Comme les pêches et les melons
Sont pour la bouche d'un Baron,
Ainsi les verges et les bâtons
Sont pour les fous, dit Salomon.
It is obvious that this was written by a northern baron, and no less clear is it that if he were in this country, he would alter his notions.
At the Botzen fair a brisk silk-trade is carried on. Cloths are also brought here, and as much leather as can be procured from the mountain districts. Several merchants, however, came chiefly for the sake of depositing their money, taking orders, and opening new credits. I felt I could have taken great delight in examining the various products that were collected here; but the impulse, the state of disquiet, which keeps urging me from behind, would not let me rest, and I must at once hasten from the spot. For my consolation, however, the whole matter is printed in the statistical papers, and we can, if we require it, get such instructions from books. I have now to deal only with the sensible impressions, which no book or picture can give. In fact, I am again taking interest in the world, I am testing my faculty of observation, and am trying how far I can go with my science and my acquirements, how far my eye is clear and sharp, how much I can take in at a hasty glance, and whether those wrinkles, that are imprinted upon my heart, are ever again to be obliterated. Even in these few days, the circumstance that I have had to wait upon myself, and have always been obliged to keep my attention and presence of mind on the alert, has given me quite a new elasticity of intellect. I must now busy myself with the currency, must change, pay, note down, write, while I formerly did nothing but think, will, reflect, command, and dictate.
Botzen—Trent.
From Botzen to Trent the stage is nine leagues and runs through a valley, which constantly increases in fertility. All that merely struggles into vegetation on the higher mountains, has here more strength and vitality; the sun shines with warmth, and there is once more belief in a Deity.
A poor woman cried out to me to take her child into my vehicle, as the hot soil was burning its feet. I did her this little service out of honour to the strong light of heaven. The child was strangely decked out, but I could get nothing from it in any way.
The Etsch flows more gently in these parts, and it makes broad deposits of gravel in many places. On the land, near the river and up the hills, the planting is so thick and close, that one fancies one thing will suffocate the other. It is a regular thicket of vineyards, maize, mulberry trees, apples, pears, quinces, and nuts. The danewort (Attig) thrives luxuriantly on the walls. Ivy with solid stems runs up the rocks, on which it spreads itself; the lizards glide through the interstices, and whatever has life or motion here, reminds one of the most charming works of art. The braided top-knots of the women, the bared breasts and light jackets of the men, the fine oxen which you see driven home from market, the laden asses,—all combine to produce one of Heinrich Roos's animated pictures. And when evening draws on, and through the calmness of the air, a few clouds rest upon the mountains, rather standing than running against the sky, and, as immediately after sunset, the chirp of the grasshoppers begins to grow loud, one feels quite at home in the world, and not a mere exile. I am as reconciled to the place as if I were born and bred in it, and had now just returned from a whaling expedition to Greenland. Even the dust, which here as in our fatherland often plays about my wheels, and which has so long remained strange to me, I welcome as an old friend. The bell-like voice of the cricket is most piercing, and far from unpleasant. A cheerful effect is produced, when playful boys whistle against a field of such singers, and you almost fancy that the sound on each side is raised by emulation. The evening here is perfectly mild no less than the day.
If any one who lived in the South, or came from the South, heard my enthusiasm about these matters, he would consider me very childish. Ah, what I express here, I long ago was conscious of, while ruffling under an unkindly sky; and now I love to experience as an exception the happiness which I hope soon to enjoy as a regular natural necessity.
Trent, the evening of the 10th Sept.