forward swiftly as an arrow.
“They’re playing God down there, those powers of reason!” said the Ice Maiden. “But the powers of nature are the rulers,” and she laughed and sang so it resounded in the valley.
“Another avalanche,” said the people down there.
But the children of the sun sang even louder about human ideas. Thought that rules. It has subjugated the sea, moved mountains, and filled valleys. The human mind is the master of the natural powers. Just at that moment a party of travelers came across the snowfield where the Ice Maiden was sitting. They had tied each other together with a rope to make a bigger body on the slippery ice, along the deep crevices.
“Vermin!” she said. “How can you be the masters of natural forces?” and she turned away from them and looked mockingly down in the deep valley, where the train went roaring by.
“There they sit, those
“There went another avalanche,” they said down in the valley.
“It won’t reach us,” said two people in the steam dragon. “Two minds but with a single thought,” as the saying goes. It was Rudy and Babette, and the miller was also along.
“As baggage,” he said, “I’m along because I’m necessary.”
“There those two sit,” said the Ice Maiden. “I have crushed many a goat-antelope, and I have beat and broken millions of rhododendrons. Not even the roots remained. I wipe them out! Thoughts! People of reason!” And she laughed.
“Another avalanche!” they cried down in the valley.
10. GODMOTHER
In Montreux, one of the closest towns, that along with Clarens, Vernex and Crin form a garland around the northeastern part of Lake Geneva, Babette’s godmother, the distinguished English lady, was staying with her daughters and a young relative. They had recently arrived, but the miller had already paid them a visit, announced Babette’s engagement, told about Rudy and the eaglet, and the visit to Interlaken; in short, the whole story. This had pleased them to the highest degree and made them interested in Rudy and Babette, and the miller too. All three of them must come for a visit, and so they did! Babette was going to see her godmother, the godmother to see Babette.
By the little town of Villeneuve, at the end of Lake Geneva, lay the steamship that would reach Vernex, close to Montreux, after a half-hour trip. It’s a coast sung about by poets. Here under the walnut trees by the deep, blue- green lake, Byron sat and wrote his melodic verse about the prisoner in the sinister mountain castle of Chillon. At Clarens, where the town is mirrored in the water with its weeping willows, Rousseau walked dreaming of Heloise. The Rhone river flows along under the high snow-covered mountains of Savoy. Not far from its mouth in the lake lies a small island. It’s so small that from the coast it looks like a little boat out there. It’s a skerry, and a hundred years ago a woman had it surrounded by rocks and filled with soil. She had three acacia trees planted there. Now they shade the entire island. Babette was transported with delight when she saw it. She thought it was the loveliest sight on the whole boat trip—they should land there—they must land there! She thought it would be so marvelous to be there. But the steamship went by and docked where it was supposed to, at Vernex.
The little party walked from there up through the white, sunlit walls that surround the vineyards around the little mountain village of Montreux. The farmers’ houses are shaded by fig trees, and laurel and cypress trees grow in the gardens. Half way up was the bed and breakfast where Babette’s godmother was staying.
They were very warmly received. Godmother was a big, friendly woman with a round, smiling face. As a child she must have had one of Raphael’s cherub faces, but now she had an old angel’s face, surrounded by abundant silver-white curls. Her daughters were neat and elegant, tall and thin. Their young cousin, who was with them, was dressed in white from tip to toe. He had golden hair and such big gilded sideburns that they could have been divided among three gentlemen. He immediately paid the utmost attention to little Babette.
Richly bound books, sheets of music, and drawings lay spread across the big table. The balcony door stood open to the lovely view of the wide lake that was so calm and still that the mountains of Savoy with towns, forests and snowcaps were reflected in it upside down.
Rudy, who usually was so cheerful, lively, and confident, felt like a fish out of water, as they say. He acted as if he was walking on peas spread on a slippery floor. How slowly time passed! It was like a treadmill. And now they were going for a walk! That went just as slowly. Rudy had to take two steps forwards and one back to be in step with the others. They went down to Chillon, the sinister old castle on the rocky island, to see the torture stakes and cells of death, and rusty chains in the rocky wall. They saw stone bunks for the condemned, and the trap-doors through which poor unfortunates were pushed to fall impaled onto iron spikes in the surf. And this is supposed to be a pleasure to see! It was a place of execution, lifted into the world of poetry by Byron’s song. Rudy sensed the horror. He leaned against the big stone window ledge and looked down into the deep, blue-green water, and over to the lonely little island with the three acacia trees. He wished he were there, free of the whole prattling company, but Babette felt very happy. She had enjoyed herself tremendously, she said later. She thought the cousin was just perfect.
“Yes, a perfect fool,” said Rudy, and that was the first time Rudy said something that she didn’t like. The Englishman had given her a little book as a souvenir of Chillon. It was Byron’s
“The book might be all right,” said Rudy, “but that dandy who gave it to you didn’t make a hit with me.”
“He looked like a flour sack without flour in it,” said the miller and laughed at his joke. Rudy laughed too and said that he had hit the nail on the head.
11. THE COUSIN
When Rudy visited the mill a few days later, he found the young Englishman there. Babette was just serving him poached trout, which she herself had garnished with parsley to dress it up. That was totally unnecessary. What did the Englishman want? What was he doing here, served and waited on by Babette? Rudy was jealous, and that amused Babette. It pleased her to see all sides of him, the strong and the weak. Love was still a game, and she played with Rudy’s heart; and yet it must be said that he was her happiness, in all her thoughts, the best and most wonderful in the world. But the gloomier he looked, the more her eyes laughed. She would gladly have kissed the blond Englishman with the golden sideburns if it would have caused Rudy to run furiously away. That would have simply proved how much he loved her. It wasn’t right, wasn’t smart of little Babette, but she was only nineteen
