Tales from the German. Volume II.Velde, C. F. van der (Carl Franz)
General
Tales from the German. Volume II.
Velde, C. F. van der (Carl Franz)
German fiction -- Translations into English
'These masses are frightfully high,' said Faith, looking anxiously up
at their summits.
'They appear so to you,' said the Bohemian, looking back. 'These,
however, are but small affairs. We are now only in the suburbs. In the
city you will see rocks worth talking about.'
'Heaven take pity on us!' sighed Faith, wandering on until she came to
an open space. Here towered up, solitary and frightful, a single
monstrous gray rock, formed like an inverted cone with its base
stretching high up into the clouds and its apex imbedded in a lake of
ice.
'Do not go so near, Oswald,' said Faith. 'This large rock must in the
next moment tumble over.'
'Fear it not,' said the Bohemian. 'This is the Sugarloaf, which has
been standing thus upon its head for thousands of years, and will
surely retain its position long after we are in our graves.'
They were still advancing, when Faith, who was somewhat ashamed to
exhibit her fears to the Bohemian, whispered to Oswald, 'only see that
horrible gray giant's head projecting over us from between those high
towers. I can plainly discern a monstrous, solemn looking face,
surrounded by flowing gray locks.'
'That is the burgomaster,' said the laughing Bohemian, who well
understood the whisper. 'So is this sport of nature called, and it is
the most beautiful of any here. You need not fear him, for he is the
only burgomaster on earth who never troubled any one.'
They continued to proceed farther and farther, until at length they
were interrupted by a purling mountain stream. Beyond it, stood a broad
mass of stone. The Bohemian leaped across the rivulet, rattling down a
quantity of loose stones behind him, and with the humming operation of
some wheel-work, the heavy stone moved slowly aside, and discovered a
low, narrow opening.
'Do we enter there?' asked Faith in a tone so disconsolate as to call
forth a hearty laugh from all the Bohemians. Even Oswald joined in the
laugh, and, clasping the maiden in his arms, he sprung with her to
the opposite bank. They all now stood within a narrow passage, the
wheel-work again moved, the entrance closed, and they were enveloped in
darkness.
'It is very dark here!' cried Faith.
'We shall soon come into the light,' said their leader, advancing. The
others followed, and they thus proceeded in a narrow path, floored with
yielding planks, and bounded by high perpendicular walls of dark gray
stone, between which was seen the dark blue sky--so dark indeed, that
they could almost distinguish the stars in broad day-light. The
trickling water glistened upon the walls like silver threads upon a
black velvet ground; and here and there little waterfalls, forming
dazzling crystals with their congealing spray, bounded down the rocks
and disappeared under the planks upon which they were walking.
'If we follow this path much longer,' protested Faith, 'I shall die of
fear and anxiety.'
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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