Part 12
The people in the hotels are often a source of amusement to us. We consider them fair game, when they are very comical, because--who knows?--perhaps we also are amusing to them. Some faces, however, look too bored and miserable to be amused by anything. It is very inelegant never to be bored,--to like so many different people, ways, thoughts, things. We often feel mortified that we are so much amused, but the fault is ineradicable.
There is an Englishwoman of rank, whom we have met recently in our wanderings,--exactly where I dare not tell. She comes every day to _table d'hote_ with a new bonnet, and each bonnet is more marvellously self-assertive than its predecessor. She bears a well-known name. She is my Lady E----ton; but if she were only Mrs. Stubbs from Vermont, I should say she had more bonnets, more impudence, and more vulgar curiosity than any woman I had ever seen. She seized the small boy of our party in her clutches at dinner, where an unlucky chance placed him by her side, and questioned him minutely and mercilessly during the six courses. Who was his father? Who was his mother? Had he a sister? Had he a brother? What did his father _do_? Where did he live, and how? Where did we come from? Where were we going? How long were we going to stay? And what were all our names? Was the young lady engaged to be married to the young man? How old was the child's mamma? How old were we all? And so on _ad infinitum_. The boy, though old enough to feel indignant, was not old enough to know how to escape, and so helplessly, with painful accuracy, answered her questions; but on the very delicate point of age we were providentially protected by a childish, honest "I don't know." Some of us who are more worldly-wise and wicked than the little victim heartily regretted fate had not given us instead of him to our lady of the bonnets. It would have been so delicious to make her ribbons flutter with amazement at the astonishing tales told by us in reply! Certainly, under such circumstances, it is legitimate to call in a little imagination to one's aid.
Our cousins, the English, whom we meet on the Continent, are very much like the little girl of the nursery-rhyme,--when they are good they are "awfully good," and when they are bad they are "horrid." (No one is more truly kind, refined, and charming than an agreeable Englishman or Englishwoman; no one more utterly absurd than a disagreeable one.) Possibly this impresses us the more strongly on account of the cousinship. Aren't our own unpleasant relatives invariably a thousand times more odious to us than other people's?
I saw a pantomime the other day which, though brief, was full of meaning. A German lady and gentleman, quiet-looking, well-bred people, were walking through a long hotel corridor. The gentleman stepped forward in order to open the door of the _salon_ for the lady. From another door emerges an Englishman with an unattractive face and dull, pompous manner. He is also _en route_ for the _salon_, and, not noticing the lady, steps between the two. The German throws open the door and waits. The burly Englishman, solemn but gratified, accepting the supposed courtesy as a perfectly fitting tribute from that inferior being, a foreigner, to himself and the great English nation, pauses and makes in acknowledgment a profound bow, which, being utterly superfluous and unexpected, strikes the lady coming along rapidly to pass through the doorway, and, naturally imagining the second gentleman, too, was waiting for her, literally and with force _strikes_ her and nearly annihilates her. The Englishman turns in utter wonder and gazes at the lady. The three gaze at one another. Everybody says, "I beg your pardon." The Englishman, as the facts dawn upon his comprehension, has the grace to turn very red, but has not the grace to laugh, which would be the only sensible thing to do,--too sensible, apparently, for a man who goes about thinking strange gentlemen will delight in smoothing his path and opening doors for him. Of course, he ought to have known instinctively, there was a lady in the case, as there always is. The two Germans were too polite to laugh unless he would. But he did not even smile, which proclaimed his stupidity more clearly than all which had gone before; and presently three very constrained faces--one red and sullen, two with dancing eyes and lips half bitten through--appeared in the _salon_, which, this time, the lady entered first. It isn't so very funny to tell, but the scene was so funny to witness, it really seemed a privilege to be the solitary spectator.
From Zurich on to Lucerne, with pretty pictures all the way from the car windows. We anticipated feeling romantic here, but so far all we know is that Lucerne looks very drab. It rains in torrents, a hopeless, heavy flood. The lake does not smile at us, or dimple or ripple, as we have read it is in the habit of doing. The mountains we ought to be seeing don't appear. The streets are shockingly muddy. We cannot go to see the Lion; and as to the Rigi, upon which our hopes are set, there is small chance that it will at present emerge from its clouds, and allow us to behold from the Kulm the wonderful sunrise and sunset which many go out for to see, but most, alas! in vain.
Great Pilatus tells us to hope for nothing. He is the barometer of the region. He is very big and rugged and inspiring, and stands haughtily apart from the other heights:--
"Overhead, Shaking his cloudy tresses loose in air, Rises Pilatus with his windy pines."
A popular rhyme runs to the effect that when Pilatus wears his cap only, the day will be fair; when he puts on his collar, you may yet venture; but if he wears his sword, you'd better stay at home. To-day he wears cap, collar, sword,--in fact, is clothed with clouds, except for a moment now and then, to his very feet. There are many old legends about Pilatus and its caverns. One of the oldest is, that Pontius Pilate, banished from Galilee, fled here, and in anguish and remorse threw himself into the lake; hence the name of which the more matter-of-fact explanation is _Mons Pileatus_, or "capped mountain." If there were sunshine, we would believe the latter simple and reasonable definition. Now, in this dreary rain, we take a gloomy satisfaction in the dark tale of remorse,--the darker, more desperate and tragic it is made, the better we like it.
Pilatus and the skies and wind and barometer, and fate itself, apparently, are against us. But the Rigi is still there. Behind the cloud is the sun still shining,--patience is genius, and--we wait.
BY THE LAKE OF LUCERNE.
Who was so wicked as to call Lucerne "drab"? If it were I, I don't remember it, and I never will acknowledge it, though the printed word stare me in the face. After the rain it shone out in radiant colors,--the pretty city with its quaint bridges, and the Venice-look of some of the stone houses that rise directly from the lake; the water plashing softly against their foundations, the little boats moored by their sides. People who have seen Venice are at liberty to smile in a superior way if they wish. We, who have not, will cherish our little fancies until reality verifies them or proves them false.
And the lake,--
"The Lake of the Four Forest Cantons, apparelled In light, and lingering like a village maiden Hid in the bosom of her native mountains, Then pouring all her life into another's, Changing her name and being,"--
how lovely it is! Roaming there at sunset was an ever-memorable delight:--the happy-looking people under the chestnut-trees on the shore, the little boats dancing lightly about everywhere, the pleasant dip of the oars, the chiming of evening bells; on one side, the city, with its old watchtowers and slender spires; over the water, the piled-up purple mountains, with the warm opaline sunset lights playing about them; behind, the long range of pure-white peaks, catching the last rays of the sun, glistening and gleaming gloriously, while the lower world sinks into gloom, and even they at last grow dim and vague, and still we float on in drowsy indolence.
The narrow covered bridges, the one where the faded old paintings represent scenes from Swiss history, and the Muehlenbruecke with the "Dance of Death" picture described in the "Golden Legend," were both interesting. Prince Henry and Elsie seemed to go by with all the stream of life,--the soldiers, and peasant-girls, and monks, and workingmen in blouses, and children with baskets on their backs; and queer old women we met as we stood by the little shrine in the middle of the bridge, peered in and saw the candles and flowers and crucifixes, or looked out through the small windows upon the swift waters beneath. So faint and obscure are many of the paintings, yet we found the ones we sought, and saw the
"Young man singing to a nun Who kneels at her devotions, but in kneeling Turns round to look at him; and Death, meanwhile, Is putting out the candles on the altar."
The old church with the celebrated organ, which may be heard every afternoon, has some carved wood and stained glass that people go to see. Its churchyard, so little, so old, so pitifully crowded, is a sad place, like all the cemeteries I have yet seen here. With their colored ornaments and tinsel, their graves crowding one against another, and the multitude of sad, black, attenuated little crosses that have such a skeleton air, they are positively heartbreaking: they seem infinitely more mournful and oppressive than ours at home, with their broad alleys, stately trees, and the peace and beauty of their surroundings. There are two new-made graves in the pavement here. You can't help feeling sorry they are so very crowded. They are covered with exquisite fresh flowers, which the passer-by sprinkles from a font that stands near, thus giving a blessing to the dead. We have had ample opportunity to observe all the old monuments and epitaphs without voluntarily making a study of the churchyard, for the way to and from our chalet led through it. To one very ancient stone we felt positively grateful because its inscription was funny:--
"Here lies in Christ Jesus Josepha Dub Jungfrau Aged 91."
We were glad to have Miss Dub's somewhat prolonged life of single-blessedness to smile over, so heavy otherwise was the atmosphere of that little churchyard.
The celebrated Lion of Lucerne we found even more beautiful than we had anticipated. It was larger and grander, and the photographs fail to convey a true idea of it, and of the exact effect of the mass of rock above it. It all comes before you suddenly,--the high perpendicular sandstone rock, the grotto in which the dying Lion lies, pierced through by a broken lance, his paw sheltering the Bourbon lily; the trees and creeping plants on the very top of the cliff, at its base the deep dark pool surrounded by trees and shrubs. The Lion is cut out of the natural rock, a simple and impressive memorial in honor of the officers and soldiers of the Swiss Guard who fell in defence of the Tuileries in 1792. They exhibit Thorwaldsen's model in the little shop there, which is one of the beguiling carved wood-ivory-amethyst places where, I suppose, strong-souled people are never tempted, but we, invariably. There are lovely heads of Thorwaldsen here, by the way, the most satisfactory I have seen.
We live in a _pension_, a chalet on the banks of the lake. It has, like most things, its advantages and disadvantages. From our balcony we look out over shrubs and little trees upon the lovely lake and the mountains. The establishment boasts numerous retainers, mostly maids of all work; but our attention is drawn exclusively to a small, pale girl, whom we call the "Marchioness," and a small, pale boy, whom we call "Buttons." Why need such mites work so hard? Buttons is only fourteen, and he drags heavy trunks about and moves furniture and does the work of two men, besides running on all the errands, and blacking all the boots, and waiting at the table.
If you ask him if things are not too heavy he smiles brightly and says, "No, indeed!" with the air of a Hercules, so brave a heart has the little man. So he goes about lifting and pulling and staggering under heavy loads, and breathing hard, and he has a hollow cough that it makes the heart ache to hear from such a child; and it does not require much wisdom to know what is going to happen to _him_ before long,--poor little Buttons!
UP AND ON AND DOWN THE RIGI.
Truth is mighty. We have been up the Rigi Railway, and in spite of the beauty before our eyes, instead of experiencing grand and elevated emotions, instead of remembering the words of some noble poet, instead of doing anything we ought to have done, we could only, prompted by a perverse spirit, say over and over to ourselves,--
"General Gage was very brave, Very brave, particular; He galloped up a precipice, And down a perpendicular."
Our Rigi experience, taken all in all, was an agreeable and a very amusing outing. We had waited long till skies were fair enough for us to venture, but at last Pilatus looked benign, and we had the loveliest of sails across that lovely lake, Lucerne; happy sunlight falling on blue water and exquisite shores, shadows of floating clouds reflected in the depths; and all the noble army of mountains thronging before us, and beside us, and behind us; bold barren hills rising sharply against rich and varied foliage; superb white heights afar off. At Vitznau we waited a short time for our train, and employed ourselves happily in watching a great group of fruit-sellers, who stood with huge baskets of fine grapes, and poor peaches, and figs, before the bench where we were sitting. After the fashion of idle travellers, we audibly made our comments upon the pretty scene:--
"If I had not already bought this fruit, I should buy it of that little boy; I _always_ like to buy my fruit of little boys."
"And if I had not already bought mine, I should buy it of the man with the long tassel on his cap: I dote on buying fruit of good-looking young men with tassels on their caps."
Who could dream that this utterly inane conversation would be understood? But the face of the youth with the tassel--he looked Italian, although he was speaking German--suddenly gleamed and sparkled mischievously, and showed a row of white teeth, as he pointed at his head and touched his tassel and said, "Cap! cap!" with huge satisfaction and pride. Not another English word could he say, but the similarity between this and the German _Kappe_, and his quick intuition, told him that we were alluding, and not unpleasantly, to him.
Traveller, beware! Don't buy fresh figs at Vitznau. We each pursued one to the bitter end; then politely presented what remained in our paper to a small fruit-seller, to devour if she liked, or to sell over again to the next guileless person who has never eaten fresh figs, and wants to be Oriental. This civility on our part was received with laughter by the whole group of men, women, and children, who all seemed to perfectly appreciate the point of the joke. It at least was consoling. Being cheated in buying fruit is an evil that can be borne, but it is an utterly crushing sensation when people won't smile at your jokes.
The carriage which was to take us up the precipice we surveyed with curiosity and pleasure,--one broad car with open sides, affording perfect command of the views, the seats running quite across it and turned towards the locomotive, which, going up, runs behind. Between the ordinary rails are two rails with teeth, upon which a cog-wheel in the locomotive works. The train runs very slowly, only about three miles an hour, which is both safe and favorable to enjoyment of the scenery, and in case of accident the car can be instantly detached from the locomotive and stopped. No one need think that I am giving these few facts as information, the very last thing one wants to find in a letter from Europe. I would not presume,--and of course almost everybody knows how the Rigi Railway works; only, it happens, _I_ did not know, and I mention these things merely to refresh my own memory.
So far as views are concerned, it is of course preferable to make the ascent on foot. But where one is bewildered by the affluence of beauty in Switzerland, one feels willing to sacrifice something of it to the new experience of this curious ride. Some people, it is true, like to _say_ they walked up the Rigi. But why shall we indulge in so small a vanity, when we can easily indulge in a greater one,--several thousand feet greater, in fact? When any one boasts, "I walked up the Rigi," we shall return quietly, "We ascended Piz Languard in the Engadine." For all the world knows the Rigi is only 5,905 feet high, and Piz Languard is 10,715 feet. We felt that we could afford to ride up the Rigi, then.
It was all extremely spirited and enjoyable, and we could never forget how strongly we resembled General Gage. The views were beautiful and ever varying. The atmosphere was slightly hazy, so that the dark Buergenstock beyond the lake, which lay in loveliness before us, became more and more shadowy as we ascended; and the Stanserhorn and Pilatus, and all the Alps of the Uri, Engelberg, and Bernese Oberland, though distinct, had yet the thinnest possible veil before their faces; and the precipice above us was amazing to see, and the perpendicular reached down, down into deep ravines, where the narrow waterfalls looked like silver threads among the trees and bushes and gray, jagged rocks.
Reaching the hotels that stand on the tip-top of the Kulm, we went to the one that had stoves, which is the Schreiber, for "bitter chill it was." We had barely time to see the whole magnificent prospect, before the clouds closed in upon us, enveloping us in such a thoroughgoing way that we could only allude to the sunset with shrieks of laughter. And up to the time of the arrival of the latest train came pilgrims from every quarter, also bent on seeing the sunset from the Rigi Kulm. Group after group came up through the mist from the little station to the hotel, everybody very merry over his own blighted hopes. Towards evening it rained heavily, and there was nothing to do but amuse one's self within doors. This is not difficult at the Schreiber, an unusually large and well arranged hotel. To find such spacious, brilliant _salons_ up here is a surprise; and when you look about in them and see persons from many different grades of society, many nations, and hear almost every language of Europe, and realize that you are all here together on a mountain-top and fairly in the clouds, it is quite entertaining enough without the books and papers which are at your service. There were even two Egyptian princes there. The small boy of our party, whom every one notices and pets, and who, though speaking absolutely nothing but English, has a miraculous way of being understood and of conversing intimately with Russians, Poles, Greeks, etc., was on friendly terms with the Egyptians at once, and, after five minutes' acquaintance, had made his usual demand for postage-stamps. By the grace of childhood much is possible.
Truly this Rigi Kulm is a curious place. It is said the spectacle of sunrise rarely deigns to appear before the expectant mortals who throng there to see it. Half an hour before sunrise, in fair weather, an Alpine horn rouses the sleepers, and people rush out, often in fantastic garb, with blankets round them and a generally wild-Indian aspect. There is actually a notice on every bed-room door in the Rigi Kulm House, requesting guests to be good enough not to take the coverings from the beds when they go to see the sunrise.
A strange, wild place was the Kulm as the night advanced. The wind howled, and shrieked, and moaned, and witches on broomsticks flew round and round the house and tapped noisily on our window-panes. If you don't believe it, stay there one night in a storm, and then you will believe anything. But though storm and night and cloud encircled us, we saw vividly, as we sank into our dreams, the whole superb landscape,--forests, lakes, hills, towns, villages, plains, the waves of mist in the valleys, the ever-changing light and shade, the little fleecy clouds wreathing the glistening snowy peaks, the sunshine and the glorious sky. The wide, calm picture was before us still.
It was a night of witchy noises, of starts and fears that we should oversleep and so lose the sunrise, which, in spite of the storm, the predictions of the weather-wise, and the promptings of common-sense, it was impossible for our party not to confidently expect, so strong an element in it was the sanguine temperament. From midnight on, one figure or another might have been seen standing by the window, two excited, staring eyes peering wildly through the shutters, anxious to discern the first glimmerings of dawn; and from every restless nap we would awake with a start, thinking we surely heard that "horn." If the other people were as absurd as we, they were quite absurd enough. That Rigi sunrise, whether it comes or is only anticipated, is enough to shake a constitution of iron.
But no horn sounded, and the lazy sun only struggled through the clouds as late as eight o'clock, when the view once more opened before us, grand and beautiful in the sudden gleam of morning sunshine. The Bernese Alps magnificently white,--the Jungfrau, Finster-Aarhorn, many well-known peaks in raiment of many colors; the lakes of Lucerne and Zug directly below, and seven or eight more lakes visible,--in all, a beautiful prospect, and remarkable from the fact that the gaze sweeps over an expanse of three hundred miles.
Very soon the clouds rolled in again. Not a vestige of view remained, and a persistent drizzle sent several car-loads of disappointed but amused beings down the mountain. We all began to be sceptical about that Rigi Kulm sunrise which we had heard described in glowing words. We were inclined to doubt whether any one, even the oldest inhabitant, had ever seen it.
Some writer says it is dismal on the Kulm in wet weather. I think if there were only one poor, drenched, frozen mortal up there aspiring to gaze upon the glory that is denied him, it would be dismal in the extreme; but when so many, scores, hundreds, go, and so few attain their object,--for the summit of the Rigi is often surrounded with clouds, even in fairest weather,--it is not in the least dismal; on the contrary, highly enlivening, and the trip well worth taking, though it end in clouds.
In the language of a young Russian gentleman who is learning English, "I have made a little tripe, and enjoyed my little tripe delicious."
A KAISER FEST.