The Ice-Maiden: and Other Tales Part 4

The five long ladders looked like a tremulous reed, as they reached the nest and hung perpendicularly over the rocky wall. Now came the most dangerous part; Rudy had to climb as a cat climbs; but Rudy could do this, for the cat had taught it to him. He did not feel that Vertigo trod in the air behind him and stretched her polypus-like arms towards him. Now he stood on the highest round of the ladder and perceived that he was not sufficiently high to enable him to see into the nest; he could reach it with his hands. He tried how firm the twigs were, which plaited in one another formed the bottom of the nest; when he had a.s.sured himself of a thick and immoveable one, he swung himself off of the ladder. He had his breast and head over the nest, out of which streamed towards him a stifling stench of carrion; torn lambs, chamois and birds lay decomposing around him. Vertigo, who had no power over him, blew poisonous vapours into his face to stupify him; below in the black, yawning abyss, sat the Ice-Maiden herself, on the hastening water, with her long greenish-white hair and stared at him with death-like eyes, which were pointed at him like two rifle barrels.

"Now, I shall catch you!"

Seated in one corner of the eagle's nest was the eaglet, who could not fly yet, although so strong and powerful. Rudy fastened his eyes on it, held himself with his whole strength firmly by one hand, and with the other threw the noose around it. It was captured alive, its legs were in the knot; Rudy cast the rope over his shoulder, so that the animal dangled some distance below him, and sustained himself by another rope which hung down, until his feet touched the upper round of the ladder.

"Hold fast, do not think that you will fall and then you are sure not to do so!" That was the old lesson, and he followed it; held fast, climbed, was sure not to fall and he did not.

There resounded a strong _jodling_, and a joyous one too. Rudy stood on the firm, rocky ground with the young eaglet.

VIII.

THE NEWS WHICH THE PARLOUR-CAT RELATED.

"Here is what you demanded!" said Rudy, on entering the house of the miller at Bex, as he placed a large basket on the floor and took off the covering. Two yellow eyes, with black circles around them, fiery and wild, looked out as if they wished to set on fire, or to kill those around them. The short beak yawned ready to bite and the neck was red and downy.

"The eaglet!" cried the miller. Babette screamed, jumped to one side and could neither turn her eyes from Rudy, nor from the eaglet.

"You do not allow yourself to be frightened!" said the miller.

"And you keep your word, at all times," said Rudy, "each has his characteristic trait!"

"But why did you not break your neck?" asked the miller.

"Because I held on firmly," answered Rudy, "and I hold firmly on Babette!"

"First see that you have her!" said the miller and laughed; that was a good sign; Babette knew this.

"Let us take the eaglet from the basket, it is terrible to see how he glares! How did you get him?"

Rudy was obliged to recount his adventure, whilst the miller stared at him with eyes, which grew larger and larger.

"With your courage and with your luck you could take care of three wives!" said the miller.

"Thanks! Thanks!" cried Rudy.

"Yes, but you have not yet Babette!" said the miller as he struck the young chamois hunter, jestingly on the shoulder.

"Do you know the latest news in the mill?" said the parlour-cat to the kitchen-cat. "Rudy has brought us the young eagle and taken Babette in exchange. They have kissed each other and the father looked on. That is just as good as a betrothal; the old man did not overturn anything, he drew in his claws, took his nap and left the two seated, caressing each other. They have so much to relate, they will not get through till Christmas!"

They had not finished at Christmas.

The wind whistled through the brown foliage, the snow swept through the valley as it did on the high mountains. The Ice-Maiden sat in her proud castle and arrayed herself in her winter costume; the ice walls stood in glazed frost; where the mountain streams waved their watery veil in summer, were now seen thick elephantine icicles, s.h.i.+ning garlands of ice, formed of fantastic ice crystals, encircled the fir-trees, which were powdered with snow.

The Ice-Maiden rode on the bl.u.s.tering wind over the deepest valleys.

The snow covering lay over all Bex; Rudy stayed in doors more than was his wont, and sat with Babette. The wedding was to take place in the summer; their friends talked so much of it that it often made their ears burn. All was suns.h.i.+ne with them, and the loveliest alpine rose was Babette, the sprightly, laughing Babette, who was as charming as the early spring; the spring that makes the birds sing, that will bring the summer time and the wedding day.

"How can they sit there and hang over each other," exclaimed the parlour-cat, "I am really tired of their eternal mewing!"

IX.

THE ICE-MAIDEN.

The early spring time had unfolded the green leaves of the walnut and chestnut trees; they were remarkably luxuriant from the bridge of St.

Maurice to the banks of the lake of Geneva.

The Rhone, which rushes forth from its source, has under the green glacier the palace of the Ice-Maiden. She is carried by it and the sharp wind to the elevated snow-fields, where she extends herself on her damp cus.h.i.+ons in the brilliant suns.h.i.+ne. There she sits and gazes, with far-seeing sight, upon the valley where mortals busily move about like so many ants.

"Beings endowed with mental powers, as the children of the Sun, call you," said the Ice-Maiden--"ye are worms! _One_ snow-ball rolled and you and your houses and towns are crushed and swept away!" She raised her proud head still higher and looked with death-beaming eyes far around and below her. From the valley resounded a rumbling, a blasting of rocks, men were making railways and tunnels. "They are playing like moles," said she, "they excavate pa.s.sages, and a noise is made like the firing of a gun. When I transpose _my_ castles, it roars louder than the rolling of the thunder!"

A smoke arose from the valley and moved along like a floating veil, like a waving plume; it was the locomotive which led the train over the newly built railroad--this crooked snake, whose limbs are formed of cars upon cars. It shot along with the speed of an arrow.

"They are playing the masters with their mental powers," said the Ice-Maiden, "but the powers of nature are the ruling ones!" and she laughed and her laugh was echoed in the valley.

"Now an avalanche is rolling!" said the men below.

Still more loudly sang the children of the Sun; they sang of the "thoughts" of men which fetter the sea to the yoke, cut down mountains and fill up valleys; of human thoughts which rule the powers of nature. At this moment, a company of travellers crossed the snow-field where the Maiden sat; they had bound themselves firmly together with ropes, in order to form a large body on the smooth ice-field by the deep abyss.

"Worms!" said she, "as if you were lords of creation!" She turned from them and looked mockingly upon the deep valley, where the cars were rus.h.i.+ng by.

"There sit those _thoughts_ in their power of strength! I see them all!--There sits one, proud as a king and alone! They sit in ma.s.ses!

There, half are asleep! When the steam-dragon stops, they will descend and go their way! The thoughts go out into the world!" She laughed.

"There rolls another avalanche!" they said in the valley.

"It will not catch us!" said two on the back of the steam dragon;--"two souls and one thought"--these were Rudy and Babette; the miller was there also.

"As baggage," said he, "I go along, as the indispensable!"

"There sit the two," said the Ice-Maiden, "I have crushed many a chamois; I have bent and broken millions of alpine roses, so that no roots were left! I shall annihilate _them_! The thoughts! The mental powers!" She laughed.

"There rolls another avalanche!" they said in the valley.

X.

THE G.o.d-MOTHER.