Gertrude Read Online Free PDF Page A

able to travel alone and did not need to wait for anything. The thought of any companion would have been repugnant to me and would have disturbed my need for inner peace. I already felt better as I sat in the train and there was no one to look at me curiously and sympathetically. I traveled a day and night without stopping, with a feeling of really taking flight, and breathed a sigh of relief when, on the second day, I caught sight of high mountain peaks through steamed windows. I reached the last station as it was growing dark. I went wearily yet happily along dark lanes to the first inn of a compact little town. After a glass of deep red wine I slept for ten hours, throwing off the weariness of travel and also a good deal of the distress of mind with which I had come.
    The following morning I took a seat in the small mountain train that traveled through narrow valleys and past white sparkling streams toward the mountains. Then, from a small, remote station, I traveled by coach; by midday I was in one of the highest villages in the country.
    I stayed right into the autumn in the only small inn of the quiet little village, at times being the only guest. I had had it in mind to rest here for a short time and then travel farther through Switzerland and see some more of foreign parts and the world. But there was a wind at that height which blew air across that was so fresh and strong I felt I never wanted to leave it. One side of the steep valley was covered almost to the top with fir trees; the other slope was sheer rock. I spent my days here, by the sun-warmed rocks, or by the side of one of the swift, wild streams, the music of which could be heard during the night throughout the whole village. At the beginning I enjoyed the solitude like a cool, healing drink. No one bothered about me; no one showed any curiosity or sympathy toward me. I was alone and free like a bird in the air and I soon forgot my pain and unhealthy feelings of envy. At times I regretted being unable to go far into the mountains to see unknown valleys and peaks and to climb along dangerous paths. Yet I was not unhappy. After the events and excitement of the past months, the calm solitude surrounded me like a fortress. I found peace again and learned to accept my physical defect with resignation, although perhaps not with cheerfulness.
    The weeks up there were almost the most beautiful in my life. I breathed the pure, clear air, drank the icy water from streams and watched the herds of goats grazing on the steep slopes, guarded by dark-haired, musing goatherds. At times I heard storms resound through the valley and saw mists and clouds at unusually close quarters. In the clefts of rocks I observed the small, delicate, bright colored flowers and the many wonderful mosses, and on clear days I used to like to walk uphill for an hour until I could see the clearly outlined distant peaks of high mountains, their blue silhouettes, and white, sparkling snow fields across the other side of the hill. On one part of the footpath where a thin trickle of water from a small spring kept it damp, I found on every fine day a swarm of hundreds of small, blue butterflies drinking the water. They scarcely moved when I approached, and if I disturbed them, they whirled about with a fluttering of tiny, silky wings. After I made the discovery, I only went that way on sunny days, and each time the dense, blue swarm was there, and each time it was a holiday.
    When I consider it more closely, that period was not really as perfectly serene and sunny and joyous as it seems in retrospect. There were not only days when there was fog or rain, and even days when it snowed and was bitter cold; there were also days when it was stormy and inclement within me.
    I was not used to being alone, and after the first days of repose and delight had passed, I again felt the pain from which I had run away return suddenly, at times with dreadful intensity. Many a cold evening I sat in my tiny room with