midday
The autumn mist , like a snow-cloud , covered the whole landscape to the very horizon , from which towered vast snowy peaks and snowy cupolas ; in other places the misty mantle resembled frozen waves , out of which here and there rose round , blackish islands , the peaks of the higher mountains . It was a faithful image of reality : nothingness . There was nothing left now . I could calculate pretty surely on the mist descending at midday , and painting field and forest with frost ; but till then I could sketch nothing . So I lay down upon the rocky ledge , and marvelled at this motionless , huge , white winding-sheet which covered a whole realm . I had no thought of eating now . I hung up my knapsack with my bread and bacon on a spruce-fir tree , and when I had looked my fill of wonder at the sea of mist , I watched the itinerant ants who , following their regular road , crept right over my body , never troubling themselves very much about the circumstance that a giant , like a mountain range , lay right across their path .