It was just as she had been told. She saw how they constantly huddled close together, as if to warm themselves, but immediately drew back again, terrified by the deathly cold which emanated from their bodies.
It was as if the cold of the mountain came from them, as if it were they who prevented the snow from melting and made the mist so piercingly cold.
They were not all moving; some stood in icy stoniness, and it looked as if they had been standing thus for years, for ice and snow had gathered around them so that only the upper portion of their bodies could be seen.
The longer the little old woman gazed the quieter she grew. Fear left her, and she was only filled with sorrow for all these tormented beings. There was no abatement in their pain, no rest for their torn feet, hurrying over ice sharp as edged steel. And how cold they were! how they shivered! how their teeth chattered from cold! Those who were petrified and those who could move, all suffered alike from the snarling, biting, unbearable cold.
There were many young men and women; but there was no youth in their faces, blue with cold. It looked as if they were playing, but all joy was dead. They shivered, and were huddled up like old people.
But those who made the deepest impression on her were those frozen fast in the hard glacier, and those who were hanging from the mountain-side like great icicles.
Then the monk removed his hand, and old Agnete saw only the barren, empty glaciers. Here and there were ice-mounds, but they did not surround any petrified ghosts. The blue light on the glacier did not proceed from frozen bodies; the wind chased the snowflakes before it, but not any ghosts.
Still old Agnete was certain that she had really seen all this, and she asked the monk:
'Is it permitted to do anything for these poor doomed ones?'
He answered: