heart; yet the pilgrim did not appear to recognise them. He had now
reached the mountain where he hoped to find a limit to his journey.
Hoped? No longer did he cherish hope. Terrible anxiety, the sterile
coldness of indifferent despair, urged him to seek the wild horrors of
the mountains; the most toilsome path soothed the tumult of his soul.
He was weary and silent. He noticed not the gradual accumulation of
nature around him, as he sat upon a stone and cast his eye backward. It
seemed as if he were or had been dreaming. A splendor whose limit he
could not define opened before him. His cheeks were soon wet with
tears, as his feelings suddenly broke loose; he would have wept himself
away in the distance, that no trace of his existence might remain. Amid
his deep-drawn sighs he seemed to recover; the soft, serene air
penetrated him. The world was again present to his senses, and thoughts
of other times began to speak to him consolation.

In the distance lay Augsburg with its towers; far on the horizon
glimmered the mirror of the fearful, mysterious stream. The mighty
forest bowed with grave sympathy towards the wanderer; the notched
mountain rested meaningly upon the plain, and both seemed to say,
"Hasten on, O stream, thou dost not escape us. I will follow thee with
winged ships. I will break thee, restrain thee, and swallow thee up in
my bosom! O pilgrim, confide in us! Even he is our enemy whom we
ourselves begat; let him make haste with his booty, he escapes us not."

The poor pilgrim thought of olden times and their unspeakable delights;
but how heavily did those dear recollections pass through his mind. The
broad hat concealed a youthful face; it was pale as a night-flower. The
balmy sap of youthful life had changed to tears, his swelling breath to
deep sighs; an ashy paleness had usurped all color.

On one side upon the declivity of the hill, he thought he saw a monk
kneeling under an old oak tree. "Might not that possibly be the old
chaplain?" he conjectured, without much surprise at the idea. The monk
appeared larger and more unshapely the nearer he approached. He now
discovered his mistake. It was an isolated rock, over which a tree was
bending. With silent emotion he clasped the stone in his arms, and with
loud sobbing pressed it to his breast. "O that yet your speech was
preserved, and that the Holy Mother would give me some token! Am I then
entirely miserable and abandoned? Dwells there then in this desert