ds' huts, or
else in the open woods, for it was just then the most beautiful season
of the year. Here I came across no human habitations whatever, nor
could I expect to meet with any in this wilderness. The rocks became
more and more terrible--I often had to pass close by dizzy precipices,
and finally even the path under my feet came to an end. I was
absolutely wretched; I wept and screamed, and my voice echoed horribly
in the rocky glens. And now night set in; I sought out a mossy spot to
lie down on, but I could not sleep. All night long I heard the most
peculiar noises; first I thought it was wild beasts, then the wind
moaning through the rocks, then again strange birds. I prayed, and not
until toward morning did I fall asleep.

"I woke up when the daylight shone in my face. In front of me there
was a rock. I climbed up on it, hoping to find a way out of the
wilderness, and perhaps to see some houses or people. But when I
reached the top, everything, as far as my eye could see, was like
night about me--all overcast with a gloomy mist. The day was dark and
dismal, and not a tree, not a meadow, not even a thicket could my eye
discern, with the exception of a few bushes which, in solitary
sadness, had shot up through the crevices in the rocks. It is
impossible to describe the longing I felt merely to see a human being,
even had it been the most strange-looking person before whom I should
inevitably have taken fright. At the same time I was ravenously
hungry. I sat down and resolved to die. But after a while the desire
to live came off victorious; I got up quickly and walked on all day
long, occasionally crying out. At last I was scarcely conscious of
what I was doing; I was tired and exhausted, had hardly any desire to
live, and yet was afraid to die.

"Toward evening the region around me began to assume a somewhat more
friendly aspect. My thoughts and wishes took new life, and the desire
to live awakened in all my veins. I now thought I heard the swishing
of a mill in the distance; I redoubled my steps, and how relieved, how
joyous I felt when at last I actually reached the end of the dreary
rocks! Woods and meadows and, far ahead, pleasant mountains lay before
me again. I felt as if I had stepped out of hell into paradise; the
solitude and my helplessness did not seem to me at all terrible now.

"Instead of the hoped-for mill, I came upon a water-fall, which, to be
sure, considerably diminished my joy. I dished up