The miller was rich, and that wealth meant that Babette occupied a high position, difficult to reach. But nothing sits so high that you can’t reach it, Rudy said to himself. You have to climb, and you won’t fall down if you believe you won’t. He had learned that lesson at home.
And so it happened that Rudy had an errand in Bex. It was a long trip because at that time the railroad hadn’t been built there yet. From the Rhone glacier, at the foothill of the Simplon mountain, and between many mountains of various heights, stretches the wide Valais valley with its great river, the Rhone. It often waxes and washes over fields and roads, destroying everything. Between the towns of Sion and St. Maurice there is a curve in the valley. It bends like an elbow, and below St. Maurice becomes so narrow that there is only room for the river bed and a narrow road. There is an old tower on the mountainside that stands like a sentry for the canton of Valais, which ends here. It overlooks the brick bridge that leads to the toll house on the other side. The canton of Vaud begins here, and not far away is Bex, the closest town. On this side, with every step you take, everything swells with abundance and fertility. It’s like a garden of chestnut and walnut trees, and here and there cypress and pomegranate flowers peek out. It’s as southerly warm as if you had come to Italy.
Rudy reached Bex, carried out his errand, and looked around. But he did not see a fellow from the mill, much less Babette. It wasn’t supposed to be like this!
It was evening. The air was filled with the fragrance from the wild thyme and the flowering linden. A bright, airy blue veil seemed to lie on the forest-covered mountains. There was a pervasive silence, not of sleep nor of death, but it was as if all of nature were holding its breath, as if it felt silenced because it was going to be photographed against the backdrop of the blue sky. Here and there among the trees, and across the green fields, stood poles that carried the telegraph wires through the quiet valley. An object was leaning up against one of these, so still that you would think it must be a dead tree limb. But it was Rudy who stood as still as his surroundings, not sleeping and certainly not dead. But just as great world events or situations with great meaning for certain individuals often fly through the telegraph wires without a tremble or tone of indication in the wire, just in this way powerful, overwhelming thoughts—his happiness in life and from now on his idee fixe-flew through Rudy’s mind. His eyes were fastened on a point between the foliage, a light in the miller’s house, where Babette lived. So still was Rudy standing that you might think he was taking aim to shoot an antelope, but at this moment he was like the antelope himself, who can stand as if chiseled from stone for minutes, and then suddenly, when a rock rolls, leap up and run away. And that’s exactly what Rudy did as a thought, like a rolling rock, came to him.
“Never give up!” he said. “Go to the mill. Say ‘good evening’ to the miller, ‘good evening’ to Babette. You can’t fall if you think you can’t. Babette has to see me some time, after all, if I’m to be her husband.”
And Rudy laughed, and in good spirits he went to the mill. He knew what he wanted. He wanted Babette.
The river with its whitish yellow water was rushing along. Weeping willows and lindens overhung the swiftly flowing water. Rudy walked on the path, and as it says in the old children’s ditty:
“... and on to the mill,
Where no one was home
But a cat on the sill. ”
But the housecat was standing on the steps. He arched his back and said, “Miaow!” but Rudy didn’t pay attention to this. He knocked on the door. But no one heard, and no one opened the door. “Miaow!” said the cat. If Rudy had been little, he would have understood animal language and would have heard the cat say, “No one’s home here.” But he had to go over to the mill to hear this. There he got the news that the master was on a trip, far away in the city of Interlaken. “Inter Lacus, between the lakes,” as the school master, Annette’s father, had explained in his teaching. The miller had taken that long trip, and Babette was with him. There was a big marksmanship competition, which would start the following day and last for a week. People from all the German-speaking cantons would be there.
Poor Rudy, you could say. It wasn’t the best time for him to come to Bex. He could just as well turn back, and that’s what he did. He took the road via St. Maurice and Sion, to his own valley and his own mountains, but he wasn’t dispirited. His spirits, which had risen before the sun rose the next morning, had never been down.
“Babette is in Interlaken, many days’ journey from here,” he said to himself. “It’s a long way if you take the road, but it’s not so far if you go over the mountains, and that’s the road for a hunter to take. I’ve gone that way before. That’s my native soil, where I lived with grandfather when I was little. And they’re having a shooting competition in Interlaken! I will take first place there and will also be first with Babette, when first I meet her in person!”
Rudy packed his Sunday clothes in his light backpack, took his rifle and hunting bag, and went up the mountain, the short way, which was still quite long. But the competition was just starting that day and would last a good week. He’d been told that the miller and Babette would be at their relatives in Interlaken the whole time. Rudy headed for the Gemmi pass.8 He wanted to come down by Grindelwald.
Happy and healthy he set out, upwards in the fresh, light, invigorating mountain air. The valley sank deeper, the horizon became wider. First one and then another snow-topped mountain came into view, and then the whole shining chain of the Alps. Rudy knew every mountain. He headed towards Schreckhorn, which lifted its snow-powdered rocky finger high into the blue sky.
Finally he was across the high mountains. The grazing meadows sloped downward towards the valley of his childhood. The air was light, as was his mind. The mountains and valleys were filled with flowers and greenery. His heart was full of the thoughts of youth: I’ll never get old, I’ll never die. Live! Prevail! Enjoy! He was as free and light as a bird. And the swallows flew by and sang as they had in his childhood: “We and you, and you and we!” All was soaring and joyous.
Down below lay the velvet green meadow, studded with the brown wooden houses. The Lütschine river rushed and roared. He saw the glacier with its glass-green edges in the dirty snow and the deep clefts. He saw both the upper and lower glacier, and heard the bells ring in the church as if they were welcoming him home. His heart beat more strongly and filled with memories, so that Babette was forgotten there for a moment.
He walked again on that road where he had stood as a little fellow by the ditch with the other children selling carved wooden houses. Up there behind the fir trees grandfather’s house was still standing, but strangers lived there. Children who wanted to sell things came running down the road. One of them gave him a rhododendron. Rudy took this as a good sign and thought about Babette. Soon he was down and over the bridge, where the two Lütschine rivers run together. The deciduous trees increased, and the walnut trees gave shade. Then he saw waving flags, the white cross on a red background, as both Switzerland and Denmark have. In front of him lay Interlaken.
It was really a splendid city, like no other, thought Rudy. A Swiss town in its Sunday best. It wasn’t like other market cities—a crowd of big stone buildings, heavy, forbidding, and distinguished. No, here it looked like the wooden houses from the mountains had run down into the green valley by the clear, rapidly flowing river and had lined themselves up in rows, a little uneven, to make streets. The most magnificent of all the streets had appeared since Rudy had last been there as a boy. It was as if all the beautiful wooden houses grandfather had carved, and which the cabinet at home was full of, had positioned themselves here and grown up, like the old, the very oldest chestnut trees. Every house was a hotel, as they are called, with carved woodwork around the windows and balconies. They had projecting roofs, so neat and elegant, and there was a flower garden in front of each, all the way out to the paved road. The houses stood along the road, but just on one side. Otherwise they wou
ld have hidden the view of the fresh green meadow, where the cows grazed with bells that clang like they did in the high Alpine meadows. The meadow was surrounded by high mountains that seemed to step aside right in the middle so that you could clearly see the dazzling, snow-covered Jungfrau, the most beautifully shaped of all the Swiss mountains.
What a crowd of elegant gentleman and ladies from foreign countries! What a swarm of residents from the various cantons! The marksmen who were competing wore numbers on their hats. There was music and singing, barrel organs and wind instruments, shouting and noise. Houses and bridges were decorated with verses and emblems. Flags and banners were waving, and the guns fired shot after shot. This was the best music to Rudy’s ears, and with all this he completely forgot Babette, for whose sake he had come in the first place.
The marksmen wanted target practice, and Rudy was soon among them. He was the best and the luckiest. He always hit the bulls-eye.
“Who is that stranger, the very young hunter?” people asked. “He speaks French like they do in Valais canton. He can also make himself well understood in our German,” said some. “It’s said that he used to live in the district by Grindelwald as a child,” one of them knew.
There was life in the young fellow! His eyes shone. His eye was sure, and his arm was steady. That’s why he hit the mark. Success produces courage, and of course, Rudy had always had that. Soon he had a whole circle of friends around him. He was both acclaimed and applauded. Babette was nearly out of his thoughts. Then a heavy hand fell on his shoulder, and a gruff voice asked him in French, “Are you from canton Valais?”
Rudy turned around and saw a fat man with a happy red face. It was the rich miller from Bex. Hidden behind his wide body was dainty delicate Babette, who soon peered around him with her radiant dark eyes. The rich miller was flattered that it was a hunter from his canton who was the best shot and was being praised. Rudy certainly was good fortune’s child! What he had wandered in search of, but had almost forgotten, had now sought him out.
When you meet someone from your home when you are far away, then you speak to each other like you know each other. Rudy was the best at the shooting competition, just as at home in Bex the miller was the best because of his money and his good mill. So the two men shook hands, which was something they had never done before. And Babette also took Rudy’s hand so innocently. He pressed her hand in return and looked intensely at her so that she blushed.
The miller talked about the long way they had traveled to get there, and of the many big cities they had seen. It was a real journey. They had sailed on a steamship, taken the train, and also the mail coach.
“I went the shorter way,” said Rudy. “I came over the mountains. No way is so high you can’t take it.”
“But you can also break your neck!” said the miller. “And you look like you’ll break your neck one day, as daring as you are!”
“You won’t fall if you don’t think you will,” said Rudy.
The miller’s relatives in Interlaken, where the miller and Babette were visiting, asked Rudy to stop by to see them. After all, he was from the same canton as their relatives. That was a good invitation for Rudy. Luck was with him, as it always is for those who believe in themselves and remember that “God gives us the nuts, but he doesn’t crack them open for us.”
And Rudy sat like part of the family with the miller’s relations, and a toast was proposed to the best shot. Babette toasted with him, and Rudy thanked them for the toast.
Towards evening they all went for a walk under the old walnut trees along the pretty street by the neat hotels. There were so many people, such crowds, that Rudy had to offer Babette his arm. He was so happy that he had met people from Vaud, he said. Vaud and Valais cantons were good neighbors. He expressed his joy so sincerely that Babette thought she should clasp his hand. They walked along almost like old friends, and she was so funny, the lovely little person! Rudy thought it so becoming the way she pointed out the comical and exaggerated in the foreign women’s dress and manner of walking. And it wasn’t to make fun of them because they could be very honest people, sweet and lovable, Babette knew that. She had a godmother who was a very distinguished English lady. Eighteen years ago, when Babette had been baptized, the godmother had been in Bex. She had given Babette the expensive brooch that she wore on her vest. Babette had gotten two letters from her godmother, and this year they were supposed to meet her here in Interlaken, along with her daughters. They were two old maids, almost thirty, said Babette. She herself was only eighteen.
The sweet little mouth didn’t stop for a moment, and everything Babette said seemed to Rudy of the utmost importance. He, in turn, told her what he had to tell. He told her how often he had been in Bex, how well he knew the mill, and how often he had seen Babette, but that she very likely hadn’t noticed him. The last time he had been there he had many thoughts he couldn’t mention, but she and her father had gone, were far away, but not farther than that he could clamber over the wall that made the road long.
Yes, he said that, and he said so much more. He told her how much he thought of her, and that he had come there for her sake, not for the shooting competition.
Babette became silent. What he had confided to her was almost too much to bear.
While they walked, the sun sank behind the high mountain wall. Jungfrau stood in all its magnificence and glory, surrounded by a wreath of the nearer forest-clad mountains. All the people stopped quietly and looked at it, and Rudy and Babette looked at all the grandeur too.
“There is no place more beautiful than here,” said Babette.
“No place!” said Rudy and looked at Babette.
“I have to leave tomorrow,” said Rudy a little later.
“Visit us in Bex,” whispered Babette. “That would please my father.”
5. ON THE WAY HOME
Oh, how much Rudy had to carry, when he headed home the next day over the high mountains! He had three silver cups, two very good guns, and a silver coffeepot. That would be useful when he settled down. But those weren’t the weightiest. He carried something much more important, more powerful, or perhaps it carried him home across the high mountains. But the weather was raw and grey, rainy and heavy. The clouds descended on the mountain heights like black mourning crepe and shrouded the snow-clad tops. From the forests rang the last blows of the axe, and down the mountainside rolled tree trunks that looked like flimsy sticks from that height, even though they were huge trees. The Lutschine river sounded its monotonous music. The wind sang, and the clouds sailed. Suddenly a young girl was walking right beside Rudy. He hadn’t noticed her until she was right beside him. She was also going over the mountain. Her eyes had such power that you had to look into them. They were so strangely clear, like glass, deep and bottomless.
“Do you have a sweetheart?” asked Rudy. All his thoughts were filled with having a sweetheart.
“I don’t have one!” she said and laughed, but it sounded like she wasn’t telling the truth. “Let’s not go the long way around,” she said. “We have to go more to the left. It’s shorter.”
“Yes, if you want to fall into an ice crevice!” said Rudy. “How can you be the guide if you don’t know the way better than that!”
“Oh, I know the way,” she said. “And I have my wits about me. I guess yours are down in the valley. Up here you must think of the Ice Maiden. People say she’s dangerous to human beings.”
“I’m not afraid of her,” said Rudy. “She had to let me slip when I was a child. I will surely give her the slip now that I’m older!”
It started to get dark. The rain fell and then snow. It brightened and blinded.
“Give me your hand, and I’ll help you climb,” said the girl and she touched him with ice-cold fingers.
“You help me?” said Rudy. “I don’t yet need the help of women to climb!” And he picked up speed and moved away from her. The snowstorm wrapped around him like a curtain. The wind whistled, and behind him he heard the girl la
ughing and singing. It sounded so strange—must be a troll girl in service of the Ice Maiden. Rudy had heard about this when he had spent the night here as a boy on the journey over the mountains.
The snowfall decreased, for the clouds were under him. He looked back. There was no one in sight, but he heard laughter and yodeling, and it didn’t sound like it came from a human being.
When Rudy finally reached the highest part of the mountain pass, where the path went down towards the Rhone valley, he saw two clear stars in a strip of clear blue sky in the direction of Chamouny. They twinkled brightly, and he thought about Babette and about himself and his happiness, and he warmed at the thought.
6. A VISIT TO THE MILL
“You’re bringing grand items home with you!” said Rudy’s old foster mother, and her strange eagle eyes flashed. Her thin neck moved in odd gyrations even faster than usual. “Good fortune is with you, Rudy. I must kiss you, my sweet boy.”
And Rudy submitted to the kiss, but you could see by his face that he considered it one of those inconveniences that you have to put up with. “How handsome you are, Rudy!” said the old woman.
“Don’t make me think that,” said Rudy and laughed, but it pleased him.
“I’ll say it again,” said the old woman. “Luck is with you.”
“There I agree with you,” he said and thought about Babette.
He had never before longed for the deep valley like this. “They must be home by now!” he said to himself. “It’s already two days past the time when they were to come. I must go to Bex.”
And Rudy went to Bex, and the miller’s family was home. He was well received, and the family in Interlaken had sent their regards. Babette didn’t say much. She had become so silent, but her eyes spoke, and that was enough for Rudy. The miller, who normally liked to talk, and who was used to people laughing at his whims and word play—after all, he was the rich miller—acted like he’d rather listen to Rudy tell hunting stories. And Rudy told about the difficulties and dangers that the goat-antelope hunters endured on the high mountain cliffs, and how they had to crawl on precarious ledges of snow that the wind and weather plastered to the mountain rim—how he crawled on the dangerous bridges that snowstorms had formed over deep chasms. Rudy looked so brave, and his eyes shone while he told about the hunter’s life, the antelope’s shrewdness and daring leaps, the strong Föhn,9 and the cascading avalanches. He noticed very well that with each new description he was winning over the miller, and that what the miller especially liked hearing about was the description of the vulture and the bold golden eagle.
Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen Page 37
