“ALL THE MIGHTY VALLEYS OF THE ALPS WERE FILLING WITH MISTS.”
“The immense cone of shadow projected by the Rigi, clearly outlined by its edges and, because of the distance, free from any visible penumbra, gradually mounted, rock by rock, tree by tree, the steep side of the Rossberg. The shadow mountain was devouring the sunlight mountain. This vast dark triangle, the base of which was lost beneath the Rigi and the apex of which was each instant coming nearer and nearer the summit of the Rossberg, has already embraced Art, Goldau, ten valleys, ten villages, half of the Lake of Zug and the whole Lake of Lowerz. Clouds of reddish copper color floated across it and changed into pewter. In the depths of the ravine Art floated in a twilight glow starred here and there by lighted windows. Already poor women were sewing down there by their lighted lamps. Art lives in the night; the sun sets for its inhabitants at two o’clock.
“A moment later the sun had disappeared, the wind blew cold, the mountains were grey. Not a cloud was in the sky. The Rigi had become solitary once more, with a boundless blue sky arching above.
“In one of my earlier letters I spoke of ‘these granite waves called Alps.’ I had no idea I had hit it so accurately. The image which came into my mind appeared to me in all its vividness on the summit of the Rigi after the sun had gone down. These mountains are really billows, but giant billows. They have all the forms of the sea; there are green, dark swells, which are the crests covered with evergreens; blond and earthy seas, which are the granite slopes gilded with lichens; on the loftiest undulations the snow is torn off and falls in masses into black ravines as the foam does. You might think you saw a mighty ocean solidified in the midst of a tempest by the breath of Jehovah.
“What would become of the horizon and the mind of man should these enormous billows be suddenly set in motion again?”
[CHAPTER XVII]
A FORMER WORKER OF SPELLS
