But there is a smile of welcome in the aged eyes;
a smile all over the wrinkled face. The old woman
has reached, I dare say, her seventieth year ... and
even now one can see she has been a beauty in her day.
With a twirl of her sunburnt finger, she holds in
her right hand a bowl of cold milk, with the cream
on it, fresh from the cellar; the sides of the bowl
are covered with drops, like strings of pearls.
In the palm of her left hand the old woman brings
me a huge hunch of warm bread, as though to say, ‘Eat,
and welcome, passing guest!’
A cock suddenly crows and fussily flaps his wings;
he is slowly answered by the low of a calf, shut up
in the stall.
‘My word, what oats!’ I hear my coachman
saying.... Oh, the content, the quiet, the plenty
of the Russian open country! Oh, the deep peace
and well-being!
And the thought comes to me: what is it all to
us here, the cross on the cupola of St. Sophia in
Constantinople and all the rest that we are struggling
for, we men of the town?
’Neither the Jungfrau nor the Finsteraarhorn
has yet been trodden by the foot of man!’
The topmost peaks of the Alps ... A whole chain
of rugged precipices ... The very heart of the
mountains.
Over the mountain, a pale green, clear, dumb sky.
Bitter, cruel frost; hard, sparkling snow; sticking
out of the snow, the sullen peaks of the ice-covered,
wind-swept mountains.
Two massive forms, two giants on the sides of the
horizon, the Jungfrau and the Finsteraarhorn.
And the Jungfrau speaks to its neighbour: ’What
canst thou tell that is new? thou canst see more.
What is there down below?’
A few thousand years go by: one minute.
And the Finsteraarhorn roars back in answer:
‘Thick clouds cover the earth.... Wait a
little!’
Thousands more years go by: one minute.
‘Well, and now?’ asks the Jungfrau.
’Now I see, there below all is the same.
There are blue waters, black forests, grey heaps of
piled-up stones. Among them are still fussing
to and fro the insects, thou knowest, the bipeds that
have never yet once defiled thee nor me.’
‘Men?’
‘Yes, men.’
Thousands of years go by: one minute.
‘Well, and now?’ asks the Jungfrau.
‘There seem fewer insects to be seen,’
thunders the Finsteraarhorn, ’it is clearer
down below; the waters have shrunk, the forests are
thinner.’ Again thousands of years go by:
one minute.
‘What seeest thou?’ says the Jungfrau.
‘Close about us it seems purer,’ answers
the Finsteraarhorn, ’but there in the distance
in the valleys are still spots, and something is moving.’
’And now?’ asks the Jungfrau, after more
thousands of years: one minute.
‘Now it is well,’ answers the Finsteraarhorn,
’it is clean everywhere, quite white, wherever
you look ... Everywhere is our snow, unbroken
snow and ice. Everything is frozen. It is
well now, it is quiet.’
