The Willows [wersja angielska], Algernon Blackwood
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//-->The WillowsAlgernon BlackwoodThe WillowsTable of ContentsThe Willows.........................................................................................................................................................1Algernon Blackwood...............................................................................................................................2I................................................................................................................................................................3II.............................................................................................................................................................10III...........................................................................................................................................................16.IV...........................................................................................................................................................22iThe Willows1The WillowsAlgernon BlackwoodThis page copyright © 2004 Blackmask Online.•I•II•III•IVProduced by Suzanne Shell, David Newman andDistributed ProofreadersTHE WILLOWSAlgernon Blackwood (1907)2The WillowsIAfter leaving Vienna, and long before you come to Budapest, the Danube enters a region of singularloneliness and desolation, where its waters spread away on all sides regardless of a main channel, and thecountry becomes a swamp for miles upon miles, covered by a vast sea of low willow−bushes. On the bigmaps this deserted area is painted in a fluffy blue, growing fainter in color as it leaves the banks, and across itmay be seen in large straggling letters the word Sumpfe, meaning marshes.In high flood this great acreage of sand, shingle−beds, and willow−grown islands is almost topped by thewater, but in normal seasons the bushes bend and rustle in the free winds, showing their silver leaves to thesunshine in an ever−moving plain of bewildering beauty. These willows never attain to the dignity of trees;they have no rigid trunks; they remain humble bushes, with rounded tops and soft outline, swaying on slenderstems that answer to the least pressure of the wind; supple as grasses, and so continually shifting that theysomehow give the impression that the entire plain is moving and alive. For the wind sends waves rising andfalling over the whole surface, waves of leaves instead of waves of water, green swells like the sea, too, untilthe branches turn and lift, and then silvery white as their underside turns to the sun.Happy to slip beyond the control of the stern banks, the Danube here wanders about at will among theintricate network of channels intersecting the islands everywhere with broad avenues down which the waterspour with a shouting sound; making whirlpools, eddies, and foaming rapids; tearing at the sandy banks;carrying away masses of shore and willow−clumps; and forming new islands innumerably which shift daily insize and shape and possess at best an impermanent life, since the flood−time obliterates their very existence.Properly speaking, this fascinating part of the river's life begins soon after leaving Pressburg, and we, inour Canadian canoe, with gipsy tent and frying−pan on board, reached it on the crest of a rising flood aboutmid−July. That very same morning, when the sky was reddening before sunrise, we had slipped swiftlythrough still−sleeping Vienna, leaving it a couple of hours later a mere patch of smoke against the blue hills ofthe Wienerwald on the horizon; we had breakfasted below Fischeramend under a grove of birch trees roaringin the wind; and had then swept on the tearing current past Orth, Hainburg, Petronell (the old RomanCarnuntum of Marcus Aurelius), and so under the frowning heights of Thelsen on a spur of the Carpathians,where the March steals in quietly from the left and the frontier is crossed between Austria and Hungary.Racing along at twelve kilometers an hour soon took us well into Hungary, and the muddy waters—suresign of flood—sent us aground on many a shingle−bed, and twisted us like a cork in many a sudden belchingwhirlpool before the towers of Pressburg (Hungarian, Poszony) showed against the sky; and then the canoe,leaping like a spirited horse, flew at top speed under the grey walls, negotiated safely the sunken chain of theFliegende Brucke ferry, turned the corner sharply to the left, and plunged on yellow foam into the wildernessof islands, sandbanks, and swamp−land beyond—the land of the willows.The change came suddenly, as when a series of bioscope pictures snaps down on the streets of a town andshifts without warning into the scenery of lake and forest. We entered the land of desolation on wings, and inless than half an hour there was neither boat nor fishing−hut nor red roof, nor any single sign of humanhabitation and civilization within sight. The sense of remoteness from the world of humankind, the utterisolation, the fascination of this singular world of willows, winds, and waters, instantly laid its spell upon usboth, so that we allowed laughingly to one another that we ought by rights to have held some special kind ofpassport to admit us, and that we had, somewhat audaciously, come without asking leave into a separate littlekingdom of wonder and magic—a kingdom that was reserved for the use of others who had a right to it, witheverywhere unwritten warnings to trespassers for those who had the imagination to discover them.Though still early in the afternoon, the ceaseless buffetings of a most tempestuous wind made us feelweary, and we at once began casting about for a suitable camping−ground for the night. But the bewilderingcharacter of the islands made landing difficult; the swirling flood carried us in shore and then swept us outagain; the willow branches tore our hands as we seized them to stop the canoe, and we pulled many a yard ofsandy bank into the water before at length we shot with a great sideways blow from the wind into a backwaterand managed to beach the bows in a cloud of spray. Then we lay panting and laughing after our exertions on3
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