Fairy Tales

the expensive brooch that she wore on her vest. Babette had gotten two letters from her godmother, and this year they were supposed to meet her here in Interlaken, along with her daughters. They were two old maids, almost thirty, said Babette. She herself was only eighteen.

The sweet little mouth didn’t stop for a moment, and everything Babette said seemed to Rudy of the utmost importance. He, in turn, told her what he had to tell. He told her how often he had been in Bex, how well he knew the mill, and how often he had seen Babette, but that she very likely hadn’t noticed him. The last time he had been there he had many thoughts he couldn’t mention, but she and her father had gone, were far away, but not farther than that he could clamber over the wall that made the road long.

Yes, he said that, and he said so much more. He told her how much he thought of her, and that he had come there for her sake, not for the shooting competition.

Babette became silent. What he had confided to her was almost too much to bear.

While they walked, the sun sank behind the high mountain wall. Jungfrau stood in all its magnificence and glory, surrounded by a wreath of the nearer forest-clad mountains. All the people stopped quietly and looked at it, and Rudy and Babette looked at all the grandeur too.

“There is no place more beautiful than here,” said Babette.

“No place!” said Rudy and looked at Babette.

“I have to leave tomorrow,” said Rudy a little later.

“Visit us in Bex,” whispered Babette. “That would please my father.”

5. ON THE WAY HOME

Oh, how much Rudy had to carry, when he headed home the next day over the high mountains! He had three silver cups, two very good guns, and a silver coffeepot. That would be useful when he settled down. But those weren’t the weightiest. He carried something much more important, more powerful, or perhaps it carried him home across the high mountains. But the weather was raw and grey, rainy and heavy. The clouds descended on the mountain heights like black mourning crepe and shrouded the snow-clad tops. From the forests rang the last blows of the axe, and down the mountainside rolled tree trunks that looked like flimsy sticks from that height, even though they were huge trees. The Lutschine river sounded its monotonous music. The wind sang, and the clouds sailed. Suddenly a young girl was walking right beside Rudy. He hadn’t noticed her until she was right beside him. She was also going over the mountain. Her eyes had such power that you had to look into them. They were so strangely clear, like glass, deep and bottomless.

“Do you have a sweetheart?” asked Rudy. All his thoughts were filled with having a sweetheart.

“I don’t have one!” she said and laughed, but it sounded like she wasn’t telling the truth. “Let’s not go the long way around,” she said. “We have to go more to the left. It’s shorter.”

“Yes, if you want to fall into an ice crevice!” said Rudy. “How can you be the guide if you don’t know the way better than that!”

“Oh, I know the way,” she said. “And I have my wits about me. I guess yours are down in the valley. Up here you must think of the Ice Maiden. People say she’s dangerous to human beings.”

“I’m not afraid of her,” said Rudy. “She had to let me slip when I was a child. I will surely give her the slip now that I’m older!”

It started to get dark. The rain fell and then snow. It brightened and blinded.

“Give me your hand, and I’ll help you climb,” said the girl and she touched him with ice-cold fingers.

“You help me?” said Rudy. “I don’t yet need the help of women to climb!” And he picked up speed and moved away from her. The snowstorm wrapped around him like a curtain. The wind whistled, and behind him he heard the girl laughing and singing. It sounded so strange—must be a troll girl in service of the Ice Maiden. Rudy had heard about this when he had spent the night here as a boy on the journey over the mountains.

The snowfall decreased, for the clouds were under him. He looked back. There was no one in sight, but he heard laughter and yodeling, and it didn’t sound like it came from a human being.

When Rudy finally reached the highest part of the mountain pass, where the path went down towards the Rhone valley, he saw two clear stars in a strip of clear blue sky in the direction of Chamouny. They twinkled brightly, and he thought about Babette and about himself and his happiness, and he warmed at the thought.

6. A VISIT TO THE MILL

“You’re bringing grand items home with you!” said Rudy’s old foster mother, and her strange eagle eyes flashed. Her thin neck moved in odd gyrations even faster than usual. “Good fortune is with you, Rudy. I must kiss you, my sweet boy.”

And Rudy submitted to the kiss, but you could see by his face that he considered it one of those inconveniences that you have to put up with. “How handsome you are, Rudy!” said the old woman.

“Don’t make me think that,” said Rudy and laughed, but it pleased him.

“I’ll say it again,” said the old woman. “Luck is with you.”

“There I agree with you,” he said and thought about Babette.

He had never before longed for the deep valley like this. “They must be home by now!” he said to himself. “It’s already two days past the time when they were to come. I must go to Bex.”

And Rudy went to Bex, and the miller’s family was home. He was well received, and the family in Interlaken had sent their regards. Babette didn’t say much. She had become so silent, but her eyes spoke, and that was enough for Rudy. The miller, who normally liked to talk, and who was used to people laughing at his whims and word play—after all, he was the rich miller—acted like he’d rather listen to Rudy tell hunting stories. And Rudy told about the difficulties and dangers that the goat-antelope hunters endured on the high mountain cliffs, and how they had to crawl on precarious ledges of snow that the wind and weather plastered to the mountain rim—how he crawled on the dangerous bridges that snowstorms had formed over deep chasms. Rudy looked so brave, and his eyes shone while he told about the hunter’s life, the antelope’s shrewdness and daring leaps, the strong Fohn,⁹ and the cascading avalanches. He noticed very well that with each new description he was winning over the miller, and that what the miller especially liked hearing about was the description of the vulture and the bold golden eagle.