Yes, I suppose it must be so, though I cannot understand it. One has to believe so many things that one cannot understand. Do we even know how we live from day to day? Of course it is known that we have certain organs in our bodies, by which we breathe, and speak, and walk, and digest food; but can any one tell how all they do goes to make up what we call life? I do not believe it.
We took our way by Poictiers, across the duchies of Berry and Burgundy, and through Franche-Comté, crossing some terrible mountains between Besançon and Neufchatel. Then we travelled across Switzerland—Oh, how beautiful it is! I felt as though I should have been content to stay there, and never go any farther. But Amaury said that was just like a silly girl. What man, said he—with such an accent on the man!—ever wanted to stop away from gorgeous pageants and gallant deeds of arms, just to stare at a big hill with some snow on it, or a pool of water with some trees round it? How could any body make a name in that foolish way?—said Messire Amaury.
But old Marguerite thought with me. "Damoiselle," she said, "I am very thankful I came on this journey. Methinks I have a better notion what Heaven will be like than I had before we left Poitou. I did not know the good God was so rich. There seems to be no end to the beautiful things He can make. Oh, how beautiful He Himself must be! And we shall see His face. Father Eudes read it."
Whatever one says to Marguerite, she always finds something to say in answer about the good God. Surely she should have been a nun.
We came into Italy through two great passes,—one over the Julier mountain, so called from Julius Cæsar, the great Emperor, who made the road by help of the black art, and set up two pillars on the summit to commemorate his deeds: and then, passing through a beautiful valley, where all flowers of the year were out together, and there was a lovely chain of lakes,—(which naughty Amaury scornfully called crocuses and dirty water!)—we wound up hill after hill, until at last it really seemed as if we must have reached the top of the world. Here were two small lakes, at the foot of a drear slope of ice, which in these parts they call a glacier: and they call them the Black Lake and the White Lake. We had two sturdy peasants as guides over the mountains, and I should have liked dearly to talk with them about their country, but of course it would not have been seemly in a damsel of my rank: noblesse oblige. But I got Marguerite to ask them several questions, for their language is sufficiently like the Langue d'Oc[#] for us to understand them, though they speak very thickly and indistinctly. They told Marguerite that their beautiful valley is named the Val Engiadina,[#] and they were originally a colony from Italy, who fled from a persecution of the Saracens.[#] This pass is called the Bernina, for berne in their tongue signifies a bear, and there are many bears about here in winter. And they say this mountain is the top of the world, for here the waters separate, on the one side flowing far away into Asia, near the place where Adam dwelt in Paradise;[#] and on the other, into the great western sea,[#] which we shall shortly have to cross. And here, on the very summit of this mountain, dwelt a holy hermit, who gave me a shelter in his hut, while the men camped outside round great fires; for though it was August, yet at this great height it was quite cold. And so, through the pass, we wound slowly down into Italy.
[#] Two cognate languages were at this time spoken in France; north of the Loire, the Langue d'Oil, and south, the Langue d'Oc, both words meaning yes in the respective languages. The more northern language was the harsher, ch being sounded as k, just as church in England becomes kirk in Scotland. Cher, chaise, chien, therefore, were pronounced ker, kaise, kien, in the Langue d'Oil.
[#] The Engadine.
[#] All the evil done or doing in the world was at this time attributed to the Saracens. The colony is supposed to have arisen from the flight of a group of Christians in the persecution under Diocletian.
[#] The Black Sea.
[#] The Mediterranean.