Rock Crystal

by Adalbert Stifter

  At the highest point of the icefield, the two horns rise from the snow. These peaks are difficult to ascend, moated as they are by snow, now wide, now narrow, and the bergschrund or rim must be compassed by a leap. Since the sheer verticals offer only scant ledges for foothold, most climbers are satisfied with reaching the bergschrund and from there enjoy as much of the panorama as is not cut off by the horn. Those wishing to reach the summit can do so only with the aid of spiked shoes, ropes, and cleats.

  There are other mountains besides this one on the southern horizon, but none so high. In the early autumn they too are covered with snow, and on into late spring. Summer, however, eats the snow away and the rocks gleam in the sun with a gentle allure, and the rich green of the lower forest is intersected by broad-lying violet shadows—a scene so lovely, one could look at it all one’s life and never tire of it.

  Along the valley in other directions—to the north, the east and the west—the mountains stretch away into the distance, on and on, but lower, with occasional pastures and patches of tilled ground on the slopes and higher up forest clearings and alpine huts, the skyline marked by a delicate sawtooth edge that is an indication of the moderate height of the range; whereas on the southern horizon the mountains, although clothed with magnificent forest, sweep along with smooth outline against the luminous sky.

  Standing in about the middle of the valley, one has the impression that not a single road leads either into or out of the basin—an illusion familiar to anyone who has spent much time in the mountains—while in reality there are several roads leading not only into the northern plains, but also toward the south, where the valley appears to be closed in by walls of perpendicular rock, there is the col path.

  The little village is called Gschaid, and the snow-mountain that looks down upon its houses is called Gars.

  On the other side of the col, with the beaten path from the wayside shrine leading down to it, is a much more beautiful and fertile valley than that of Gschaid. As one comes into it, one encounters the stately market-town of Millsdorf. It is a sizeable town with several kinds of mills and a number of buildings in which trades and crafts are housed. The inhabitants are more prosperous than those of Gschaid, and although the valleys are only three hours’ distance apart—a trifling matter to mountain people, used as they are to great distances and inured to hardship—manners and customs in the two valleys are so different and they are so unlike in appearance, one would think that untold miles separated them. This is often the case in mountainous regions not only because of their varying positions—more or less propitious—with relation to the sun, but also as a result of character, which has led the inhabitants to choose differing occupations. But in one respect they are all alike, they cling to what is traditional and to the ancient ways of their forefathers, never seem to miss the bustle of traffic, love their own valley ardently, and could scarcely exist away from it.

  Months, sometimes a year, may pass before anyone from Gschaid crosses into the valley beyond to visit the great market-town, Millsdorf. And although the same is true of the people of Millsdorf, yet being in communication with other parts of the country around them, they are not as sequestered as the people of Gschaid. There is even a road which might be called a highway, the length of their valley, and many a traveler, many a wanderer, goes on his way without a suspicion that north of him on the farther side of the lordly snow-mountain, lies a valley with a goodly scattering of houses, and a hamlet with tapering church-spire.

  One of the trades supplying the people in this valley with essential commodities is the shoemaker’s—indispensable the world over where human beings are no longer in the primitive stage. These valley people of Gschaid, be it said, are so far beyond it that they need the very stoutest and most durable highland footwear. The shoemaker—with a minor exception—is the only one in the valley. His house in Gschaid fronts on the square—among the better houses—and with its gray walls, white window-sills and green shutters, looks out on the four linden-trees. It has, on the ground-floor, the work-room, the journeymen’s room, a large and a small living-room, the little shop, together with kitchen, larder, and such cupboards as pertain to them. On the second floor, that is in the gable-end, is an upper chamber, a formal best room in which stand two imposing beds, well-polished and well-stocked wardrobes, also a china closet with dishes, an inlaid table, upholstered chairs, a little recessed wall safe or cupboard for savings, pictures of saints, two exquisite time-pieces, and shooting match prizes. Lastly, in a special cabinet of their own, with glass front, hang rifles for target practice and for hunting, with everything pertaining to them.

  Adjoining the shoemaker’s house is a much smaller one separated only by an arched passage, built in the same style, and a component part of the other—a detail of the whole. It consists of one room with the usual adjuncts. It is for the use of the owner when he has transferred the property to his son or successor—a retirement annex as it is called—in which he and his wife may spend their last years. Then again, the small house will be vacant, awaiting a new occupant.

  The shoemaker’s house has a stable and barn at the rear, since everyone who lives in the valley—tradesman or not—tills the ground, obtaining thus his nourishing food. Behind the buildings, as with any of the better houses in Gschaid, is a garden which furnishes vegetables, fruit, and, for festive occasions, flowers. As in most mountain regions, bee-keeping is customary, with straw hives in the garden.

  The aforementioned minor exception, the only rival of the shoemaker, was Old Tobias who, in reality, was no rival at all, since by that time he merely did cobbling. He had plenty of work and it never occurred to him to compete with the fashionable shoemaker on the square, especially as the latter often provided him with patches, pieces of sole and the like, without charging for them. In the summertime Old Tobias would sit under the elder-bushes at the end of the village, working away. All about him were low shoes and mountain shoes, but it was the same with each pair—they were old, scuffed, discolored, and muddy. There were no high-legged boots among them because these were not worn in the village and valley of Gschaid. The only two persons who had such boots, the priest and the school-master, had their mending as well as their new work done by the shoemaker on the square. In winter Old Tobias stayed in his cottage behind the elder-bushes, which, since wood in Gschaid is not expensive, was always nice and warm.

  The shoemaker on the square, before he inherited his house, had been a chamois-poacher and in general, so people said, not too model a youth. In school he had always been one of the best pupils. Later he had learned his father’s trade, and after working as a wandering journeyman, had finally come back to the village. But instead of wearing a black hat as becomes a tradesman—such as his father had worn all his life—he perched a green one on his head, stuck every available feather in it, and strutted about wearing the shortest frieze coat in the valley, whereas his father had always worn a dark coat, preferably black—since he was a man of trade—and invariably cut long. The young shoemaker was to be seen on every dance floor and at every bowling alley. If anyone tried to reason with him, he just whistled a tune. He and his marksman’s rifle were at every shooting match in the neighborhood and sometimes he carried home a prize—treasured by him as a great trophy. The prize was usually a set of coins artistically arranged. But the shoemaker, in order to win it, had to disburse many more similar coins, in his usual spendthrift fashion. He went to all the hunts in the neighborhood and had quite a reputation for being a good marksman. Sometimes, however, he fared forth alone with his blunderbuss and spiked shoes, and it was rumored that he had once received a serious wound on his head.

  In Millsdorf just where the town begins, as you come in by the road from Gschaid, there lived a dyer with a thriving business in which he employed many workmen; and—something unheard of in the valley—he even made use of machinery. He was, moreover, the possessor of extensive farmlands. To woo the daughter of this prosperous dyer, the shoemaker would trudge all the
way over the mountains. Noted far and wide for her beauty, she was also admired for her virtue, decorum, and housewifely accomplishments. Nevertheless, it would seem, the shoemaker attracted her attention. The dyer would not allow him to enter the house; and whereas the beautiful daughter had not previously gone to public places or taken part in festivities and had rarely been seen away from home, now she went nowhere but to church or into the garden or from one room to another in the house.

  Some time after the death of his parents when he had become proprietor of the house where he now lived all alone, the shoemaker changed into a wholly different person. Whereas till then he was always rollicking about, he now sat in his shop, hammering away on sole-leather, day and night. He boasted that no one could make better shoes and footgear, and engaged only the best workmen whom he nagged and pestered a good deal as they sat at their work, making them follow his instructions and do exactly as he told them. The result was that not only did everyone in Gschaid who had always before got footwear from neighboring valleys, now come to him, but the entire valley as well. And as time went on, even people from Millsdorf and other valleys came to have their footwear made by the shoemaker of Gschaid. His fame traveled even into the plain so that many people who intended to climb the mountains had their special shoes made by him.

  He kept his house spick and span, and shoes, mountain-shoes, and high boots gleamed on the shelves of the storeroom; and on Sundays when folk from all over the valley flocked to the village and stood around on the square with its four linden-trees, they liked to go over to the shoemaker’s and peep through the windows at all the people buying and ordering shoes.

  In keeping with his love for the mountains, mountain-shoes were his best work, and he used to say in the common room at the inn that no one could show him a mountain-shoe made by anyone else that could compare with one of his. “They haven’t the knack,” he would add. “They can work all their lives and still they don’t know how a shoe like that should be made, so the nail-starred design has the heads of the nails at exactly the right place on the sole, with just the right amount of iron in them; so that the shoe is hard on the outside and no loose stone, however sharp, can be felt, and the inside lies as soft and tender against the foot as a glove.”

  The shoemaker had had a big book made in which he entered all finished work, the names of those who had furnished the material, and of those who had bought the finished product,—together with a word about the quality of the goods, and this book was kept in the large chest in the store.

  Now, although the dyer’s beautiful daughter stayed at home most of the time and visited neither relatives nor friends, the shoemaker from Gschaid managed it so that she should catch a glimpse of him when she went to church, walked about the garden, or looked from the windows of her room. Because of this constant gazing, the dyer’s wife by long, insistent, unremitting supplications induced her stiff-necked husband to give in, and the shoemaker (who had, after all, mended his ways) carried off the beautiful and wealthy maiden of Millsdorf as his bride. The dyer, however, was a headstrong person. The right sort of man, he said, has an occupation, makes it thrive and grow, and thereby supports his wife, children, himself and domestics; he keeps his house in order and lays by a goodly nest-egg which is the only thing that gives a man dignity and standing in the world. Thus it was that the only dowry his daughter received was a well-filled hope chest, the rest was the husband’s concern—for the present and in future. The dyeworks in Millsdorf with its farmland was a business worthwhile in itself, besides reflecting credit on its owner; and since all of it was, in a sense, capital, he would give none of it away. But once he and his wife had died, the dyeworks and farmland would fall to their only daughter, namely the shoemaker’s wife in Gschaid; and the shoemaker and his wife might then do with them as they pleased: provided, that is, that the heirs were worthy; should they be unworthy, they would get only the legal share, the inheritance going to their children, and if there were none, to other relatives. Nor did the shoemaker make any demands, showing proudly that all he had wanted was to win the dyer’s beautiful daughter, and that he was well able to keep her and care for her as she had been kept and cared for at home. And, as his wife, he dressed her not only better than any of the women of Gschaid and of the valley were dressed, but better even than she had been at home, and meat and drink and everything about the house had to be better and choicer than anything she had enjoyed in her father’s house. And to spite his father-in-law, he bought more and more land, so that he came finally to possess a considerable property.

  Since the people of Gschaid seldom leave their valley and almost never go to Millsdorf, from which they are separated by mountain and by customs—and since, furthermore, no one ever leaves his valley to settle in a neighboring one—although removals to great distances occur—and lastly since no girl ever leaves her valley except on the rare occasion when, obeying the dictates of love, as a bride, she follows her husband into another valley—so it came about that after the beautiful daughter of the dyer of Millsdorf married the shoemaker of Gschaid she was still regarded by the people of Gschaid as a stranger; and although they were not unkind to her, and even loved her for her charm and virtue, there was always something, reserve or a sort of shy respect, that kept her from enjoying the same familiarity and warm intimacy that existed between the people that belonged to the valley. That’s the way it was and no use talking about it. And the finer clothes and easier domestic life of the shoemaker’s wife only made it worse.

  After having been married a year she bore her husband a son, and several years later, a daughter. She felt, however, that he did not love the children as much as she thought he ought to, and as she herself loved them; for he looked so serious most of the time and was always preoccupied with his work. He rarely petted or played with them, and always addressed them quietly as one speaks to grown persons. In the matter of food, clothes and all material things, however, his care for them was above reproach.

  At first, the dyer’s wife often came to Gschaid and the young couple also at times went over to Millsdorf to attend church fairs and on other festive occasions. But after the children were born, things were different. Mothers may love their children and tenderly long for them when they are absent, but a grandmother’s longing for her grandchildren amounts almost to a morbid craving. The dyer’s wife would often come over to Gschaid to see the children, bring them presents, stay a while, and then, after giving them some good advice, depart. But when age and health made these frequent journeys inadvisable and the dyer for that reason objected to them, a different plan was devised, everything was reversed, and the children visited their grandmother instead. Their mother herself would often take them in the carriage or they would be entrusted to a maidservant, and driven in a buggy over the col, well bundled up since they were still of tender years. But when older, they would go on foot, accompanied by their mother or a maid, and when the lad had grown strong, knowing, and self-reliant, they let him take the familiar road over the col by himself, and even, when he begged to take his little sister along, if the weather was good would allow her to go with him. There was nothing unusual about this in Gschaid, since the people were hardy walkers, and parents—especially a man like the shoemaker, admired physical strength and were glad to see it in their children.

  So it came about that the two children went over the col oftener than any of the other villagers and in this way, like their mother who had always been treated as a stranger in Gschaid, the children became strangers too; and were hardly Gschaid children, but belonged half to Millsdorf.

  Conrad, the boy, already gave evidence of his father’s serious disposition, and Susanna the little girl, named for her mother and called Sanna for short, had unbounded faith in his knowledge, judgment and physical strength, and followed unquestioningly wherever he led, just as their mother accepted their father’s guidance and never questioned his superior judgment in all matters.

  On clear days the children could be seen early i
n the morning, making their way down the valley, crossing the meadow and coming to the place where the col forest looks down upon it. Going up toward the forest they would keep to the path, finally reaching the highest point, and before noon be descending the open meadows on the other side, toward Millsdorf. Conrad then showed Sanna the ones belonging to their grandfather; as they walked across the fields he told her about the various kinds of grain; they would look at the cloth-lengths hanging from poles under the rafters to dry, and capering in the wind or blown into antic postures; then they would hear the fulling-mill and the pounding in the tannery built by their grandfather beside the brook, for fullers and tanners; and now, turning a corner of the field, they were soon entering the garden through the back gate where they were welcomed by their grandmother. She always seemed to know when they were coming, would watch from the window, and seeing Sanna’s red kerchief shining in the sun would recognize them from far away.