Page:Selected letters of Mendelssohn 1894.djvu/86

72 thought I could manage it, and set off about one. There was nothing to see except the grey mirror of the lake, no mountains, seldom the outline of the opposite shore.

The streams which, as you remember, often run down the footpaths, had turned into torrents, along which one had to wade, and when the path was level for a little, the water stood still and formed a lake. Then I had to get through the wet hedges into the squelchy meadows, for all the tree-trunks, by which one is supposed to cross the streams, lay under water. Once I came between two brooks that had overflowed into one another, and had to wade up against the current with water up to my chin. All this water was black or chocolate coloured. It looked as if streams of liquid earth were flowing down and leaping one above the other. From above the rain streamed down, and the wind every now and then shook the water from the dripping walnut-trees, and the waterfalls that pour themselves into the lake roared with a terrible sound on either shore. One’s eye could follow the brown streaks they made far down till they fell plashing into the clear lake, which remained all the time quite calm, and quietly received all the wild seething that rushed down on it.

Then I met a man wading with shoes and stockings off, and his breeches turned up. By this time I was getting rather depressed. Two women came along, who told me I could not get through the village, all the bridges were down. I asked them how far it was to Interlaken. “A good hour,” was the answer.