"It had not crossed me to wonder where my brother might be. I banished
the thought of him as often as it intruded. Not able to help meeting, we
had almost given up avoiding each other; but when we met, our desire was
to part. I do not know that, apart, we had ever yet felt actual hate,
either to the other.
"The road led through the village. It was asleep. I remember a gleam in
just one of the houses. The moonlight seemed to have drowned all the
lamps of the world. I came to the stream, rushing cold from its far-off
glacier-mother, crossed it, and went down the bank opposite the chalet: I
had taken a fancy to see it from that side. Glittering and glancing under
the moon, the wild little river rushed joyous to its fearful fall. A
short distance away, it was even now falling--falling from off the face
of the world! This moment it was falling from my very feet into the
void--falling, falling, unupheld, down, down, through the moonlight, to
the ghastly rock-foot below!
"The chalet seemed deserted. With the same woefully desolate look, it
constantly comes back in my dreams. I went farther down the valley. The
full-rushing stream went with me like a dog. It made no murmur, only a
low gurgle as it shot along. It seemed to draw me with it to its last
leap. As I looked at its swiftness, I thought how hard it would be to get
out of. The swiftness of it comes to me yet in my dreams.
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