Page:Life in the Old World - Vol. I.djvu/33

After a leisurely drive of two hours up the valley, we reach the tavern at Steinbock. Here I order dinner for myself and the boy, and after having partaken of it set out alone up the valley, with the spirits of which I wished to hold silent converse. From Steinbock the valley becomes narrower, between ever higher mountain walls. Louder and louder roar the becks and the streams which, now swollen by the rains, are hurled from the glaciers down towards the valley and the river. Here falls the Steinbock, thrown like silver rain, driven hither and thither by the wind over the field which it keeps green below; here rushes down the strong Trimbelbach, foaming from the embrace of the cliffs; there the still stronger Rosenbach which the Jungfrau pours out of her silver horn. On all sides, near and afar off, there is a rushing and roaring and foaming, on the right hand and on the left, above me, below me, and before, out of a hundred hidden fountains, and ever wilder beside me rushes on the Lutschine, with still-increasing waters. It is too much, I cannot hear even my own thoughts. I am in the bosom of a wild Undine, who drowns her admirers whilst she embraces them; and the Titans are becoming ever loftier and broader, and the valley ever narrower, more gloomy and more desolate! I feel depressed, and, as it were, overwhelmed, but nevertheless I go forward. It is melancholy scenery, but at the same time grand and powerful! And scenery of this character exercises a strong attractive power, even when it astonishes. The shades of evening fell darkly over the valley, when I saw far before me, in its gloomy depth, a broad, gray-white, immense mass of rock, like dust, hurled thun-