and the sound would drive itself a little path through the stillness intensified by the snow.
Then it grew colder, and from the direction of Prussia came whistling an icy wind. The soft flakes changed into stinging hail hurling itself straight into your face. The fallen snow rose in sharp needle-points and whirled through the air. White clouds blew down from the trees, swirled madly above the ground, spun about, and soared up to the darkened heavens. It was snowing upwards from the earth to the sky.
In the depths of the forest the branches were creaking and groaning; a tree broke and fell with a crash, shattering the undergrowth. But abrupt noises like these were sundered and swept away on the whistling, booming, shrieking, rending, distracted howl of the wind. When for an instant it ceased, you could hear the frozen snow crunching shrilly under your feet like powdered glass.
Above Spindelmühl a telegraph messenger was making his way through the storm. It was confoundedly heavy going through the heaped-up snow. The messenger had his cap fastened tight over his ears with a red handkerchief, and had woollen gloves on, and a gaudy scarf round his neck, and still he was cold. “Ah, well,” he was thinking, “in another hour and a half at any rate I’ll have crawled up to Bear Valley, and I’ll borrow a sledge for the run down. But what the devil possesses people to send telegrams in filthy weather like this!”
At the Maiden’s Bridge a gust caught him and spun him round nearly in a circle. With frozen hands he clung to the post of the signboard set there for tourists. “Holy Virgin!” he muttered, “this surely can’t last!” And then across a clearing a huge cloud-like mass of snow came whirling towards him—coming nearer and nearer—now down upon him . . . he must hold his breath at all costs. . . . A thousand needle-points drove into his face and made their way inside his coat; through a little rent in his clothing the icy particles reached his skin; the man was drenched beneath his frozen garments. The cloud blew past, and the messenger felt very much disposed to turn back to the post-office.
“Marek, Engineer”—he repeated the address to himself. “Well, he certainly don’t belong to these parts. But a telegram’s urgent, you never know what it’s about—one of his family, maybe, or something important. . . .”
The storm calmed down a little, and the messenger struck out across the Maiden’s Bridge and up along the stream. The snow crunched under his heavy boots, and his feet were frightfully cold. Once more the wind began to howl, and great lumps of snow fell from the trees; the messenger caught a full load of it on his head and under his scarf; a trickle of icy water ran down his back. But what plagued him most was that his feet were slipping wickedly on the hardened snow, and his path now ran steeply up the slope. Next moment he was caught in a hurricane of snow. Like a white wall it came crashing down upon him. Before the messenger had a chance to turn, he got the full force of it in his face; he bent forward with the utmost effort, gasping for breath. He took a step upward and fell. Then he sat up with his back to the wind, but he was seized with a dread of being buried by the snow. He got up and tried to scramble on, but slipped again, fell on both hands, pulled himself up again, but slid backward a good way. He held on to the trees to steady himself, breathing heavily. “Curse it,” he said to himself, “I’ve got to get up there somehow.”
He managed to take a few steps, but fell once more, and slid downwards on his stomach. He began to crawl on all fours. His gloves were wet, the snow was inside his leggings, but he must push on. Anything rather than stay there! Melting snow and sweat poured down his cheeks. He could not see for the driving snow, and it looked as though he had lost his way; it made him weep aloud as he crept toilsomely upward. But it was hard work crawling along on all fours in a long coat; he stood up again and stepped forward, battling with the blizzard. For every half-step he made forward he slipped two steps back; he did climb a little farther, but then his feet flew out from under him, and he slid downward with his face buried in the prickly snow. When he picked himself up, he found that he had lost his stick.
Meanwhile clouds of snow were flying over the mountains, massing on the rocks, hissing, bellowing, roaring. The messenger sobbed aloud, gasping with terror and exertion; he climbed on, stopped, took another step and another, halted, turned his back to the wind and took a deep breath through his burning mouth, and then—O Christ in Heaven!—took one step more. He held on to a tree. What was the time? With the greatest effort he drew out his turnip watch in its transparent yellow case. It was encrusted with snow. Perhaps darkness was coming on. Should he turn back? But he couldn’t have far to go now!
The fitful gale had changed into a steady blizzard. Clouds rolled along the slope, a dark and dirty mist full of hurtling sleet. The snow rushed down horizontally, straight into his face, blocking up the eyes, nose and mouth; with wet frozen fingers it had to be dug, half melted, from the cavities of the ears and eyes. The front of the messenger’s body was covered with a layer of snow two inches thick; his coat was rigid, as stiff and heavy as a board—you could not bend it; the cakes of snow on his boot-soles grew bigger and heavier with every step. And in the forest it was getting dark. And yet, good heavens, it was barely two in the afternoon!
Suddenly a greenish-yellow darkness poured over the forest, and the snow gushed down like a cloudburst. Flakes the size of your hand, wet and heavy, flew whirling by so thickly that the dividing line between earth and air was lost. A man cannot see a step in front of him. He breathes the flakes in, wades on through the roaring blizzard that dashes high over his head, pushes on blindly as if he were cutting a little passage down there under the snow. He has but one overmastering instinct—to push on. He yearns for one thing only—to breathe something other than snow. He can no longer lift his feet from the snow; he drags them through the drifts reaching half-way to his hips; he makes a track which instantly closes up behind him.
Meanwhile in the cities far below a few sparse flakes fluttered down to be melted into black mud. The lights were lit in the shops, the cafés were all aglow, people sat around under the electric globes and grumbled what a miserable gloomy day it was. Numberless lights were ablaze all over the great city, sparkling in the watery mire.
One solitary glimmer shone over the storm-swept field on the mountain. It pierced with difficulty through the falling snow, wavered up and down, and nearly expired; nevertheless, it was there, still shining. There was a light in the Hut in Bear Valley.
It was five o’clock, and therefore pitch-dark, when a shapeless something stopped in front of the Hut in Bear Valley. That “something” spread out its thick white wings and began to beat its body with them and peel off a coating of snow four inches thick. Beneath the snow a coat became visible, and below the coat two feet, and these feet stamped on the stone doorstep, till great lumps of snow dropped from them. It was the messenger from Spindelmühl.
He entered the hut and saw a thin gentleman sitting at the table. He tried to utter a greeting, but his voice failed him completely. It only made a little wheezing noise like that of escaping steam.
The other man rose: “My good man, what the devil brings you here in a blizzard like this? Why, you might never have got through alive!”
The messenger nodded and gurgled.
“If it isn’t absolute madness!” growled the other, and told the servant to bring some tea. “Well, where were you making for, then, dad? Martin’s Hut?”
The messenger shook his head and opened his leather pouch; it was full of snow; he took out a telegram frozen so stiff that it crackled.
“Bha, bha, Bharek?” he croaked out hoarsely.
“What do you say?” asked the other.
“Is . . . anyone . . . here . . . named . . . Mar . . . ek, an . . . Eng . . . i . . . neer?” the messenger stammered out with a reproachful look.
“That’s me,” the thin gentleman cried. “Have you something for me? Let me see it, quick!”
Marek tore open the telegram. It read:
“Your predictions confirmed. Bondy.”
Nothing more.
XXII
THE