Page:The Works of J. W. von Goethe, Volume 5.djvu/46

32 Friedrichsthal, where we became acquainted, on our way, with one of the most important and most wonderful operations of human ingenuity.

Nevertheless, some pleasant adventures, and a surprising firework at nightfall, not far from Neukirch, interested us young fellows almost more than these important experiences. For as a few nights before, on the banks of the Saar, shining clouds of glowworms hovered around us, betwixt rock and thicket; so now the spark-spitting forges played their sprightly firework toward us. We passed, in the depth of night, the smelting-houses situated in the bottom of the valley, and were delighted with the strange half-gloom of these dens of plank, which are but dimly lighted by a little opening in the glowing furnace. The noise of the water, and of the bellows driven by it; the fearful whizzing and shrieking of the blast of air, which, raging into the smelted ore, stuns the hearing and confuses the senses,—drove us away, at last, to turn into Neukirch, which is built up against the mountain.

But, notwithstanding all the variety and fatigue of the day, I could find no rest here. I left my friend to a happy sleep, and sought the hunting-seat, which lay still farther up. It looks out far over mountain and wood, the outlines of which were only to be recognised against the clear night sky, but the sides and depths of which were impenetrable to my sight. This well-preserved building stood as empty as it was lonely: no castellan, no huntsman, was to be found. I sat before the great glass doors upon the steps which run around the whole terrace. Here, surrounded by mountains, over a forest-grown, dark soil, which seemed yet darker in contrast with the clear horizon of a summer night, with the glowing, starry vault above me, I sat for a long time by myself on the deserted spot, and thought I never had felt such a solitude. How sweetly, then, was I surprised by the distant sound of a couple of