The snow man

by George Sand

“A good man leaveth an inheritance to his children’s children, and the wealth of the sinner is laid up for the just.”

Christian had no time to employ his imagination in hunting for answers to this riddle. The day was rapidly drawing to a close. It was only half-past one in the afternoon, and already the transparent shadows of the snowy peaks around were lengthening upon the blue surface of the lake. It was a beautiful sight, and, had his affairs permitted, Christian would have loved to gaze upon it. These short northern days have aspects infinitely picturesque; and even at noon they are full of striking effects, as painters say, resulting from the obliquity of the sun’s rays, which cover the landscape with strong lights and shades, such as in other countries are only visible at morning and evening. This is probably the reason of the beautiful sunlight which northern travellers are so enthusiastic about. It is not alone the extraordinary landscapes, impetuous waterfalls, immense lakes and splendid auroras of Sweden and Norway, of which they retain such intoxicating recollections; quite as remarkable, they affirm, is the delicious purity of the atmosphere, in which even the most trifling objects assume a brightness and a charm of which nothing anywhere else can give an idea.

But our hero, while he observed the beauty of the heavens, observed also the swift decline of the day, and discerned, afar off, the actual preparations for the very entertainment for which, in fulfilment of his engagement, he was to be in part responsible. The chimneys of the new chateau were sending out thick columns of black smoke, that showed strongly against the evening sky, flecked with rosy and pearl-hued clouds. Gun-shots, repeated by the muffled echoes of the snowy hills, announced that the huntsmen were at work to supply the spits of those Pantagruelian fireplaces. Busy messengers on skates were speeding in all directions, crossing each other’s tracks, and occasionally falling headlong upon the ice of the lake. All the country round was being ransacked for everything it could furnish, from the monstrous back-logs that were to adorn the fires in every room of the house, down to the poor little white partridge, which had trusted to his winter’s garb to protect it from the sagacious eye of man, and the pitiless scent of the hunting-dog.

The fifth night of the Christmas festivities—for this was December 28th—promised to be a splendid one. Christian alone was not enjoying the prospect; he was becoming impatient for the return of Puffo. Having resumed his poor devil’s suit, pulled his abundant hair over his handsome forehead, and his steeple-crowned hat down over his eyes, he went to hunt up his subordinate in the court, in the gaard, and even in the kitchen, where he had so frightened Ulphilas the evening before. It never occurred to him to go down into the cellar. If he had, he would have discovered Puffo, established in the very paradise of his dreams.

He was about returning, when it occurred to him to explore Stenson’s little fruit-garden. With a preliminary glance, to be sure that the old overseer whom he had alarmed so much was not there, he descended the steep walk that led down to the edge of the lake. From this point he could see the whole length of the gaard, built along the slope that plunged down to the little bay. The old masonry was so well united to the rock, that one could hardly distinguish the natural from the artificial fortification, especially under their clothing of long wall-plants, crystallized by the frost, and hanging down below into the lake, where they were deeply imbedded in the ice. As he stood there, he tried to trace the route he had followed the day before, on his expedition into the secret passage of the bear-room. We promised the reader an account of this expedition, and this is the proper time for it.

It will be remembered that in setting out to hunt up something for supper, he had ventured into a passage hidden by a door very neatly fitted into the wood-work, and leading from under the stairs, which he supposed might conduct to the lodging of M. Stenson. Such was, however, by no means the case. After a few steps along a confined passage, Christian had come to a narrow staircase, steep, and obstructed with rubbish, as if no human foot had ascended it for a long time. At the foot of the staircase, which was very long, he had found an open door. Surprised at this free entrance to a passage apparently itself so mysterious, he was stepping through it, when a gust of wind extinguished his candle, and he was left in darkness. He still advanced cautiously a few steps, when the moon appeared from behind some clouds, and he saw that he was in a sort of cavern, or gallery, opening at intervals upon the lake. The water of the lake penetrated into this gallery, which seemed to be a natural excavation. He followed it for some distance, walking upon the ice the latter part of the way, until he reached, at last, a small wicket, over which he climbed without difficulty, and thus gained admittance first to the fruit-garden, and thence to M. Stenson’s gaard.

Christian at once recognized this little gate, flanked on either side by two young yew-trees, cut into a sugar-loaf shape; and, with this for a guide, he was able to recognize the principal points of his nocturnal expedition. Although he had no particular expectation of finding Puffo in that quarter, he passed through the fruit-garden, and walked along the lake around the outer cliffs, in the direction of the donjon. He was curious to see by daylight the path along which he had made his way the night before, partly by feeling, and partly by the light of the moon.

He soon came to the entrance of what he had taken for a grotto. It was, in fact, only a deposit of enormous blocks of granite, of that sort termed erratic boulders—that is, blocks isolated from their primitive location, and now lodged where they could not have been originally formed. The position of such boulders is due, it is supposed, to some primeval or modern cataclysm—a vast rush of waters, or the slow transportation of glaciers or icebergs—which has brought them from distant regions to their final resting-place. Those now in question were rounded, like so many enormous pebbles, and their capricious superposition, one above another, seemed to indicate that while whirled along by a tremendous force, they had been suddenly arrested and piled against the mica-schist mass of Stollborg, of which they thus became, as it were, buttresses or outworks. It was difficult to walk among them, on account of the snow, which, during the storm of the night before, had been swept, or rather rolled by the wind into great drifts or ridges, stretching, like a vast winding-sheet, along the range of boulders.

Christian found his progress so impeded, that he was about to retrace his steps, when he was struck by the picturesque aspect of the donjon towering above him, and withdrew a little to see it to better advantage. He tried, mechanically, to make out the position of the bear-room, and easily recognized it by its one window, about a hundred feet above the level of the lake, and fifty above the summits of the boulders. The cold was not very extreme, and Christian, who always carried a little drawing-book in his pocket, began an outline sketch of the tower, with its lofty escarpment in the rock below, and its chaos of gigantic boulders, which were flung together in such a way as to form—like the sandstone rocks at Fontainebleau—covered passages and galleries, whose effect was extremely fantastic.

While studying this characteristic scene, Christian heard some one singing, at first without paying much attention to the fact. It was a woman’s voice, and that of a rustic, true enough in intonation, but veiled, and sometimes tremulous, as of an infirm or aged person. She seemed to be chanting a kind of psalm, and, although monotonous, there was something agreeable in the melancholy air. This sad and quavering melody soothed the mind of the artist as it continued, and brought him into the very mood for understanding and representing the features of a locality with which the voice seemed to be in perfect harmony. The words of the chant were at first indistinct: but as Christian listened mechanically, he gradually recognized them as Swedish, pronounced with the Dalecarlian accent. Their meaning now seemed so strange, that he began to listen more attentively: