It was horrible, really horrible to go this way. Horrible to torture ourselves by going through the cheerless rugged entrance, to cross this frigid brook, to climb up into this narrow and rugged crevice in the darkness.
“The path looks terrible,” I said timidly. There was still a strong, incredulous, unreasonable hope that we could turn back, and this hope flickered within me like the dying light of a candle. Perhaps the guide might even let himself be persuaded, and we could spare ourselves all this. Yes, why not? Wasn’t the spot that we had just left a thousand times more beautiful? Didn’t life flow there richer, warmer, and lovelier? And wasn’t I human, a childlike and mortal creature, with a right to a little happiness, to a little place in the sun, to a spot where I could view blue skies and flowers?
No, I wanted to remain there. I had no desire to play the hero and the martyr! I would be satisfied my entire life if I were allowed to stay in the valley and in the sun.
I had already begun to shiver. It was impossible to stand still very long.
“You’re freezing,” said the guide. “It’s best that we move on.”
After saying this, he stood up, stretched himself to his full height for a moment, and regarded me with a smile. There was neither mockery nor sympathy in his smile, neither harshness nor consideration. There was nothing there but understanding, nothing but knowledge. That smile said, “I know you. I know the fear that you’re feeling, and I’ve not at all forgotten your boasting of yesterday and the day before. I know and am familiar with each desperate hop and jump that your heart takes like a scared rabbit, and with each flirt with the lovely sunshine out there, even before you feel it.”
This was the smile with which my guide regarded me, as he took the first step into the dark rocky valley ahead of us, and I hated and loved him, just as a condemned man hates and loves the ax above his neck. Most of all, however, I hated and despised his knowledge, his leadership and coolness, his lack of likable weaknesses, and I hated everything in myself that acknowledged how right he was, that approved of him, that wanted to be like him and follow him.
He had already gone ahead, stepping on stones through the black brook, and was just on the point of disappearing from sight around the first rocky bend.
“Stop!” I called, so full of fear that I was forced to think at the same time that if this were a dream, my terror would explode it all this second, and I would wake up. “Stop,” I called. “I can’t go on. I’m not ready yet.”
The guide stood still and looked at me in silence without a single reproach but with his dreadful understanding, with his unbearable knowledge, his intuition, his smug assurance that he knew what would happen in advance.
“Do you think it would be better if we turned around?” he asked, and he had not even finished uttering his last word when I already knew, full of repugnance, that I would say no, would have to say no. And at the same time all the old, habitual, lovely, and familiar things cried out reproachfully within me: “Say yes, say yes,” as if the entire world and home were wrapped around my feet like a ball and chain.
I wanted to cry out yes, even though I knew for sure that I would not be able to do it.
Then the guide pointed back into the valley with his outstretched hand, and I turned once again to look at the region that I loved so much. But now I was faced with the most painful thing that I could possibly see: My beloved valleys and fields were lying pale and dull under a white, impoverished sun. The colors clashed in a false and shrill way. The shadows were rusty black and without magic, and the heart had been cut out of everything, the charm and fragrance depleted, so that it all smelled and tasted like things that one had eaten to the point of nausea. Oh, I had known it all the time! How I feared and hated my guide’s terrible way of degrading things that were dear and pleasant to me! How I hated his way of letting the juice and spirit run out of it, falsifying the fragrances, and poisoning the colors with a light touch! Oh, I had known it! Yesterday’s wine had become today’s vinegar. And the vinegar would never again turn back to wine. Never again.
I kept quiet and sadly followed the guide. He was absolutely right, now as always. It was good that he at least remained with me and kept within sight, instead of — as he often had — suddenly disappearing at the moment a decision had to be made and leaving me alone, alone with that alien voice inside my breast into which he, at the time, would transform himself.
I kept quiet, but my heart cried fervently, “Just stay — I’ll certainly follow!”
The stones in the brook were terribly slippery. It was tiring and made me dizzy to walk like this, step by step on narrow wet stones that shrank under my feet and eluded me. At the same time the path in the brook rose sharply, and the dark walls of the cliffs drew closer together. They swelled with gloom, and each corner revealed its nefarious intention of squeezing us and cutting off our retreat forever. A sheet of water ran over warty yellow rocks, all so slimy and sticky. No more sky, not even a cloud or some blue above us.
I walked and walked, following the guide, and often closed my eyes out of fear and repulsion. All at once there was a dark flower along the way, black velvet with a touch of sadness. It was beautiful and spoke familiarly to me, but the guide rushed on, and I felt that if I stayed a single moment longer, if I were to cast just one more glance at that sad velvet eye, then the distress and hopeless melancholy would become all too heavy and unbearable for me, and my spirit would remain banished forever in that sneering region of meaninglessness and madness.
Wet and dirty, I trudged onward, and as the damp walls pressed closer together above us, the guide began to sing his old song of comfort. With each step he took, he kept the beat with his clear, strong, young voice: “I will, I will, I will!” I knew quite well that he wanted to encourage me, to spur me on. He wanted to delude me and make me forget the horrible hardship and despair of this hellish journey. I knew he waited for me to chime in with his sing-song. But I refused to do it. I did not want to grant him this victory. Didn’t I feel like singing? Wasn’t I merely human, just a poor simple guy who had been drawn into doing things against my feelings that not even God would demand of me? Wasn’t each carnation and each forget-me-not allowed to stay alongside the brook where it was growing, to bloom and wither in its own way?
“I will, I will, I will!” the guide sang staunchly. Oh, if only I could have turned around! But I had long since been climbing over walls and precipices thanks to the marvelous help of the guide, and there was no return, none whatsoever. I suppressed my tears and felt them strangling me, but I didn’t dare weep, not in the least. And so I joined in the song of the guide, defiant and loud, in the same rhythm and tone. However, I did not sing his words. Instead, I kept repeating, “I must, I must, I must!” But it was not easy to sing while climbing. Soon I began gasping for breath and was forced to keep quiet. However, he kept singing tirelessly, “I will, I will, I will,” and in time he compelled me as well to sing his words. Now the climbing went better, and I no longer felt under duress. Indeed, I wanted to climb onward, and I no longer felt the slightest trace of fatigue from the singing.
Everything became brighter inside me, and as it did, the smooth cliff also receded, became drier and more pleasant. It also offered help to my slipping foot, and the bright blue sky revealed itself above more and more like a small blue brook between the banks of stone, and then like a small blue lake that grew and became more expansive.
I tried to exert my will more ardently and firmly, and the lake in the sky grew wider, and the path became more accessible. In fact, I sometimes ran an entire stretch with ease, without complaining, next to the guide. Then unexpectedly, I saw the peak close by, right above us, steep and glistening in the glowing air of the sun.