About three in the afternoon
When I looked about with the return of light I saw majestic fir-grown mountains on either hand , almost meeting overhead at some points , deeply shading the mossy gorge . I rose , and careless of direction , went still onward , and walked and walked for hours , unconscious of hunger ; there was a profusion of wild mountain-strawberries , very tiny , which must grow almost into winter , a few of which I ate ; there were blue gentianellas , and lilies-of-the-valley , and luxuriance of verdure , and a noise of waters . Occasionally , I saw little cataracts on high , fluttering like white wild rags , for they broke in the mid-fall , and were caught away , and scattered ; patches also of reaped hay and barley , hung up , in a singular way , on stakes six feet high , I suppose to dry ; there were perched huts , and a seemingly inaccessible small castle or burg , but none of these did I enter : and five bodies only I saw in the gorge , a woman with a babe , and a man with two small oxen . About three in the afternoon I was startled to find myself there , and turned back . It was dark when I again passed through those gloomy streets of Aadheim , making for the quay , and now I felt both my hunger and a dropping weariness . I had no thought of entering any house , but as I passed by one open _ porte-cochère _ , something , I know not what , made me turn sharply in , for my mind had become as fluff on the winds , not working of its own action , but the sport of impulses that seemed external . I went across the yard , and ascended a wooden spiral stair by a twilight which just enabled me to pick my way among five or six vague forms fallen there .