488 GERMANIC LITERATURE 



protection against the bullets of enemies, had erected a sort of 

 blockhouse on a smaller scale upon his ark commonly designated 

 as boat (Boot] or scow (Fdhre), once, however, as raft (Flosse}, 

 although besides it genuine rafts were present. On a primitive raft 

 of blocks of wood, a seat was made for Hetty. In the corresponding 

 descriptions in Stifter a contradiction has crept in; at the beginning 

 one raft carries an elevated framework with seats for the company, 

 but later on both rafts carry " bullet-proof houses." The exaggerated 

 precautions that are taken to keep the raft always at a suitable 

 distance from the shore likewise recall the American novel. And when 

 old Gregory, after shooting at a hawk, laid his gun down along a 

 tree-trunk, and waits to see the unfamiliar noise fetch the animals 

 up out of the water, this too sounds like an Indian trick, so many 

 of which are described in Cooper. The inaccessibility of the strongly 

 fortified spot is strongly emphasized; so far aside from human 

 traffic does it lie that no path, no footprint, no trace of one, can be 

 spied. This tautology recalls the importance of spying out enemies 

 in Cooper's novels. Yet, in case a hostile band should wander into 

 this wilderness, Gregory knows of a cave, some hours distant up 

 among the highest rocks, to which he only knows the approach; 

 there he can hide the girls till the danger is over, even as Cooper's 

 characters often find refuge in caves. Also in the equipment of the 

 two lake colonies there is much that is similar. When the sisters, 

 in great anxiety about their paternal house which can be seen glisten- 

 ing in the hazy distance, examine it from the "block stone" through 

 a telescope, old Gregory struggled hard to comprehend the enchanted 

 thing, which was quite inexplicable to him. So, too. in Cooper the 

 little company in the lake make observations with the telescope on 

 the castle when it was visited by the enemy; the wonder and curiosity 

 are painted in the same colors. In the Pioneers, also, a telescope comes 

 into use. Stifter 's employment of the telescope cannot be called 

 an anachronism, as it was already in widespread use by the middle 

 of the seventeenth century. 



In these similar settings goes on, both here and there, the idyllic 

 life of the sisters, at first disturbed only, at rare intervals, by some 

 beast of the forest. "Low and tremulously, but earnestly and 

 solemnly," Hetty sings in the quiet of night; her spirit consoles 

 itself in the prayer of simple faith. So also the tones of Clarissa's 

 harp "penetrate the sleeping midnight air like a sweet heart-throb." 

 As between the two sisters, Clarissa strongly recalls Judith in her 

 chief traits. Of a singular, dark-eyed beauty, Judith has an un- 

 conquerable love for bodily ornament, as appears especially in the 

 unpacking of the old chest, descended from her mother. In like man- 

 ner the two sisters in the mountain forest feel first delight and later 

 shame at this "girlish weakness," as they put on their finest clothes 



