The Entire Project Gutenberg Works of Charles Dudley Warner

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HEARING THE FREIBURG ORGAN--FIRST SIGHT OF LAKE LEMAN

Freiburg, with its aerial suspension-bridges, is also on a peninsula,
formed by the Sarine; with its old walls, old watch-towers, its
piled-up old houses, and streets that go upstairs, and its delicious
cherries, which you can eat while you sit in the square by the famous
linden-tree, and wait for the time when the organ will be played in
the cathedral. For all the world stops at Freiburg to hear and enjoy
the great organ,--all except the self-satisfied English clergyman,
who says he does n't care much for it, and would rather go about town
and see the old walls; and the young and boorish French couple, whose
refined amusement in the railway-carriage consisted in the young
man's catching his wife's foot in the window-strap, and hauling it up
to the level of the window, and who cross themselves and go out after
the first tune; and the two bread-and-butter English young ladies,
one of whom asks the other in the midst of the performance, if she
has thought yet to count the pipes,--a thoughtful verification of
Murray, which is very commendable in a young woman traveling for the
improvement of her little mind.

One has heard so much of this organ, that he expects impossibilities,
and is at first almost disappointed, although it is not long in
discovering its vast compass, and its wonderful imitations, now of a
full orchestra, and again of a single instrument. One has not to
wait long before he is mastered by its spell. The vox humana stop
did not strike me as so perfect as that of the organ in the Rev.
Mr. Hale's church in Boston, though the imitation of choir-voices
responding to the organ was very effective. But it is not in tricks
of imitation that this organ is so wonderful: it is its power of
revealing, by all its compass, the inmost part of any musical
composition.

The last piece we heard was something like this: the sound of a bell,
tolling at regular intervals, like the throbbing of a life begun;
about it an accompaniment of hopes, inducements, fears, the flute,
the violin, the violoncello, promising, urging, entreating,
inspiring; the life beset with trials, lured with pleasures,
hesitating, doubting, questioning; its purpose at length grows more
certain and fixed, the bell tolling becomes a prolonged undertone,
the flow of a definite life; the music goes on, twining round it, now
one sweet instrument and now many, in strife or accord, all the
influences of earth and heaven and the base underworld meeting and
warring over the aspiring soul; the struggle becomes more earnest,
the undertone is louder and clearer; the accompaniment indicates
striving, contesting passion, an agony of endeavor and resistance,
until at length the steep and rocky way is passed, the world and self
are conquered, and, in a burst of triumph from a full orchestra, the
soul attains the serene summit. But the rest is only for a moment.
Even in the highest places are temptations. The sunshine fails,
clouds roll up, growling of low, pedal thunder is heard, while sharp
lightning-flashes soon break in clashing peals about the peaks. This
is the last Alpine storm and trial. After it the sun bursts out
again, the wide, sunny valleys are disclosed, and a sweet evening
hymn floats through all the peaceful air. We go out from the cool
church into the busy streets of the white, gray town awed and
comforted.

And such a ride afterwards! It was as if the organ music still
continued. All the world knows the exquisite views southward from
Freiburg; but such an atmosphere as we had does not overhang them
many times in a season. First the Moleross, and a range of mountains
bathed in misty blue light,--rugged peaks, scarred sides, white and
tawny at once, rising into the clouds which hung large and soft in
the blue; soon Mont Blanc, dim and aerial, in the south; the lovely
valley of the River Sense; peasants walking with burdens on the white
highway; the quiet and soft-tinted mountains beyond; towns perched on
hills, with old castles and towers; the land rich with grass, grain,
fruit, flowers; at Palezieux a magnificent view of the silver,
purple, and blue mountains, with their chalky seams and gashed sides,
near at hand; and at length, coming through a long tunnel, as if we
had been shot out into the air above a country more surprising than
any in dreams, the most wonderful sight burst upon us,--the
low-lying, deep-blue Lake Leman, and the gigantic mountains rising
from its shores, and a sort of mist, translucent, suffused with
sunlight, like the liquid of the golden wine the Steinberger poured
into the vast basin. We came upon it out of total darkness, without
warning; and we seemed, from our great height, to be about to leap
into the splendid gulf of tremulous light and color.

This Lake of Geneva is said to combine the robust mountain grandeur
of Luzerne with all the softness of atmosphere of Lake Maggiore.
Surely, nothing could exceed the loveliness as we wound down the
hillside, through the vineyards, to Lausanne, and farther on, near
the foot of the lake, to Montreux, backed by precipitous but
tree-clad hills, fronted by the lovely water, and the great mountains
which run away south into Savoy, where Velan lifts up its snows.
Below us, round the curving bay, lies white Chillon; and at sunset we
row down to it over the bewitched water, and wait under its grim
walls till the failing light brings back the romance of castle and
prisoner. Our garcon had never heard of the prisoner; but he knew
about the gendarmes who now occupy the castle.




OUR ENGLISH FRIENDS

Not the least of the traveler's pleasure in Switzerland is derived
from the English people who overrun it: they seem to regard it as a
kind of private park or preserve belonging to England; and they
establish themselves at hotels, or on steamboats and diligences, with
a certain air of ownership that is very pleasant. I am not very
fresh in my geology; but it is my impression that Switzerland was
created especially for the English, about the year of the Magna
Charta, or a little later. The Germans who come here, and who don't
care very much what they eat, or how they sleep, provided they do not
have any fresh air in diningroom or bedroom, and provided, also, that
the bread is a little sour, growl a good deal about the English, and
declare that they have spoiled Switzerland. The natives, too, who
live off the English, seem to thoroughly hate them; so that one is
often compelled, in self-defense, to proclaim his nationality, which
is like running from Scylla upon Charybdis; for, while the American
is more popular, it is believed that there is no bottom to his
pocket.

There was a sprig of the Church of England on the steamboat on Lake
Leman, who spread himself upon a center bench, and discoursed very
instructively to his friends,--a stout, fat-faced young man in a
white cravat, whose voice was at once loud and melodious, and whom
our manly Oxford student set down as a man who had just rubbed
through the university, and got into a scanty living.

"I met an American on the boat yesterday," the oracle was saying to
his friends, "who was really quite a pleasant fellow. He--ah really
was, you know, quite a sensible man. I asked him if they had
anything like this in America; and he was obliged to say that they
had n't anything like it in his country; they really had n't. He was
really quite a sensible fellow; said he was over here to do the
European tour, as he called it."

Small, sympathetic laugh from the attentive, wiry, red-faced woman on
the oracle's left, and also a chuckle, at the expense of the
American, from the thin Englishman on his right, who wore a large
white waistcoat, a blue veil on his hat, and a face as red as a live
coal.

"Quite an admission, was n't it, from an American? But I think they
have changed since the wah, you know."

At the next landing, the smooth and beaming churchman was left by his
friends; and he soon retired to the cabin, where I saw him
self-sacrificingly denying himself the views on deck, and consoling
himself with a substantial lunch and a bottle of English ale.

There is one thing to be said about the English abroad: the variety
is almost infinite. The best acquaintances one makes will be
English,--people with no nonsense and strong individuality; and one
gets no end of entertainment from the other sort. Very different
from the clergyman on the boat was the old lady at table-d'hote in
one of the hotels on the lake. One would not like to call her a
delightfully wicked old woman, like the Baroness Bernstein; but she
had her own witty and satirical way of regarding the world. She had
lived twenty-five years at Geneva, where people, years ago, coming
over the dusty and hot roads of France, used to faint away when they
first caught sight of the Alps. Believe they don't do it now. She
never did; was past the susceptible age when she first came; was
tired of the people. Honest? Why, yes, honest, but very fond of
money. Fine Swiss wood-carving? Yes. You'll get very sick of it.
It's very nice, but I 'm tired of it. Years ago, I sent some of it
home to the folks in England. They thought everything of it; and it
was not very nice, either,--a cheap sort. Moral ideas? I don't care
for moral ideas: people make such a fuss about them lately (this in
reply to her next neighbor, an eccentric, thin man, with bushy
hair, shaggy eyebrows, and a high, falsetto voice, who rallied
the witty old lady all dinner-time about her lack of moral
ideas, and accurately described the thin wine on the table as
"water-bewitched"). Why did n't the baroness go back to England, if
she was so tired of Switzerland? Well, she was too infirm now; and,
besides, she did n't like to trust herself on the railroads. And there
were so many new inventions nowadays, of which she read. What was this
nitroglycerine, that exploded so dreadfully? No: she thought she
should stay where she was.

There is little risk of mistaking the Englishman, with or without his
family, who has set out to do Switzerland. He wears a brandy-flask,
a field-glass, and a haversack. Whether he has a silk or soft hat,
he is certain to wear a veil tied round it. This precaution is
adopted when he makes up his mind to come to Switzerland, I think,
because he has read that a veil is necessary to protect the eyes from
the snow-glare. There is probably not one traveler in a hundred who
gets among the ice and snow-fields where he needs a veil or green
glasses: but it is well to have it on the hat; it looks adventurous.
The veil and the spiked alpenstock are the signs of peril.
Everybody--almost everybody--has an alpenstock. It is usually a
round pine stick, with an iron spike in one end. That, also, is a
sign of peril. We saw a noble young Briton on the steamer the other
day, who was got up in the best Alpine manner. He wore a short
sack,--in fact, an entire suit of light gray flannel, which closely
fitted his lithe form. His shoes were of undressed leather, with
large spikes in the soles; and on his white hat he wore a large
quantity of gauze, which fell in folds down his neck. I am sorry to
say that he had a red face, a shaven chin, and long side-whiskers.
He carried a formidable alpenstock; and at the little landing where
we first saw him, and afterward on the boat, he leaned on it in a
series of the most graceful and daring attitudes that I ever saw the
human form assume. Our Oxford student knew the variety, and guessed
rightly that he was an army man. He had his face burned at Malta.
Had he been over the Gemmi? Or up this or that mountain? asked
another English officer. "No, I have not." And it turned out that
he had n't been anywhere, and did n't seem likely to do anything but
show himself at the frequented valley places. And yet I never saw
one whose gallant bearing I so much admired. We saw him afterward at
Interlaken, enduring all the hardships of that fashionable place.
There was also there another of the same country, got up for the most
dangerous Alpine climbing, conspicuous in red woolen stockings that
came above his knees. I could not learn that he ever went up
anything higher than the top of a diligence.




THE DILIGENCE TO CHAMOUNY

The greatest diligence we have seen, one of the few of the
old-fashioned sort, is the one from Geneva to Chamouny. It leaves
early in the morning; and there is always a crowd about it to see the
mount and start. The great ark stands before the diligence-office,
and, for half an hour before the hour of starting, the porters are
busy stowing away the baggage, and getting the passengers on board.
On top, in the banquette, are seats for eight, besides the postilion
and guard; in the coupe, under the postilion's seat and looking upon
the horses, seats for three; in the interior, for three; and on top,
behind, for six or eight. The baggage is stowed in the capacious
bowels of the vehicle. At seven, the six horses are brought out and
hitched on, three abreast. We climb up a ladder to the banquette:
there is an irascible Frenchman, who gets into the wrong seat; and
before he gets right there is a terrible war of words between him and
the guard and the porters and the hostlers, everybody joining in with
great vivacity; in front of us are three quiet Americans, and a slim
Frenchman with a tall hat and one eye-glass. The postilion gets up
to his place. Crack, crack, crack, goes the whip; and, amid
"sensation" from the crowd, we are off at a rattling pace, the whip
cracking all the time like Chinese fireworks. The great passion of
the drivers is noise; and they keep the whip going all day. No
sooner does a fresh one mount the box than he gives a half-dozen
preliminary snaps; to which the horses pay no heed, as they know it
is only for the driver's amusement. We go at a good gait, changing
horses every six miles, till we reach the Baths of St. Gervais, where
we dine, from near which we get our first glimpse of Mont Blanc
through clouds,--a section of a dazzlingly white glacier, a very
exciting thing to the imagination. Thence we go on in small
carriages, over a still excellent but more hilly road, and begin to
enter the real mountain wonders; until, at length, real glaciers
pouring down out of the clouds nearly to the road meet us, and we
enter the narrow Valley of Chamouny, through which we drive to the
village in a rain.

Everybody goes to Chamouny, and up the Flegere, and to Montanvert,
and over the Mer de Glace; and nearly everybody down the Mauvais Pas
to the Chapeau, and so back to the village. It is all easy to do;
and yet we saw some French people at the Chapeau who seemed to think
they had accomplished the most hazardous thing in the world in coming
down the rocks of the Mauvais Pas. There is, as might be expected, a
great deal of humbug about the difficulty of getting about in the
Alps, and the necessity of guides. Most of the dangers vanish on
near approach. The Mer de Glace is inferior to many other glaciers,
and is not nearly so fine as the Glacier des Bossons: but it has a
reputation, and is easy of access; so people are content to walk over
the dirty ice. One sees it to better effect from below, or he must
ascend it to the Jardin to know that it has deep crevasses, and is as
treacherous as it is grand. And yet no one will be disappointed at
the view from Montanvert, of the upper glacier, and the needles of
rock and snow which rise beyond.

We met at the Chapeau two jolly young fellows from Charleston, S. C.
who had been in the war, on the wrong side. They knew no language
but American, and were unable to order a cutlet and an omelet for
breakfast. They said they believed they were going over the Tete
Noire. They supposed they had four mules waiting for them somewhere,
and a guide; but they couldn't understand a word he said, and he
couldn't understand them. The day before, they had nearly perished
of thirst, because they could n't make their guide comprehend that
they wanted water. One of them had slung over his shoulder an Alpine
horn, which he blew occasionally, and seemed much to enjoy. All this
while we sit on a rock at the foot of the Mauvais Pas, looking out
upon the green glacier, which here piles itself up finely, and above
to the Aiguilles de Charmoz and the innumerable ice-pinnacles that
run up to the clouds, while our muleteer is getting his breakfast.
This is his third breakfast this morning.

The day after we reached Chamouny, Monseigneur the bishop arrived
there on one of his rare pilgrimages into these wild valleys. Nearly
all the way down from Geneva, we had seen signs of his coming, in
preparations as for the celebration of a great victory. I did not
know at first but the Atlantic cable had been laid; or rather that
the decorations were on account of the news of it reaching this
region. It was a holiday for all classes; and everybody lent a hand
to the preparations. First, the little church where the
confirmations were to take place was trimmed within and without; and
an arch of green spanned the gateway. At Les Pres, the women were
sweeping the road, and the men were setting small evergreen-trees on
each side. The peasants were in their best clothes; and in front of
their wretched hovels were tables set out with flowers. So cheerful
and eager were they about the bishop, that they forgot to beg as we
passed: the whole valley was in a fever of expectation. At one
hamlet on the mulepath over the Tete Noire, where the bishop was that
day expected, and the women were sweeping away all dust and litter
from the road, I removed my hat, and gravely thanked them for their
thoughtful preparation for our coming. But they only stared a
little, as if we were not worthy to be even forerunners of
Monseigneur.

I do not care to write here how serious a drawback to the pleasures
of this region are its inhabitants. You get the impression that half
of them are beggars. The other half are watching for a chance to
prey upon you in other ways. I heard of a woman in the Zermatt
Valley who refused pay for a glass of milk; but I did not have time
to verify the report. Besides the beggars, who may or may not be
horrid-looking creatures, there are the grinning Cretins, the old
women with skins of parchment and the goitre, and even young children
with the loathsome appendage, the most wretched and filthy hovels,
and the dirtiest, ugliest people in them. The poor women are the
beasts of burden. They often lead, mowing in the hayfield; they
carry heavy baskets on their backs; they balance on their heads and
carry large washtubs full of water. The more appropriate load of one
was a cradle with a baby in it, which seemed not at all to fear
falling. When one sees how the women are treated, he does not wonder
that there are so many deformed, hideous children. I think the
pretty girl has yet to be born in Switzerland.

This is not much about the Alps? Ah, well, the Alps are there. Go
read your guide-book, and find out what your emotions are. As I
said, everybody goes to Chamouny. Is it not enough to sit at your
window, and watch the clouds when they lift from the Mont Blanc
range, disclosing splendor after splendor, from the Aiguille de Goute
to the Aiguille Verte,--white needles which pierce the air for twelve
thousand feet, until, jubilate! the round summit of the monarch
himself is visible, and the vast expanse of white snow-fields, the
whiteness of which is rather of heaven than of earth, dazzles the
eyes, even at so great a distance? Everybody who is patient and
waits in the cold and inhospitable-looking valley of the Chamouny
long enough, sees Mont Blanc; but every one does not see a sunset of
the royal order. The clouds breaking up and clearing, after days of
bad weather, showed us height after height, and peak after peak, now
wreathing the summits, now settling below or hanging in patches on
the sides, and again soaring above, until we had the whole range
lying, far and brilliant, in the evening light. The clouds took on
gorgeous colors, at length, and soon the snow caught the hue, and
whole fields were rosy pink, while uplifted peaks glowed red, as with
internal fire. Only Mont Blanc, afar off, remained purely white, in
a kind of regal inaccessibility. And, afterward, one star came out
over it, and a bright light shone from the hut on the Grand Mulets, a
rock in the waste of snow, where a Frenchman was passing the night on
his way to the summit.

Shall I describe the passage of the Tete Noire? My friend, it is
twenty-four miles, a road somewhat hilly, with splendid views of Mont
Blanc in the morning, and of the Bernese Oberland range in the
afternoon, when you descend into Martigny,--a hot place in the dusty
Rhone Valley, which has a comfortable hotel, with a pleasant garden,
in which you sit after dinner and let the mosquitoes eat you.




THE MAN WHO SPEAKS ENGLISH

It was eleven o'clock at night when we reached Sion, a dirty little
town at the end of the Rhone Valley Railway, and got into the omnibus
for the hotel; and it was also dark and rainy. They speak German in
this part of Switzerland, or what is called German. There were two
very pleasant Americans, who spoke American, going on in the
diligence at half-past five in the morning, on their way over the
Simplex. One of them was accustomed to speak good, broad English
very distinctly to all races; and he seemed to expect that he must be
understood if he repeated his observations in a louder tone, as he
always did. I think he would force all this country to speak English
in two months. We all desired to secure places in the diligence,
which was likely to be full, as is usually the case when a railway
discharges itself into a postroad.

We were scarcely in the omnibus, when the gentleman said to the
conductor:

"I want two places in the coupe of the diligence in the morning. Can
I have them?"

"Yah" replied the good-natured German, who did n't understand a word.

"Two places, diligence, coupe, morning. Is it full?"

"Yah," replied the accommodating fellow. "Hotel man spik English."

I suggested the banquette as desirable, if it could be obtained, and
the German was equally willing to give it to us. Descending from the
omnibus at the hotel, in a drizzling rain, and amidst a crowd of
porters and postilions and runners, the "man who spoke English"
immediately presented himself; and upon him the American pounced with
a torrent of questions. He was a willing, lively little waiter, with
his moony face on the top of his head; and he jumped round in the
rain like a parching pea, rolling his head about in the funniest
manner.

The American steadied the little man by the collar, and began,
"I want to secure two seats in the coupe of the diligence in the.
morning."

"Yaas," jumping round, and looking from one to another. "Diligence,
coupe, morning."

"I--want--two seats--in--coupe. If I can't get them, two--in
--banquette."

"Yaas banquette, coupe,--yaas, diligence."

"Do you understand? Two seats, diligence, Simplon, morning. Will
you get them?"

"Oh, yaas! morning, diligence. Yaas, sirr."

"Hang the fellow! Where is the office?" And the gentleman left the
spry little waiter bobbing about in the middle of the street,
speaking English, but probably comprehending nothing that was said to
him. I inquired the way to the office of the conductor: it was
closed, but would soon be open, and I waited; and at length the
official, a stout Frenchman, appeared, and I secured places in the
interior, the only ones to be had to Visp. I had seen a diligence at
the door with three places in the coupe, and one perched behind; no
banquette. The office is brightly lighted; people are waiting to
secure places; there is the usual crowd of loafers, men and women,
and the Frenchman sits at his desk. Enter the American.

"I want two places in coupe, in the morning. Or banquette. Two
places, diligence." The official waves him off, and says something.

"What does he say?"

"He tells you to sit down on that bench till he is ready."

Soon the Frenchman has run over his big waybills, and turns to us.

"I want two places in the diligence, coupe," etc, etc, says the
American.

This remark being lost on the official, I explain to him as well as I
can what is wanted, at first,--two places in the coupe.

"One is taken," is his reply.

"The gentleman will take two," I said, having in mind the diligence
in the yard, with three places in the coupe.

"One is taken," he repeats.

"Then the gentleman will take the other two."

"One is taken!" he cries, jumping up and smiting the table,--"one
is taken, I tell you!"

"How many are there in the coupe?"

"TWO."

"Oh! then the gentleman will take the one remaining in the coupe and
the one on top."

So it is arranged. When I come back to the hotel, the Americans are
explaining to the lively waiter "who speaks English" that they are to
go in the diligence at half-past five, and that they are to be called
at half-past four and have breakfast. He knows all about it,
--"Diligence, half-past four breakfast, Oh, yaas!" While I have been
at the diligence-office, my companions have secured room and gone to
them; and I ask the waiter to show m to my room. First, however, I
tell him that we three two ladies and myself, who came together, are
going in the diligence at half-past five, and want to be called and
have breakfast. Did he comprehend?