The German Classics of the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Volume 08: Masterpieces of German Literature Translated into English
General
The German Classics of the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Volume 08: Masterpieces of German Literature Translated into English
German literature -- 19th century -- Translations into English; German literature -- 20th century -- Translations into English
The sky being clear, Conrad had wanted to look down from the mountain
into the valleys in order to recognize the valley of Gschaid and descend
to it. But he saw no valleys whatever. He seemed not to stand on any
mountain from which one can look down, but in some strange, curious
country in which there were only unknown objects. Today they saw awful
rocks stand up out of the snow at some distance which they had not seen
the day before; they saw the glacier, they saw hummocks and slanting
snow-fields, and behind these, either the sky or the blue peak of some
very distant mountain above the edge of the snowy horizon.
At this moment the sun arose.
A gigantic, bloody red disk emerged above the white horizon and
immediately the snow about the children blushed as if it had been strewn
with millions of roses. The knobs and pinnacles of the mountain cast
very long and greenish shadows along the snow.
"Sanna, we shall go on here, until we come to the edge of the mountain
and can look down," said the boy.
They went farther into the snow. In the clear night, it had become still
drier and easily yielded to their steps. They waded stoutly on. Their
limbs became even more elastic and strong as they proceeded, but they
came to no edge and could not look down. Snowfield succeeded snowfield,
and at the end of each always shone the sky.
They continued nevertheless.
Before they knew it, they were on the glacier again. They did not know
how the ice had got there, but they felt the ground smooth underfoot,
and although there were not such awful boulders as in the moraine where
they had passed the night, yet they were aware of the glacier being
underneath them, they saw the blocks growing ever larger and coming ever
nearer, forcing them to clamber again.
Yet they kept on in the same direction.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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