But for this unfortunate break in our plans we would have had a happy month in Lucerne. We could not stir out of doors without meeting friends from over the sea, and, every day, cards, inscribed with familiar names, were brought in to us. All the American traveling-world goes to the Swiss lakes and crosses the Passes in the short summer. Lucerne is picturesque in itself and environs. The lake ranks next to Como in beauty; the drives and walks in and about it are attractive in scenery and associations. Of the healthfulness of those portions of the town lying along the quay we had grave doubts. The cellars are flooded after every heavy rain, and copious rains are a feature of the climate. Our morning walk for our letters lay past one of the largest hotels, patronized extensively by English and Americans. A rainy night or day was sure to be followed by an opening of the rear basement windows, and a pumping into the gutter of hogsheads of muddy water. The rapid evaporation of the surplus moisture under the mid-day heats must have filled the atmosphere with noxious exhalations.
The evening-scene on the quay was brilliant. Hundreds of strollers thronged the broad walks beneath the trees; the great fountain threw a column of spray fifty feet into the air. A fine band played until ten o’clock before the Hôtel National; pleasure-boats shot to and fro upon the water; the lamps of the long bridge sparkled—a double row—in the glassy depths. Upon certain evenings, the Lion held levees, being illuminated by colored lights thrown upon the massive limbs that seemed to quiver under their play, and upon the roll of honor of those who died for their queen and for their oath’s sake.
Lucerne is very German in tongue and character—a marked and unpleasant change to those who enter Switzerland from the Italian side. Ears used to the flowing numbers of the most musical language spoken by man, are positively pained by the harsh jargon that responds to his effort to make himself intelligible. The English and French of the shopkeepers and waiters, being filtered through the same foul medium, is equally detestable. Our friend, Dr. Steiger, spoke all three languages well and with a scholarly intelligence that made his English a model of conciseness and perspicuity. Our experiences and difficulties with other of the native residents would make a long chapter of cross-purposes.
Three times a week the fruit-market is held in the arcades of the old town. One reaches them by crooked streets and flights of stone steps, beginning in obscure corners and zigzagging down to the green Reuss, swirling under its bridges and foaming past the light-house tower to its confluence with the Lake. The summer fruits were, to our ideas, an incongruous array. Strawberries—the small, dark-red “Alpine,” conical in shape, spicily sweet in flavor; raspberries, white, scarlet and yellow; green and purple figs; nectarines; plums in great variety and abundance; apples, peaches and pears; English medlars and gooseberries; Italian nespoli and early grapes were a tempting variety. We had begun to eat strawberries in April in Rome. We had them on our dessert-table in Geneva in November.
The second time I went to the fruit-market, I took Prima as interpreter. The peasant-hucksters were obtuse to the pantomime I had practised successfully with the Italians. The shine of coin in the left palm while the right hand designated fruit and weight—everything being sold from the scales—elicited only a stolid stare and gruff “Nein,” the intonation of which was the acme of dull indifference. Thick of tongue and slow of wit, they cared as little for what we said as for what we were. Intelligence and curiosity may not always go hand-in-hand, but where both are absent, what the Yankees call “a trade,” is a disheartening enterprise. Having at my side a young lady who “knew” German, I advanced boldly into the aisle between the stalls of the sellers, and said—“Ask this woman the price of those gooseberries.” Big, red and hairy as Esau, they were a lure to American eyes and palates. Prima put the question with a glibness truly pleasing to the maternal heart, however the gutturals might grate upon the ear. The vender’s countenance did not light up, but she answered readily, if monotonously. Prima stared at her, disconcerted.
“What does she say? That is not German!”
Italian and French were tried. The woman gazed heavily at the Wasserthurm, the quaint tower rising from the middle of the river near the covered bridge of the Capelbrücke, and remained as unmoved as that antique land-mark.
“This has ceased to be amusing!” struck in Caput, imperatively, and turning about, made proclamation in the market-place—“Is there nobody here who can speak English?”
A little man peeped from a door behind the stall. “I can!”
The two monosyllables were the “Open Sesame” to the fruity wealth that had been Tantalus apples and a Barmecide banquet and whatever else typifies unfulfilled desire to us, up to the moment of his appearing.