the right road.

The sun had already passed the meridian, when he at last reached the
clearing.

The but was deserted; no one answered his loud, anxious shouts.

Where had they gone?

He searched the wide, snow-covered expanse for traces, and found only too
many. Here horses' hoofs, there large and small feet had pressed the
snow, yonder hounds had run, and--Great Heaven!--here, by the tree-stump,
red blood stained the glimmering white ground.

His breath failed, but he did not cease to search, look, examine.

Yonder, where for the length of a man the snow had vanished and grass and
brown earth appeared, people had fought together, and there--Holy Virgin!
What was this!--there lay his father's hammer. He knew it only too well;
it was the smaller one, which to distinguish it from the two larger
tools, Goliath and Samson, he called David-the boy had swung it a hundred
times himself.

His heart stood still, and when he found some freshly-hewn pine-boughs,
and a fir-trunk that had been rejected by one of the men, he said to
himself: "The bier was made here," and his vivid imagination showed him
his father fighting, struck down, and then a mournful funeral procession.
Exulting bailiffs bore a tall strong-limbed corpse, and a slender,
black-robed body, his father and his teacher. Then came the quiet,
beautiful wife and Ruth in bonds, and behind them Marx and Rahel. He
distinctly saw all this; it even seemed as if he heard the sobs of the
women, and wailing bitterly, he thrust his hands in his floating locks
and ran to and fro. Suddenly he thought that the troopers would return to
seize him also. Away, away! anywhere--away! a voice roared and buzzed in
his ears, and he set out on a run towards the south, always towards the
south.

The boy had not eaten a mouthful, since the oatmeal porridge obtained at
the charcoal-burner's, in the morning, but felt neither hunger nor
thirst, and dashed on and on without heeding the way.

Long after his father had left the clearing for the second time, he still
ran on--but gasping for breath while his steps grew slower and shorter.
The moon rose, one star after another revealed its light, yet he still
struggled forward.

The forest lay behind him; he had reached a broad road, which he followed
southward, always southward, till his strength utterly failed. His head
and hands were burning like fire, yet it was very, very cold; but little
snow lay here in the valley, and in many place