Winter Sports in Switzerland

by E. F. Benson

But it is all a conjuring trick, or so these altitudinists are disposed to think when they return home to the dispiriting chills of a normal February in England, and find that when the thermometer marks 45° or thereabouts they shiver disconsolately in the clemming cold. Even when they were out in Switzerland they hardly believed what appeared to be happening, for they found that if the weather changed, and instead of the windless calm, or a light north-wind, the Föhn-wind blew from the south-west, warm and enervating, then, in proportion as the thermometer mounted, they felt increasingly cold. All these things, though they thought they saw and felt them, were of the nature of a conjuring trick, and they never, after their return to the lowlands, really believed them. It was obviously impossible that they could have felt warm and dry, after being rolled in the snow. It must have been an illusion, capable of immediate disproof if they now went out without a coat, or sat down on a snowy London pavement. A pleasant illusion, no doubt, but clearly an illusion. It was like the omelette emerging from the top-hat, into which a watch had, only a moment before, been placed and pestled.

And if those who think they have experienced these phenomena, which so clearly contradict the most elementary laws of Nature, cannot fully believe in them when they re-enter the chilly spring of England, still less do those who have not experienced them find it possible even to simulate credulity when the foolish Alpinist recounts them. I rather fancy that people who have never been to the high altitudes in winter, believe that all those who say they have done so, and come back and tell their friends that sun does not melt ice, and that snow is dry, and that ten degrees of frost is an agreeable temperature to stroll about in without a coat, are in some sort of inexplicable conspiracy. But the conspiracy is so widely spread now, and is still spreading so fast, that one’s remarks on the subject are received with politeness nowadays, though still with incredulity. Some strange wandering of the wits has taken possession of the conspirators, who are otherwise harmless. And, such is the force with which their illusion holds them, and so anxious are they that credence should be given to it, that they employ some sort of skin-dye to add completeness to their strange tales, and appear with brown hands and faces when they come back to the anæmic metropolis. They are clearly the victims of some obscure but infectious derangement of the brain, of which the chief symptoms are those strange illusions and an immense appetite.... And, as I have said, the victims of these illusions, before they have spent many days in England, are already themselves wondering whether all these things really were so, or whether they were but the fabric of a pleasing dream. But they make plans to dream again about the middle of the ensuing autumn, and for the most part find that the vision is recapturable. It is all great nonsense; but if you take a suitable ticket at a suitable time of the year, and go where that ticket will allow you, the nonsense is found to be recurrent.

I do not know whether ice and snow, and all the forms of the “radiant frost,” as Shelley calls it, are in themselves more beautiful than the spectacle, to which we are accustomed, of an unfrozen world, or whether it is merely because we are unused to the gleams and sparkle of these whitenesses, that we find them so entrancingly lovely. It would be interesting, for instance, to ascertain whether an Esquimo or other dweller in the Arctics accustomed to ice, would go into ecstasies of admiration at the sight—shall we say—of Hyde Park Corner on a moist warm day of September, when the roadway is swimming in a thick brown soup of mud, and gusts of tepid rain stream on the wind-swept lamp-posts, thus supporting the idea that it is to the novelty of the spectacle that the arousing of our appreciation is due. Certainly it would be hard to say that anything in the world is more beautiful than a beech-tree in spring, or a crimson rambler in full flower, or glimpses of the Mediterranean in a frame of grey-green olive-trees; and I am inclined to believe that it is partly the contrast which a sunny morning in winter among the High Alps presents to all that a Londoner has known or dreamed of hitherto that partly accounts for the ineffable impressions it never fails in producing on him. And to that we must add the exhilarating and invigorating effect of the still dry air, and the sun that all day pours Pactolus over the gleaming fields. In such an air and in such a flood of light all our senses and perceptions are quickened, the vitality of our organs is increased, and with the wonderful feeling of bien-être which the conditions give, our appreciation is kindled too. I always feel that it must have been on a frosty morning that David said: “I opened my mouth and drew in my breath.” And perhaps on that day the cedars of Lebanon were covered with the crystals of hoar-frost, and below the snowy uplands the dim blue of the sea slept insapphirined at the bases of the shining cliffs....

I lick the chops of memory, and go back in thought to the middle of December, when, having previously determined not to go abroad till January, I hurriedly fly the country, like a criminal seeking to escape from the justice that is hot on the heels of a murderer. In such wise do I fly from my conscience—conscience, I may remark, is one of the things that everybody leaves behind when he goes to the High Alps: apparently it and other poisonous organisms, such as the bacillus of tuberculosis cannot exist in those altitudes—while below my breath I again register the frequently broken vow that I will be at home again by the middle of January at the latest. For indeed it seems impossible to tolerate London any longer just now: the fogs have begun (these are the excuses with which I seek to stay the protests of conscience, before I fly from it), and for three days last week we lived in a thick and ominous twilight of dusky orange, tasting evilly of soot and sulphurous products. At intervals a copper-coloured plate showed itself above the house roofs: and, oh, to think that this mean metallic circle was indeed none other than the hot radiant giant that in the happier climes was rejoicing to run his course across the turquoise expanse of cloudless sky; that this remote and meaningless object was the same that sparkled on dazzling peak and precipice and turned the untrodden snows to sheets of diamond dust. Then after three days of Stygian gloom the fog was dispersed by a shrewd and shrill north wind, and for a whole morning snow fell heavily, which, as it touched the pavements and roadways of town more than usually befouled by the fog, turned into a base and degrading substance resembling melting coffee-ice. The streets swam in the icy treacle of it, and motor-buses and other ponderous vehicles cast undesired helpings of it at the legs of foot-passengers. After this dispiriting day the weather changed again and a tepid south-westerly gale squealed through the streets. This was too much: I bought a quantity of what is known as sermon-paper and two new stylographs (this was another sop to conscience, and implied the intention of working out in Switzerland), made a few hasty and craven arrangements on the telephone, and slid out of Charing Cross Station at 2.20 P.M. precisely next day, leaving conscience, like an abandoned wife, sobbing on the platform.

Now, while journeys, whether on land or sea, are apt to be but tiresome businesses when they are undertaken at the call of some tedious errand, they are vastly different affairs when they conduct the traveller to joyful places and delectable pursuits. They are coloured by that which awaits him at the end of them (like the sweetness of sugar permeating tea), and this particular progress is to me full of romantic happenings. Dusk is already closing in before I reach the coast, and as the train halts on the hill above Folkestone, before being towed backwards down to the harbour, I can see the lights beginning to twinkle in the town and along the pier, which is surrounded by the great grey immensity of the wave-flecked sea. A fine rain is falling dismally, and as I hurry across the slippery quay I am weighed down by an enormous greatcoat (the pockets of which, I am sorry to say, are “salted” by various packets of cigarettes, which is why I wear it), and I stagger under the weight of a suit-case, sooner than part with which I would die. For the French or Swiss railway companies often (no doubt with humorous intent) arrange that the traveller’s large luggage shall not arrive for twenty-four hours or so after he has got to his destination, and in less experienced years I have packed my boots and skates in these detained trunks, and have been obliged to wait in savage inaction till the railway company has come to the end of its joke, just as one waits for the end of a long funny story. Not so now: my inseparable bag contains my large and cumbrous skate-shod boots as a first charge, and after they have been stowed, the mere necessities of life, like clothes and dressing-case, as opposed to its joys, fill the rest. Even in the harbour the steamer sways with the back-wash of the heavy seas outside, and the mooring-ropes squeak and strain to its unease. I stick in the narrow gang-plank that conducts in precipitous incline to the deck (at least the corner of my suit-case does, which is part of my identity); a faint and awful smell of red plush sofas and cold beef comes up from the stairs leading to the saloon; the tarpaulins, rigged up along the open passage between decks, flap uneasily and are buffeted by the rain-soaked wind, and sailors hurry about with white japanned tin objects in their hands....

All this sounds dismal and dispiriting enough, but such incidents, I repeat, take their colour from that to which they lead the traveller, and when bound for Switzerland they are all haloed in a vague pleasurable sense of excitement and romance. We put out on the turbulent and windy sea, and as we round the end of the pier the whole boat shivers as a great white-headed wave strikes her. It is cold and wet on deck, but I have to linger there while the cliffs of my beloved native land vanish into the grey of the swift on-coming night, and feel a perfect glow of enthusiasm at the idea of not setting eyes on them again for another month or so (probably “so”: because conscience is now far away, perhaps still waiting at Charing Cross Station, in case I return by the next train), and already I am beginning to be doubtful whether I really made a vow to be back by the middle of January. I pass rows of silent figures with closed eyes reclining on deck-chairs in the more sheltered corners: then the whole ship makes a scooping curtsey into the trough of a wave, and the water pours sonorously on to the deck. Shrill whistles the wind in the rigging, and a raucous steam-siren proclaims to all the traffic in the Channel that we are off to Switzerland to skate, having left our consciences and the white cliffs of England behind us, and not caring two straws, at this delightful moment, as to whether we ever see any of them again.

I love the landing on the friendly shores of France, the waiting while the ship is reluctantly coaxed sidling up to the pier, the hustle to get through the custom-house and enter the warm, well-lit train. The foreign tongue is delightful to the ear: so, too, to the eye, the blue-bloused porters, and the unplatformed station, where the huge carriages tower high above one, emitting mysterious jets of steam. All is strange and new and delightful: the engine of unaccustomed build and outlandish voice, the grey upholstered compartments with their hot-carpeted floors, the restaurant car with bottle-filled racks, where presently I sit, part of a moving pageant of eating and drinking, as we shriek through stations and scour with ever-increasing velocity through the darkness of a stormy night. At Laon mysterious jugglings take place: another string of carriages is slowly shunted on to our train, to the accompaniment of many cries of warning and encouragement and wavings of lanterns, and the buffers come home with a soft thud. We cast off our tail, lizard-like, which is hauled away to travel divergently to Basle, and soon we are thundering on again by the more direct route to Berne. At some timeless hour a long halt is made, and compartment doors are flung open with the sonorous proclamation of the arrival of les messieurs de la douane. Enter les messieurs, and at their sesame bags fly open, and with strange staves they explore the hidden recesses under the seats, in their nightly search for laces and spirits and cigarettes and all the contraband of peace. Soon this complimentary visit is over, the green shades are adjusted again over the lamps, and the vibration and rhythm of the racing wheels mingle and blend themselves into the blurred edges of dream....

I do not wake until we are actually slowing down to enter Berne—that city so justly famous for its bears, its President of this delectable republic, and its terrace from which the eager tourist vainly scans the impenetrable clouds which invariably screen from his view all possible glimpses of the mountains of the Oberland. Whenever I arrive at Berne it is always a grey chilly morning, just above freezing point, so that the icy streets are half slush. At first this used to depress me with ominous forebodings of a thaw at the higher altitudes: now I know that all the winter through it is always just thawing at Berne, and that the sky there always is heavily be-clouded. I think a sunny frosty morning there would cause me some considerable anxiety, for it would imply a complete upset of climatic conditions, and midsummer might be expected to hold its abhorred sway on the heights. So in perfect equanimity I climb back again into our train—heated to the temperature of the second hottest room in a Turkish bath—and we jog in more leisurely fashion through the half-frozen villages towards the lake of Thun. These villages are mainly composed of houses taken from the larger-sized boxes of toys, with stones fastened down on their wood-shingle eaves to prevent their roofs blowing away, and with staircases, clearly built for ornament, and completely unpractical, climbing up the outside of their walls. Stations and banks and hotels seem to be constructed with a view to moderate permanence; the rest are clearly so made that they can be taken up and planted down somewhere else. Then as we emerge on to the edges of the lake, higher hills begin to tower across its steely-grey levels, and rifts in the clouds that shroud their heads and hunched shoulders show glimpses of sun that shine on the whiteness of snow. Mile after mile we pursue a meandering way along the shores, and thread the darkness of hoarse tunnels, whose lips are fringed with dripping icicles, and the sense of something coming, something high and clear, begins to grow. Though in front, where Interlaken lies, a veil of grey-blue mist is interspersed between us and that which, I know, soars above it, the clouds are beginning on all sides to become unravelled like wool-work pulled out, and through the rents and torn edges gleams of turquoise sky are seen. High up climb serrated rims of rock, cut vividly clear against the blue and fringed with aspiring pines; higher yet, where the boldest of these brave vegetables can find no footing, further ridges appear austere and empty and gleaming. Yet these are but the outlying buttresses and ramparts of the great towers at the base of which they lean and cluster: to-night we shall sleep in an eyrie far above them, and far above us yet will watch the unscaled precipices of the great range, over the edge of which the unheeding stars climb and swim into sight all night long, pouring the golden dew of their shining upon forest and glacier, until the snows are rosy with dawn.

We paused in Interlaken Central Station to draw breath after our lake-side amble. Here the snow lay crisp and hard-trodden in the streets, but overhead the gutters gurgled and the eaves of houses dripped with its melting in this brilliant morning. No shred of cloud was left in all the shining heavens, and like the flanks of a galloped horse the pine-clad hillsides steamed in the sun.... And then the miracle.... As we steamed forth again to the Eastern station, a long valley lying between two wooded hills opened out, and there, clear in the light of the young day, and white with virgin snows and blue with precipices of ice, and set in the illimitable azure, rose the Queen of Mountains, the maiden, the Jungfrau, peaked and domed and pinnacled in ineffable crystal.

The Jungfrau is and will always be my mistress among mountains, as she was when I first saw her at the age of twelve. One mistake I have made in my conduct towards her, and that was ten years later when I climbed her—and yet who could tell she would prove so tedious and heavy (not in hand but in foot)? For I approached the lady of my adoration from the Concordia hut, and instead of feasting my eyes at every step on her queenly gracious carriage and maiden slenderness, I found that the closer I got to her the more did she appear round-shouldered, not to say hump-backed. In addition, a quantity of fresh snow had fallen, and we had a long tiresome and utterly unexciting trudge, a hot and stodgy affair. I had imagined that ventures and perils would have to be encountered for this wooing and winning of her, with balancings and poisings on stairways of precipitous ice and needles of pinnacled rock: instead she had to be solidly and laboriously and dully approached; it was like wooing some great bolster or gigantic cow. For a little while after that I cared nothing for her; she was a mature and silent barmaid of vast proportions, but gradually her charm and enchantment cast their spell over me again, the dissolution of which I intend never to risk in the future, unless I approach her by a more hazardous and daring route. To those who approach her dully, she gives herself dully: the more daring wooer she may perhaps kill, but she does not bore him.