TRUYỆN CỔ ANDERSEN - Trang 600

enough for the bed of the river and a narrow carriage-road. An old tower
stands here, as if it were guardian to the canton Valais, which ends at this
point; and from it we can look across the stone bridge to the toll-house on
the other side, where the canton Vaud commences. Not far from this spot
stands the town of Bex, and at every step can be seen an increase of
fruitfulness and verdure. It is like entering a grove of chestnut and walnut-
trees. Here and there the cypress and pomegranate blossoms peep forth; and
it is almost as warm as an Italian climate. Rudy arrived at Bex, and soon
finished the business which had brought him there, and then walked about
the town; but not even the miller’s boy could be seen, nor any one
belonging to the mill, not to mention Babette. This did not please him at all.
Evening came on. The air was filled with the perfume of the wild thyme
and the blossoms of the lime-trees, and the green woods on the mountains
seemed to be covered with a shining veil, blue as the sky. Over everything
reigned a stillness, not of sleep or of death, but as if Nature were holding
her breath, that her image might be photographed on the blue vault of
heaven. Here and there, amidst the trees of the silent valley, stood poles
which supported the wires of the electric telegraph. Against one of these
poles leaned an object so motionless that it might have been mistaken for
the trunk of a tree; but it was Rudy, standing there as still as at that moment
was everything around him. He was not asleep, neither was he dead; but
just as the various events in the world-matters of momentous importance to
individuals-were flying through the telegraph wires, without the quiver of a
wire or the slightest tone, so, through the mind of Rudy, thoughts of
overwhelming importance were passing, without an outward sign of
emotion. The happiness of his future life depended upon the decision of his
present reflections. His eyes were fixed on one spot in the distance-a light
that twinkled through the foliage from the parlor of the miller’s house,
where Babette dwelt. Rudy stood so still, that it might have been supposed
he was watching for a chamois; but he was in reality like a chamois, who
will stand for a moment, looking as if it were chiselled out of the rock, and
then, if only a stone rolled by, would suddenly bound forward with a spring,
far away from the hunter. And so with Rudy: a sudden roll of his thoughts