‘Good,’ said the Jungfrau. ’But
we have gossipped enough, old fellow. It’s
time to slumber.’
‘It is time, indeed.’
The huge mountains sleep; the green, clear sky sleeps
over the region of eternal silence.
February 1878.
I was walking over a wide plain alone.
And suddenly I fancied light, cautious footsteps behind
my back.... Some one was walking after me.
I looked round, and saw a little, bent old woman,
all muffled up in grey rags. The face of the
old woman alone peeped out from them; a yellow, wrinkled,
sharp-nosed, toothless face.
I went up to her.... She stopped.
‘Who are you? What do you want? Are
you a beggar? Do you seek alms?’
The old woman did not answer. I bent down to
her, and noticed that both her eyes were covered with
a half-transparent membrane or skin, such as is seen
in some birds; they protect their eyes with it from
dazzling light.
But in the old woman, the membrane did not move nor
uncover the eyes ... from which I concluded she was
blind.
‘Do you want alms?’ I repeated my question.
‘Why are you following me?’ But the old
woman as before made no answer, but only shrank into
herself a little.
I turned from her and went on my way.
And again I hear behind me the same light, measured,
as it were, stealthy steps.
‘Again that woman!’ I thought, ‘why
does she stick to me?’ But then, I added inwardly,
’Most likely she has lost her way, being blind,
and now is following the sound of my steps so as to
get with me to some inhabited place. Yes, yes,
that’s it.’
But a strange uneasiness gradually gained possession
of my mind. I began to fancy that the old woman
was not only following me, but that she was directing
me, that she was driving me to right and to left, and
that I was unwittingly obeying her.
I still go on, however ... but, behold, before me,
on my very road, something black and wide ... a kind
of hole.... ‘A grave!’ flashed through
my head. ‘That is where she is driving me!’
I turned sharply back. The old woman faced me
again ... but she sees! She is looking at me
with big, cruel, malignant eyes ... the eyes of a bird
of prey.... I stoop down to her face, to her
eyes.... Again the same opaque membrane, the
same blind, dull countenance....
‘Ah!’ I think, ’this old woman is
my fate. The fate from which there is no escape
for man!’
‘No escape! no escape! What madness....
One must try.’ And I rush away in another
direction.
I go swiftly.... But light footsteps as before
patter behind me, close, close.... And before
me again the dark hole.
Again I turn another way.... And again the same
patter behind, and the same menacing blur of darkness
before.
And whichever way I run, doubling like a hunted hare
... it’s always the same, the same!
