Chapter 14

THE VISIONS OF THE NIGHT.

The sun had gone down; the clouds lowered themselves into the Rhone valley--between the high mountains; the wind blew from the south over the mountains--an African wind, a Föhn,--which tore the clouds asunder. When the wind had passed, all was still for an instant; the parted clouds hung in fantastic forms between the forest-grown mountains. Over the hastening Rhone, their shapes resembled sea-monsters of the primeval world, soaring eagles of the air and leaping frogs of the ditches--they seemed to sink into the rapid stream and to sail on the river, yet they still floated in the air. The stream carried away a pine tree, torn up by the roots; and the water sent whirlpools ahead; this was Vertigo, with her attendants, and they danced in circles on the foaming stream. The moon shone on the snow of the mountain-peaks; it lighted up the dark forest and the singular white clouds; the peasants of the mountain, saw through their window panes, the nightly apparitions and the spirits of the powers of nature, as they sailed before the Ice-Maiden. She came from her glacier castle, she sat in a frail bark, a felled fir-tree; the water of the glaciers carried her up the stream out to the main sea.

"The wedding guests are coming!" was whizzed and sung in the air and in the water.

Visions without and visions within!

Babette dreamt a wonderful dream.

It appeared to her, as though she was married to Rudy, and had been so for many years. He had gone chamois hunting and as she sat at home, the young Englishman with the golden whiskers was beside her; his eyes were fiery, his words seemed endowed with magical power; he reached her his hand and she was obliged to follow him.

They flew from home. Steadily downwards.

A weight lay upon her heart and it grew ever heavier. It was a sin against Rudy, a sin against God; suddenly she stood forsaken. Her clothes were torn by the thorns; her hair had grown grey; she looked up in her sorrow and she saw Rudy on the edge of the rock. She stretched her arms towards him, but she ventured neither to call, nor to implore him; but she soon saw that it was not he himself, only his hunting coat and hat, which were hanging on his alpine staff, as the hunters are accustomed to place them, in order to deceive the chamois! Babette moaned in boundless anguish:

"Ah! would that I had died on my wedding day, my happiest day! Oh! my heavenly Father! That would have been a mercy, a life's happiness! Then we would have obtained, the best, that could have happened to us! No one knows his future!" In her impious sorrow, she threw herself down the steep precipice. It seemed as if a string broke, and a sorrowful tone resounded.

Babette awoke--the dream was at an end and obliterated; but she knew that she had dreamt of something terrible, and of the young Englishman, whom she had neither seen, nor