The Ice Virgin

  ‘There was an avalanche rolling up there just now!’ said the men down below.

  But higher up still the Children of the Sun were singing about human thought, which does get its way, which can harness the sea, move mountains, fill valleys, human thought which is lord-and-master of Nature’s powers. At the very same moment, over the snowfield where the Ice Virgin was sitting, a bunch of travellers came along. They had tied green veils over their faces so the snow’s white glare wouldn’t burn them. They had tied themselves fast to one another, to resemble one single big body on the slippery sheets of ice by the deep abyss.

  ‘Vermin!’ she said again, ‘you to be lords-and-masters over the power of Nature!’ And she turned herself round and looked mockingly down into the deep valley where the railway train roared past.

  ‘There they sit, these thoughts! They’re just targets for the violence of our forces! I see every one of them! One is sitting proud as a king, alone! The others sit all in a huddle, half of them asleep! And when the steam-dragon comes to a halt, out they climb, going on their way. The thoughts are going out into the world.’ And she laughed.

  ‘That was another avalanche rolling!’ they said down in the valley.

  ‘But nowhere near us!’ said two people on the back of the steam-dragon, ‘two souls and one mind’, as they say. It was Rudy and Babette; the miller was with them too.

  ‘Like luggage,’ he said, ‘I’m there because it’s necessary.’

  ‘There the two of them sit!’ said the Ice Virgin, ‘I’ve crushed many chamois, and I’ve smashed and destroyed millions of Alpine roses, with not so much as a root left. I wipe them all out. Thoughts! Powers of the Mind!’ And she laughed.

  ‘That was yet another avalanche!’ they said down in the valley.

  10. Godmother

  Babette’s godmother was staying, with her daughters and a young kinsman, in Montreux, for visitors from Bex one of the nearest towns that form, together with Clarens, Vernex and Crin, a garland round Lake Geneva’s north-eastern corner. They were newly ensconced there, yet the miller had already paid them a visit, and relayed Babette’s engagement, telling them about Rudy and the eaglet, and the visit to Interlaken, telling them in short the whole story. And they were delighted by it and consumed with interest in Rudy and Babette, and in the miller as well. They absolutely must, all three of them, come on over, and therefore come on over they did. Babette would see her godmother, her godmother would see Babette.

  The steamer which takes half-an-hour to reach Vernex, immediately below Montreux, was docked at the little town of Villeneuve, at the extreme eastern end of Lake Geneva. This shoreline is more celebrated in literature than almost any other. Here, beneath the walnut trees, beside the deep blue-green lake, Byron sat and wrote his melodious verses about the prisoner in the sinister fortress of Chillon. Over there, where Clarens with its weeping willows is reflected in the water, Rousseau wandered dreaming about Heloïse. The River Rhône glides forth beneath the Savoy’s high, snow-clad mountains, and here, at no great distance from its outlet into the lake, lies a little island. It’s so small that from the shore you could well fancy it was a boat out there. It is a piece of rocky ground which a hundred years earlier its mistress decided should be dyked with stones, covered with soil, and planted with three acacia trees. These now overshadow the whole island. Babette was altogether thrilled by this little spot. For her it was the most beautiful part of the entire boat trip. They really should get out onto it, they simply must go onto it; being there would be beautiful beyond words, she thought. But the steamer went on past and set them down, as programmed, at Vernex.

  From here the little company strolled uphill between the white, sunlit walls that surround the vineyards immediately below the little mountain town of Montreux, where fig trees cast shadows in front of the smallholders’ houses, and laurels and cypresses grow in the gardens. Halfway up the hill stood the pension where Godmother was staying.

  Their reception was cordial in the extreme. Godmother was a friendly old lady, with a round, smiling face. As a child she must have been a truly Raphaelesque cherub, but now she had a venerable cherub-head all beset by silvery-white curly hair. Her daughters were well turned out, fashion-conscious, tall and slim. The young male cousin who was with them and who was dressed entirely in white from top to toe, with gilded hair and gilded sideburns so profuse they could have been shared out among three gentlemen, gave little Babette his utmost attention from the very start.

  Handsome clothbound books, sheets of music and drawings all lay spread out on top of the large table. The balcony door stood open to the beautiful lake that stretched out in front so bright and calm that the Savoy Mountains with their villages, forests and snow-peaks were mirrored in it upside down.

  Rudy, who in other circumstances was always bold, lively and confident, felt not in the least at his ease, as people call it. He moved about here as if he were walking on peas across a slippery floor. How hard it was to get through the time! It was like being on a treadmill – and now it was decided they should all go for a walk!! That went by so slowly. Two steps forwards and one step back was how Rudy managed to keep the same pace as the others.

  They all went down to Chillon, the grim castle on the rocky island, to look at torture instruments and condemned cells, at rusty chains attached to the rock-wall, stone beds for those on death row, trapdoors through which the unfortunate were pushed down to be impaled on iron spikes sticking up from the lake-surf. And they called looking at all this a pleasure! It was a place of execution elevated by Byron’s song into the world of poetry. But for Rudy it was merely a place of execution. He leaned out of the window’s large stone frame, gazing down into the deep, blue-green water and then across to the beautiful little island with the three acacias, where he wished he were by himself, free of this whole chattering company. But Babette was feeling extremely happy. She had enjoyed herself enormously, she said later; she found the English cousin ‘perfect’.

  ‘Yes, a perfect nincompoop!’ said Rudy, and that was the first time Rudy had said anything that did not please her. The young Englishman had made her a present of a little book as a memento of Chillon. It was Byron’s poem The Prisoner of Chillon translated into French so Babette could read it.

  ‘The book might be good enough,’ said Rudy, ‘but personally I don’t take to the smart-combed dandy who gave you it at all.’

  ‘He looks like a sack of flour without the flour!’ said the miller and laughed at his own wit. Rudy laughed too, and said a truer word was never spoken.

  11. The cousin

  When a couple of days later Rudy paid a visit to the mill, he found the young Englishman there. Babette was setting some boiled trout in front of him. She had obviously decorated them with parsley herself to give them an elegant appearance. That was not at all necessary! Whatever did the Englishman want here? What would he be up to in this place? Having Babette play with him and run rings round him?

  Rudy was jealous, and that amused Babette. It entertained her to observe all aspects of his heart, the strong and the weak. Love was still a game, and she was playing with the entirety of Rudy’s heart, and yet, it should be said, he was her joy, her life’s ideal, the best, the most wonderful in this world. But the gloomier he looked, the more her eyes laughed. She would have liked to have kissed the fair Englishman with the gilded sideburns. If by doing so she made Rudy run away in fury, that would just go to show how hugely he adored her. Yet that was neither right nor wise of little Babette, but then she was only nineteen. She didn’t think things through, even less did she think how her behaviour could be interpreted by the young Englishman as more flirtatious and easy-going than was quite proper for the miller’s modest, newly engaged daughter.

  Where the highway from Bex runs below the snow-covered rocky height which is called in the language of the region Les Diablerets, the mill stood, at no great distance from a fast-flowing mountain stream which was whitish-grey in colour like whipped-up soapy water. This h
owever was not what drove the mill. It was a smaller stream that did so, which tumbled down from the rock on the other side of the river, and subsequently, by its power and speed, elevated itself through a stone underground duct beneath the road and then flowed into a closed tank. Thus a wide race running above the fast-flowing river turned the great mill-wheel.

  The race was so abundantly full of water it was overflowing, and accordingly presented a wet and filthy route to anyone with the notion of using it as a quick way of getting to the mill-house. But that indeed was the notion of one young man, the Englishman. Dressed in white like a miller’s journeyman, he scrambled along it in the evening, guided by the light that shone from Babette’s bedroom. Having never learned to clamber or climb, he nearly went head-first into the stream, but escaped with wet sleeves and mud-bespattered trousers. Drenched and dirty, he arrived below one of Babette’s windows, from which position he climbed up onto the old lime tree and there mimicked the owl, not being able to render the call of any other bird. Babette heard it and peeked out through the thin curtains of her room, but when she saw the white man and realised who it was, her little heart beat with fear, but also with rage. She quickly extinguished her light, made sure the windows were securely bolted, and just let him get on with his tu-whit-tu-whooing.

  How dreadful it would be if Rudy were here now at the mill. But Rudy was not at the mill; no, it was far worse, he was actually right down there below. Furious words were shouted out loudly; a fight would break out, there might possibly be a murder.

  Babette opened her window in terror, called out Rudy’s name, and bade him go away. She couldn’t bear him to stay, she said.

  ‘You can’t bear me to stay!’ he exclaimed, ‘it’s obviously an assignation. You’re waiting for fine friends, better than me! Shame on you, Babette!’

  ‘You’re detestable!’ said Babette, ‘I hate you!’ and now she was weeping. ‘Go on, go away!’

  ‘I don’t deserve this,’ he said, and he left, cheeks afire, heart afire.

  Babette threw herself on her bed and wept.

  ‘I love you so much, Rudy, yet you’re able to believe ill of me!’

  And she was angry, exceedingly angry, and that was good for her, otherwise she would have been completely overcome by distress. As it was, she was able to fall asleep, and sleep the refreshing sleep of youth.

  12. Evil powers

  Rudy left Bex for home, taking the high mountain route for the sake of the fresh, cooling air – up where the snow lay, where the Ice Virgin reigned. The deciduous trees stood far below as if they were mere potato-tops, fir and shrubs became smaller in size, the Alpine roses grew close to the snow which lay in isolated patches like pieces of linen being bleached. A single blue gentian stood its ground; Rudy smashed it with his rifle.

  Higher up two chamois came in sight. Rudy’s eyes lit up, his thoughts took off in a new direction. But he was not near enough to take an accurate shot. He climbed higher still, to where only a rough type of grass was growing between the boulders. The chamois went in peace onto the snowfield. Rudy hurried along eagerly. The cloud banks were getting lower all round him, and all of a sudden he found himself in front of a precipitous rock-wall just as the rain began to pour down.

  He felt a scorching thirst, heat in his head and coldness in his other limbs. He grasped his hunter’s flask, but it was empty; he hadn’t thought of that when he charged up into the mountains. He had never been ill, but now he had a kind of taste of what it was like. He was done in, he felt a longing to fling himself down and go to sleep, but everything was streaming with water. He tried to pull himself together. Objects were quivering most peculiarly before his eyes, but suddenly he saw what he had never seen here before, a little house recently carpentered together and leaning against the rock-wall. And in the doorway stood a young girl. He thought it was the schoolmaster’s Annette whom he had once kissed at the dance, but it was not Annette, and yet he had seen her before, possibly near Grindelwald that evening he’d made his way home from the shooting contest at Interlaken.

  ‘However have you got here?’ he asked.

  ‘I’m at my home,’ she said, ‘I’m looking after my herd.’

  ‘Your herd – and where does it graze? Up here’s only snow and rocks.’

  ‘What a lot you know!’ she said, laughing. ‘Below the surface here, only a little way down, there’s delicious grass. That’s where my goats go! I never lose a single one of them. What’s mine stays mine!’

  ‘You’re a bold one!’ said Rudy.

  ‘You are too!’ she replied.

  ‘If you’ve got any milk, spare me some! I’m intolerably thirsty.’

  ‘I’ve got something better than milk,’ she said, ‘and you shall have some of it. Yesterday some travellers came up here with their guides. They left behind half a flask of wine the like of which you’ll never ever have tasted. They are not coming back for it, I am not going to drink it – so you’ve got to drink it!’

  And she brought out the wine, poured it into a wooden cup and gave it to Rudy.

  ‘It’s good!’ he said, ‘I’ve never tasted such warming, such fiery wine!’ And his eyes sparkled. A renewal of life, a glow came over him, as if sorrows and burdens were evaporating. Bubbling, vital human nature was stirring in him.

  ‘But it really must be the schoolmaster’s Annette!’ he exclaimed. ‘Give me a kiss!’

  ‘Yes, all right, but give me the beautiful ring you’re wearing on your finger!’

  ‘My engagement ring?’

  ‘Exactly that!’ said the girl, pouring wine into the wooden cup and putting it to his lips, and he drank. Happiness in being alive coursed through his blood; the whole world was his, he felt, why worry oneself further? Everything exists for our enjoyment and to make us happy. The stream of life is the stream of happiness. To be carried along by it, to permit oneself to be carried along by it, that is what bliss means. Rudy looked at the young girl; it was Annette and yet it was not Annette, still less was it the troll apparition, as he’d called her, whom he’d encountered near Grindelwald. The girl on the mountain here was as pure as new-fallen snow, full as an Alpine rose, and light as a young chamois, yet basically made from Adam’s rib, as human as Rudy. And he flung his arms round her, and gazed into her wondrous clear eyes. It was only for a second, and in this time – yes, explain it, make a narrative of it, put it into words for us all – was it the life of the spirit or of death that filled him? Was he raised up or did he sink down into the deep, deadly ice chasm, deeper, ever deeper?

  He saw walls of ice like blue-green glass; endless gullies opened all round him, and the water drip-dropped ringing out like a carillon, and yet also clear as pearls shining in blue-white flames. The Ice Virgin gave him a kiss, which made him shiver through every bone in his head. He gave a cry of pain, wrenched himself free, stumbled and fell. It became night before his eyes, yet open them again he did. Evil powers had come to the end of their game.

  The Alpine girl had vanished, gone away from the hut that had been sheltering her. Water streamed down the bare rock-wall, snow lay all round, Rudy was shaking with cold, soaked to the skin – and his ring had disappeared, the engagement ring Babette had given him. His rifle lay in the snow beside him; he picked it up and tried to shoot from it, but misfired. Rain-clouds lay inside the ravine like firm masses of snow. Her Dizziness was sitting there, enticing guileless prey, and beneath her there came a ringing noise in the chasm as if a boulder were falling, crushing and annihilating whatever stood in the way of its descent.

  But in the mill Babette sat and wept. Rudy had not been there for six days. He who had done her such an injustice, he who should be extending both hands for forgiveness, because she loved him with all her heart.

  13. In the miller’s house

  ‘There’s an awful lot of nonsense going on among the human beings!’ said the Parlour Cat to the Kitchen Cat. ‘Babette and Rudy have broken things off yet again. She’s weeping away, and he isn’t thinking of her
any more.’

  ‘I don’t like that at all!’ said the Kitchen Cat.

  ‘I don’t either!’ said the Parlour Cat, ‘but I’m not going to grieve over it. Babette can go and become the loved one of that carroty sideburns fellow. He hasn’t been here either, not since he had a mind to go out onto the roof!’

  Evil powers have their game, all round us and within us. Rudy had realised that, and thought it over. What was it that happened round him and inside him high up on the mountain? Was it visions or a dream in a fever? – he’d never known fever or illness before. He’d gained an insight into himself even as he passed judgement on Babette. He thought about the ferocious chase that had broken out in his own heart, the torrid Föhn that had been released there. Would he find himself able to confess everything to Babette, every idea that in a moment of temptation could turn into action? He had lost her ring, and it was precisely through this loss she had got him back. But would she be able to confess to him? It was as though, as he thought about her, his heart was on the point of breaking into pieces. So many memories asserted themselves. He saw her full of life, laughing, a high-spirited child. Many a loving word that she had spoken out of the fullness of her heart flew like a ray of sun into his breast, and before long real sunshine prevailed there for Babette.

  She had to find the ability to confess to him, and that she should do.

  He turned up at the mill. The result was a confession which began with a kiss and ended with Rudy being the sinner. His great error was being capable of actually doubting Babette’s faithfulness. It was, well, detestable of him! Such lack of trust, such impetuosity would lead them both to misery. Yes, most definitely it would! And that was why Babette preached him a little sermon, which she found very pleasing to deliver and which made her look so pretty. Yet in one respect (she conceded) Rudy had a point. Her godmother’s kinsman was a nincompoop! She would burn the book he had given her, and wouldn’t keep the smallest thing to remind her of him.