be entertained, and waited upon by Babette? Rudy was jealous, and that
made Babette happy. It amused her to discover all the feelings of his heart;
the strong points and weak ones. Love was to her as yet only a pastime, and
she played with Rudy’s whole heart. At the same time it must be
acknowledged that her fortune, her whole life, her inmost thoughts, her best
and most noble feelings in this world were all for him. Still the more
gloomy he looked, the more her eyes laughed. She could almost have kissed
the fair Englishman, with the golden whiskers, if by so doing she could
have put Rudy in a rage, and made him run out of the house. That would
have proved how much he loved her. All this was not right in Babette, but
she was only nineteen years of age, and she did not reflect on what she did,
neither did she think that her conduct would appear to the young
Englishman as light, and not even becoming the modest and much-loved
daughter of the miller.
The mill at Bex stood in the highway, which passed under the snow-clad
mountains, and not far from a rapid mountain-stream, whose waters seemed
to have been lashed into a foam like soap-suds. This stream, however, did
not pass near enough to the mill, and therefore the mill-wheel was turned by
a smaller stream which tumbled down the rocks on the opposite side, where
it was opposed by a stone mill-dam, and obtained greater strength and
speed, till it fell into a large basin, and from thence through a channel to the
mill-wheel. This channel sometimes overflowed, and made the path so
slippery that any one passing that way might easily fall in, and be carried
towards the mill wheel with frightful rapidity. Such a catastrophe nearly
happened to the young Englishman. He had dressed himself in white
clothes, like a miller’s man, and was climbing the path to the miller’s house,
but he had never been taught to climb, and therefore slipped, and nearly
went in head-foremost. He managed, however, to scramble out with wet
sleeves and bespattered trousers. Still, wet and splashed with mud, he
contrived to reach Babette’s window, to which he had been guided by the
light that shone from it. Here he climbed the old linden-tree that stood near
it, and began to imitate the voice of an owl, the only bird he could venture
