Fairy Tales

all around him, and water dripped tinkling like a clock and as clear as pearls, lighting with blue-white flames. The Ice Maiden gave him a kiss that sent a chill through his spine into his forehead. He gave a cry of pain, tore himself loose, tumbled and fell. His eyes closed in darkness, but he opened them again. Evil powers had played their tricks.

The mountain girl was gone. The sheltering hut was gone. Water was streaming down the naked cliff wall. Snow was all around. Rudy was shaking with cold, wet to the skin, and his ring was gone. The engagement ring Babette had given him. His gun lay in the snow by his side. He picked it up and tried to shoot, but it didn’t go off. Wet clouds lay like masses of snow in the crevices. vertigo was sitting there watching for powerless prey, and under her in the deep cleft there was a sound as if a boulder fell, crushing and sweeping away anything breaking its fall.

But at the mill Babette sat crying. Rudy had not been there for six days. Rudy, who was in the wrong, and who should ask her for forgiveness since she loved him with all her heart.

13. IN THE MILLER’S HOUSE

“Talk about frightful nonsense with those people!” said the housecat to the kitchen cat. “Babette and Rudy have broken up again. She’s crying, and he probably doesn’t think about her anymore.”

“I don’t like that!” said the kitchen cat.

“Me neither,” said the housecat, “but I’m not going to cry about it. Babette can just as well be sweethearts with the red sideburns. But he hasn’t been here either since he tried to climb up on the roof.”

Evil forces play their tricks, both outside and within us. Rudy had realized this and thought about it. What had happened around him and in him high up there on the mountain? Had he seen visions, or was it a feverish dream? He had never had a fever or been sick before. He had gained an insight into himself when he judged Babette. He thought about the wild chase in his heart, the hot Fohn that had blown there so lately. Could he confess everything to Babette? Every thought that in the moment of temptation could have become an action? He had lost her ring, and in that loss she had regained him. Would she confess to him? He felt like his heart would break to pieces when he thought about her. There were so many memories. He saw her large as life in front of him, laughing, a high-spirited child. Many a loving word that she had spoken in the fullness of her heart flew like a flash of sun into his breast, and soon there was nothing but sunshine there for Babette.

She must be able to confess to him, and she would!

He came to the mill. They confessed everything. It started with a kiss and ended with Rudy being the sinner. His big fault was that he had doubted Babette’s faithfulness. That was really abominable of him. Such distrust and such impetuosity could have led them both to disaster. Most assuredly! And therefore Babette delivered a little sermon to him. She enjoyed it, and it was most becoming, although in one respect Rudy was right: godmother’s relative was a fool. She would burn the book he had given her, and not keep anything that would remind her of him.

“Now it’s over and done with,” said the housecat. “Rudy is back. They understand each other, and they say that’s the greatest happiness.”

“Last night,” said the kitchen cat, “I heard the rats say that the greatest happiness is to eat tallow candles and to have plenty of tainted bacon. Whom should we believe, the rats or the sweethearts?”

“Neither of them,” said the housecat. “That’s always the best bet.”

The greatest happiness for Rudy and Babette still lay ahead. They still had the most beautiful day, as it’s called, in front of them—their wedding day.

But the wedding wasn’t going to be in the church in Bex, nor in the miller’s house. Godmother wanted the wedding to be celebrated at the bed and breakfast, and have the ceremony take place in the lovely little church in Montreux. The miller backed this request. He alone knew what godmother had in mind for the newlyweds. They would get a wedding gift from her that was certainly worth such a small concession. The day was set. They were going to travel to Villeneuve the evening before and take the boat over to Montreux in the morning in time for godmother’s daughters to dress the bride.

“I suppose they’ll have another wedding celebration here the day after,” said the housecat. “Otherwise, I don’t give a miaow for the whole thing!”

“There’s going to be a party,” said the kitchen cat. “Ducks have been butchered, doves beheaded, and there’s a whole deer hanging on the wall. It makes my mouth water to see it all. Tomorrow the trip begins!”

Yes, tomorrow! That evening Rudy and Babette sat at the mill for the last time as an engaged couple. Outside was the Alpenglow, the evening bells rang, and the daughters of the sunbeams sang, “What happens is always for the best.”

14. VISIONS IN THE NIGHT

The sun had set, and the clouds settled into the Rhone valley between the high mountains. The wind blew from the south, an African wind, down over the high Alps, the Fohn. It tore the clouds into fragments, and when it was gone there was a moment of complete stillness. The fragmented clouds hung in fantastic forms between the forest-clad mountains above the swiftly flowing Rhone River. They looked like prehistoric sea animals, like hovering eagles of the sky, and like leaping frogs from the marsh. They descended to the raging river and sailed on it, and yet they sailed in the air. The current was carrying an uprooted fir tree, and in front of it the water formed whirling eddies. It was Vertigo and her sisters, who were spinning around on the turbulent torrent. The moon shone on the snow of the mountain tops, on the dark forests, on the strange white clouds—night visions, spirits of nature’s powers. Mountain folk saw them through their windows. They sailed down there in flocks in front of the Ice Maiden. She came from her palace in the glacier, sitting on her flimsy ship, the uprooted fir. Water from the glacier carried her down the stream to the open lake.

“The wedding guests are coming,” was sighed and sung in air and water.

Visions outside and visions inside. Babette had a strange dream.

She had been married to Rudy for many years. He was out antelope hunting, but she was at home, and there with her was the young Englishman with the gilded sideburns. His eyes were so warm, and his words had a magical power. He reached out his hand to her, and she had to follow him. They walked away from her home. Always downwards! And it felt to Babette that there lay a burden on her heart that became heavier and heavier. It was a sin against Rudy, a sin against God. Suddenly she was alone. Her clothes had been torn to pieces by thorns. Her hair was grey. She looked upward in pain, and on the mountain edge she saw Rudy. She stretched her arms out towards him, but dared neither to shout nor pray, and it wouldn’t have helped because she soon saw that it wasn’t Rudy at all, but just his hunting jacket and hat, hanging on a walking stick the way hunters do, to trick the antelope. And in unbounded pain she whimpered, “Oh, if I could have died on my wedding day! My happiest day! Lord, my God, it would have been a mercy, the good fortune of my life. That would have been the best that could have