Mrs. Pölitz had said it was an hour's walk to Wissow Hook, but it seemed to Else as if the very winding way would never end. And yet she walked so fast that she left the little empty hay wagon just as far behind her as it was ahead of her at the start. The wretched vehicle was the only sign of human activity; otherwise the brown plain lay as bare as a desert as far as the eye could reach; not a single large tree was to be seen, only here and there a few scattered willows and tangled shrubbery on the ditches, which ran this way and that, and a broader, slowly flowing brook constantly widening, which she crossed on an unsafe wooden bridge, without a railing. The brook must have come from the range of hills to the right, at the base of which Else saw, in striking contrast, the buildings of the other two Warnow estates, Gristow and Damerow. Swinging around in a great bend, she gradually ascended to Wissow Hook, which lay directly before her, while the plain to the left extended without the least undulation to the lower dunes, lifting their white crests here and there above the edge of the heath. Only once a leaden gray streak, which must be the sea, although Else could scarcely distinguish it from the sky, appeared for a few minutes in an opening through which the brook may have had its source.
For the sky above her too was a leaden gray, except that it seemed somewhat darker above the sea. In the east, then above the hills toward the west, and along the leaden gray vault here and there, scattered white spots floated, like powder smoke, motionless in the still air. Not the slightest breeze was stirring, and yet from time to time a strange whisper crept through the waste as if the brown heath were trying to rouse itself from deep sleep, and a soft, long continued sound of sadness could be heard through the heavy murky air, and then again a boundless stillness, when Else thought she could hear her heart beat.
But almost more terrible than the silence of the waste was the cry of a flock of gulls, which she had scared up from one of the many hollows of the heath, and which now, flying to and fro in the gray air, with the points of their bills turned downward, followed her for a long time, as if in raging anger at the intruder on their domain.
Nevertheless she walked on and on, faster and faster, following an impulse that admitted no opposition to her determination, which was even stronger than the horror which seemed to come over her from the sky and ground, like the breath of spirits threatening and warning with demon voices.—And then yet another terrible dread! Even from the far distance—at the foot of the mountain promontory, rising higher—she had noticed dark, moving points, as she convinced herself, now that they were coming nearer—laborers, several hundred, who were carting dirt and filling in an apparently endless dam, which had already reached a considerable height. She could not avoid crossing the dam, and if she did not wish to make a détour she must intersect the long line of carters. This she did with a friendly greeting to those nearest to her. The men, who were already sufficiently bothered, stopped their carts and glared at her without returning her salutation. When she had gone a short distance further, shouts and coarse laughter resounded behind her. Turning involuntarily, she saw that a few of the band had followed her and did not stop until she turned—checked, perhaps, only by the noise which the others made. She continued her way almost running. There was now only a narrow path over the short parched grass and across the broad strips of sand with which the ascending slope of the promontory was covered. Else said to herself that she could be seen by the men until she reached the top, might be followed by them at any moment, or if she turned back—the twilight had settled about her, the men perhaps had stopped work for the day, and there was no overseer to hold their coarseness in check, the rude men having the whole endless plain as far as Warnow to insult, scare and annoy her—should she turn about at once while there was time, ask for an overseer to accompany her, perhaps try to have the hay wagon, which she had overtaken a while before and was now nearing the laborers, carry her on, or another wagon which from her elevation she discovered far in the distance and which must have followed her!—There was only the one way over the heath.
While Else was thus considering, as if drawn by magic she hastened with beating heart up the slope, the upper edge of which was clearly distinguishable from the vault of the sky by an even line rising toward the sea. With every step the sea and the chains of dunes extended farther to the left; now her glance swept out to where the misty sky met the misty sea, and beyond the beautifully arched curve of the coast to wooded Golmberg, which had a threatening look against the blue-black background. Above the tree-tops, huddled in a vague mass, loomed the tower of the castle. Between Golmberg yonder and the height on which she stood—inhospitable as the sea itself, from which she was separated only by the yellow border of the dunes—the brown plain she was traversing; the only habitation of man—the fisher village of Ahlbeck, which now, hard by the foot of the promontory, lay almost at her feet. Yonder too, on the broad beach between the houses and the sea, extended long moving lines of workmen up to the two moles which, with their ends pointing toward each other, extended far into the sea. At the moles were a few large craft which seemed to be unloading, while a fleet of fishing-boats all moved in the same direction toward the shore. They had reefed their sails, and were being propelled only by oars. The even position of the brown sails and the uniform motion of the oars of the fishing boats were in strange contrast with the confused disorder of the white gulls, which a while ago had circled above her and now flew ceaselessly at half the elevation between her and the shore.
All this she saw, however, with the keen eye of a falcon, as a traveler on the train mechanically observes the details of the landscape he is passing, while his thoughts have long been at home, tasting the joys he will experience at sight of the loved ones from whom he has so long been separated. She dared not hope to look into his dear eyes, to grasp his dear hands in hers, to hear the sound of his strong, yet gentle voice. She wished only to see the place where he lived.
And even this slight consolation, she thought, should be guarded. She had already gone in the same cross direction, some distance on the ridge of the hills, without obtaining a view of the other side where Wissow must be located—only a view over the edge of the plateau, a leaden gray. Perhaps if she followed the broader road which she was now approaching, and which, coming from the right, led to a pile of great boulders, whence a tall signal staff arose, and which must have been built on the top of the ridge—presumably also on the extreme edge of the promontory——!
As a matter of fact, as she ascended higher and higher a pale streak appeared over to the right—the coast of the continent—then again the leaden gray surface of the sea, upon which a sail could be discerned here and there; finally, on this side, immediately below her, a white point of dunes, which gradually grew wider in the shape of a wedge toward the promontory, till it became a small flat peninsula, in the middle of which a dozen small houses lay on the brown heath among the dunes—that was Wissow! That must be Wissow!
And now that she stood on the point which she had striven with all her physical and mental strength to reach, and, however longingly she extended her arms, the goal of her longing still lay so far, so unattainably far from her—now for the first time she thought she understood the silent dreadful speech of the waste, the loneliness about her, the rustling whisper of the heath, the voices of spirits wailing in the air: Alone! Alone! Unspeakable sorrow arose in her heart; her knees shook, she sank near the boulders upon a stone, covered her eyes with her hands and broke into loud crying, like a helpless, abandoned child.
She did not see a man, who was leaning against the signal staff observing the sea, startled by the strange sound near him, come from behind the boulders; she did not hear him coming up to her with hurried steps across the narrow grass plot.——