Then suddenly a new sound falls on the ear: the stroke of the
ax; some devil of a log has fixed itself so cunningly there is no hauling
it free, and it has to be cut through. It does not take many strokes to do
it, for the pressure on it already is enormous; soon it breaks, the great
confused mass yields, and begins to move. All the men are on their guard
now, holding back to see what is coming next; if the part they are
standing on shows signs of breaking loose, they must leap with catlike
swiftness to a safer spot. Their calling is one of daily and hourly peril;
they carry their lives in their hands.
* * * * *
But the little town is a living death.
It is pitiful to see such a dead place, trying to pretend it is alive. It
is the same with Bruges, the great city of the past, and with many cities
in Holland, in South Germany, the north of France, the Orient. Standing in
the marketplace of such a town one cannot but think: "Once, once upon a
time this was a living place; there are still human beings walking in the
streets!"
Strange, this town of ours is hidden away, shut in by the hills--and yet
for all that it has no doubt its local feminine beauty and its local
masculine ambition just as all other towns.
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