Adalbert Stifter - Rock Crystal

“Yes, Conrad,” answered the little one.

“When it’s just a bit brighter, we shall leave the cave and run down off the mountain.”

It grew brighter and there was not a star to be seen in the sky, and every object stood out clear in the daylight.

“Well, let’s be going,” said the lad.

“Yes, let’s go,” answered Sanna.

They stood up and tried their legs which only now felt very tired. Although they had not been asleep all night long, they felt refreshed by the morning. The lad slung the calfskin pouch over his shoulder and drew Sanna’s little fur jacket closer about her. Then he led her out of their stony retreat.

Since they thought they would only have to run down off the mountain they gave no thought to food and did not explore the pouch for bits of bread or anything else that might be left.

The sky being clear, Conrad thought he would look down into the valley, recognize Gschaid and climb down to it. But he saw no valley. They did not seem to be standing on a mountain from which one looks down, but rather on strange foreign ground full of unfamiliar sights. Today they saw towering up out of the snow great fearsome rocks in the distance, where they had not seen them the day before; they saw the glacier, snowy hills and slopes standing out boldly, and beyond them, sky or the blue peak of some distant mountain above the snow-line. At this moment the sun came up.

A gigantic blood-red disc climbed the heavens above the sky-line and at the same instant the snow all around flushed as though bestrewn with thousands of roses. Summits and horns cast long faint greenish shadows across the snowfields.

“Sanna, let’s keep on till we get to the side of the mountain and can look down,” said the lad.

They now started off through the snow. During the clear night it had become even drier and was easier to walk on. They ploughed along briskly, their limbs becoming supple and strong as they went. But they came to no mountain-side, and could not look down. Snowfield followed snowfield, and always, on the horizon of each, the sky.

Nevertheless they went on.

Then they found themselves on ice again. They did not know how the ice could have got there but they felt the hard glaze underfoot and, although there was no such intimidating wreckage of mighty fragments as on the edge of the moraine where they had spent the night, yet they saw they were treading on solid ice. Now and again they saw blocks of it, more and more of them, still nearer, and these forced them to do more clambering.

Still they kept on, in the same direction.

Now they surmounted monstrous debris; now found themselves again on the icefield. Today in the bright sun, they were able for the first time to see what it was like. In size it was stupendous, and beyond towered yet more sombre rocks; wave after wave heaved up, as it were, and the snow-covered ice, compressed and buckling, seemed to be pushing down upon the children and threatening to flow over their very bodies. In the whiteness they saw countless meandering bluish lines. Between where ice-blocks stood up as if hurled together, there were straight lines like paths, but they were white, with solid ice beneath, where the ice-blocks had not been forced up by intense pressure. The children kept on these paths since they wished to cross at least part of the glacier so as to reach the side of the mountain and be able to look down at last. They spoke not a word. The little one followed her brother. But again today, there was ice, nothing but ice. Where they had meant to cross it stretched on endlessly, farther and farther. Then they gave up and turned back. Where they could not set foot they crept forward on hands and knees along snow-banks that fell in before their very eyes and showed the dark blue of a crevasse — where just before all had been white; but paying no heed they struggled on till they had again come out of the ice.

“Sanna,” said the lad, “we’re not going out there on the ice again because we get nowhere on it. And since we can’t see down into our valley anyhow, let’s go down the mountain in a straight line. We are bound to come into some valley, and shall tell the people we are from Gschaid: they will send a guide with us to show us our way home.”

“Yes, Conrad,” said the little one.

They started down through the snow in the direction that seemed most promising. The young lad took his sister by the hand. However when they had worked down for a time the slopes changed level and began to rise. The children therefore altered their course and crept along a sort of gulley. But it only led them to the ice again. So they clambered up the side of the gulley to find a descent in some other direction. This brought them to a level stretch that by and by however became so steep they could hardly find a foothold and were afraid of sliding down. After climbing through snow a great while and walking along an even ridge, it was again as before, either the slope was so steep they would have lost their footing, or it went on up so far they feared it would bring them to the mountain-top.

They now hoped to find the path by which they had first come up, and make their way back to the red memorial post. Since it was not snowing and the sky was so bright, Conrad thought, they would easily recognize the place where the post ought to be, and then be able to find the way down to Gschaid.

He explained the plan to his sister and she followed him.

But the way to the col was not to be found either.

Shone the sun ever so bright, towered the heights ever so fair above the snowfields, there was no telling the place by which they had made their way up on the previous day. Then all had been so veiled by the terrifying snowfall they had scarcely been able to see a step ahead and everything was an intermingling of white and gray. Only the rocks beside and between which they passed had been visible. Today, too, they had seen many rocks but all of them had looked just like the others. Today they left fresh footprints in the snow but yesterday’s had been all covered by the snow as it fell; they could not just by the look of things tell which way led to the col, for all places looked alike. Snow, nothing but snow. But still hoping, they pressed on. They avoided precipitous descents and did not climb any more steep gradients.

Today too they often stood and listened. But now, as yesterday, could hear nothing, not the faintest sound. Again, nothing to be seen but snow; the white white snow, with sombre horns and blackened ribs standing out in bold relief.

At length the lad thought he saw a fire. It seemed to him at last that on a far distant precipitous snowfield a flame was leaping up. It disappeared, went up and died down. Now they saw it, now lost it. They stood and watched fixedly in that direction. The flame kept on leaping and seemed to be coming closer, for they saw it grow larger and saw its flaming more distinctly. It did not disappear so often now or for so long a time. Afterwhile they heard faintly, very faintly, across the still blue distance, something like the long-sustained note of an alpenhorn. Instinctively both shouted with all their might. Afterwhile they heard the sound again and shouted again, staying where they were. The flame too was coming nearer. They caught the sound a third time, and this time more clearly. They answered again, with a loud shout. After considerable time they recognized the flame. It was not a flame. It was a red flag being waved. Meanwhile the horn sounded nearer, and again they answered.

“Sanna,” exclaimed the lad, “people from Gschaid are coming. I know the flag. It is the red flag the foreign gentleman who climbed Gars with the young ash-woodsman planted on top as a signal so the Reverend Father might see it with his spyglass and know they had reached the summit, the flag the foreign gentleman gave the Reverend Father afterward as a present. You were still very little then.”