Part 7
A Garden by the water's edge,--a garden where clematis and woodbine and grape-vines run all over their trellises and up the graceful young locust-trees and down over the stone-wall to meet the water plashing pleasantly below, and reach out everywhere that vine-audacity can suggest in an utter abandonment of luxuriance!--a garden where superb blood-red roses are weighed down by a sense of their own sweetness, and pure white ones look tall and stately and cool and abstracted by their side. At the right a point of land extends into the lake, so thickly covered with trees that from here it looks like a little forest, and the houses are almost concealed in the fresh green; and the trees look taller than anything except a funny old building that was once a cloister, and is now the royal castle, and has two queer, tall towers that rise far above the tree-tops at the extremity of the point. At the left, faint and shadowy in the distance, rise the Alps, and the mountains of Tyrol. There are bath-houses along the shore. Small boys who think they "would be mermen bold" are prancing about gayly in the water. On a rocky beach, peasant-women in bright-colored dresses are standing by tubs, dipping garments in the lake and wringing them dry. Some of them are kneeling. The sun is warm, and beats down on their uncovered heads, and the work is hard, and I don't suppose they have any idea they are making a picture of themselves, on the rocky shore with the background of trees. But everybody is a picture this morning. There is a young man standing in a row-boat, which an old fisherman lazily propels here and there before my eyes. The youth is really statuesque, balancing himself easily in the dancing boat, strong, supple, graceful, his arm extending the long fishing-rod. A rosebud of a girl in a white morning-suit and jaunty sailor-hat leans over the railing of a pavilion built out into the lake from the garden, and also patiently holds a fishing-rod, looking like a "London Society" illustration, as she gazes intently with drooping eyelashes into the water.
There are people reading, sketching, studying their Baedeckers, drinking their coffee or beer, in comfortable nooks through the pretty garden. All is quiet and restful, with only the rippling of the water and the shouts of the merry mermen to break the stillness. Now doesn't it seem as if one ought to write an exceptionally pleasant letter from so pleasant a spot? But, alas! there is not much to say about it when once you have tried to tell how it looks,--that it is a calm, peaceful, pretty place, where you could stay a whole summer and lose all feverish desires to explore and climb and see sights. To sit here in the garden, leaning on the wall among the vines, is happiness enough. In the morning early, the lake smiles at you and talks to you, and you see far away great masses of rose-color and pearl-gray, with snowy summits gleaming in the sunshine, and your eyes are blessed with their first view of the Alps. The outline of the opposite shore is misty and many-colored, and has also its noble heights. At sunset, too, is the garden a dreamy, blissful spot, as the little boats float about in the golden lights, and the water and the mountains assume all possible lovely hues, then sink away in a deep violet, and the stars come out and German love-songs go up to meet them.
Yes, it is a satisfying spot. If there's a serpent here, he keeps himself wonderfully well concealed. We haven't caught a glimpse of him, and we are wise enough not to search for him. It's an admirable place to be lazy, but it isn't very good for letters. Things hinder so, you know. You listen to the water, and your pencil forgets to go. You get lost in contemplation of the flapping of the ducks' feet, and make profound studies of their mechanism, and enviously wish you had something of the sort at your command, so that you could sail about in the cool, clear water as unconcerned as they, and with no more effort. Funniest of ducks that they are!--so pampered by the attention and bread-crumbs of summer guests that their complacency exceeds even ordinary duck self-satisfaction, and they act as if they thought they were all swans.
It occurs to me somebody may feel a faint curiosity to know where it all is. On the Lake of Constance, or the Bodensee, which, if you want useful information, is forty-two miles long, eight miles wide, is fed principally by the Rhine, and whose banks belong to five different States,--Bavaria, Wuertemberg, Baden, Switzerland, and Austria; a sheet of water whose shores are green and thickly wooded, where gay little steamers run, constantly displaying the flags of their several countries, between the principal places on the lake, and wherever you go you have beautiful mountain scenery. You see the Alps, the mountains of Bavaria, the Baden hills, the Tyrol, and you don't always know which is which; but they pile themselves up grandly among the clouds, one range behind the other, in a way that to the unaccustomed vision does not exactly admit of labelling, and you don't care what their names are. You are content to feel their beauty, to wonder and be silent.
This particular place on the lake is Friedrichshafen. It is really a new place and a commercial place,--and these adjectives are certainly not attractive,--but then the newness is not conspicuous, and the commerce, so far as we summer birds of passage are concerned, almost invisible.
The king and queen of Wuertemberg come here every summer, and are here at present. The Emperor of Germany and the Grand Duke of Baden are on the Island of Mainau.
It may be a busy place, but it does not seem so. Content and rest pervade the atmosphere. Serenity is written on every face. It may be many people would weary of its roses and the ripple of the water; of its gardens, that look as if they were growing directly out of the lake; of the blue, hazy, changing mountains far away; of its perfect quiet: but there are others who would love it well, and who would not tire of it in many a long summer day.
LINDAU AND BREGENZ.
Auf wiederschen, and not Lebewohl, we said to pleasant Friedrichshafen, as the little steamer left those kindly green shores and we sailed away, not for a year and a day, like the owl and the pussy cat in the beautiful pea-green boat, but for an hour or so only. There were many curious people to watch on board, but the most monopolizing sight was two Catholic priests devouring a chicken, or rather devouring _chickens_. They had, on the seat between them, a basket large enough for a flock of Huehnchen--boiled, dissected, and only too tempting to the priestly appetite--to repose in. And they had the lake as a receptacle for the bones. What more could they desire? If we could have suggested anything it would have been--napkins, because it was requiring too much work of their fingers to use them as knives and forks, and then to wipe their mouths on them. The zeal with which the holy men tore the tender meat from the bones and showered the remnants in the water, and particularly the endurance they exhibited, made us hope they evinced as much fervor and devotion in caring for their human flocks.
To Lindau then we came, having, as we approached, charming mountain scenery. The town is on an island, connected with the mainland by an embankment and railway bridge. It is a little place, but very striking as you look at it from the water, having a lofty monument (a statue in bronze of Maximilian II.), a picturesque old Roman tower, and, at the entrance of the harbor, a fine lighthouse, and a great marble lion on a high pedestal, guarding the little haven and his Bavarian land. We remained part of a day here, having before our eyes a beautiful picture,--the mountains of Switzerland directly across the lake, narrow at this point, with the lighthouse and the proud, ever-watchful Bavarian lion rising, bold and sentinel-like, in the foreground. You look between these two over the placid water to the heights beyond.
From Lindau we sailed to Bregenz, where the lake and mountains have quite another expression. It would be difficult to say which is the most attractive place on the Bodensee. You feel "How happy could I be with either, were t'other dear charmer away," and it is of course a question of individual taste. One person prefers the mountains near, another watches them lovingly from a distance. One likes to live on low land by the water's edge, and look up to the mountain-tops; another perches himself high, and finds his happiness in looking down upon the lake and off to other heights. But the shores are lovely everywhere, much frequented yet quiet, crowded with villas, private cottages, hotels, yet secluded and restful if one chooses.
Bregenz is a quiet place, a real country-place, with mountain views and mountain excursions without end. The common people have intelligent, happy faces, pleasant, cheerful ways, quickness of repartee, and civility. The women give you a smiling "Gruess Gott." The commonest man takes off his hat as you pass, and if you go by a group of rollicking school-boys every hat comes off courteously.
Gebhardsberg is the first place to which people usually go from Bregenz. We went, as in duty bound. It is a mountain--a castle--a pilgrimage church--a view; and to say that one commands a view of the entire lake, the valley of the Bregenzer Ach and the Rhine, the Alps, the snow mountains of Appenzel and Glarus, with mountains covered with pine forests in the foreground, conveys a very faint idea of the beauty before our eyes. In the visitors' book in the tower were some German rhymes, which, roughly translated, go somewhat in this way:--
"Charming prospect, best of wine, Be joyful, then, O heart of mine; Farewell, thou lovely Gebhard's hill, Thou Bodensee, so fair, so still."
And more still about wine, for this is not the land of the Woman's Crusade, it appears:--
"It makes you glad to drink good wine, And praying makes life more divine. If you would be both good and gay, Pray well and drink well every day."
Some one remarks,--
"What below was far from clear, Is no less dark when we stand here."
And a very enthusiastic person writes,--
"Here flies from us sorrow, here vanishes pain, Here bloom in our hearts joy and freshness again. Who can assure us, and how can we know, That heaven is fairer than this scene below?"
In pages of such doggerel one finds comical enough things; but exported, they may lose their native flavor, so I will not give too many of them.
By making rather a long excursion from here you can visit the birthplace of Angelica Kauffman. We didn't go, but we felt very proud to think we could if we wished, having lately read "Miss Angel."
There is a place in this neighborhood the name of which I refuse to divulge, because, if I should tell it and disclose its attractions, the next steamer from America would certainly bring over too many people to occupy it, and so ruin it. I shall keep it for myself. But I will describe it, and awaken as much longing and unrest and dissatisfaction with American prices as I can. It isn't exactly a village, but it is near a village. It has shady lanes that wind about between hedges; houses that are placed as if with the express purpose of talking with one another,--only three or four houses, with superb old trees hanging over them. There is the nicest, brightest of _Fraus_,--who owns this bit of land, the houses and the hedges and trees close by the water's edge, a boat, a bath-house, and a great dog,--a happy, prosperous widow, with a daughter to help in household matters, and to go briskly to market to the neighboring town. So happy is she, one thinks involuntarily her _Mann_ was perhaps aggressive, and that to be free from his presence may be to her a blessing from Heaven. She lives in a house where the ceiling is so low one must stoop going through the doors. The windows and doors are all open. The tables and chairs are scoured snowy white. She brings you milk in tall glasses,--it is cream, pure and simple. And then she takes you into the house close by, with great airy chambers, and broad low casements, under which the water ripples softly, and she tells you, without apparently knowing herself, one of the wonders of the age,--that she will rent her four rooms in this detached house for forty guldens a month, and serve four persons from her own dwelling with fruit, meat, cream, the best the land affords; and forty guldens are about twenty dollars, gold. (This must not mislead the unwary. There are places enough here where you can spend quite as much as you do at home.) We did not quite faint, but we were very deeply moved. We did not even tell the good woman that her terms were not exorbitant, crafty, worldly creatures that we were. Here was one spot unspoiled by the madding crowd. We were not the ones to bring pomps, and vanities, and high prices to it. So we choked down our amazement, and hypocritically remarked it was all very pleasant, and we thought perhaps we might return. Return! Of course we shall return! When all things else fail, and ducats are painfully few, then will we flee to this friendly abode, and live in a big room on the lovely lake, so near, indeed, that we can almost fish from our windows; have a boat to row, a bath-house at our service; quarts, gallons of cream; and the Swiss mountains before our eyes morning, noon, and night; and all for five dollars a month. I am telling the truth, but I do not expect to be believed. I am tempted to write its name,--its pretty, friendly, suggestive little name,--but I will not. It ends in LE, it sounds like a caress, so much will I say; perhaps so much is indiscreet. Don't waste your time looking for it. You will never find it. We only happened to drift there. It really is not worth your while to search for it. It is quite secluded, quite out of the way, a sleepy-hollow that I am sure _you_ would find dull.
There are many green, sweet nooks, many pretty villages, many cleanly little cottages, many smiling, broad-browed, clear-eyed women, on the shores of the Lake of Constance; but our woman, our cottage, our cream, our mountains, our _treasure_, you will never, never find.
THE VORARLBERG.
I feel a deep and ever-increasing sympathy with explorers of strange lands whose narratives a harsh world pronounces exaggerations. What if they do say that the unknown animal which darts across their path has five heads and seventeen legs? There is a glamour over everything in an utterly new place,--the very atmosphere is deceptive. After a while, things assume their natural proportions, but at first it seems as if one really did see with one's own eyes all these redundant members. Even here in the beaten track of travel, writing as honestly as possible from my own point of view, I feel like begging my friends to put no faith in anything I say. The mountains in themselves are intoxicating enough to turn one's head; but then of course much depends upon the kind of head one possesses. Recently, at sunset by a lake, we were looking over the water at a mountain view,--soft, wooded slopes near us, huge rocky masses beyond, height upon height rising in hazy blue, the snowy summits just touched by the Alpine glow,--when some strangers approached. Berlin has the honor of being their dwelling-place, we ascertained afterwards.
"_Lieber Mann_," said the lady, "just look at all that snow!"
"Snow!" replied the _lieber Mann_, "snow in summer! But that is impossible!"
"I think it must be snow," said the wife, doubtfully. Then, "But only see the beautiful mountains."
"Hm, hm," remarks the _lieber Mann_, regarding them superciliously through his eye-glass; "I can't say that they are particularly well-formed!" Here, at least, is a head that is secure; no jocund day on the misty mountain-tops, no broad, magnificent ranges at high noon, and no twilight with "mountains in shadow, forests asleep," have power to move that astute _Kopf_ a fraction of an inch. "They have better mountains in Berlin," remarked a German friend in an undertone.
Bludenz is a little town in the Vorarlberg, which means, you know,--or you don't know,--the country lying before the Adler or Arlberg, and the Arlberg is the watershed between the Rhine and Danube, and the boundary between the Vorarlberg and the Tyrol. This sounds guide-bookish,--and very naturally, as I have copied it word for word from Baedecker,--but one must say something of praiseworthy solidity once in a while. Bludenz is a railway terminus, which fact may not interest the world at large, but it did us hugely. We rejoiced in the thought of the great post-wagon, the cracking of whips and blowing of horns, and long, delightful, breezy rides over the hills and far away. Our after-experience of this lively whip-cracking and horn-blowing has led us to the conclusion that it is decidedly at its best in the opera, where the Postilion of Lonjoumeau sings his pretty song and cracks his whip for a gay refrain; and that it is all very well, when you yourself are going off early in the morning amid the prodigious noise and the excitement of stowing away passengers and packages, while a crowd of village loafers stand gazing and gaping at you,--in short, when you are "in it," you know; but when it is only other people who are going, only they for whom all the noise is made and you are roused from your gentle slumbers at half past four perhaps, you do not regard the postilion and his accomplishments with unqualified admiration.
You wish you had gone to the "Eagle," or the "Ox," or the "Lamb," or the "Swan," or the "Lion," or to any other beast or bird, rather than to the "Post," where the "Post" omnibus and its relations make your mornings miserable. These are always the names of the inns in these little towns. There is usually a "Crown" too, and often an "Iron Cross." But people with nerves mustn't go to the "Post." Our party left its nerves in the city before starting off on a rough tour, yet even we have suffered at various inns which bear the names of "Post," but which should properly be called "Pandemonium."
Our first postilion wore the regulation long-boots, a postilion hat, and silver pansies in his ears. He cracked his whip nobly,--as well as we have heard Sontheim in the theatre at Stuttgart, and that is no faint praise. He was the jolliest of men, on the best of terms with all the dwellers among the mountains. He stopped at every inn and house where a glass of wine was to be had, and I think I may say invariably drank it. All the goodwives joked with him and smiled at him; all the men had a friendly word for him, and all the peasant-girls who had lovers in distant villages were continually stopping our great ark to send packages, letters, or messages to the absent swain. He seemed to be for the whole region a friend, patron, and adviser, a tutelary deity in fact, and grand receptacle for confidences. He had a shrewd, kind face, large clear eyes, and had driven among these mountains twenty-six years. It really did not seem a bad way of spending one's days, always going over the mountain-passes, knowing everybody and loved by everybody in the country round. I admired him extremely, and felt very much elated at the honor of sitting up on the box with so important a personage.
He told us a story of an Englishman who was inquiring how much it would cost to be driven to a certain point.
The driver replied so many gulden.
"Impossible," said the Englishman; "Baedecker says half as many."
"I'll tell you what," answered the postilion; "let Baedecker take you, then."
Having laughed at the poor stranger, it is only fair that we now laugh at the natives.
"I spiks English," an innkeeper said to me. "Ein joli hearse," he remarked further, to my great bewilderment, until it gradually dawned upon me that this was English for "a pretty horse." There is a house in this region whose proprietor wished to receive English lodgers, and signified his desire to the world by hanging out this sign: "English boards here."
After all, there are no more ludicrous verbal blunders in the world than we English-speaking people continually make during our first year's struggles with this mighty German tongue; and nowhere do a foreigner's queer idioms and laughable choice of words meet with more kindness, charity, courtesy, and helpfulness than in Germany. It is astonishing how kind the Germans in general are in this respect. It is all very well to say politeness demands such kindness; but where things sound so irresistibly droll, I think sometimes we might shriek with laughter where the Germans kindly correct, and do not even smile.
But we are neglecting Bludenz, for which little town we mean to say a friendly word. It is usually considered only a stepping-stone to something higher and better, but we liked it. The mountains rise on both sides of the village and its one long road, where we walked at sunset, crossing the bridge which spans the foaming, tumbling, rushing Ill. Beyond the ravine of the Brandnerthal, the Scesaplana, the highest mountain of the Raeticon range, rises from fields of snow. We strolled along, breathing the sweet, pure air, meeting groups of peasant-girls, all of whom carried their shoes in their hands. It was a fete day, and they had been to vespers, putting their shoes on at the church door and removing them when they came out. This most practical and admirable method of saving shoe-leather, I venture to recommend to the fathers of large families. It must be superior to "copper-toes." When we came back to take our supper in a garden, somebody was playing Strauss waltzes, with a touch so loving, spirited, and magnetic, it seemed as if the mountains themselves must whirl off presently in response. In this land a garden where people drink beer and wine, eat, smoke, rest, think, enjoy, all in the open air, is sometimes made up of most delightful surroundings; but on the other hand it sometimes means two emaciated, dyspeptic trees, a gravel floor, and half a dozen wooden tables with wretchedly uncomfortable chairs. But if it is an enclosure in the open air with one table large enough to hold a beer-mug, it is still a garden.
Our Bludenz garden was pleasant enough, however, and we sat there till the mountains sank deeper and deeper into the gloom; and the _Maedchen_ who waited upon us told us about her native village, where her brother was schoolmaster; our landlady came, too, and talked with us, quietly, and somewhat with the manner of a hostess entertaining guests. It was all very pretty and simple and kindly, and seemed the most natural thing in the world, as it happened. The people here had intelligent faces, clear eyes like children, and pleasant, courteous ways. The trouble about all these little places is, we don't like to leave them. It seems as if the new place could not be so pretty, the new people so kindly and simple and honest, and we go about weakly, leaving fragments of our hearts everywhere.