yet it was not in reality the moonlight, but the old tree itself. However, he
could not endure it: and why? Ask the willow, ask the blossoming elder! At
all events, he bade farewell to Nuremberg and journeyed onwards. He never
spoke of Joanna to any one; his sorrow was hidden in his heart. The old
childish story of the two cakes had a deep meaning for him. He understood
now why the gingerbread man had a bitter almond in his left side; his was
the feeling of bitterness, and Joanna, so mild and friendly, was represented
by the honeycake maiden. As he thought upon all this, the strap of his
knapsack pressed across his chest so that he could hardly breathe; he
loosened it, but gained no relief. He saw but half the world around him; the
other half he carried with him in his inward thoughts; and this is the
condition in which he left Nuremberg. Not till he caught sight of the lofty
mountains did the world appear more free to him; his thoughts were
attracted to outer objects, and tears came into his eyes. The Alps appeared
to him like the wings of earth folded together; unfolded, they would display
the variegated pictures of dark woods, foaming waters, spreading clouds,
and masses of snow. “At the last day,” thought he, “the earth will unfold its
great wings, and soar upwards to the skies, there to burst like a soap-bubble
in the radiant glance of the Deity. Oh,” sighed he, “that the last day were
come!”
Silently he wandered on through the country of the Alps, which seemed
to him like a fruit garden, covered with soft turf. From the wooden
balconies of the houses the young lacemakers nodded as he passed. The
summits of the mountains glowed in the red evening sunset, and the green
lakes beneath the dark trees reflected the glow. Then he thought of the sea
coast by the bay Kjøge, with a longing in his heart that was, however,
without pain. There, where the Rhine rolls onward like a great billow, and
dissolves itself into snowflakes, where glistening clouds are ever changing
as if here was the place of their creation, while the rainbow flutters about
them like a many-colored ribbon, there did Knud think of the water-mill at
Kjøge, with its rushing, foaming waters. Gladly would he have remained in
the quiet Rhenish town, but there were too many elders and willow-trees.
