In front of the Palazzo Gatti the Tree of Liberty is planted in honour of Mr. Stephen, M.P. for the Valley. From the tree float flags and emblems and ribbons. It is by this tree that you know you are on the domain of a patrician, a citizen of renown. There are plenty of beautiful houses scattered about the valley, and any amount near Dongio. ‘English,’ says the Dongio M.P., and you gather at once what he means. The owners are of the London-Swiss division. The names of most of the grandees of the valley sound familiar to a Londoner’s ear. The mayor of Dongio, who gives us a right hearty welcome, is Signor Monico. I fancy I’ve heard that name in Piccadilly. Our host at Aqua Rossa, a health station higher up the valley, is Signor Gianella. I think that name is to be found in London day by day. Whenever I say to the M.P., ‘Whose palazzo is that?’ he mentions a name that is familiar to my cockney ears. One pretty villa, standing a little way out of the village, specially attracts my attention. ‘Whose house is that?’ I say. ‘That,’ replies the M.P., ‘is the house of our manager at the Gallery.’ I uncover my head and bow to the residence. Without knowing it, I have been leaning over the garden wall of the Palazzo Gallizia!
From Dongio we drove to Aqua Rossa. As we pass every hat in the village flies off, and all the old ladies drop curtsies. Mr. Stephen is a great man in these parts, and our progress is a triumphal one. While our host has gone into a house to pay a call we converse with our driver. We ask him, through Albert Edward, who speaks Italian as his mother tongue, many little questions, and he is filled with admiration and reverence for the great men of the valley who live far away in London. He assures us that the whole valley belongs to the Gattis, and that he thinks all the mountains do too. He isn’t quite sure if they have any more valleys anywhere else, but they could have if they liked. We asked him if he has heard that the Gattis are going to buy up Switzerland, and turn it into a public company. He thinks a minute, and says, No; he has not heard that, but he thinks they have something to do with the big hotel at Aqua Rossa, where, right in the heart of the mountains, there are to be the electric light and the telephone, and your hair is to be brushed by machinery.
We go up the valley to the hotel at Aqua Rossa, which is being enlarged. The ‘Red Water,’ from which the Grande Stabilmento Balneario takes its name, is a marvellous cure for dyspepsia, skin diseases, bronchitis, etc. The situation of the hotel is magnificent. Five miles up the valley, far from the busy hum of men, you can look from your window over a glorious panorama of mountain and vale. The air is exhilarating as champagne, and there is no next-morning headache in it. At the hotel you can have the baths and the treatment, the electric light, and perfect peace, and the pension is only 8fr. a day. I have taken a room for the season there myself, and the entire staff have guaranteed that after a fortnight’s treatment I shall never know a pang of dyspepsia again. Ye gods, what an angel I shall return to my native shores if it comes off!
The shades of night were falling fast ere we left the hospitable homes of the Val Gatti. Our drive back to Biasca in the darkness made us sit tight and clutch each other, and think now and then that we might have been better men had we tried; but we skirted the torrents and dodged the avalanches all right, and we were no sooner in the train than we all fell fast asleep, overcome with fatigue and the mountain air, and we should probably have slept and been taken on to Calais or Milan or Timbuctoo if Albert Edward had not snored so violently as to alarm the engine-driver and to cause him to pull up and hold a hurried conversation with the guard. They both listened, and felt certain that some terrible convulsion of nature was taking place in the mountains. They came to the carriages and begged the passengers to alight. ‘We fear an earthquake or a landslip,’ they said. ‘This thunderous roaring betokens mischief.’ But when they came to our carriage and found the great convulsion of nature was only Albert Edward snoring, they woke us up and apologized to the other passengers, and we resumed our journey. And so ended one of the most remarkable journeys it has ever been my lot to perform.
CHAPTER XX.
BERLIN EN PASSANT.
Snow! Last night the moon shone with a steel-blue light in the cloudless heavens, and the sentinel stars stood out clear and bright, as on a frosty winter’s evening. Never had I seen Berlin look more beautiful. Long after the good citizens had retired to their homes, I lingered under the lime-trees and gave myself up to the enchantment of the scene. It was five-and-twenty years almost to the day since I had set foot within the Prussian capital, and old memories crowded about me as I was lost in reverie. It was not until I turned my steps homeward that I found out how bitterly cold it was. I had not had time to think about the weather, or to remember what season of the year it was. But, walking home, it suddenly occurred to me that it was the merry month of May, and that in a few weeks it would be June. In Berlin it might have been a good old-fashioned Christmas Eve.
And to-day it is snowing—snowing in a way not to be mistaken. There is no half-hearted business about this snow. It doesn’t change to rain just as it falls, like a snow that is ashamed of itself and endeavours to conceal its true character. Down it comes in flakes the size of shilling pieces, and the wayfarers’ umbrellas are as white as their noses are red and their lips are blue.
Only forty-eight hours before, as I stepped gaily into the train at Victoria on the day of the Two Thousand Guineas, I said jokingly, ‘When I travel I like to see Snow.’ But I didn’t mean the snow that fell upon me so unmercifully in Berlin. I meant the excellent Mr. Snow, who, promoted from the Club train to the management of the Sleeping Car Company’s London office, still devotes himself to the comfort of Continental travellers, and makes the way pleasant before them. I had reason to be grateful to this most seasonable Snow. Not only did he take the trouble to send me the winner of the Two Thousand to Dover, but when I arrived at Calais I found that he had ordered by telegraph an excellent dinner for me at the buffet, and had reserved me a compartment in the Cologne express, for all of which I felt exceedingly grateful. The snow that awaited me at Berlin was not nearly so agreeable. Still, as it is over, and the sun once more asserts its rights in the heavens, we may as well take the unseasonable downfall as a little practical joke on the part of the clerk of the weather, and say no more about it.
The sleeping cars which run between Calais and Cologne in connection with the Club train are excellent, but as I didn’t go to sleep until midnight, and had to turn out at half-past two fully dressed at the frontier and fit obstinate keys into troublesome locks, and then had to undress again with the pleasant knowledge that at five a.m. I should be turned out at Cologne, I can’t say that, taken as a whole, my night’s rest was all that a selfish man could wish for himself. At half-past five, however, I had some excellent coffee at the Cologne buffet, and then went into the cathedral and assisted at a most interesting ceremony, in which a bishop was taking the leading part. I stayed in the cathedral till seven, and at twenty minutes to eight I found one of the nicest trains I ever saw in my life waiting to take me on to Berlin. It wasn’t a special train of luxury due to private enterprise, with a premium of fifty or seventy-five per cent. to pay for the privilege of sitting in it, but a train provided by the Government for ordinary first and second class passengers.
A polite conductor, having inspected my ticket, begged me to do him the honour of seating myself, and ushered me into a comfortable compartment containing four easy-chairs and a small dining-table. At the same time he handed me a card containing a map of the route, the time of arrival at each station, and a list of various hot and cold delicacies and refreshing beverages which could be served en route to the traveller. The prices attached were most moderate. For instance, feeling hungry about eleven o’clock (remember, I breakfasted soon after five), I touched an electric bell, and instantly a waiter appeared bowing and smiling in front of my easy-chair. I ordered a beefsteak and potatoes and a bottle of Mosel wine. The steak was tenderness itself, and the potatoes were excellent. For this repast, including bread, butter, and cheese, I paid, according to the tariff, 1s. 6d., and the bottle of wine was 2s. Everything on the bill was as moderately priced. For instance, a plate of soup and bread is 4d.; a plate of cold meat, with the usual etceteras, 1s.; half a cold chicken and bread, 1s. 6d. The ‘drinks’ are quite as reasonable. A bottle of seltzer is 3d.; a lemonade, 3d.; a bottle of beer, 3d.; and the wines are proportionately cheap. When you think of these prices you must also remember that the entire train is on the corridor system, and is luxuriously fitted up in first and second class sitting-rooms, with every convenience for the toilet, and that there is a large staff of attendants. Whatever faults the German Government may have, it has made express railway travelling the comfort of the many instead of the luxury of the few.