The Ice Virgin

  Now it happened that Rudy had business to do in Bex, which was a good journey away. At that time the railway had still not been brought to these parts. From the Rhône glacier beneath the foot of the Simplon, flanked by many, ever changing high mountains, the Rhône Valley stretches with its mighty river, the Rhône, which often becomes swollen, flooding field and road, ruining everything. Between the towns of Sion and St Maurice the valley curves round, bending like an elbow, and below St Maurice is so contracted it has room only for the river-bed and the narrow carriageway. An old tower, like a frontier-post of Canton Valais, which ends here, stands on the mountainside, looking out across the brick-walled bridge to the toll-gate on the opposite bank where Canton Vaud begins – and the nearest town, not far distant, is Bex. Once on this side, with every step you take forwards, affluence and fecundity are more apparent; you are in a veritable garden of chestnuts and walnut trees; here and there cypresses peep out and pomegranate flowers burst forth. The warmth of the South is here, it’s as if you’ve arrived in Italy.

  Rudy got to Bex, attended to his business, took a look round, but he didn’t see any mill-hand, let alone Babette herself. Things were not as they should be.

  Evening came on, the air was full of the fragrance of wild thyme and blossoming lime trees. A sort of shimmery, light blue veil lay over the forest-green mountains, there was an all-pervasive stillness which did not relate to sleep or death. No, it was as if the whole natural world were holding its breath, as though placing itself in position for a photograph to be taken against the background of blue sky. Here and there among the trees, above the green fields, poles stood supporting telegraph wires which had been stretched through the quiet valley. Against one of these an object was leaning so motionless that you could well believe it to be a dead tree-trunk. But it was Rudy who was standing as completely still as his surroundings of this moment. He was not asleep, even less was he dead, but just as great world events and those moments in life of real consequence to the individual very often go flying through the telegraph wires without the wire indicating this with a quiver or a sound, so there went passing through Rudy now powerful, overwhelming thoughts, how to be happy in life his constant preoccupation from now on. His eyes were focused on a point amongst the foliage, a light in the miller’s living quarters where Babette lived. So still did Rudy stand you could well believe he was aiming to shoot a chamois, but at that moment he himself was like a chamois, which in a matter of moments can be standing as though hewn out of the mountain, and then suddenly, at the rolling of a stone, takes a huge leap and gallops away. And that’s just what happened to Rudy; a thought went rolling through him.

  ‘Never say die!’ he said, ‘Go to the mill! Say “Good evening!” to the miller and “Good day to you!” to Babette. You don’t fall when you don’t think you’re going to. Babette has only to see me this once for me to be her man!’

  And Rudy laughed, felt good in himself, and went round to the mill. He knew what he wanted; he wanted to have Babette.

  The river with its yellowy-white water sped past, the willow trees and limes hung over the scurrying water. Rudy approached by the pathway, and as it says in the old children’s song:

  ‘In the miller’s house there was no one to see

  Except a little pussycat looking at me!’

  The household cat stood on the front steps, arched his back, and said: ‘Miaow!’ But Rudy was in no mood for talk. He knocked on the door; nobody heard, nobody opened up. ‘Miaow!’ said the cat. Had Rudy been a child once again, he’d have understood what the animal was saying, and would have heard the cat telling him: ‘There’s nobody at home!’ He had now to go over to the mill and make enquiries there; he then left a message. The master had gone travelling, a long way away, to the town of Interlaken, ‘inter lacus, between the lakes’ as the schoolteacher, Annette’s father, had explained out of his great store of learning. The miller and with him Babette were far away; there was a great shooting contest, which would start the very next day and last eight whole days. Swiss from all the German-speaking cantons would be coming to it.

  Poor Rudy, you could say this was not his luckiest day. He’d come over to Bex, and what could he do now but make his way home again? And this is what he did, taking the road through St Maurice and Sion back into his own valley, his own mountains. But he was not down-hearted. When the sun rose the next morning his spirits were high to match; in truth they’d never been low.

  ‘Babette’s in Interlaken, many days’ journey from here,’ he said to himself, ‘it’s a long way over there if you keep to the beaten track, to the highway. But it’s not so long if you haul yourself across the mountains, and isn’t that just the route for a chamois-hunter? It’s a route I’ve travelled before, anyway. Over there’s my childhood home, where I lived when I was little with Grandfather. And they’re having a shooting contest in Interlaken. I’ll take first prize at it, and I’ll be in the very same place too as Babette – once I’ve made her acquaintance.’

  With his light knapsack, in which he’d packed his Sunday best, with his rifle and his hunter’s bag, Rudy went up onto the mountain, going the short way which was nevertheless really rather long. But the shooting contest had begun only that day, and would last the whole week. He’d heard that the miller and Babette would be staying with their relations in Interlaken. Up over the Gemmi Pass Rudy went; he would descend to Grindelwald.

  Feeling on top of the world, he strode along, up into the fresh, light, invigorating mountain air. The valley sank beneath ever lower, the horizon ahead became ever wider. A snowy peak rose here, a snowy peak rose there, and soon appeared the shining white row of the high Alps. Rudy knew every snow-capped mountain. He steered his course by the Schreckhorn which lifted its white-powdered stone finger high into the blue air.

  At last he was over the high ridge; the pastures were now sloping down towards the valley of his old home; the air was light, his mind felt light. Mountain and valley were full of flowers and greenery, his heart was full of youth’s ideals: you will never get old, you will never die – live, do what you want, enjoy yourself! – free as a bird, light as a bird, that’s how Rudy was. And the swallows flew past and sang as they’d done in his childhood: ‘We and you, and you and us!’ Everything was release and joy.

  Down below, the velvet green meadow lay bestrewn with brown timber chalets; the River Lütschine hummed and roared. He saw the glacier with its glass-green edges in the grubby snow, he saw the deep crevasses, the topmost and bottommost glacier. The bells rang out across to him from the church, as if they wanted to welcome him home. His heart beat more strongly and enlarged to measure, so that Babette disappeared from it for a moment, so greatly had his heart expanded, so full of memories.

  He was back again on that road where, as a little lad, he used to stand with the other children on its ditch-like kerb, selling carvings of chalets. Up there, behind the spruce trees, his grandfather’s house still stood; strangers lived there. Children came running onto the road; they wanted to engage in business; one of them held out an Alpine rose; Rudy took it as a favourable omen, and thought afresh of Babette. Soon he was down over the bridge where the two Lütschine rivers converge; the deciduous trees were increasing now, the walnut trees provided shade. Now he saw flags waving, the white cross on red bunting that both the Swiss and the Danish have – and before him lay Interlaken.

  It was a truly magnificent town, like no other, so thought Rudy. A Swiss town in holiday attire, it was different from the other provincial towns, which were a whole lot of heavy stone houses, oppressive, alien, condescending. No, here looked as though the chalets from up in the mountains had simply been transported down to the green valley beside the clear, rapid river, and had then fallen into line, if a little unevenly, to form a street. And the most magnificent of all streets had certainly sprung up since Rudy, who’d then been a small boy, was here last. It might have been brought into existence by all the delightful chalets which Grandfather had carved, and of wh
ich the cupboard at home had been full, being lined up here and then growing sturdier, like the most ancient of old chestnut trees. Every house was a hotel, to use the new term, with carved woodwork on the windows and balconies, jutting-out roofs, very neat and trim, and in front of every house a whole flower-garden, stretching to the broad, macadamed roadway. The houses ranged the whole length of the street, but on one side of it only; otherwise they’d have hidden the fresh green meadow directly in front, where the cattle had bells which clanged as though they were up in the high alpine pastures. The meadow was framed by high mountains which had seemingly parted in the middle so that from here you could see the shining, snow-clad Jungfrau properly, the most beautifully shaped of all the Swiss mountains.

  What a throng of elegant ladies and gentlemen from foreign countries, what a swarm of country folk from the different cantons! The marksmen carried the number of their place in the contest in a garland round their hats. There was music and song, there were barrel-organs and wind instruments, shouting and clamour. Houses and bridges were decorated with verses and emblems; flags and banners waved, the bangs from shot after shot rang out. That was the best music to Rudy’s ears, and in all this he completely forgot Babette, for whose sake he had come here.

  The marksmen shoved their way to the target-shooting. Rudy was soon among them, and the most skilful and the happiest; he always hit the black spots at the targets’ centres.

  ‘Whoever is that stranger, that very young huntsman?’ people asked. ‘He speaks French just as they do in Canton Valais. But he also gives a good account of himself in our German,’ said some others, ‘As a child he lived here in these parts, near Grindelwald,’ one of them knew.

  There was certainly life in the fellow. His eyes shone, his sight and aim were sure, therefore he scored. Good fortune gives us courage, and courage Rudy had always had in plenty. Soon he’d already made a circle of friends for himself here, he became both honoured and acclaimed. Babette was as good as clean gone from his thoughts. Then a heavy hand clapped him on the shoulder, and a bluff voice addressed him in French:

  ‘Are you from Canton Valais?’

  Rudy turned round and saw a red, hearty-expressioned face, a bulky fellow: the miller from Bex. With his broad body he all but blocked the delicate, dainty Babette from view, who even so peeked out at Rudy with gleaming dark eyes. The rich miller was tickled pink it was a hunter from a French canton who had made the best shots, and was the one receiving the honours. Rudy was truly a child of fortune. What he had travelled all this way to find, but had come near to forgetting, was actually seeking him out.

  When you’re a long way from home and meet up with people from your own part of the world, you get acquainted on the spot, and start chatting to one another. Rudy was top man at this shooting festival thanks to his shots, likewise the miller back in Bex was top man thanks to his money and his flourishing mill. And so the two men shook hands as they’d never done before; Babette also took Rudy by the hand so unaffectedly that he took hers again, and looked at her, making her blush the deepest red.

  The miller gave an account of the long route their way here had comprised, the many large towns they’d seen; the journey had been carefully planned, they’d travelled by steamer, railway and coach.

  ‘I took the shorter route,’ said Rudy, ‘I went over the mountains. There’s no route so high you can’t take it.’

  ‘And break your neck into the bargain!’ said the miller, ‘and that’s something you should be mindful of: breaking your neck at some point, bold chap that you are.’

  ‘’You don’t fall if you don’t think you’re going to!’ said Rudy.

  And the miller’s kinsfolk in Interlaken, in whose house the miller and Babette were staying, invited Rudy to drop round and see them for a while; he was from the same canton as members of their family. Rudy appreciated this offer, good fortune was still with him, as it always is with somebody who trusts in himself, and remembers that ‘Our Lord gives us nuts, but he doesn’t crack them open for us!’

  And Rudy sat, like one of the family, in the house of the miller’s kinsfolk, and he was toasted for being the best shot, and Babette clinked glasses with him, and Rudy thanked her for doing this.

  Towards evening they all walked under the walnut trees along the beautiful road with the elegant hotels, and here was such a mixed throng of people, such a great crowd that Rudy felt he should offer Babette his arm. He told her how happy he was to have come across people from Vaud, Vaud and Valais were good canton-neighbours. He expressed his happiness so sincerely that Babette felt she should give his hand a gentle squeeze. They were now virtually like old friends, and so she set out to be entertaining, this lovely little human being. It suited her so enchantingly, thought Rudy, to be pointing out what was ridiculous and extravagant about the clothes the foreign women wore and the way they behaved here, and she wasn’t at all mocking them, because they were all really good people, she knew that, very nice, very likeable. She herself had a godmother who was just such a distinguished lady, an Englishwoman. Eighteen years earlier, when Babette got christened, she’d come to Bex. She had given Babette the precious brooch she wore on her breast. Twice her godmother had written to her, and this year they were to have met her with her daughters here in Interlaken; they were old ladies, Babette said, almost in their thirties. She herself was only eighteen!

  The small sweet mouth didn’t stop moving for a second, and everything that Babette said rang in Rudy’s ears as though it were of the greatest importance. He spoke to her again, and this time what he felt he had to say he actually said: how many times he’d been to Bex, how well he knew the mill, how often he’d seen Babette, though most likely she’d never noticed him; and how, the last time he arrived at the mill, with so many thoughts he could not express, she and his father had turned out to be away, a long way away, though not so far that he couldn’t haul himself over that mountain-wall that made the route so long,

  Yes, he said all this, and he said much else; he told her how greatly she attracted him, and that it was for her sake, and not for the shooting contest, that he’d come here.

  Babette became utterly quiet; it was almost too much to bear, what he had confided to her.

  And while they were walking, the sun sank behind the high wall of mountains. The Jungfrau stood in all its splendour and glory, surrounded by the forest-green wreath of the mountains close by. Many people stopped in their tracks to look up at it; Rudy and Babette looked up at it too, in all its majesty.

  ‘Nowhere is more beautiful than here!’ said Babette.

  ‘Nowhere!’ said Rudy, and he looked at Babette.

  ‘Tomorrow I have to go away!’ he said after a short pause.

  ‘Visit us in Bex!’ whispered Babette, ‘that will make my father very pleased.’

  5. On the way home

  Oh, what a lot Rudy had to carry the next day when he made his way home over the high mountains. Yes, he had three silver cups, two high-quality rifles, and a silver coffee-pot which would prove useful when he was setting up home. Yet this was not what was pressing on him the most; he was carrying over the high mountains – or was it carrying him? – something weightier, still more powerful. But the weather was raw, grey, charged with rain, and oppressive; the clouds descended over the mountain heights like black mourning-crape, enveloping the gleaming summits. From the forest the last axe-blow of the day rang out, and down the side of the mountain tree-trunks rolled, looking from high up like flimsy firewood, but from nearer to like trees that had become masts for ships. The Lütschine pealed its monotonous music, the wind whistled, the clouds voyaged past. Close to Rudy a young girl appeared quite suddenly. He hadn’t noticed her till she was right there beside him. She wanted to cross the mountain too. Her eyes had a peculiar power; you could look into them, they were so weirdly limpid, so deep, fathomless.

  ‘Have you got a sweetheart?’ Rudy asked. All his thoughts were filled with having a sweetheart.

  ‘I have no one
,’ she said, and laughed, but it was as if what she’d said wasn’t the truth. ‘Let’s not go a long way round. We should veer more to the left. It’s shorter.’

  ‘Yes, till you fall into an ice crevasse!’ said Rudy. ‘Don’t you know a better way – and you wanting to be a mountain guide?’

  ‘I know the way exactly!’ she said, ‘and my mind’s in good trim too. Yours is still down in the valley. Up here you’ve got to start paying attention to the Ice Virgin – she doesn’t mean human beings any good; that’s what the humans themselves say!’

  ‘I’m not afraid of her!’ said Rudy, ‘she had to let go of me when I was a child; I shall give her the slip easily enough now I’m an adult.’

  And the darkness intensified, the rain was falling; snow came, it shone, it dazzled.

  ‘Just reach your hand out to me; that way I can help you to go on up,’ said the girl, and she touched him with an ice-cold finger.

  ‘You help me!’ said Rudy, ‘I’m in no need of any woman’s help when it comes to climbing, that’s for sure!’ And he increased his pace to get away from her. The snowstorm was coming down like a curtain all round him, the wind whistled, and then at his back he heard the girl laughing and singing, and it rang out so eerily. Presumably this was some species of troll in the Ice Virgin’s service. Rudy had heard about such things when he was little and made that overnight stop up here during the crossing of the mountains.

  The snowfall lessened, the cloud now lay below him. He looked behind him, there was nobody to be seen any more, but he heard laughter and yodelling, which didn’t sound as though it came from a human being.

  When Rudy finally reached the topmost part of the mountain, where the path began to descend to the Rhône Valley, he saw, in the clear blue strip of sky in the direction of Chamonix, two bright stars which shone so glitteringly, and he thought of Babette, of himself and his good fortune, and his thoughts warmed him.