DOWN FROM THE HIGH ALPS.
It is not wise to visit what are called the High Alps first and then make the tour of the Swiss cities. This order should be reversed. From loveliness we should ascend to grandeur, and not come down from Engadine heights, and space and air, to cities, pretty lakes, purplish hills, and white peaks in the background. If we were to see Switzerland again for the first time—isn't this a tolerably good Irishism?—and knew as much about it as we do now,—which doesn't by any means imply that we couldn't easily know more,—we would certainly not do as we have done, especially if, as at present, we were expected to chronicle our emotions. The fact is, when you come down from the heights there is a palpable ebb in your impressions. How can it be otherwise? You glide in well-oiled grooves over the regular routes of travel. You see what you have seen in pictures and read of in books all your life. It is perfectly familiar, and how can you have the audacity to be very diffuse about it? Experiences in well-conducted hotels are not so suggestive as in the rougher mountain life. It is all very comfortable, very lovely. Strange—is it not?—that there come moments when one tires of the comfort and is impatient with the loveliness, and longs for something different,—for grand heights, even if the rocks towering to the skies are fierce and cruel looking; for the depth of the gloomy ravines; for the loneliness and cold of the gray, barren peaks; for the sense of space, immensity, even when harshness goes with it!
We have, then, left the High Alps. We are now in the region of fine hotels, brilliantly lighted rooms, flirtations on the piazza, and long trains. We go where all the world goes, see what all the world sees, fare sumptuously every day, and, whether we are arrayed in purple and fine linen or not, at least we see other people so clothed upon.
Zurich, the busy, flourishing, learned Swiss town on its pretty lake, we have just left, with its two rivers running up through the heart of it; with its bridges and its pleasure-boats; the villages and orchards and vineyards on the fertile banks of the lake as far as the eye can reach; the lovely views of the Alps,—the perpendicular Reisettstock; the Drusberg, “like a winding staircase”; the Kammlisstock; great horns in the Rorstock chain; the pyramidal Bristenstock, which is on the St. Gothard route; and many, many others, if the day be clear. Beautiful views of land and lake you can get from different points here. It certainly could have been nothing less than lack of amiability or lack of taste that made us dissatisfied. Had we seen it first, we might have been beside ourselves with delight. “Yes, it is very beautiful,” we say, quite calmly, and it is; but—
Zurich was in short, to us, agreeable, but not fascinating. We liked it, but left it without a regret. Our emotions were not largely called into play by anything. Perhaps our liveliest sensation was occasioned by the discovery that at that excellent hotel, the Baur au Lac, we were formally requested to fee no one, a reasonable amount for service being charged daily in the bill. This was a relief indeed. Often one would gladly pay double the sum he gives in fees merely to escape the hungry eyes and ever-ready palms. Another sensation was seeing Count Arnim. He is quite gray, and looks delicate.
The people in the hotels are often a source of amusement to us. We consider them fair game, when they are very comical, because—who knows?—perhaps we also are amusing to them. Some faces, however, look too bored and miserable to be amused by anything. It is very inelegant never to be bored,—to like so many different people, ways, thoughts, things. We often feel mortified that we are so much amused, but the fault is ineradicable.
There is an Englishwoman of rank, whom we have met recently in our wanderings,—exactly where I dare not tell. She comes every day to table d'hôte with a new bonnet, and each bonnet is more marvellously self-assertive than its predecessor. She bears a well-known name. She is my Lady E——ton; but if she were only Mrs. Stubbs from Vermont, I should say she had more bonnets, more impudence, and more vulgar curiosity than any woman I had ever seen. She seized the small boy of our party in her clutches at dinner, where an unlucky chance placed him by her side, and questioned him minutely and mercilessly during the six courses. Who was his father? Who was his mother? Had he a sister? Had he a brother? What did his father do? Where did he live, and how? Where did we come from? Where were we going? How long were we going to stay? And what were all our names? Was the young lady engaged to be married to the young man? How old was the child's mamma? How old were we all? And so on ad infinitum. The boy, though old enough to feel indignant, was not old enough to know how to escape, and so helplessly, with painful accuracy, answered her questions; but on the very delicate point of age we were providentially protected by a childish, honest “I don't know.” Some of us who are more worldly-wise and wicked than the little victim heartily regretted fate had not given us instead of him to our lady of the bonnets. It would have been so delicious to make her ribbons flutter with amazement at the astonishing tales told by us in reply! Certainly, under such circumstances, it is legitimate to call in a little imagination to one's aid.
Our cousins, the English, whom we meet on the Continent, are very much like the little girl of the nursery-rhyme,—when they are good they are “awfully good,” and when they are bad they are “horrid.” (No one is more truly kind, refined, and charming than an agreeable Englishman or Englishwoman; no one more utterly absurd than a disagreeable one.) Possibly this impresses us the more strongly on account of the cousinship. Aren't our own unpleasant relatives invariably a thousand times more odious to us than other people's?
I saw a pantomime the other day which, though brief, was full of meaning. A German lady and gentleman, quiet-looking, well-bred people, were walking through a long hotel corridor. The gentleman stepped forward in order to open the door of the salon for the lady. From another door emerges an Englishman with an unattractive face and dull, pompous manner. He is also en route for the salon, and, not noticing the lady, steps between the two. The German throws open the door and waits. The burly Englishman, solemn but gratified, accepting the supposed courtesy as a perfectly fitting tribute from that inferior being, a foreigner, to himself and the great English nation, pauses and makes in acknowledgment a profound bow, which, being utterly superfluous and unexpected, strikes the lady coming along rapidly to pass through the doorway, and, naturally imagining the second gentleman, too, was waiting for her, literally and with force strikes her and nearly annihilates her. The Englishman turns in utter wonder and gazes at the lady. The three gaze at one another. Everybody says, “I beg your pardon.” The Englishman, as the facts dawn upon his comprehension, has the grace to turn very red, but has not the grace to laugh, which would be the only sensible thing to do,—too sensible, apparently, for a man who goes about thinking strange gentlemen will delight in smoothing his path and opening doors for him. Of course, he ought to have known instinctively, there was a lady in the case, as there always is. The two Germans were too polite to laugh unless he would. But he did not even smile, which proclaimed his stupidity more clearly than all which had gone before; and presently three very constrained faces—one red and sullen, two with dancing eyes and lips half bitten through—appeared in the salon, which, this time, the lady entered first. It isn't so very funny to tell, but the scene was so funny to witness, it really seemed a privilege to be the solitary spectator.
From Zurich on to Lucerne, with pretty pictures all the way from the car windows. We anticipated feeling romantic here, but so far all we know is that Lucerne looks very drab. It rains in torrents, a hopeless, heavy flood. The lake does not smile at us, or dimple or ripple, as we have read it is in the habit of doing. The mountains we ought to be seeing don't appear. The streets are shockingly muddy. We cannot go to see the Lion; and as to the Rigi, upon which our hopes are set, there is small chance that it will at present emerge from its clouds, and allow us to behold from the Kulm the wonderful sunrise and sunset which many go out for to see, but most, alas! in vain.
Great Pilatus tells us to hope for nothing. He is the barometer of the region. He is very big and rugged and inspiring, and stands haughtily apart from the other heights:—
“Overhead,
Shaking his cloudy tresses loose in air,
Rises Pilatus with his windy pines.”
A popular rhyme runs to the effect that when Pilatus wears his cap only, the day will be fair; when he puts on his collar, you may yet venture; but if he wears his sword, you'd better stay at home. To-day he wears cap, collar, sword,—in fact, is clothed with clouds, except for a moment now and then, to his very feet. There are many old legends about Pilatus and its caverns. One of the oldest is, that Pontius Pilate, banished from Galilee, fled here, and in anguish and remorse threw himself into the lake; hence the name of which the more matter-of-fact explanation is Mons Pileatus, or “capped mountain.” If there were sunshine, we would believe the latter simple and reasonable definition. Now, in this dreary rain, we take a gloomy satisfaction in the dark tale of remorse,—the darker, more desperate and tragic it is made, the better we like it.
Pilatus and the skies and wind and barometer, and fate itself, apparently, are against us. But the Rigi is still there. Behind the cloud is the sun still shining,—patience is genius, and—we wait.
[pg!182]
BY THE LAKE OF LUCERNE.
Who was so wicked as to call Lucerne “drab”? If it were I, I don't remember it, and I never will acknowledge it, though the printed word stare me in the face. After the rain it shone out in radiant colors,—the pretty city with its quaint bridges, and the Venice-look of some of the stone houses that rise directly from the lake; the water plashing softly against their foundations, the little boats moored by their sides. People who have seen Venice are at liberty to smile in a superior way if they wish. We, who have not, will cherish our little fancies until reality verifies them or proves them false.
And the lake,—
“The Lake of the Four Forest Cantons, apparelled
In light, and lingering like a village maiden
Hid in the bosom of her native mountains,
Then pouring all her life into another's,
Changing her name and being,”—
how lovely it is! Roaming there at sunset was an ever-memorable delight:—the happy-looking people under the chestnut-trees on the shore, the little boats dancing lightly about everywhere, the pleasant dip of the oars, the chiming of evening bells; on one side, the city, with its old watchtowers and slender spires; over the water, the piled-up purple mountains, with the warm opaline sunset lights playing about them; behind, the long range of pure-white peaks, catching the last rays of the sun, glistening and gleaming gloriously, while the lower world sinks into gloom, and even they at last grow dim and vague, and still we float on in drowsy indolence.
The narrow covered bridges, the one where the faded old paintings represent scenes from Swiss history, and the Mühlenbrücke with the “Dance of Death” picture described in the “Golden Legend,” were both interesting. Prince Henry and Elsie seemed to go by with all the stream of life,—the soldiers, and peasant-girls, and monks, and workingmen in blouses, and children with baskets on their backs; and queer old women we met as we stood by the little shrine in the middle of the bridge, peered in and saw the candles and flowers and crucifixes, or looked out through the small windows upon the swift waters beneath. So faint and obscure are many of the paintings, yet we found the ones we sought, and saw the
“Young man singing to a nun
Who kneels at her devotions, but in kneeling
Turns round to look at him; and Death, meanwhile,
Is putting out the candles on the altar.”
The old church with the celebrated organ, which may be heard every afternoon, has some carved wood and stained glass that people go to see. Its churchyard, so little, so old, so pitifully crowded, is a sad place, like all the cemeteries I have yet seen here. With their colored ornaments and tinsel, their graves crowding one against another, and the multitude of sad, black, attenuated little crosses that have such a skeleton air, they are positively heartbreaking: they seem infinitely more mournful and oppressive than ours at home, with their broad alleys, stately trees, and the peace and beauty of their surroundings. There are two new-made graves in the pavement here. You can't help feeling sorry they are so very crowded. They are covered with exquisite fresh flowers, which the passer-by sprinkles from a font that stands near, thus giving a blessing to the dead. We have had ample opportunity to observe all the old monuments and epitaphs without voluntarily making a study of the churchyard, for the way to and from our châlet led through it. To one very ancient stone we felt positively grateful because its inscription was funny:—
“Here lies in Christ Jesus
Josepha Dub
Jungfrau
Aged 91.”
We were glad to have Miss Dub's somewhat prolonged life of single-blessedness to smile over, so heavy otherwise was the atmosphere of that little churchyard.
The celebrated Lion of Lucerne we found even more beautiful than we had anticipated. It was larger and grander, and the photographs fail to convey a true idea of it, and of the exact effect of the mass of rock above it. It all comes before you suddenly,—the high perpendicular sandstone rock, the grotto in which the dying Lion lies, pierced through by a broken lance, his paw sheltering the Bourbon lily; the trees and creeping plants on the very top of the cliff, at its base the deep dark pool surrounded by trees and shrubs. The Lion is cut out of the natural rock, a simple and impressive memorial in honor of the officers and soldiers of the Swiss Guard who fell in defence of the Tuileries in 1792. They exhibit Thorwaldsen's model in the little shop there, which is one of the beguiling carved wood-ivory-amethyst places where, I suppose, strong-souled people are never tempted, but we, invariably. There are lovely heads of Thorwaldsen here, by the way, the most satisfactory I have seen.
We live in a pension, a châlet on the banks of the lake. It has, like most things, its advantages and disadvantages. From our balcony we look out over shrubs and little trees upon the lovely lake and the mountains. The establishment boasts numerous retainers, mostly maids of all work; but our attention is drawn exclusively to a small, pale girl, whom we call the “Marchioness,” and a small, pale boy, whom we call “Buttons.” Why need such mites work so hard? Buttons is only fourteen, and he drags heavy trunks about and moves furniture and does the work of two men, besides running on all the errands, and blacking all the boots, and waiting at the table.
If you ask him if things are not too heavy he smiles brightly and says, “No, indeed!” with the air of a Hercules, so brave a heart has the little man. So he goes about lifting and pulling and staggering under heavy loads, and breathing hard, and he has a hollow cough that it makes the heart ache to hear from such a child; and it does not require much wisdom to know what is going to happen to him before long,—poor little Buttons!
[pg!187]