Up and up and up, into the young joy of the mountains, young as at the beginning of the world, joyous above all things. What do they care, the great mountains? They stand quite still, and all things pass. They lift their heads, and do not even know.
A baby cried because its father was gone away to war. Its mother did not cry at all.
A stranger came by and cried, not because of those especial people, but because of the world.
A little funeral straggled down the hill in the rain.
None of it mattered.
I thought, we went up high above all griefs.
Some children and a woman, from a hut up in the snow, came to beg of us.
I thought, for what did they need to beg, they, who had the everlasting snows? I thought, how absurd to beg for bread to live, in a place where death would be so pure and clear, would ring out so joyously. I thought, how nice it is that all the roads of life lead up to death. And that death, however come to, is so high a thing.
It was terribly cold. The snow was over us and under us, as the clouds were.