Part 11

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.

AUTUMN, 1818.

After wandering through other parts of the forest among the people both old and young, learning from the former, teaching the latter, I am always glad to return to the Winkel. Here in these last years, the people have been labouring with axe and hammer about the Winkel-warden's house and I have sometimes even lent a hand to the work myself. And now as I look around me I realise that we have a village.

Near the house a few huts have been erected originally intended for the builders but now being converted into permanent dwellings. Martin Grassteiger, a charcoal-burner, from Lautergraeben, has recently bought two such little huts for a considerable sum, and to the astonishment of the people he paid at once for them in cash. From pitch-black coal, shining thalers are made, old Russ-Kath once said. And with gleaming thalers Grassteiger has paid for the huts and has become a man of influence.

The parsonage is approaching completion, likewise the church and next must come the schoolhouse;--_Mein Gott_, what a great joy I am experiencing in these forests!

Yesterday evening we locked the church for the first time. The architect, the carpenter from Holdenschlag, and the master wood-cutter were present, but I do not know how it came about that as we separated the key remained in my hand. I am hardly aware of it myself, yet the Baron has recently written that he was quite satisfied with my work as schoolmaster in the forest. But what am I accomplishing? I tell the children stories and show them many little things in the woods, which no person here has ever before noticed, but which fascinate these young people.

The windows in the church, on either side of the altar, do not quite satisfy me. The dazzling panes weary my eyes, and the wooded slopes and the wood-cutting stare in upon one. But, alas, the Sunday worshipper might be quite content with that, for then, instead of offering his poor soul humbly before the dear God, he would be constantly chopping wood, counting the felled trunks, the sticks, the piles of brushwood, which on a week-day would not otherwise trouble him. Prayer would stream from the heart like a fountain of blood, if one's thoughts did not wander, but since they cannot always be controlled, we must guard the church like a fortress, so that the Sabbath may not leave it nor the work-day enter.

The two windows must be provided with paintings; so I have sent for red, yellow, blue, and green paper, and for a number of days I have been working as designer behind closed doors.

About the saint for the church the people are not yet united. But I have my ideas in regard to it. "My friends," I said, "we will not set up any saint. Let each one think of his own as he will. The saints are invisible in heaven, and ours could only be made from ordinary wood, which might simply arouse their anger."

"Perhaps you're right," answered a few of the people to this proposal, "and it would surely cost us less."

A wood-chopper from Karwasserschlag made the altar table. He is a poor man, blessed with many children; but for the work in the church he took no pay. "For a good reason I do it," said he; "I do it for my family, that none of its members may die, or any more be added to it."

The dear God cannot have rightly understood; scarcely is the altar table finished, when the wood-chopper's ninth boy comes into the world.

In order to show that it is an honour to the forest when such a poor man renders a public service we call the wood-chopper, as he is also one who does not know his name, Franz Ehrenwald (honour to the forest). The name will suffice for his nine boys and more.

Franz Ehrenwald has a clever, ambitious head. Having succeeded with the altar table, he now decides to change his business entirely to that of carpenter and cabinet-maker. He has already collected a number of tools, and furnished himself with two baskets full of planes, draw-knives, augers, saws, axes, chisels, and other things, which he does not in the least know how to handle, and which he will not use as long as he lives. But the tools are his pride; and his boys cause him no greater annoyance than when, in their own attempts at carpentry, they take possession of one of the augers or nick a knife. He is quite willing to have them learn to work correctly, the two baskets will indeed be their legacy some time.

I have drawn a number of plans for dwelling-houses, showing how they should be built, so that they may be durable, light, airy, easily heated, tasteful, and suited to the people's mode of life.

According to such plans, Franz Ehrenwald has already commenced a number of houses. One of them belongs to the master workman Paul in Lautergraeben. The buildings are not expensive, since the owner of the forest gives the timber free; besides, it is said that they are to remain exempt from taxes.

So Master Ehrenwald's business is beginning well; he is obliged to have assistants in addition to his sons. He has also made plans for his own house. As I was recently standing down by the brook fishing for trout, he suddenly came up to me, I have no idea from where, and whispered mysteriously into my ear: "Believe me, my new house will be devilish fine, devilish fine!" No one else was near us, and the fish in the Winkel were deaf. "But devilish fine," he whispered softly; "magnificent will be my house!" The man is really childish in his happiness; he is in his element; formerly it did not occur to anyone that fine houses could ever be built in the Winkel forests.

UPON THE ROAD TO THE CROSS, AUTUMN, 1818.

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.

CONSECRATION OF THE CHURCH, 1818.

It is Sunday--the first Sunday in the Winkel forests. The bells announced it at dawn, and the people have come from the Upper Winkel, from Miesenbach, from Lautergraeben, from Karwaesser, and from every hermitage and cave of the wide woods. To-day they are no longer wood-cutters and charcoal-burners as ordinarily, to-day for the first time they fuse into one, into one body, and are called the parish.