The Willows Read online

great creature, and across the Bavarian wheat plain ofStraubing she wandered so slowly under the blazing June sun that we couldwell imagine only the surface inches were water, while below there moved,concealed as by a silken mantle, a whole army of Undines, passing silentlyand unseen down to the sea, and very leisurely too, lest they bediscovered.

  Much, too, we forgave her because of her friendliness to the birds andanimals that haunted the shores. Cormorants lined the banks in lonelyplaces in rows like short black palings; grey crows crowded theshingle-beds; storks stood fishing in the vistas of shallower water thatopened up between the islands, and hawks, swans, and marsh birds of allsorts filled the air with glinting wings and singing, petulant cries. Itwas impossible to feel annoyed with the river's vagaries after seeing adeer leap with a splash into the water at sunrise and swim past the bows ofthe canoe; and often we saw fawns peering at us from the underbrush, orlooked straight into the brown eyes of a stag as we charged full tilt rounda corner and entered another reach of the river. Foxes, too, everywherehaunted the banks, tripping daintily among the driftwood and disappearingso suddenly that it was impossible to see how they managed it.

  But now, after leaving Pressburg, everything changed a little, and theDanube became more serious. It ceased trifling. It was half-way to theBlack Sea, within seeming distance almost of other, stranger countrieswhere no tricks would be permitted or understood. It became suddenlygrown-up, and claimed our respect and even our awe. It broke out into threearms, for one thing, that only met again a hundred kilometers farther down,and for a canoe there were no indications which one was intended to befollowed.

  "If you take a side channel," said the Hungarian officer we met in thePressburg shop while buying provisions, "you may find yourselves, when theflood subsides, forty miles from anywhere, high and dry, and you may easilystarve. There are no people, no farms, no fishermen. I warn you not tocontinue. The river, too, is still rising, and this wind will increase."

  The rising river did not alarm us in the least, but the matter of beingleft high and dry by a sudden subsidence of the waters might be serious,and we had consequently laid in an extra stock of provisions. For the rest,the officer's prophecy held true, and the wind, blowing down a perfectlyclear sky, increased steadily till it reached the dignity of a westerlygale.

  It was earlier than usual when we camped, for the sun was a good hour ortwo from the horizon, and leaving my friend still asleep on the hot sand, Iwandered about in desultory examination of our hotel. The island, I found,was less than an acre in extent, a mere sandy bank standing some two orthree feet above the level of the river. The far end, pointing into thesunset, was covered with flying spray which the tremendous wind drove offthe crests of the broken waves. It was triangular in shape, with the apexup stream.

  I stood there for several minutes, watching the impetuous crimson floodbearing down with a shouting roar, dashing in waves against the bank asthough to sweep it bodily away, and then swirling by in two foaming streamson either side. The ground seemed to shake with the shock and rush, whilethe furious movement of the willow bushes as the wind poured over themincreased the curious illusion that the island itself actually moved.Above, for a mile or two, I could see the great river descending upon me;it was like looking up the slope of a sliding hill, white with foam, andleaping up everywhere to show itself to the sun.

  The rest of the island was too thickly grown with willows to make walkingpleasant, but I made the tour, nevertheless. From the lower end the light,of course, changed, and the river looked dark and angry. Only the backs ofthe flying waves were visible, streaked with foam, and pushed forcibly bythe great puffs of wind that fell upon them from behind. For a short mileit was visible, pouring in and out among the islands, and then disappearingwith a huge sweep into the willows, which closed about it like a herd ofmonstrous antediluvian creatures crowding down to drink. They made me thinkof gigantic sponge-like growths that sucked the river up into themselves.They caused it to vanish from sight. They herded there together in suchoverpowering numbers.

  Altogether it was an impressive scene, with its utter loneliness, itsbizarre suggestion; and as I gazed, long and curiously, a singular emotionbegan to stir somewhere in the depths of me. Midway in my delight of thewild beauty, there crept, unbidden and unexplained, a curious feeling ofdisquietude, almost of alarm.

  A rising river, perhaps, always suggests something of the ominous; many ofthe little islands I saw before me would probably have been swept away bythe morning; this resistless, thundering flood of water touched the senseof awe. Yet I was aware that my uneasiness lay deeper far than the emotionsof awe and wonder. It was not that I felt. Nor had it directly to do withthe power of the driving wind--this shouting hurricane that might almostcarry up a few acres of willows into the air and scatter them like so muchchaff over the landscape. The wind was simply enjoying itself, for nothingrose out of the flat landscape to stop it, and I was conscious of sharingits great game with a kind of pleasurable excitement. Yet this novelemotion had nothing to do with the wind. Indeed, so vague was the sense ofdistress I experienced, that it was impossible to trace it to its sourceand deal with it accordingly, though I was aware somehow that it had to dowith my realization of our utter insignificance before this unrestrainedpower of the elements about me. The huge-grown river had something to dowith it too--a vague, unpleasant idea that we had somehow trifled withthese great elemental forces in whose power we lay helpless every hour ofthe day and night. For here, indeed, they were gigantically at playtogether, and the sight appealed to the imagination.

  But my emotion, so far as I could understand it, seemed to attach itselfmore particularly to the willow bushes, to these acres and acres ofwillows, crowding, so thickly growing there, swarming everywhere the eyecould reach, pressing upon the river as though to suffocate it, standing indense array mile after mile beneath the sky, watching, waiting, listening.And, apart quite from the elements, the willows connected themselves subtlywith my malaise, attacking the mind insidiously somehow by reason of theirvast numbers, and contriving in some way or other to represent to theimagination a new and mighty power, a power, moreover, not altogetherfriendly to us.

  Great revelations of nature, of course, never fail to impress in one way oranother, and I was no stranger to moods of the kind. Mountains overawe andoceans terrify, while the mystery of great forests exercises a spellpeculiarly its own. But all these, at one point or another, somewhere linkon intimately with human life and human experience. They stircomprehensible, even if alarming, emotions. They tend on the whole toexalt.

  With this multitude of willows, however, it was something far different, Ifelt. Some essence emanated from them that besieged the heart. A sense ofawe awakened, true, but of awe touched somewhere by a vague terror. Theirserried ranks, growing everywhere darker about me as the shadows deepened,moving furiously yet softly in the wind, woke in me the curious andunwelcome suggestion that we had trespassed here upon the borders of analien world, a world where we were intruders, a world where we were notwanted or invited to remain--where we ran grave risks perhaps!

  The feeling, however, though it refused to yield its meaning entirely toanalysis, did not at the time trouble me by passing into menace. Yet itnever left me quite, even during the very practical business of putting upthe tent in a hurricane of wind and building a fire for the stew-pot. Itremained, just enough to bother and perplex, and to rob a most delightfulcamping-ground of a good portion of its charm. To my companion, however, Isaid nothing, for he was a man I considered devoid of imagination. In thefirst place, I could never have explained to him what I meant, and in thesecond, he would have laughed stupidly at me if I had.

  There was a slight depression in the center of the island, and here wepitched the tent. The surrounding willows broke the wind a bit.

  "A poor camp," observed the imperturbable Swede when at last the tent stoodupright, "no stones and precious little firewood. I'm for moving on earlytomorrow--eh? This sand won't hold anything."

 
But the experience of a collapsing tent at midnight had taught us manydevices, and we made the cozy gipsy house as safe as possible, and then setabout collecting a store of wood to last till bed-time. Willow bushes dropno branches, and driftwood was our only source of supply. We hunted theshores pretty thoroughly. Everywhere the banks were crumbling as the risingflood tore at them and carried away great portions with a splash and agurgle.

  "The island's much smaller than when we landed," said the accurate Swede."It won't last long at this rate. We'd better drag the canoe close to thetent, and be ready to start at a moment's notice. I shall sleep in myclothes."

  He was a little distance off, climbing along the bank, and I heard hisrather jolly laugh as he spoke.

  "By Jove!" I heard him call, a moment later, and turned to see what hadcaused his exclamation. But for the moment he was hidden by the willows,and I could not find him.

  "What in the world's this?" I heard him cry again, and this time his voicehad become serious.

  I ran up quickly and joined him on the bank. He was looking over the river,pointing at something in the water.

  "Good heavens, it's a man's body!" he cried excitedly. "Look!"

  A black thing, turning over and over in the foaming waves, swept rapidlypast. It kept disappearing and coming up to the surface again. It was abouttwenty feet from the shore, and just as it was opposite to where we stoodit lurched round and looked straight at us. We saw its eyes reflecting thesunset, and gleaming an odd yellow as the body turned over. Then it gave aswift, gulping plunge, and dived out of sight in a flash.

  "An otter, by gad!" we exclaimed in the same breath, laughing.

  It was an otter, alive, and out on the hunt; yet it had looked exactly likethe body of a drowned man turning helplessly in the current. Far below itcame to the surface once again, and we saw its black skin, wet and shiningin the sunlight.

  Then, too, just as we turned back, our arms full of driftwood, anotherthing happened to recall us to the river bank. This time it really was aman, and what was more, a man in a boat. Now a small boat on the Danube wasan unusual sight at any time, but here in this deserted region, and atflood time, it was so unexpected as to constitute a real event. We stoodand stared.

  Whether it was due to the slanting sunlight, or the refraction from thewonderfully illumined water, I cannot say, but, whatever the cause, I foundit difficult to focus my sight properly upon the flying apparition. Itseemed, however, to be a man standing upright in a sort of flat-bottomedboat, steering with a long oar, and being carried down the opposite shoreat a tremendous pace. He apparently was looking across in our direction,but the distance was too great and the light too uncertain for us to makeout very plainly what he was about. It seemed to me that he wasgesticulating and making signs at us. His voice came across the water to usshouting something furiously, but the wind drowned it so that no singleword was audible. There was something curious about the wholeappearance--man, boat, signs, voice--that made an impression on me out ofall proportion to its cause.

  "He's crossing himself!" I cried. "Look, he's making the sign of theCross!"

  "I believe you're right," the Swede said, shading his eyes with his handand watching the man out of sight. He seemed to be gone in a moment,melting away down there into the sea of willows where the sun caught themin the bend of the river and turned them into a great crimson wall ofbeauty. Mist, too, had begun to ruse, so that the air was hazy.

  "But what in the world is he doing at nightfall on this flooded river?" Isaid, half to myself. "Where is he going at such a time, and what did hemean by his signs and shouting? D'you think he wished to warn us aboutsomething?"

  "He saw our smoke, and thought we were spirits probably," laughed mycompanion. "These Hungarians believe in all sorts of rubbish; you rememberthe shopwoman at Pressburg warning us that no one ever landed here becauseit belonged to some sort of beings outside man's world! I suppose theybelieve in fairies and elementals, possibly demons, too. That peasant inthe boat saw people on the islands for the first time in his life," headded, after a slight pause, "and it scared him, that's all."

  The Swede's tone of voice was not convincing, and his manner lackedsomething that was usually there. I noted the change instantly while hetalked, though without being able to label it precisely.

  "If they had enough imagination," I laughed loudly--I remember trying tomake as much noise as I could--"they might well people a place like thiswith the old gods of antiquity. The Romans must have haunted all thisregion more or less with their shrines and sacred groves and elementaldeities."

  The subject dropped and we returned to our stew-pot, for my friend was notgiven to imaginative conversation as a rule. Moreover, just then I rememberfeeling distinctly glad that he was not imaginative; his stolid, practicalnature suddenly seemed to me welcome and comforting. It was an admirabletemperament, I felt; he could steer down rapids like a red Indian, shootdangerous bridges and whirlpools better than any white man I ever saw in acanoe. He was a grand fellow for an adventurous trip, a tower of strengthwhen untoward things happened. I looked at his strong face and light curlyhair as he staggered along under his pile of driftwood (twice the size ofmine!), and I experienced a feeling of relief. Yes, I was distinctly gladjust then that the Swede was--what he was, and that he never made remarksthat suggested more than they said.

  "The river's still rising, though," he added, as if following out somethoughts of his own, and dropping his load with a gasp. "This island willbe under water in two days if it goes on."

  "I wish the wind would go down," I said. "I don't care a fig for theriver."

  The flood, indeed, had no terrors for us; we could get off at ten minutes'notice, and the more water the better we liked it. It meant an increasingcurrent and the obliteration of the treacherous shingle-beds that so oftenthreatened to tear the bottom out of our canoe.

  Contrary to our expectations, the wind did not go down with the sun. Itseemed to increase with the darkness, howling overhead and shaking thewillows round us like straws. Curious sounds accompanied it sometimes, likethe explosion of heavy guns, and it fell upon the water and the island ingreat flat blows of immense power. It made me think of the sounds a planetmust make, could we only hear it, driving along through space.

  But the sky kept wholly clear of clouds, and soon after supper the fullmoon rose up in the east and covered the river and the plain of shoutingwillows with a light like the day.

  We lay on the sandy patch beside the fire, smoking, listening to the noisesof the night round us, and talking happily of the journey we had alreadymade, and of our plans ahead. The map lay spread in the door of the tent,but the high wind made it hard to study, and presently we lowered thecurtain and extinguished the lantern. The firelight was enough to smoke andsee each other's faces by, and the sparks flew about overhead likefireworks. A few yards beyond, the river gurgled and hissed, and from timeto time a heavy splash announced the falling away of further portions ofthe bank.

  Our talk, I noticed, had to do with the faraway scenes and incidents of ourfirst camps in the Black Forest, or of other subjects altogether remotefrom the present setting, for neither of us spoke of the actual moment morethan was necessary--almost as though we had agreed tacitly to avoiddiscussion of the camp and its incidents. Neither the otter nor theboatman, for instance, received the honor of a single mention, thoughordinarily these would have furnished discussion for the greater part ofthe evening. They were, of course, distinct events in such a place.

  The scarcity of wood made it a business to keep the fire going, for thewind, that drove the smoke in our faces wherever we sat, helped at the sametime to make a forced draught. We took it in turn to make some foragingexpeditions into the darkness, and the quantity the Swede brought backalways made me feel that he took an absurdly long time finding it; for thefact was I did not care much about being left alone, and yet it alwaysseemed to be my turn to grub about among the bushes or scramble along theslippery banks in the moonlight. The long day's battle with win
d andwater--such wind and such water!--had tired us both, and an early bed wasthe obvious program. Yet neither of us made the move for the tent. We laythere, tending the fire, talking in desultory fashion, peering about usinto the dense willow bushes, and listening to the thunder of wind andriver. The loneliness of the place had entered our very bones, and silenceseemed natural, for after a bit the sound of our voices became a trifleunreal and forced; whispering would have been the fitting mode ofcommunication, I felt, and the human voice, always rather absurd amid theroar of the elements, now carried with it something almost illegitimate. Itwas like talking out loud in church, or in some place where it was notlawful, perhaps not quite safe, to be overheard.

  The eeriness of this lonely island, set among a million willows, swept by ahurricane, and surrounded by hurrying deep waters, touched us both, Ifancy. Untrodden by man, almost unknown to man, it lay there beneath themoon, remote from human influence, on the frontier of another world, analien world, a world tenanted by willows only and the souls of willows. Andwe, in our rashness, had dared to invade it, even to make use of it!Something more than the power of its mystery stirred in me as I lay on thesand, feet to fire, and peered up through the leaves at the stars. For thelast time I rose to get firewood.

  "When this has burnt up," I said firmly, "I shall turn in," and mycompanion watched me lazily as I moved off into the surrounding shadows.

  For an unimaginative man I thought he seemed unusually receptive thatnight, unusually open to suggestion of things other than sensory. He toowas touched by the beauty and loneliness of the place. I was not altogetherpleased, I remember, to recognize this slight change in him, and instead ofimmediately