"Never yet has human foot trod either the
Jungfrau or the Finsteraarhorn."
The summits of the Alps…. A whole chain of steep cliffs…. The very heart of the mountains.
Overhead a bright, mute, pale-green sky. A hard, cruel frost; firm, sparkling snow; from beneath the snow project grim blocks of ice-bound, wind-worn cliffs.
Two huge masses, two giants rise aloft, one on each side of the horizon: the Jungfrau and the Finsteraarhorn.
And the Jungfrau says to its neighbour: "What news hast thou to tell?
Thou canst see better.—What is going on there below?"
Several thousand years pass by like one minute. And the Finsteraarhorn rumbles in reply: "Dense clouds veil the earth…. Wait!"
More thousands of years elapse, as it were one minute.
"Well, what now?" inquires the Jungfrau.
"Now I can see; down yonder, below, everything is still the same: party-coloured, tiny. The waters gleam blue; the forests are black; heaps of stones piled up shine grey. Around them small beetles are still bustling,—thou knowest, those two-legged beetles who have as yet been unable to defile either thou or me."
"Men?"