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.
Then the mountain tramps we had, climbing high for a view, and then
glorying in it! A little maid was once our guide, who chattered to us
prettily all the way, and told us the chief events of her life,--how her
father and mother were dead, and her uncle beat her, and made her work
too hard; how there was a great, great, great bird who sat up on the
barren cliffs so high that never a _Jaeger_ could climb near enough to
shoot him; how he had eyes as big as a cow's, and when he sat on the
right cliff the weather was always fair, but when he sat on the left
there was storm among the mountains. This must be true, for we saw the
cliffs. Then she solemnly assured us, if we would go early to the chapel
in a neighboring village the following morning, we could get absolution
for all our sins, because, as it appeared, the priest there was going
far away, as missionary to America, and in farewell was washing the
souls of his flock with extra thoroughness. We told the child it was
very fortunate the good priest was going to America. From what we had
heard of that ungodly land, we thought it must be in sad need of
missionary work.
The scenery from Bludenz to Landeck is a series of picturesque, varied
views. The road ascends with many windings to the pass of the Arlberg,
when you are at last in the Tyrol; and the green, richly wooded
mountains, the jagged, rocky ones, the lofty peaks where the snow
gleams, together with the pure, invigorating air, and the swing of our
mountain chariot with its five horses,--which, if not very rapid, were
at least strong and fresh,--made altogether a thoroughly enjoyable
experience.
On the Arlberg we gathered our first Alpine roses. They are not so very
pretty, except as they grow often in masses so luxuriant as to give a
rosy effect to a broad slope. That is, they are pretty, but their
graceful cups droop so quickly when you take them from their native air
and native heights, that they are disappointing.
At St. Christoph, which is almost at the top of the Arlberg, we stopped
long enough to refresh ourselves with a glass of _Tiroler_ wine, and
were taken into a little chapel behind the inn to see a wooden statue of
St. Christopher, who seems to be held in peculiar veneration in this
region, being painted or carved in many churches and even on the walls
of houses. This was a great creature of eight or nine feet, standing in
the corner of the chapel, with glaring, beady eyes, glossy black painted
hair, and a huge staff, to represent the pine-tree of the sweet old
legend, in his hand; while on his shoulder was perched the child Jesus,
with a face like a small doll. He was as funny and grotesque a saint as
the world can boast, yet our hearts went strongly out to him when we
learned what a very little peasant-boy it was who had made him with his
pocket-knife out of a block of wood, and particularly when we observed
his saintship's legs, never too symmetrical, but now hacked and chipped
into utter deformity, and were told the reason. Every child in this
neighborhood who must leave his mountain home takes a bit of St.
Christopher with him as a talisman against homesickness. Poor little
souls! Imagine them coming to say, "Lebewohl zu dem heiligen Christoph,"
and tearfully hacking away in the region of his patellas and tibias and
fibulas, because long ago they have removed the exterior of his stalwart
members, and he will soon be dangerously undermined. His shoulders are
sufficiently developed to bear considerable cutting down without
perceptibly diminishing them; but I presume the little ones attack the
region which they can most conveniently reach.
Lovely air and lovely hills! No wonder the children fear Heimweh will
come to their hearts when they can no longer see the little village
houses all huddled together round the church with the tall spire, while
the green hills rise on every side, and the morning mists roll from
them, and the evening glow warms and glorifies their cold, white
summits, and the impetuous mountain torrent goes foaming by.
We felt premonitory symptoms of homesickness ourselves for those fair
and noble heights, and we wanted very much to beg for a bit of St.
Christopher's knee-pan. But they would not have given us an atom of the
dear old, hideous, overgrown giant-saint, worthless heretics that we
are.