Vulture book excerpt: Werner Herzog's On Walking in Ice

Vulture book excerpt: Werner Herzog's On Walking in Ice

Of Walking in Ice by Werner HerzogSaturday 23 November 1974

Right after five hundred meters or so I made my first stop, near the Pasinger Hospital, from where I wanted to turn west. With my compass I gauged the direction of Paris; now I know it. Achternbusch had jumped from the moving VW van without getting hurt, then right away he tried again and broke his leg; now he’s lying in Ward 5.

The River Lech, I said to him, that will be the problem, with so few bridges crossing it. Would the villagers row me across in a skiff ? Herbert will tell my fortune, from cards as tiny as a thumbnail, in two rows of five, but he doesn’t know how to read them because he can’t find the paper with the inter- pretations. There is the Devil, with the Hangman in the second row, hanging upside down.

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Published in: Vulture