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Christmas 1956
Lunch, richer than usual in honor of the holiday, follows a quiet morning. Robert usually enjoyed the meals taken with his fellow patients; clatter of the knives, forks, and spoons were like a lively music for him. But this time it forced him outdoors to wander.
Warmly dressed, he stepped into the glittering light of the snowy landscape. From the sanitarium the path led through a dark underpass to the train station, where he had frequently waited for a friend. They'll wander again, whatever the weather, in the coming new year.
Today he's tempted by the Rosenberg, where there is a ruin. He's been there before, alone and with a companion. There is an enchanting view from this ridge of the range of mountains. The noon hour is so calming: snow, pure snow, as far as can be seen. Hadn't he once written a poem that ended with the words: "Snowfall reminds me of blowing prickly leaves stripped from a rose"[Schnei'n erinnert an das lose prickelnde Sichentblaettern einer Rose]. The verses were not especially good. But it's true that people should reveal themselves, like a rose.
The solitary wanderer breathes deeply of the bright winter air. One could almost eat it, so physical is it. Herisau now lies below him, factories, houses, churches, the train station. Among beech trees and firs he ascends the Schochenberg, perhaps a bit too quickly for a man of his age. But it drew him, with its own pulse, further and higher. Out of the Rosenwald to Wachtenegg, the western peak of the Rosenberg, from which he wishes to proceed to a hill on the far side. He was struck by the urge for a cigarette, but didn't give in; he postponed the enjoyment until he reached the ruin. The descent to the hollow is a bit steep, so he pointed his feet sideways and descended cautiously without any help from [Holzhag] to the saddle at about 860 meters, where he will have a rest. A few meters more and he's on level ground again. It would be about 1:30 PM. The sun shone weakly, like a young, pale girl. Not overwhelming, glaring, but tender and melancholy and hesitant, as if she wanted to abandon the countryside to the night.
Then suddenly the heartbeat of the wanderer faltered. He grew dizzy. That's a sign of the arteriosclerosis his doctor had warned him about, saying he should make his walks less strenuous. Suddenly he remembered the leg cramps that had troubled him on earlier excursions. Will he get those cramps again? What a burden things like that can be, how oppressive! "What's happening?" He falls backward, puts his hand to his heart, lies still. Deathly still. His left arm lies stretched along his cooling body. The left hand is clenched, as if it wanted to crush that short, sharp pain that pounced on the wanderer like a panther. A bit above that lies his cap. His head inclined a bit to the side, the mute wanderer offers a picture of total Christmas peace. His mouth lies open, as though to let the cold winter air stream in.
Thus he was found shortly thereafter by two sledders, schoolboys from the Burghalden farmstead of the Mansur family, scarcely 150 m. distant, as they investigated the object in the snow. A woman who climbed up out of the valley with her dog for a visit with her parents said it was remarkable how agitated her dog Whitey had been. He kept barking and pulling on his leash, and dragging her to the hillside where something unusual lay. You boys take a look!
The dead man who lay on the drift is a poet, for whom the winter with its gentle, merry snowfall was an enchantment, a real poet, who longed like a child for a world of rest and purity and love: Robert Walser.