"What would you like?"
"A pipe."
"You got one ever so long ago," asserted Vinzi.
"All the same I want another, and then another. I want a pipe every time you carve something for me," persisted Russli stubbornly.
"A pipe it shall be," promised Vinzi.
When they came to the pasture, Jos and Faz drove the herd to the right of the road toward the larch trees, but Vinzi continued on his way.
The three boys called out, "Come back soon," over and over again, and each time Vinzi waved his cap in answer, at last flinging it up in the all for sheer joy and shouting repeated hurrahs.
Vinzi had never been so happy. The sun shone out of a cloudless blue sky over the green fields and rugged mountain cliffs where the dark firs lifted their branches. Yes, this was the way he had come, but how different it all looked today! The scene grew more and more beautiful. The snow-capped mountain reached out above the wooded heights. How great and mighty were the gleaming snow-fields! Oh, how wonderful!
Suddenly a broad stream of light, shining like a wide silver river, spread right across the entire mountain. It came without a rustle, without a movement. That was no flowing water; it was but a great glacier. Vinzi had to stand still as there flamed up a strange blue fire across the expanse. He was so filled with the beauty of it he could hardly pass on but at last he had to go.
Then came the sound as of rustling woods, but there was no forest near. No, there was a waterfall, tumbling into white foam as it left the high cliff for the depths below; a second leaped down just as madly. Here and there boiling mountain streams rushed down from the walls of rock, and the air that was wafted to him was gloriously cool. He stood still and breathed in great draughts of it.