THE POWERS OF EVIL.
RUDY left Bex, and took the homeward path up the mountains, in the fresh, cooling air, the domain of the Ice-Maiden. The thick foliage of the trees deep below him looked as if they were potato plants; the firs and the bushes appeared even less, the Alpine roses bloomed near the snow, which lay in separate patches as if it were linen put out to bleach. There was a single blue gentian, and he crushed it with the butt-end of his gun.
Higher up he saw two chamois. Rudy's eyes sparkled, his thoughts took a new flight; but he was not near enough to them for him to shoot with confidence; so he climbed higher, where only coarse grass grew among the blocks of stone; the chamois went placidly along the snow-fields. Rudy hurried on eagerly, surrounded by misty clouds, and on a sudden he stood in front of a precipitous rocky wall, and the rain began to fall in torrents.
He felt a parching thirst, his head was hot, but his limbs were cold. He seized his hunting-flask, but it was empty; he had not thought of it when he rushed up the mountain. He had never been ill, but now he had a presentiment of it; he was tired, he felt a desire to throw himself down and go to sleep, but everything was streaming with water. Strange objects vibrated before his eyes, but he saw on a sudden, what he had never seen there before, a newly-built low house, leaning against the rock, and at the door stood a young maiden. He thought it was the schoolmaster's Annette, whom he once had kissed at a dance, but it was not Annette, and yet he had seen her before, perhaps near Grindelwald, that night when he went home from the shooting match at Interlaken.
"Where do you come from?" he demanded.
"I am at home!" said she. "I am watching my flock."
"Your flock! Where do they graze? Here are only snow and rocks!"
"You are very clever!" said she with a laugh. "Here behind us, lower down, is a beautiful meadow! that is where my goats go. I take good care of them! I don't lose one; what is mine remains mine!"
She came out with a bowl of wine and gave it to Rudy to drink.—
"You are brave!" said Rudy.
"You also!" replied she.
"Have you any milk? Pray give me some, for I am intolerably thirsty!"
"I have something better than milk!" said she, "that you shall have! Yesterday some travelers came here with their guide; they forgot half a bottle of wine, such as you have never tasted; they will not fetch it, and I don't drink it, so you can have it."
And she came out with the wine, poured it into a wooden bowl, and gave it to Rudy.
"That is good!" said he. "I have never tasted any wine so warming and fiery!" and his eyes sparkled, and there came an animation, a glow into him, as if all sorrow and depression had evaporated; and the gushing, fresh human nature coursed through his veins.
"But this is surely the schoolmaster's Annette!" he exclaimed. "Give me a kiss!"
"Then give me the pretty ring you have on your finger!"
"My engagement ring?"
"Exactly so!" said the girl; and she poured wine into the bowl, and held it to his lips, and he drank it. The joy of living was in his blood, he felt as if all the world belonged to him, and why should he worry? Everything is for us to enjoy and to make us happy! The stream of life is a stream of joy; to ride on it, to let ourselves float on its surface, that is felicity! He looked at the young girl: it was Annette, and still it was not Annette; even less was it the goblin phantom, as he had called her, he met near Grindelwald. The girl here on the mountain was fresh as the new-fallen snow, blooming as an Alpine rose, and nimble as a kid, but still formed out of Adam's ribs, as human as Rudy. And he put his arms around her, and gazed into her wonderfully clear eyes. It was only for a second, and in this—who can explain it? was it the spirit of life or of death that filled him?—was he raised on high, or did he sink down into the deep, murderous abyss of ice, deeper, ever deeper? He saw the walls of ice like blue-green glass; endless crevasses gaped around him, and water dripped sounding like chimes, and gleaming like pearls in bluish-white flames. The Ice-Maiden gave him a kiss, and it chilled him through his backbone and into his brain. He gave one cry of pain, dragged himself away, stumbled and fell, and it was night before his eyes. The powers of evil had played their game.
"The Ice-maiden gave him a kiss."
When he reopened his eyes the Alpine maiden was gone, as was also the sheltering cottage. Water drove down the bare rocky wall, the snow lay all round him; Rudy shivered with cold, he was soaked to the skin, and his ring was gone, his engagement ring which Babette had given him. His gun lay by him in the snow; he took it up and wished to discharge it, but it missed fire. Watery clouds lay like solid masses of snow in the crevasse; Giddiness sat there and lured on her helpless prey, and under her there was a sound in the deep crevasse as if a huge rock were falling, crushing and sweeping away everything that would stop it in its fall.
But in the mill Babette sat weeping. Rudy had not been near her for six days—he who was in the wrong, he who ought to ask her forgiveness, because she loved him with her whole heart.