Here, I thought to myself, is a little endless
song trickling away all to itself, and no one ever hears it, and no one
ever thinks of it, and still it trickles on nevertheless, to itself, all
the time, all the time! And I felt that the mountains were no longer
quite deserted, as long as I could hear that little trickling song. Now
and again something would happen: a clap of thunder shaking the earth, a
mass of rock slipping loose and rushing down towards the sea, leaving a
trail of smoking dust behind. Asop turned his nose to the wind at once,
sniffing in surprise at the smell of burning that he could not
understand. When the melting of the snow had made rifts in the hillside,
a shot, or even a sharp cry, was enough to loosen a great block and send
it tumbling down...
An hour might pass, or perhaps more--the time went so quickly. I let
Asop loose, slung my bag over the other shoulder, and set off towards
home. It was getting late. Lower down in the forest, I came unfailingly
upon my old, well-known path, a narrow ribbon of a path, with the
strangest bends and turns. I followed each one of them, taking my
time--there was no hurry. No one waiting for me at home. Free as a
lord, a ruler, I could ramble about there in the peaceful woods, just as
idly as I pleased.
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