Part 9
We heard him later ourselves at two in the morning at an inn on the road where we were staying, and in fact were told by the landlord that he was expected; were shown the sacred apartment set apart for his majesty, who now and then sits an hour in it at some unearthly time of night, and we were advised to peep through our curtains at him, his suite, and his horses, torches, etc.; but such was the sleepiness created by a ride of sixteen hours in mountain air, that, though we were dimly conscious something of interest was happening, I do not think we would have been able to stir, to see even Solomon in all his glory. This was the true reason, but the one that we pretended actuated us is quite different. We remark with dignity that no young woman of proper spirit will condescend to peep through a curtain at a man who has scowled at her, king or no king.
But I must tell you how, when, and where the royal scowl took place. We had left the little inn by the lake, and were riding along in an expectant mood, when there came a great clatter of hoofs, and two blue-and-silver men dashed by followed by an open carriage, where King Louis sat alone. A kind fate ordained that the road should be narrow at this point, with a steep bank on one side, over which it would not be pleasant to be precipitated; so the royal coachman, as well as our driver, moderated the speed of his horses, and we therefore had an admirable opportunity to see this "_idealisch_" young man--as the Germans call him--distinctly. The ceremonies performed were few. Our postilion took off his hat; so did the king. Then it seemed good in his sight to deliberately throw back his head, look full in our amiable, smiling, interested countenances, and indulge in a haughty and an unmistakable scowl. He must have slept even less than usual that morning. We were not accustomed to have young men scowl at us, and really felt quite hurt. If he had looked grand and unseeing, had gazed off abstractedly upon the mountain-tops, we would have been delighted with him. As it is, we cannot honestly say that we consider his manner to strangers ingratiating. Still, as the melancholy fact is that he hates women, his scowl probably meant no especial aversion to our humble selves, but was merely the expression of the immense scorn and disgust he feels towards the sex at large.
In revenge, I hasten to say that, though he certainly has a distinguished air, and a fine head, and the great eyes that look so dreamy and poetical in the photographs of him at eighteen or twenty, he is not nearly so handsome as those early pictures. Perhaps he can look dreamy still; but of this he granted us no opportunity to judge, and he has grown stout, and has lost the delicate refinement of his youth.
This road to Reutte is one of the finest of the mountain-passes between the Tyrol and Bavaria. The deep, wooded ravines, lovely, dark-green lakes, and noble heights make the landscape very beautiful and inspiring. Near Lennos, you see on the east great bald limestone precipices, the snowy Zugspitze, 9,761 feet high, the Schneefernerkopf, 9,462 feet, and other peaks of 8,000 feet and more; while you spy picturesque ruins, old hunting-seats, and fortresses here and there high on the proud cliffs.
Reutte has large, broad, pretty houses. It is said laughingly that there is not a house in the place which a king or some other exalted being has not selected to die in, or in some way to make memorable.
From this place we have pursued still farther our studies of royalty, having met with so much encouragement at the outset. We have visited the Schloss Hohenschwangau, where the king of Bavaria and his mother, the queen, spend some time every summer; and also Schloss Schwanstein, which is yet building, but where the young king often stays, unfinished as it is.
The way to Hohenschwangau leads through a charming park. The castle was once a Roman fort, they say, then a baronial estate, then almost destroyed by the Tyrolese, then bought by King Max of Bavaria, who had it remodelled and ornamented with fine frescos by Munich artists.
In the vestibule is an inscription in gold letters on blue, which says something like this:--
"Welcome, wanderer,--welcome, fair and gracious women! Leave all care behind! Yield your souls to the sweet influences of poetry."
Isn't that a pretty greeting? It's all very well, however, to have such things written on your walls, and then to go about the world scowling at people; but it doesn't look consistent. From the vestibule you pass into a long hall, where are two rows of columns, old suits of armor standing like men on guard on both sides, shields, spears, halberds, and cross-bows on the walls, and a little chapel at the end.
The frescos throughout the castle are very interesting. From the billiard-room, with a pretty balcony, you go into the Schwanrittersaal, where the pictures on the walls represent the legend of the Knight of the Swan, and remind you of the opera of "Lohengrin." The painted glass of the doors opening from this room upon a balcony is of the seventeenth century.
There is an Oriental room, with reminiscences of King Max's Eastern travels. Here you see Smyrna, Troja, the Dardanelles, Constantinople, in fresco; rich presents from the Sultan, a table-cover embroidered by the wives of the Sultan, jewelled fans, etc.
There is an Autharis room, with frescos by Schwind, telling the story of the wooing of the Princess Theudelinda by the Lombard king, Autharis. Do you feel perfectly familiar with the history of Autharis and Theudelinda? Because, if you do not, I don't really know of any one just at this moment who feels competent to give you the slightest information upon the subject.
There is a room of the knights, the frescos illustrating mediaeval chivalry,--a Charlemagne room. There are, in fact, more rooms than you care to read about or I care to describe, and many rich objects to see. In the queen's apartments was a casket of gold studded with turquoises and rubies; elegant toilet-tables rosy with silk linings, soft with falling lace; and there is one dear little balcony-room, cosy and full of familiar pictures,--Raphael's cherubs, a little painting of Edelweiss and Alpine roses; and actually two real spinning-wheels: one is the queen's, and the other belonged to a young court lady whose recent death was a deep grief to the queen, it is said.
But the most striking, and in the end fascinating, thing in the castle is the number of swans you see. It would be difficult to convey any idea of the swan-atmosphere of this place. Swans support baskets for flowers and vases. There are swans in china, in marble, in alabaster, in gold and silver, on the tables, on the mantels and brackets, painted, embroidered on cushions and footstools,--everywhere you find them. A half-dozen of different sizes stand together on a small table, some of them large, some as tiny as the toy swan a child sails in his glass preserve-dish for a pond. There is a swan-fountain in the garden; a great swan on the stove in a reception-room.
King Louis can bathe every day in a gold bath-tub if he wishes. Our eyes have seen it, though the guide said he had never shown it before. I have no means of knowing whether the man told the truth. There is another and yet more enticing bath-room hewn out of the solid rock. We entered it from the garden. From without, its walls look like dark thick glass, through which one sees absolutely nothing. From within, the effect is enchanting. You see the highest tower of the castle on one side rising directly above you, the lovely garden with its choice flowers and superb trees, the grand mountains beyond,--and all bathed in a deep rosy light from the hue of the glass. It is an enchanted grotto, and very Arabian Nights-ish. A marble nymph stands on each side of the bath, which is cut in the centre of the stone floor, and one of them turns on a pivot, disclosing a concealed niche, into which you step and slowly swing round until you are in a subterranean passage, from which a mysterious stairway leads to the dressing-room above.
We went everywhere, even into the king's little study, up in the tower, where we were explicitly told not to go. It was a simply furnished room, with an ordinary writing-table, upon which papers and writing-materials were strewn about, and important-looking envelopes directed to the king. And it commanded a lovely view of mountains, broad plains, and four lakes, the Alpsee, Schwansee, Hopfensee, and Bannwaldsee.
Our little tour of inspection was just in time, for at twelve that night, the castle servants told us, the king would come dashing up to his own door, after which there can be of course no admittance to visitors.
Hohenschwangau is most beautifully situated, but the Neu Schwanstein is still more striking. It is founded upon a rock. You climb to reach it, and you can climb far higher on the mountains that tower behind it. It stands directly by a deep ravine, and the view from it is magnificent. The young king here by his own hearthstone has wild and abrupt mountain scenery,--a rocky gorge, crossed by a delicate wire bridge, an impetuous waterfall; and looking far, far off from the battlements he sees villages, many lakes, dense woods, winding streams, Hohenschwangau looking proudly towards its royal neighbor, and the glorious mountains circling and guarding the valley. Living here, one would feel like a god on high Olympus looking down upon humanity toiling on the plains below.
The king likes this place, and it is said wishes to remain here when the queen, his mother, comes to Hohenschwangau. But this is an unwarrantable intrusion upon their little family differences, which they should enjoy unmolested, like you and me. Schwanstein in its exterior form and character resembles a mediaeval castle, and the appointments in the servants' wing, the only part of the interior as yet finished, are strictly in keeping. There are solid oaken benches and tables, carved cases and chests, oaken bedsteads as simply made as possible, and windows with tiny oval or diamond panes.
The room occupied temporarily by the king is very small and simple,--has a plain oak bedstead and dressing-table. Across the bed were thrown blankets, on which were blue swans and blue lions, and in the dining-room adjoining the carpet was blue, with golden Bavarian lions, and the all-pervading swans. This was a pretty room, the frescos illustrating the story of a life in mediaeval times,--the life of a warrior from the moment when he starts forth from his father's door, a fair-haired boy, to seek his fortunes in the great world. Mountain scenery, village life, his first service to a knight, battle, gallant deeds, receiving knighthood, betrayal, imprisonment, escape, victory,--all the eventful story until he sits with men old like himself, and over their wine they tell of the doughty deeds of the past; and then, older still, and frail and feeble and alone, he leans upon his staff as he rests under a tree where careless children play around him.
A charming road, through the woods belonging to the Schwanstein park, leads to the castle, past the lovely Alpsee, which looks deep and calm, and lies lovingly nestled among the beautiful woods that surround it and that rise high above it, as if striving to conceal its loveliness from profane eyes.
We saw forty of the royal horses--pretty creatures they were too--each with the name painted over the stall. We were reading them aloud, they were so odd and fanciful, when, as one of us said Fenella, the little horse that claimed that name turned her pretty head and tried to come to us. However gently we would call her, she always heard and looked at us. Encouraged by this gracious condescension on the part of a royal animal, we ventured to make friends with her; and if ever a horse smiled with good-will and delight it was Fenella when we gave her sugar.
His majesty's carriages were also shown to us, and received our approval. They are plain and elegant, but do not differ from high-toned equipages in general. A narrow little phaeton, low, and large enough to hold but one person, we were told was a favorite of the king. In it, with a man at each side of the horse's head leading him, and bearing a torch, the king amuses himself by ascending dangerous mountain-roads at night. They say it is astonishing where he will go in this manner. Fancy meeting that scowling but interesting young man, his torches and his funny little vehicle, on a lonely peak at midnight!
LIFE IN SCHATTWALD.
We have been in the Tyrol many days, in villages among the mountains, living in simplicity, content, and charity to all mankind. We have believed that our condition was as thoroughly rural as anything that could possibly be attained by people who only want to be rural temporarily as an experiment. But our present experience so far transcends all that we have known in the past, that the other villages seem like bustling, important towns, unpleasantly copying city ways, compared with this funny little quiet Schattwald.
We came here from Reutte in an open carriage, passed through a wonderfully beautiful ravine, saw the lovely dark-green lakes that delight the soul in this part of the world, little hamlets scattered about picturesquely among pine-clad hills, bold peaks towering to the clouds in the distance, and drove slowly through soft, broad meadows, where the whole population was out making hay. We saw many Tyrolean Maud Muellers in bright gowns that looked pretty in the sunshine. A German friend told us a certain small object was "an American hay-cart, and very practical, like all American inventions." He was so positive in his convictions, and, at the same time, so gracious towards the inventive genius of America, that we saw it would be useless and unwise to pretend to know anything about the hay-cart of our native heath. But if an American hay-cart should see its Tyrolean prototype, it would shatter itself into atoms with laughter.
So in the serene, perfect midsummer weather, through this charming country, we came to Schattwald, the highest village in the Thanheimer Thal.
I feel now that it is my duty to give a friendly caution to people whose nerves are easily shocked, and to advise them to drop this letter at this very point, for it is shortly going to treat of exceedingly realistic and inelegant things.
We drove to the village inn. There were hens and children on the broken stone doorstep, and men drinking beer in a little pavilion close by. A broad and jocund landlady told us there was absolutely no place for us. We are, therefore, ensconced in a veritable peasant's cottage over the way, going across to the inn when we are hungry, which is tolerably often in this mountain air.
Our rooms are broad and very low, with wide casements having tiny panes. A stout wooden bench against the wall serves as sofa and chairs. A bare wooden table in front of it is graced by a great dish filled with Alpine roses, Edelweiss, and Wildemaenner, which is an appropriate name for the little flower with its brown unkempt head and shaggy elf-locks blowing in the wind. A six-inch looking-glass is hung exactly where the wall joins the ceiling, and exactly where we cannot possibly see ourselves in it without standing on something, when we invariably bump our heads. This pointedly tells us that vanity is a plant that does not flourish in these lofty altitudes. There are crucifixes on the walls, and extraordinary religious pictures; and in the corner of the front door there is a saint somebody made of wood, life-size, with a reddish gown, and tinsel stars on a wire encircling her head. I think she must be Mary, though it did not occur to me at first, she is such a corpulent young woman, with a thick, short waist, and solid feet, which, nevertheless, by their position, express the idea that she is floating. An old woman often sits by her, knitting, as we go in and out.
"Is it clean?" I know some one is asking. That depends upon what you call clean; and when travelling one must modify one's opinion about cleanliness and order. For a dressing-room it would be shockingly unclean; for peasant life up in the Alps it is--if the expression is permissible--_clean enough_.
The floors are clean, and the bedding and towels. The water is pure and fresh, the dishes and food perfectly clean. And these, after all, are the essentials. But things are very much mixed, to say the least; and the animal kingdom lives in close proximity to its superiors. In fact, up here it seems to have no superiors.
You sit in the open air eating a roast chicken, with a bit of salad; and the brother and sister chickens, that will some day be sacrificed to the appetite of another traveller, are running about unconscious of their doom at your feet. A little colt walks up to you and insists upon putting his nose in your plate,--insists, too, upon being petted,--and hasn't the least delicacy or comprehension when you tell him you are busy and wish he would go away. He stays calmly, and presently a goat or two and a big dog join the group. Such imperturbable good-nature and complacency, such naivete, I have never before known animals to possess. They have been treated since their birth with so much consideration, they never imagine that their society may not always be desired. In fact, the animals and the people have innocent, friendly ways; and as it never occurs to them you can be displeased with anything they may do, the result is you never are. And as to the question of cleanliness, perhaps the simplest way to settle it is to say that there is indeed dirt enough here, but it is all, as the children say, "clean dirt," and at all events, with glorious air and lovely mountain views, brightness and goodness and kindness meeting you on every side from the peasants, one must be very sickly either in body or mind, or in both, to be too critical about trifles.
One whole morning we spent in a Sennhuette,--a cowherd's hut,--high above the village. (Did I not warn you that ungenteel things were coming?) And it was one of the most interesting and amusing half-days we have ever known. There were fifty cows there, as carefully tended as if they were Arabian horses, and noble specimens of their kind of beauty. The prettiest ones were cream-colored, with great soft eyes. They expected to be talked to and petted like all the other animals in Schattwald. There were different rooms, the mountain breezes blowing straight through them all, where five or six workmen were making butter and enormous cheeses. If we do not know how to make superior cheese and butter, it is not the fault of our hosts in the Sennhuette, for they left nothing unexplained.
Dare I, or dare I not, tell what should now come in a faithful chronicle of that morning? I dare. Towards twelve, the chief workman--a man who had been devoting himself to our entertainment, even sending his little son far out on the hills for Alpine flowers for us--prepared the simple soup which serves as dinner for these hard-working men, who eat no meat during the entire summer, and work nearly eighteen hours a day. We were interested in that soup, as in everything that was made, done, or said in that novel place. It was only cream, and salt, and butter, and flour, but it was made by a dark-eyed man with his sleeves rolled up and a white cap on his head, and it simmered in a kettle large enough to be a witch's caldron.
When quite cooked it was poured into a great wooden dish that was almost flat, and each workman drew near with his spoon in his hand. We were thinking what a pleasant scene this was going to be, and were about to regard it from afar like something on the stage, when to our utter amazement our friend the soup-maker, as simply, as naturally, with as much courtesy and kindness as ever a gentleman at his own table offered delicate viands to an honored guest, gave me a spoon and assigned me my place at the table.
Dear Mrs. Grundy, what would you have done? I know very well. You would have drawn yourself up in a superior way, and you would have looked as proper as the mother of the Gracchi, and you would have remarked,--
"Really, my dear Mr. Cowherd-cheese-maker, _I_ have been educated according to the separate-plate theory."
But then Mrs. Grundy would never have placed herself quite in our position, for she would not have been demeaning herself by peering into churns and kettles, tasting fresh butter, drinking cream from wooden ladles, and asking questions about cows, and indeed it is improbable that she would have allowed herself to even enter such a place; we will therefore leave Mrs. Grundy completely out of the question,--which is always a huge satisfaction,--and tell how we conducted ourselves under these unforeseen circumstances.
With outward calmness, with certain possible misgivings and inward shrinkings, we smilingly took the seat assigned in the circle of friendly young workmen, and dipped our spoon in the wooden soup-dish with all the other spoons. That we ate, really _ate_, much, I cannot say. Not only was suppressed amusement a hindrance to appetite, but the five young men with their rolled-up sleeves, their _patois_, their five spoons dipping together in unison and brotherly love, though interesting as a picture, with the cows lazily lying in the background, and the Tyrolean Alps seen through the open doors and windows, presented nevertheless certain obstacles to a thorough enjoyment of the rustic meal. To taste, according to our code, was obligatory; to eat was impossible. We tried to spur on that languid spoon to do its duty; we philosophized about human equality, but all in vain; and we ate not in a proper, true spirit, but like a hypocrite, or an actress, so strong are these silly prejudices that govern us.
But the men were quite satisfied, since their soup was pronounced excellent; and, having once accepted their hospitality, we had no difficulty in excusing ourselves when a second soup--_cheese_ being its principal ingredient--was offered us. Our one regret in the whole experience was, that we could not summon the primest woman of our acquaintance to suddenly stand in the doorway and gaze in, aghast, upon this convivial scene. That, had it been possible, would have been a joy forever in our remembrance.
This Schattwald certainly has great fascinations to offer the wanderer who seeks shelter here. Rough scrambles for Alpine flowers are followed by a long afternoon of novel enjoyment, listening to a chorus of hunters singing Tyrolean songs,--_real_ hunters, and we never saw their like before except on the stage! The one who played the zither was adorned with trophies of the chase,--a chamois beard on his dark-green hat, and, on his coat, buttons made from stag-antlers. He was rather a noble-looking man, with a straightforward, kindly expression in his eyes, and he sang the mountain songs with great spirit. They all sang with enjoyment, and there seemed to be an immense "swing" to the music. The songs expressed joy and pride in the freedom of the mountain life, and alluded in poetical language to their mountain maids. In several of them the singers gave the "Jodel," which we also heard repeatedly echoing among the mountains, and responded to from height to height.
On the prettiest cottage in the place is this inscription in verse. I give the literal translation:--
"I once came into a strange land; On the wall was written, 'Be pious, and also reserved: Let everything alone that is not thine.'"