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.'"
The hunters sang with special delight one song which frequently asserted
that "_Auf der Alm_ there is no sin." This impressed us as a delightful
idea, though somewhat at variance with the theological doctrines in
vogue in a less rarefied atmosphere. We did not presume to doubt
anything they told us, however. We are rapidly becoming as credulous, as
simple, as bucolic, as they. But, reclining one evening at sunset on a
soft slope above the village, with the breath of the pines around us,
and listening, in a lotus-eating mood, to the "drowsy tinklings" of the
bells of the herds on the opposite heights, this problem occurred to us:
How long will it be, at our present rapid rate of assimilation with
things pastoral, and with the slight line of demarcation that exists in
Schattwald between man and bird and beast, before we also contentedly
eat grass, and go about with bells on our necks?