To-day the priest bound snow-shoes on his feet in order to make visits among the sick. But the snow was too soft, and he was obliged to turn back. Now he is making up little bundles from our landlord’s pantry, and some sturdy wood-cutters are to carry them to the sick people in Lautergräben.
These are short days and yet so long. I have my zither, I have the new violin given to me by the priest on my last birthday, I have other things with which to distract myself. But now nothing interests me. For hours at a time I walk up and down the room and wonder what the result of this winter will be. There are many huts in Graben where the men have not been with their shovels. We are anxious about the condition of things over there.
In order to relieve myself from the oppressive inactivity, I opened to-day the chest which is under the bench by the stove, and took out the leaves of my old journal, to see what had been the fortunes of this parish since its beginning.
And I find that nothing has been written for ten years. There may have been two reasons for this interruption in my records. In the first place, I no longer felt the need of writing out my thoughts and feelings, for in our priest I have found a friend in whom I can confide unreservedly, as he has confided in me, telling me the strange story of his life before we were even acquainted. He is one of the few who, refined by suffering, have emerged from the entanglements and mistakes of the world pure and noble. The woodspeople love him devotedly; he leads them not by words alone but by his deeds. His Sunday sermons he puts into practice during the week. He sacrifices himself, he is everything to the people. His hair is no longer black, as at that time in the Felsenthal; his face is earnest, and bright as the gleam of a rainbow. Those who are sorrowful gaze into his eyes and find comfort there.
When we are all sitting together, he likes to tell us of the distant, beautiful world—of strange foreign countries, of the wonders of nature. Pipes grow cold while he talks, for everyone listens with the greatest eagerness. Only the old woman from the Winkelwarden’s house declares that the priest’s stories are silly fables; a proper priest, she thinks, should talk of heaven and purgatory, and not always of the world. Nevertheless she listens and smiles.