The toy windows, too, are fascinating. You would know at once that you were looking into a Swiss toy window, from the variety of carved bears; also, from the toy châteaux—very fine and large, with walled courts, portcullises, and battlements—with which the little Swiss lad plays war. The dolls are different, too, and the toy books—all in French. But none of these things were as interesting as the children standing outside, pointing at them and discussing them—so easily, so glibly—in French. How little they guessed my envy of them—how gladly I would buy out that toy window for, say, seven dollars, and trade it to them for their glib unconsciousness of gender and number and case.
On the afternoon before Christmas the bells began. From the high mountainsides, out of deep ravines that led back into the hinterland, came the ringing. The hills seemed full of bells—a sound that must go echoing from range to range, to the north and to the south, traveling across Europe with the afternoon. Then, on Christmas Day, the trees. In every home and school and hotel they sparkled. We attended four in the course of the day, one, a very gorgeous one in the lofty festooned hall of a truly grand hotel, with tea served and soft music stealing from some concealed place—a slow strain of the "Tannenbaum," which is like our "Maryland," only more beautiful—and seemed to come from a source celestial. And when one remembered that in every corner of Europe something of the kind was going on, and that it was all done in memory and in honor of One who, along dusty roadsides and in waste places, taught the doctrine of humility, one wondered if the world might not be worth saving, after all.
Chapter XVIII
THE LITTLE TOWN OF VEVEY
It would seem to be the French cantons along the Lake of Geneva (or Léman) that most attract the deliberate traveler. The north shore of this lake is called the Swiss Riviera, for it has a short, mild winter, with quick access to the mountaintops. But perhaps it is the schools, the pensionnats, that hold the greater number. The whole shore of the Lake of Geneva is lined with them, and they are filled with young persons of all ages and nations, who are there mainly to learn French, though incidentally, through that lingual medium, other knowledge is acquired. Some, indeed, attend the fine public schools, where the drill is very thorough, even severe. Parents, as well as children, generally attend school in Switzerland—visiting parents, I mean. They undertake French, which is the thing to do, like mountain climbing and winter sports. Some buy books and seclude their struggles; others have private lessons; still others openly attend one of the grown-up language schools, or try to find board at French-speaking pensions. Their progress and efforts form the main topic of conversation. In a way it makes for a renewal of youth.
We had rested at Vevey, that quiet, clean little picture-city, not so busy and big as Lausanne, or so grand and stylish as Montreux, but more peaceful than either, and, being more level, better adapted for motor headquarters. Off the main street at Montreux, the back or the front part of a car is always up in the air, and it has to be chained to the garage. We found a level garage in Vevey, and picked out pensionnats for Narcissa and the Joy, and satisfactory quarters for ourselves. Though still warm and summer-like, it was already late autumn by the calendar, and not a time for long motor adventures. We would see what a Swiss winter was like. We would wrestle with the French idiom. We would spend the months face to face with the lake, the high-perched hotels and villages, the snow-capped, cloud-capped hills.
Probably everybody has heard of Vevey, but perhaps there are still some who do not know it by heart, and will be glad of a word or two of details. Vevey has been a place of habitation for a long time. A wandering Asian tribe once came down that way, rested a hundred years or so along the Léman shore, then went drifting up the Rhone and across the Simplon to make trouble for Rome. But perhaps there was no Rome then; it was a long time ago, and it did not leave any dates, only a few bronze implements and trifles to show the track of the storm. The Helvetians came then, sturdy and warlike, and then the Romans, who may have preserved traditions of the pleasant land from that first wandering tribe.
Cæsar came marching down the Rhone and along this waterside, and his followers camped in the Vevey neighborhood a good while—about four centuries, some say. Certain rich Romans built their summer villas in Switzerland, and the lake shore must have had its share. But if there were any at Vevey, there is no very positive trace of them now. In the depths of the Castle of Chillon, they show you Roman construction in the foundations, but that may have been a fortress.
I am forgetting, however. One day, when we had been there a month or two, and were clawing up the steep hill—Mount Pelerin—that rises back of the hotel to yet other hotels, and to compact little villages, we strayed into a tiny lane just below Chardonne, and came to a stone watering trough, or fountain, under an enormous tree. Such troughs, with their clear, flowing water, are plentiful enough, but this one had a feature all its own. The stone upright which held the flowing spout had not been designed for that special purpose. It was, in fact, the upper part of a small column, capital and all, very old and mended, and distinctly of Roman design. I do not know where it came from, and I do not care to inquire too deeply, for I like to think it is a fragment of one of those villas that overlooked the Lake of Geneva long ago.