Whether the name came from the legend or the legend from the name is a question no man can decide. The bear is seen on every city shield, and those that once ornamented the city-gates are now penned in the Historical Museum. The bears also come out automatically on the famous Zeitglockenturm. The real bears in the pits—which are pits—are said to be lineal descendants of a cub brought back from a hunt by Berthold himself, or, as others have it, from a pair given him by René, Duc de Lorraine. In 1798 General Brune carried them off to Paris and put them in the Jardin des Plantes, but they were so homesick that they were returned.
“Noble animals,” exclaimed a friend of mine, “fed and pampered as they deserve to be, for they brought good fortune to the triumphant Bernese at Donnerbrühl and at Laupen. Established like real kings under the fir-tree, they seem to look up at us with disdain—at us feeble creatures who gaze at their mighty muscles and at their indomitable eyes!”
A statue to Rudolf von Erlach, the hero of Laupen, is one of the ornaments of the city. Saint Christopher also used to have a wooden statue; it was supposed to guard the silver communion-service, but the plate was stolen again and again, and so he was banished to a niche in the tower that bears his name, and, as he faced the David fountain, he acquired the nickname of Goliath, and, if tradition tells the truth, which I would never dare deny, whenever the town clock struck twelve he used to rain Weckli, or little cakes, on the people. In order to make the legend true it is said that a rich lady ordered this miracle to be performed. She lived to be a hundred, and, when she died in 1857, the Cathedral chimes were rung in her honour. A statue of Saint Christopher also stands now in the Museum—a relic of the day when Bern was mostly built of wood, as was indicated in the duke’s couplet.
I shall not attempt to tell all I saw in Bern; it would fill a volume; besides, I have reserved the fine old city for at least a year in one of my future reincarnations. Bern is the capital of the Swiss Confederation, and whole chapters would require to be written to elucidate the history and government of the country. There are splendid museums, and libraries, and the University, though comparatively recent, has more than a thousand students enrolled.
As it is always my habit to get above a city if possible, either on a church tower or on some commanding hill, I went to the Gurten and was there at sunset when the Alpenglow was exhibited with all its pomp. Below lay the splendid buildings of the prosperous town with their towers and variegated roofs and gables. At the foot of the lovely Blümlisalp could be seen the glint of the Lake of Thun, and as for mountains—merely to mention the Jungfrau, the Finsteraarhorn, the Eiger and the Mönch, brings up to me now, not seeing them, a vision that makes the tears come to my eyes. What shall I say, too, to add to the picture, so inadequately hinted at, merely, more than to chronicle that the moon arose not quite at her full but pouring out a jar of golden light that filled the whole valley with vibrating, quivering beauty? At night mountains seem to shrink as if they lay down to sleep. So, from the eight hundred and sixty-one meter altitude of the Gurten, I had the brilliant afternoon sunlight, the most perfect view of the blushing Jungfrau,—and it was most becoming to her,—and then a radiant moonlight night.
[CHAPTER XXIII]
AT ZÜRICH WITH THE PROFESSOR
