Oh, what a lot Rudy had to carry the next day when he made his way home over the high mountains. Yes, he had three silver cups, two high-quality rifles, and a silver coffee-pot which would prove useful when he was setting up home. Yet this was not what was pressing on him the most; he was carrying over the high mountains – or was it carrying him? – something weightier, still more powerful. But the weather was raw, grey, charged with rain, and oppressive; the clouds descended over the mountain heights like black mourning-crape, enveloping the gleaming summits. From the forest the last axe-blow of the day rang out, and down the side of the mountain tree-trunks rolled, looking from high up like flimsy firewood, but from nearer to like trees that had become masts for ships. The Lütschine pealed its monotonous music, the wind whistled, the clouds voyaged past. Close to Rudy a young girl appeared quite suddenly. He hadn’t noticed her till she was right there beside him. She wanted to cross the mountain too. Her eyes had a peculiar power; you could look into them, they were so weirdly limpid, so deep, fathomless.
‘Have you got a sweetheart?’ Rudy asked. All his thoughts were filled with having a sweetheart.
‘I have no one,’ she said, and laughed, but it was as if what she’d said wasn’t the truth. ‘Let’s not go a long way round. We should veer more to the left. It’s shorter.’
‘Yes, till you fall into an ice crevasse!’ said Rudy. ‘Don’t you know a better way – and you wanting to be a mountain guide?’
‘I know the way exactly!’ she said, ‘and my mind’s in good trim too. Yours is still down in the valley. Up here you’ve got to start paying attention to the Ice Virgin – she doesn’t mean human beings any good; that’s what the humans themselves say!’
‘I’m not afraid of her!’ said Rudy, ‘she had to let go of me when I was a child; I shall give her the slip easily enough now I’m an adult.’
And the darkness intensified, the rain was falling; snow came, it shone, it dazzled.
‘Just reach your hand out to me; that way I can help you to go on up,’ said the girl, and she touched him with an ice-cold finger.
‘You help me!’ said Rudy, ‘I’m in no need of any woman’s help when it comes to climbing, that’s for sure!’ And he increased his pace to get away from her. The snowstorm was coming down like a curtain all round him, the wind whistled, and then at his back he heard the girl laughing and singing, and it rang out so eerily. Presumably this was some species of troll in the Ice Virgin’s service. Rudy had heard about such things when he was little and made that overnight stop up here during the crossing of the mountains.
The snowfall lessened, the cloud now lay below him. He looked behind him, there was nobody to be seen any more, but he heard laughter and yodelling, which didn’t sound as though it came from a human being.
When Rudy finally reached the topmost part of the mountain, where the path began to descend to the Rhône Valley, he saw, in the clear blue strip of sky in the direction of Chamonix, two bright stars which shone so glitteringly, and he thought of Babette, of himself and his good fortune, and his thoughts warmed him.