CHAPTER XXII. THE VILLAGE OF REICHENAU.
I must now ask of my reader to clear at a bound both time and space, and stand beside me some years later, and in a foreign land.
The scene is at the foot of the Splugen Alps, in a little village begirt with mountains, every crag and eminence of which is surmounted by a ruined castle. There is a grandeur and solemnity in the whole landscape, not alone from its vast proportions, but from the character of impregnability suggested by those fastnesses and the gray, sad-colored tint of hill and verdure around.
There is barely space for the# village in the narrow glen, which is traversed by two streams,—the one, yellow, turbid, and sluggish; the other, sparkling, bright, and impetuous. These are the Rhines, which, uniting below the village of Reichenau, form that noble river whose vine-clad cliffs and castled crags are lyrical in every land of Europe.
I scarcely know a spot throughout the whole Continent more typical of isolation and retirement than this. There is no entrance to it from the north, save by a wooden bridge over the torrent; towards the south it is only accessible by the winding zig-zag of the “Via Mala;” east and westward rise gigantic mountains untraversed by even the chamois-hunter; and yet there is no appearance of that poverty and destitution so usually observable in remote and unvisited tracts. Many of the houses are large and substantially built, some evince a little architectural pretension in the way of ornament, and one, which occupies a little terrace above the river, has somewhat the air of a chateau, and in its windowed roof and moated gardens shows that it aspired to the proud distinction of a seignorial residence.
It might be difficult to ascertain how an edifice of this size and pretension came to be built in such a place; at the time I speak of, it was a school, and a modest-looking little board affixed to a pear-tree at the gate announced, “The Academy of Monsieur Jost.” In my boyish eyes, this château, its esplanade above the stream, the views it embraced, and the wild, luxuriant orchard by which it was begirt, comprised an amount of magnificence and beauty such as no stretch of imagination could surpass. In respect to its picturesque site, my error was probably not great: the mountain scene, in all its varied tints of season and sunlight, is still before me, nor can I remember one whose impression is more pleasing.
The château, for so it was called, lost nothing in my estimation by any familiarity with its details. I only knew of the large school-room with its three windows that opened on the terrace, the smaller chamber where the classical teacher held his more select audience, and a little den, fitted up with cases of minerals, insects, and stuffed birds, which was denominated Monsieur Jost's cabinet, and where that worthy man sat, weeks, mouths, I believe years long, microscope in eye, examining the intricate anatomy of beetles, or poring over some singular provisions in the eyelids of moths. Save when “brought up” for punishment, we rarely saw him. Entirely engrossed with his own pursuits, he seldom bestowed a thought upon us; and when, by any untoward incident such as I have alluded to, we were thrust into his notice, the presence of a strange-looking butterfly, a brilliant dragon-moth, a spider even, would be certain to divert his thoughts into a new channel, and ourselves and our derelictions be utterly forgotten. Need I say that no culprit ever appeared in the dock without some such recommendation to mercy, nor was there one of us ever unprepared with some specimen of the insect tribe, ready to be produced at any moment of emergency?
It is but fair to say that the other masters—there were but two—were singularly forbearing and indulgent. Monsieur Gervois, who “taught” the little boys, was a quaint-looking, venerable old gentleman, with a queue, and who wore on fête-days a ribbon in his button-hole. He was, it was said, originally a French noble of large fortune, but who had lost everything by the extravagance of an only son, and had sought out, in voluntary exile, this remote spot to end his days in. His manners were always marked with a tinge of proud reserve which none ever infringed upon, nor, out of school-hours, did any one ever presume to obtrude upon his retirement.
The classical teacher was a foreigner, we knew not of what nation; we called him sometimes a Pole, now a Spaniard, now an Irishman,—for all these nationalities only to us expressed distant and unknown lands. He was small almost to dwarfishness, and uniformly dressed in a suit of peculiarly colored brown cloth; his age might have been fifty, sixty, or even more, for there was little means of deciphering the work of time in a face sad and careworn, but yet un wrinkled, and where sorrow had set its seal in early life, but without having worn the impress any deeper by time. Large spectacles of blue glass concealed his eyes, of which, the story ran, one was sightless; and his manner was uniformly quiet and patient,—extending to every one the utmost limit of forbearance, and accepting the slightest efforts to learn, as evidences of a noble ambition. To myself he was more than generous,—he was truly and deeply affectionate. I was too young to be one of his class, but he came for me each morning to fetch me to the school; for I did not live at the château, but at a small two-storied house abutting against the base of the mountain. There we lived; and now let me explain who we were.
But a peep within our humble sitting-room will save both of us much time. I have called it humble,—I might have used a stronger word; for it was poor almost to destitution. The wooden chairs and tables; the tiled floor; the hearth, on which some soaked branches of larch are smoking; the curtainless window; as well as the utter absence of even the very cheapest appliances of comfort,—all show indigence; while a glance at the worn form and hollow cheek of her who now bends over the embroidery-frame attests that actual want of sustenance is there written. Haggard and thin as the features are, it needs no effort to believe that they once constituted beauty of a high order. The eye, now sunken and almost colorless, was once flashing in its brilliancy; and that lip, indrawn and bloodless, was full and rounded like that of a Grecian statue. Even yet, amidst all the disfigurement of a coarse dress, the form is graceful, and every motion and gesture indicate a culture that must have been imbibed in a very different sphere.