhere. And as a rebel, which I now am, I shall never return to my own land. I will do penance for my sad mistake of illegally bearing arms against the great conqueror. I will go with his troops and help to free the people of the Orient, and place them in subjection to the leader of the Occident. A great aim, Andreas, but a long journey. The Germans make the way very hard for us, but our commander marches with lightning-like rapidity in among the disorganised and scattered people, who can neither think great thoughts nor do great deeds. And for many weeks we drive the Russian army before us, over the wild steppes and endless snow-fields. But in Moscow the Russians throw firebrands between themselves and us, in the midst of their own capital. And we find ourselves buried in the land of unending winter, without support, resting-place, or means of subsistence. Man and nature are alike our enemy. Our chief, seeing that everything is lost, turns us back. Oh, the many desert storms, the hundreds of ice streams, the thousands and thousands of snowy graves, between us and the fatherland! Whoever can march with benumbed limbs bruised to the knees; whoever can tear the last tatters from the body of his dying comrade to cover himself; whoever is able to suck the warm blood from his own veins and eat the flesh of fallen horses and dead wolves; whoever understands warming himself with the snow for a cover and wrestling with the waves and flakes of ice; and, besides all this, knows how to conquer the fright, the terror, and the despair--he, perhaps, may see his home again.

Benumbed like my body are my soul and my brain; in a wilderness, under the snow-laden branches of a pine tree, I am left lying.

A smoky cabin, a bright fire, a long-bearded man and a dark-skinned maiden meet my gaze as I awake upon a couch of mats. A fur skin has been thrown over me. Outside is a roaring sound, like the raging of waters or like a storm. Those are good, friendly eyes which look at me from the two people. The man is tending the fire; the girl feeding me with milk. They are talking in their rough language, of which I cannot understand a word. I think of Heinrich and long for the pleasant sound of his voice. I am suffering terrible pains all over my body, which the man has wrapped in a wet cloth. The maiden holds a little cross before my eyes, murmuring something like a prayer. She is praying a dying blessing for thee, Andreas!

Thou dear, friendly house in the enemy's land! What afterwards occurred there, I can no longer recall. The swarthy maiden often laid her hand on my brow. Had it only come then, it would have been a beautiful death; but it happened otherwise. Even now I can hear the blow that shattered the door. Soldiers forced their way in, maltreated the old man, and pushed the dark-skinned girl from my bedside. They carried me away from there, away through the storm and the wilderness--back to the army.

I felt as though I were being dragged from my home;--but it is God's world everywhere. However my comrades had not deserted me; and that rejoiced my heart. Constant and true I resolved to stay by them and serve my great general.

On the Rhine I recovered. And in the young springtime I felt a new life stirring within me. A lad, counting but three-and twenty-years, I was inflamed with desire for all that was noble and just, for the common weal, for the brotherhood of man; in my enthusiasm I cried out with my comrades, "One God in heaven and one Lord on earth!" He is the deliverer, the quarrel of princes must now end. The nations must become one great, united people! Such thoughts inspired me. The dark eye of the general, like lightning in the night, inflamed us all. Against Saxony we marched, there to fight the battle for our leader, and to place the beautiful German country under his protection.

At Luetzen I defended the life of a French general; at Dresden I killed Bluecher's horse from under him; at Leipzig I shot my Heinrich....

*A NEW MISSION*

"Andreas!" is his death-cry. Thus I know him. The blood bursts forth from his breast. I now come to myself. I throw my gun against a rock, shattering it in pieces; disarmed, I rush into battle; with his own sword I split the skull of a French officer.

What good has it done? I have fought against my fatherland, against the brothers who speak my language, while that of my French comrades I have scarcely understood. And I have shot my Heinrich. Alas, how late my eyes are opened!

"Thou art an inexperienced fellow; go to Vienna, to Carl!" Thou faithful Hofer, had I but followed thy advice! Thy flag was good, more glorious than all others in the wide land. From that hour when my faith in it was torn from my heart, my misfortunes began. Love for freedom in the world has made me captive; the expiation of my own mistake has led me into danger and torment; loyalty to my general and longing for a great, united whole has made me traitor to my fatherland, the murderer of my friend. Andreas, if virtue leads thee to crime, to what depths would evil intention have plunged thee? Thou hast proudly repelled the true leader, experience and guidance failed thee there. Andreas, thou hast given thyself to trade, to science, and to a soldier's life; poverty, confusion, and repentance hast thou reaped. Foreigners have cared for and nursed thee like a son and a brother, and they have been maltreated for it. Thou bringest nothing good to the world or to mankind. Andreas, thou must go to the depths of the wilderness and become a hermit!

In Saxony, under the arms of a windmill, I repeated these truths to myself. And thereupon I departed, fled through Bohemia and Austria, and after many days arrived in the town of Salzburg. That anyone in this town should recognise me, a poor, sick, ruined fellow, I did not fear. In _Peters-Friedhof_ my father lay buried. I wished to see the mound before seeking a cave for myself in some deserted ravine of the forest. And as I lay upon the cold, frozen earth, once more able to weep my heart out over my life, so young and so unfortunate, a gentleman appeared walking among the graves; he asked what troubled me, then with a gesture of astonishment exclaimed: "Erdmann, you here? And how changed you are! Gone scarcely four years and hardly to be recognised!"

Herr von Schrankenheim, the father of my former pupil was standing before me.

Walking up and down with him among the graves, I told him all. With wet eyes he pressed money into my hand: "There, get yourself some new clothes and then come to my house. Become a hermit!--that is no career for a brave young lad. You must overcome your despondency and begin life anew."

I went to his house with great dread, for there was one folly which I had not yet conquered.

Herr von Schrankenheim presented his son to me. He had already become a tall, elegant gentleman. With his hands behind his back, he made me a silent bow, and after a little left us. Then his father, conducting me into his study, bade me take a seat in the softest easy-chair.

"Erdmann," he began after awhile, "are you really in earnest in your desire to live a life of seclusion in the wilderness?"

"That is the best thing for me," I answered. "I am worthless among people who live in joy and pleasure; in wandering and confusion, the few years of my youth have tossed me about from one land to another and amongst the misery of nations. Sir, I know the world and have enough of it."

"You are hardly in your twenty-fourth year, and not yet at the height of your powers, and you wish to give up the service you might render your fellow-men?"

At that I listened attentively; the words impressed me.

"If you think that up to the present time you have only been the author of evil, why do you wish to escape from the dust without also giving the world and the community the good which surely slumbers in rich measure within you?"

I rose from my chair. "Sir, show me, then, the way to do it!

"Very well," said Herr von Schrankenheim, "possibly I can, if you will sit down again and listen to me. Erdmann, I know of a distant and real hermitage, in which one could serve humanity and perhaps do something great for the community. Far from here, deep in among the Alps, stretches a large forest between rocky hills, where shepherds, herdsmen, wood-cutters, and charcoal-burners are working, and where others are also living who have perhaps honestly secluded themselves or dishonestly taken refuge there, and who drag out an existence by means of lawful or unlawful business. It is true churlish men are among them, whose hearts are gnawed by misfortune or something worse. They have neither priest nor doctor and also no school-teacher in their vicinity; they are quite deserted and isolated and have only their own incompetency and misguided natures upon which to depend. I am the owner of the forest. For a long time I have had the intention of sending someone to this region who should guide the inhabitants a little, assist them with good advice, and teach the children to read and write. The man might make himself very useful. And, indeed, it is not so easy to find one for the place; for it should be someone who, weary of the world, would like to live in seclusion, yet work for mankind. Erdmann, what do you think of that?"

At these words I felt impelled to seize his hand and say: "I am the man for it; dissatisfied with the condition of things in this old world, I will found a new one in the wilderness. A new school, a new parish,--a new life. Let me go to-day!" So the fire was not quite extinguished; sparks sometimes fly from ashes.

"Cold weather is at hand," continued the Baron. "For the winter remain in my house and give the matter due consideration and when summer comes, if my offer still pleases you, then go to the forest."

The rustling of a dress in the adjoining room filled me with alarm, and I finally took my leave, begging permission to go away for the winter, with the promise to return with the swallows and accept his proposal.

He would not be dissuaded from giving me the "means" for the coming season, but then I fled. In the front hall I caught a glimpse of a woman's figure, past which I glided like a spectre.

One day I wandered as far as the woodland by the lake where my childhood and my mother lie buried. And here in this place I rented a small room for the winter. I often climbed the snowy slopes and, standing under moss-covered trees, was impressed with the feeling of having once stood there with my mother and father. I often walked over the frozen lake thinking of the days when I had crossed the gentle waves in a boat at my parents' side, watching the sunset glow on the mountains and listening to the song echoes of a yellow-hammer resounding on the cliffs. My father and mother also sang. That was long ago; long ago.

I have lain in prison in France; I have wandered ill and dying over the deserts of Russia; and now I am living here in this dear, precious little room by the lake. All would have been well, the time of poverty forgotten like the image in a dream,--only it should never have dawned, that unhappy day in Saxonland--that will haunt me forever. Heinrich, I do not fear thy ghost; only come to me once, that I may say to thee: "It happened in blindness; I cannot alter it now; I will wipe it out with my own life." ...

*RESOLVED*

Now it is well. I have searched myself for many days; I have reviewed my former life and written it out here in a few words, that I may always keep it the more clearly before my eyes when new perplexities and troubles overwhelm me. In fact I think I have endured and am still able to endure the school of life better than the school of books and dead precepts. I have acquired understanding and have become calm. Having carefully considered my experiences and circumstances, my talents and inclinations, I think it no presumption to accept the proposal of Herr von Schrankenheim. Although outwardly still quite young, inwardly I am very old. The advice of an old man will surely be welcome to the dwellers in the forest.

THE FEAST OF ST. ANTHONY OF PADUA, SALZBURG, 1814.

It is right that I should go to the woods. I am equipped and all is ready. The Baron has promised me his assistance in everything. His son Hermann greeted me again with a friendly bow. The young gentleman is a little pale; he is probably very studious. His sister ... (In the original two lines were here crossed out so many times that they had become entirely illegible.)

They say that my aunt is well. Not wishing to cause her the pain which she would have experienced at my appearance and my undertaking, I did not visit her again. Now they are blowing the post-horn. Farewell, beautiful town.

Already three days on the journey. However, this is a pleasanter expedition than the one over the winter steppes. Day before yesterday the green uplands changed into picturesque mountain regions. Yesterday we entered a broad, pleasant valley. To-day we are going up and down hills, through woods and ravines and by rocky cliffs. Now the road is becoming narrower and rougher; sometimes it is necessary to alight from the waggon and shove aside the broken blocks of stone. We see more chamois and deer than people. I was obliged to remain in debt for my night's lodging to-day. The bank-note which I have with me the people in this region cannot change. I would have given my host something as security, but he assured me if I were to remain in the forests of the Winkel, I could easily send him the money by a messenger who came occasionally from that region. I must return the bank-note and ask for small coin.

On this the fourth day I have been set down. The post-chaise has gone on its way; for a while I still hear the clear horn resounding through the woods, and then all is silent and I sit here beside my bundle in the midst of the wilderness.

Through the ravine flows a stream which they call the Winkel, along which is a footpath. It leads over stones and roots and is sown with hard pine-needles of last year. By this road I must travel.

Through the branches yonder I see the gleam of a white plateau; that is a snow-field. And do people live in there?

*IN THE WINKEL*

So I will write it all out. For whom I do not know. Perhaps for the dear God to whom in my innocence I wrote the letter when my father died. My heart would break could I not talk over all that is unusual and sorrowful in my life. I will tell it to the sheet of paper. Perchance in the future it may be found by someone whom I can trust, though he but half understands me. You, pure, white leaves, shall now be my friends and share the years which may come to me. To-day my hair is still dark, while you are somewhat grey, but you may yet outlive me and become my future generation.

A little leaf of paper may live longer
Than the freshest spring-leaf upon God's earth,
Than the fleetest chamois on the rocky cliff,
Than the curly-haired child in the peaceful dale.
A little sheet of paper, pale and fragile,
Is oft the one image, faithful and true,
That man leaves behind him for future time,
When o'er his dust his descendants tread.
His bones are scattered, the grave-stone gone,
The house destroyed, the works have vanished.
Who will then our footsteps trace
In the eternal Nature where we once held sway?
New men wrestle with fortunes new,
And think no more of those who are gone;
Then a leaf, with its pale ink tracings,
Is often the only enduring sign
Of the being who once lived and suffered,
Laughed and wept, enjoyed and struggled,
And the thought that from the heart was born
In pain or joy, or in mad jest,
Remains, and the eternal kiss
Casts it in an everlasting mould.
Oh, may it in future times,
Purified, touch the hearts of men!

I arrived here on a Saturday. As I stumbled along by the Winkel Water, I met here and there wood satyrs, brown and hairy, covered with moss and pitch, going about in their fustian smocks. They looked like exiled, withered tree-trunks, seeking for new ground where they might grow and flourish again.

Stopping in front of me, they stared in astonishment or glanced at me threateningly, while they struck fire with tinder and flint for their pipes. Some of them had flashing eyes which sent forth sparks like those from the fire-stones; others very good-naturedly showed me the way. One rough, sturdy fellow, carrying a pack on his back with saws, axe, meal buckets, etc., stepped to one side, as he saw me coming, and murmured, "_Gelobt sei Jesu Christ!_"

"Forever and ever, amen!" was my answer, which seemed to give him confidence, for he accompanied me a short distance.

At last the valley widens a little. It is a small basin into which flow a number of streams from the different ravines, as well as from the cliffs that rise at my left hand. These form the Winkel. Here a thick log, hewn flat on the upper side, is laid across the brook, forming the path to a frame house standing on the edge of the woods.

This is the forestry, the only house of any size in the vicinity. Farther away in the defiles and valleys are the cabins of the shepherds and wood-cutters, and beyond, on the wooded hillsides, where large clearings have been made and charcoal-pits started, are villages of huts for the charcoal-burners.

They call this little valley _Im Winkel_. It still remains almost entirely in its primeval state, excepting the one large house, with its domestic surroundings and the footpath leading up to it.

The forestry is also called the Winkel-warden's house. Here I entered and, placing my bundle upon a chest in the hall, seated myself beside it.

The forester was busy with workmen who were settling their accounts and receiving their monthly wages. He was a domineering, red-bearded man, and he dismissed the people somewhat roughly and curtly; but the men bore it good-naturedly and pocketed their money in silence.

The business finished, he rose and stretched his strong limbs, which were clothed in genuine and correct hunter's costume. I now approached, handing him the credentials which I had brought from the owner of the forest.

This document contained everything essential. A nicely furnished room was assigned to me. A sturdy woman who was there to look after and arrange it, according to her own ideas, stopped suddenly before my open door, and with arms akimbo called out loud and shrilly, "_Du lieber Himmel_, is that how a schoolmaster looks?" She had never seen one in her life.

I was soon settled and had all my possessions in order. Politely knocking at my door, the forester then entered my room. Looking at my apartment, he asked, "Does it answer your purpose?"

"Oh, yes, very well," I replied.

"Are you satisfied?"

"Yes, and I hope to be quite contented here."

"Then I trust everything will be all right."

He walked many times up and down over the plank floor, his hands thrust into his trousers' pockets, and finally stopping in front of me he said:

"Now look about you and see what method you would like to adopt for your work. I leave here to-morrow and only come every Saturday into the Winkel. The remainder of the time I am busy in other localities, and my home is in Holdenschlag, four hours from here by the road. The idea of beginning a school immediately dismiss from your mind, my dear man. First we must do away with the old one. They are blockheads, I tell you! And you may as well know at once that we have all kinds of people in our woods. Nothing very bad can be charged against any one of them, but they have come here from the east and west--for what reason God only knows. They are mostly peasants from the outlying regions, who have fled into the forest to escape military service. There are also fellows among them whom one would hardly like to meet on a dark night. Poachers are they all. So long as they only shoot the game of the forest, we let them go about free; that cannot be helped, and the labour of their hands is needed. But if they shoot down a hunter, then of course we are obliged to arrest them. The most of them are married, but they did not all bring their brides from the altar. You will run across men and women who, even in this century, have never heard a church bell or seen a vestment. You will soon observe what an effect that has upon the people. Do it in whatever way you think best; but first you must become acquainted with them. And if you find that you can exert an influence over them, we will support you in it. You are still quite young, my friend; take care and be prudent! If you think best, take a boy for the first part of the time to show you your way about. And if you need anything, apply to me. I wish you well!"

With these words he departed. He, it seems, is now my master; may he also be my protector!

Although it was my first night in the Winkel, I slept soundly on the straw bed. The murmuring of the brook cheered my heart. It was the month of June, but the sun rose late over the forest and looked into my room in a friendly way.

In the morning I wander out of doors. All is fresh and green and sparkling with dew-drops, while on the wooded heights, as far as the eye can reach in the narrow valley, the bluish sun-web spins itself over the shadowy tree-trunks. Toward the west towers the battlement of rocks above which lie the meadows of the Alm, then rocky cliffs again, and over all stretch the wide, inhospitable fields of snow and ice, glittering like a white plateau.

If I am successful in my task here below, then sometime I will climb up to the glaciers. And above the glaciers towers at last the Graue Zahn, from whose summit, I am told, in the farthest distance can be seen the great water. Am I successful here, then sometime from the high mountain I shall behold the sea.

In war and storm I have rushed over half the world and have seen nothing but dust and stone; now, in the peace of solitude my eyes are opened to nature.

But--poachers, deserters, wild fellows whom one would not like to meet at night! Andreas, that will be no easy task.

*PEACE OF THE PRIMEVAL FOREST*

I already feel contented in the woods. The few people who see me going about in the forest gaze after me, unable to understand why I, a young fellow, should be roaming here in the wilderness. Ah yes, it is true, from day to day I am growing younger and am beginning to take a new lease of life. I am recovering. That comes from the fresh, primitive nature which surrounds me.

Romantic fancies I do not indulge in. As it is absorbed through the eye and the ear and all the senses, the much loved, the beautiful forest, so I like to enjoy it. The solitary one alone finds the forest; where many seek, it flees and only the trees remain. The woods are lost to them on account of the trees. Nay, still more, or, indeed, still less, they do not even see the trees, but only the wood which serves for timber or fuel and the twigs which may be used for brooms. Or they open the grey eyes of wisdom and say,--"That belongs to this class, or to that"--as if the pines and oaks, centuries old, were nothing but schoolboys.

I already feel contented in the woods. As long as I enjoy it, I do not wish to hear a single word of the purpose it serves, as man's love of gain understands this purpose; I wish to be as childishly ignorant as if I had to-day just fallen from heaven upon the soft, cool moss in the shade.

A network of roots surrounds me, partly sucking the mother's milk from the earth for its trees, partly seeking to entwine itself about the mossy bank and Andreas Erdmann sitting upon it. Softly I rest upon the arms of the network--upon mother-arms.

The brown trunk of the fir towers straight upward, stretching a rich garland of rugged branches in all directions. They have long grey beards, hairy, twisted mosses hanging from bough to bough. Well polished and dripping with balsam is the silvery, shimmering pine. But in the rough, furrowed, knotted bark of the larch-tree, with the mysterious signs and innumerable scars, is engraved the whole world's legend, from that day when the exiled murderer Cain rested for the first time under the wild interwoven branches of the larch, up to the hour when another, also homeless, inhales the perfume of the tender, light-green needles.

It is dark, as in a Gothic temple; the pine-forest builds the pointed arch. Above rise the thousand little turrets of branches, between which the deep blue sky lights up the shady ground beneath, forming tiny mosaics. Or white clouds are sailing high above, trying to espy me,--me, a little worm in the woods,--and they waft a greeting to me--from--No, she is hidden by the hand of man under a baronial roof. Clouds, ye have not seen her--or have ye? Alas, no, they are drifted hither from distant deserts and seas.

There is a whispering, a rustling. The trees are speaking with one another. The forest dreams.

In all my life I have never seen such a remarkable woven mat as this variegated, wonderful network of mossy earth. It is a miniature forest, and in the bosom of its shade perhaps other beings rest, who like myself are watching the endless web of nature. Ah, how the ants hasten and run, embracing the smallest of small things with their slender arms, while endeavouring to poison everything hostile with their corroding fluid! A brilliant beetle has been contemptuously regarding the tiny, painstaking creatures, for it is endowed with wings. It now flutters haughtily upward, and glittering, circles away; suddenly it is ensnared and captured in a net. The spider, quiet and industrious, has been toiling long on this net; a veil, softer than any made on earth, has become the beetle's shroud.

The little birds in the branches are also planning their works of art; where the boughs are thickest, they weave a cradle-basket from straws and twigs for their beloved young.

Can it then be true that a red thread spins itself on through all races of the human and animal kingdoms, down to the very smallest creature? Does everything then follow one and the same law, the acts of King Solomon on his throne of gold and those of the lazy, writhing worm under the stone? I should like very much to know.

Hush! yonder darts a rabbit; the crowned stag is making his way through the underbrush. Each shrub acts as mysteriously as if concealing a hundred beings and wood-spirits within itself. Sharply defined shadow-forms lie upon the ground, over which strings of light spin themselves. And the breath of the forest plays upon these strings.

I step out into the clearing. A trembling breeze ripples towards me, plays with my curls, and kisses my cheeks. Here are light-green furze bushes, with their clusters of little red berries, dark, gleaming bilberry, and the evergreen laurel of our Alps, for the worthy poet of the forest. The wood-bee is buzzing about among the bushes, and each leaf is a table spread for her.

And above this dim, perfumed field rises the charred trunk of a tree, its one bare branch lifted in defiance, threatening heaven for having once shattered its head with a lightning-stroke. And yonder towers a grey, cloven rock, in whose fissures the nimble lizard and the shimmering adder hide, and at whose feet flourish the serrated leaves of the fern, and the blue gentians, constantly waving greetings with their little caps.

Where there is no path, there is mine--where it is steepest, where the tangle of the alder-bushes and briars is thickest, where the dogberry grows, where the adder rustles in the yellow foliage of last year's beech. The partridges are afraid of me and I of them, and my feet are the greatest misfortune of the ants, my advancing body the scourge of God to the spiders, whose house falls in ruins on this summer day.

It is a delight to penetrate thus into the wilderness, into the dim and uncertain; that which I anticipate attracts me more than that which I know; that which I hope for is dearer to me than that which I have. I stand on the edge of a green meadow, enclosed by young fir-woods. Close to me a deer springs from the thicket, bounds over the meadow, stopping on the other side, where it now stands in a listening attitude with head thrown high. Following an inborn instinct of man, I raise my juniper stick, lay it beside my cheek like a gun, aiming towards the breast of the deer. It looks over at me, well aware that a juniper stick does not go off. Finally it begins to graze. Laying the stick on the ground again, I walk farther out on the meadow. The deer raises its head quickly and I now expect it to dart away. But it does not hasten, it licks its back and scratches itself behind the ear, and again begins to eat.

"Little deer," I say, "thou forgettest the respect due to mankind! Dost thou think me incapable of injuring thee? I wonder at that; here in the forest wander poachers and hunters. Thou dost not seem to be a novice, yet thou pretendest to be very inexperienced. Among us men, such behaviour would be called stupidity."

The creature, gradually grazing in my direction, stops often to look at me, but tosses its head in fright, preparing for a spring, whenever hearing a noise from any other side. With ears constantly pricked up, its whole being is a picture of anxious watchfulness and readiness for flight.

"Thou knowest then," I say, "that thou art in the land of the enemy? Not a moment safe from the shot? That is indeed cause for fear."

I draw gradually nearer, the deer taking no heed.

"I am glad," I say, "that I do not repel thee. It cannot be denied that I belong to those monsters who walk on two legs. But all bipeds are not dangerous. I, not at all. A short time ago I composed a few verses, which I should like to recite to thee."

At this the creature, startled, leaps to one side.

"They would not have been long," I say, sorry to have frightened the deer.

"It is not crafty of thee to hurt my feelings. The poem is written for my sweetheart. Somewhere lives one whom I love from the depths of my soul, but no one suspects it, nor does she herself. So I have composed these verses for her. But they must be forgotten again. How dost thou manage in such affairs?"

The animal, stepping two paces nearer to me, again begins to sniff. I now become quite bold.

"Beloved deer!" I continue, holding out my arms, "I cannot say how interesting thou art to me. If I had a rifle, I might shoot thee down. No, fear nothing from me, for thou breathest the same air as I, thy little eye beholds the same sunshine as mine--thy blood is as warm and as red as my own--why should I kill thee? But if I were hungry and had a rifle, then I should shoot thee after all, then nothing would help thee."

In spite of all this, the little deer is coming nearer. I stand there motionless, and ten paces away is the creature looking at me. My sensations are most uncomfortable. There must be something wrong with a man with whom wild game associates.

"Thou art curious," I say, "to see how I look near by. Well, observe me closely. These rags of linen and woollen stuff do not belong to me. This is only the outer covering. And if thou shouldst see us bare and naked as thyself, then all anxiety and fear of us would disappear. In the beginning we cannot shoot, cannot run as thou dost, cannot nourish ourselves from weeds, cannot dwell in the thicket. So pitiable are we. We--so it is said--would have been able to do it once, but in the same degree in which our reason has grown, have our bodies degenerated, become tender and sensitive, effeminate and weak. And if it continues in this way, all mankind will dissolve in spirit, which must also perish, as the flame dies when wick and oil are gone,--and you will take our place.

"I do not know," I say, "whether thou art unconsciously searching for something which, when acquired, still does not satisfy. I do not know if it be hatred which animates thee, ambition which hunts and urges thee on, love which makes thee unhappy, pleasure which kills thee. With us it is so. Do I pity thee or dost thou pity me? Whatever thou hast, thou art able to enjoy in full measure, while with us the sweet pleasures of the heart become embittered by the hardness and pitilessness of reason and prejudice. Our feeling degenerates into thought, and that is our misfortune. But after all, thou wouldst willingly exchange places? No, thou art not advanced enough to be discontented. Thy fear is the hunter, as ours is man. Our own kind threaten us with the greatest dangers. Hast thou already seen the latest weekly journal? Ah, thou dost not read leaves, thou eatest them, which is far more wholesome, only beware of newspaper leaves, they are poisonous. They should not be so, but they suck the venom from the ground upon which they stand, from the air that blows around them, from the times which they serve. Thank God, they do not grow in the Winkel forest. There grows the sorrel, and that is something for thee, and the mushroom, which is something for me. For the rest, my little deer, how long shall we stand here? How goes eating from the hand?"

I pull some grass from the ground, an occupation which the deer follows with the eye of a connoisseur.

A shot is fired. A short whizzing through the air, the deer makes one high bound--and with the utmost display of its speed, runs across the meadow straight into the thicket.

In the near branches the sulphurous smoke slowly disappears. I hasten to look for the poacher, to deliver him up to justice because he has fired, and to beg mercy for him because he has not hit. Seeing neither the poacher nor the deer, I am furious with the thought that the creature might take me for the guilty one, for the betrayer, or even for the assassin, and in his eyes I wish to be neither a bad friend nor a bad protector.

But what does it all amount to? Such enthusiasm is not enduring; in the late autumn, when, as I hope, the roast venison will appear upon my table, the friendly feelings will surely reawaken, however they will not come from the heart, but from the stomach.

The triumphant roaring of a bull or the bells and bleating of a goat is now heard. The shepherd-boy comes skipping by. He will have nothing to do with the juniper-bushes; the thorns prick, the blueberries are bitter. He picks strawberries into his cap, or, what he likes better, into his mouth. Then, plucking the narrow pointed leaf of the goat-majoram he carries it to his lips, and through it brings forth a whistle which re-echoes far away on the slopes and which other shepherd-lads in the distance give back to him. To the little folks of the woods this is the sign of brotherhood. Through the raspberry-bushes wriggles the ant-grubber, searching for the resinous kernels in the ant-hills from which to prepare the incense, that wonderful grain whose smoky veil enchants the eye of mortals, so that they fall before the sacrificial bread and see the Lord.

On the ridge beside the purple erica, under the blackberry leaves, flourishes the sweet-root; that is a toothsome spice for the shepherd-boy, and the herdswoman also likes to nibble it, that she may have a ringing voice for yodling on the Alm. The herdswoman, I notice, is often affected in a singular manner; surely she has many, yes, a great many words upon her tongue, but the right one for her heart's desire is not among them; she therefore expresses it in another way and sings a song _without_ words which in this region, as far as it is heard, is called the _Jodel_.

I proceed down through a defile torn away by the wild torrents of the Kar. Trees and bushes arch over it, forming an arbour. A cool breeze fans me as I stand upon the shady bank of a forest lake, enclosed by dark walls and slender brown trunks of the primeval forest. A perfect stillness rests upon the water. The stray leaf of a beech or an oak rustles toward me. I hear that eternal murmuring of deepest silence. A little bell somewhere in space, we know not if on the earth below or in the starry heaven above, is constantly calling us. And in a quiet hour our soul catches the familiar sound and longs,--and longs.

Peace of the primeval forest, thou still, thou holy refuge of the orphaned, the deserted, the pursued and world-weary; thou only Eden which remains for the unhappy!

Listen, Andreas! Dost thou hear the sound and echo of the song without words? That is the shepherd's hymn. Dost thou also hear the distant hammering and reverberating? That is the woodsman with the axe--the angel with the sword.

*WITH THE HERDSMEN*

The earliest people were the herdsmen. They are the most harmless that one meets in these wooded hills. So I have begun with them.

And I have already learned something of pastoral life. With the exception of the couple up in the Miesenbach hut, none of them live at home; the herdsmen really have no homes, they are wanderers. They spend the winter in the lower, outlying districts, dwelling in the farmyards to which the herds belong. They eat with the people and sleep with the cows and goats. In the spring-time, when the freshets are over and the maple blossoms are peeping forth from their green sheaves toward heaven to see if the swallows are not already there, the cattle are taken from the stalls and led by the herdsman to the Alm. The cows are bedecked with tinkling bells, the calves and steers with green wreaths, such as the people wear at the feast of Corpus Christi. In the procession to the Alm, when the young people and cattle walk together, the ceremony of crowning with wreaths is conducted with great propriety; but when, after many honeymoons upon the airy heights, the cattle return to the valley in the late autumn with fresh wreaths, the garland of the herdswoman does not always remain green in her hair. On the Alm there is much sun and little shade, and the Alm-boy must bring the fresh water a long distance--then nothing withers more easily than such a tender nosegay in the curly locks.

In the lovely summer-time these people lead a good and happy life upon the hills and I--truly and by my faith, I am good and happy with them. Sorrow and woe are like hot-house plants, they will not flourish in the fresh Alpine air. Even the old keeper of oxen, usually so surly, is constantly heard singing and piping his flute.

Within the herdsman's hut everything is well arranged and conveniently near at hand. By the hearth sits Domesticity in front of the fire and the brown jugs, and before the shaky table kneels Religion at the crudely ornamented _Hausaltar_. And where the bedstead stands, the Lord Himself would have been unable to put anything better. The bed is made from rough boards, upholstered with moss and rushes--it must be like that if the young woman of the Alm is to dream happily therein. In the next room are the buckets and pitchers, and here the milk and butter business is carried on, the profits of which are honestly delivered to the owner of the herd.

The whole household is shut in by four wooden walls, on which the Alm woman hears at night the little gold man knocking; this is the token of the fulfilment of her most secret heart's desire. I did not like to tell the credulous Aga that I thought the little gold man might be an industrious wood-worm. What in heaven's name would a wood-worm have to do with her heart's desires? But these will be fulfilled all the same: the simple folk about here wish for nothing which cannot be attained. And the maid in the hut, as well as the shepherd-boy and the herd in the stall, sleep with an easy conscience.

In the morning the bright sun peeps through the window, calling, "Time to be up!" Now the herdswoman goes with the bucket into the stall, where between four legs flow the little white fountains of milk and butter. The fire on the hearth is ready for the milk and the herdsman is waiting for the soup. He yodles and shouts, and so the time passes. But Berthold manages in the simplest way; he lays himself under the belly of the cow and drinks his breakfast directly from the udder.

It was with Berthold and Aga in the Miesenbach hut that I made my observations. After the morning soup Aga takes the basket on her back and descends toward the grazing meadows of the Thalmulde, that like a careful mistress she may prepare the table for her four-footed menials. The herd's meal lasts the whole day; for in the early morning Berthold has already led them down to the pastures wet with dew.

Once in such an hour I listened to Aga. She was trilling and singing, and these are the things I like to record.

"If the Winkel brook were milk,
And the Winkel vale were beef as well,
And the hills were all of butter,
That were a feast, my lad, to tell."

Berthold hearing it does not reflect long; a song so grossly material calls for one still more material. Standing upon the wall, he sings to the maid:

"If thy red hair were gold,
Of thalers full thy throat,
Thy bodice stuffed with diamonds,
Upon thee I would dote."

And then she:

"Thy fingers would burn for the thalers,
The jewels thou wouldst embrace,
But the golden hair were much too fine
For thy rough and bearded face."

Oh, they do not remain in one another's debt; they know how to tease. But how does it happen that in the forest-land grow fewer and less appropriate expressions for love and tenderness than for jesting and fun? If love down in the valleys is not exactly communicative, up here with the firs and little cabbage-roses it is as dumb as fish in water. The kiss is not as customary here as in other places. It is, I should say, as if the warm blood did not take the time to mount to the lips, when there is so much to do elsewhere. Everything expresses itself in the arms, and when a love-sick lad knows no other way of showing his feelings, he seizes his maiden, as the miller does a sack of grain, and swings her high in the air, at the same time giving a shout that verily tears the clouds asunder.

Berthold does it not a whit differently. They are two poor young people, left to themselves on the lonely Alpine heights. What is there to do? Alas! alas! nothing, I think, for me as yet.

*WITH THE WOOD-DEVILS*

In this wilderness there are trades of which I had no idea. The people literally dig their bread out of the earth and stones. They scrape it from the trees, and by the many-sided resources of their wit force it out of inedible fruits. How strange that man should know so well how to utilise everything! But has he already done so? And was the necessity there before the means were discovered, or was it the result of the things obtained? If the latter were the case, I should consider the thousand acquisitions as no gain.

The starved or daring wood-devils hold closer communication with the mass of mankind outside than one would suppose, and than they themselves perhaps imagine. Yet after all they know it well enough. For example, there is the root-digger. His fustian jacket reaches to the calves of his legs; his hat is a veritable family roof, but in places it is already breaking and full of holes. One knows him at once from afar. He climbs around among the rocks and digs out the aromatic roots with his crooked iron puncheon. He then sometimes sings the little song:

"When I uproot the spikenard here,
That grows upon the Alm,
I like to think of the women-folk.--
Canst thou guess where the spices go?
To Turkey land, that the women-folk,
A sweeter perfume may receive.
In Turkey land, the women-folk."

I do not yet know if it be true that spikenard travels from here over to Turkey. But these people believe it and so it is truth to them. The proud assertion of the root-digger, that he is sending a sweeter perfume to the woman's world in the Orient, is contested.