“Knowest thou the mountain and its cloudy paths? where the
mule is seeking its misty way.”--GOETHE.
The letter was from Wilhelm; every line breathed life’s joy and
gladness.
“MIA CARA SORELLA!
“Does it not sound beautifully? It is Italian! Now then, I am in that
so-often-sung-of Paradise, but of the so much-talked-about blue air,
I have as yet seen nothing of consequence. Here it is gray, gray as in
Denmark. To be sure Otto says that it is beautiful, that we have the
heaven of home above us, but I am not so poetical. The eating is
good, and the filth of the people strikes one horribly after being in
Switzerland, the enchanting Switzerland! Yes, there is nature! We have
made a crusade through it, you may think. But now you shall hear about
the journey, and the entrance into ‘la bella Italia,’ which is yet below
all my expectations. I cannot at all bear these feeble people; I cannot
endure this monk-odor and untruthfulness. We are come direct from the
scenery of Switzerland, from clouds and glaciers, from greatness and
power. We travelled somewhat hastily through the valley of the Rhone;
the weather was gray, but the whole obtained therefrom a peculiar
character. The woods in the lofty ridges looked like heather; the valley
itself seemed like a garden filled with vegetables, vineyards, and green
meadows. The clouds over and under one another, but the snow-covered
mountains peeped forth gloriously from among them, It was a riven
cloud-world which drove past,--the wild chase with which the daylight
had disguised itself. It kissed in its flight Pissevache, a waterfall
by no means to be despised. In Brieg we rested some time, but at two
o’clock in the morning began again our journey over the Simplon. This is
the journey which I will describe to you. Otto and I sat in the coupée.
Fancy us in white blouses, shawl-caps, and with green morocco slippers,
for the devil may travel in slippers--they are painful to the feet.
“We both of us have mustaches! I have seduced Otto. They become us
uncommonly well, and give us a very imposing air; and that is very good
now that we are come into the land of banditti, where we must endeavor
to awe the robbers. Thus travelled we. It was a dark night, and still
as death, as in the moment when the overture begins to an opera. Soon,
indeed, was the great Simplon curtain to be rolled up, and we to behold
the land of music. Immediately on leaving the city, the road began to
ascend; we could not see a hand before us; around us tumbled and roared
the water-courses,--it was as if we heard the pulse of Nature beat.
Close above the carriage passed the white clouds; they seemed like
transparent marble slabs which were slid over us. We had the gray dawn
with us, whilst deep in the valley lay yet the darkness of night; in
an hour’s time it began to show itself there among the little wooden
houses.
“It is a road hewn out of the rocks. The giant Napoleon carried it
through the backbone of the earth. The eagle, Napoleon’s bird, flew like
a living armorial crest over the gigantic work of the master. There it
was cold and gray; the clouds above us, the clouds below us, and in the
middle space steep rocky walls.
“At regular distances houses (relais) are erected for the travellers;
in one of these we drank our coffee. The passengers sat on benches and
tables around the great fire-place, where the pine logs crackled. More
than a thousand names were written on the walls. I amused myself by
writing mamma’s, yours, Sophie’s, and Eva’s; now they stand there, and
people will fancy that you have been on the Simplon. In the lobby I
scratched in that of Mamsell, and added ‘Without her workbox.’ Otto
was thinking about you. We talked in our, what the rest would call
‘outlandish speech,’ when I all at once exclaimed, ‘It is really Eva’s
birthday!’ I remembered it first. In Simplon town we determined to drink
her health.
“We set off again. Wherever the glaciers might fall and destroy the road
the rocks have been sprung, and formed into great galleries, through
which one drives without any danger. One waterfall succeeds another.
There is no balustrade along the road, only the dark, deep abyss where
the pine-trees raise themselves to an immense height, and yet only look
like rafters on the mighty wall of rock. Before we had advanced much
further, we came to where trees no longer grew. The great hospice lay in
snow and cloud. We came into a valley. What solitude! what desolation!
only naked crags! They seemed metallic, and all had a green hue. The
utmost variety of mosses grew there; before us towered up an immense
glacier, which looked like green bottle-glass ornamented with snow.
It was bitterly cold here, and in Simplon the stoves were lighted; the
champagne foamed, Eva’s health was drunk, and, only think! at that very
moment an avalanche was so gallant as to fall. That was a cannonade; a
pealing among the mountains! It must have rung in Eva’s ears. Ask her
about it. I can see how she smiles.
“We now advanced toward Italy, but cold was it, and cold it remained.
The landscape became savage; we drove between steep crags. Only fancy,
on both sides a block of granite several miles long, and almost as high,
and the road not wider than for two carriages to pass, and there you
have a picture of it. If one wanted to see the sky, one was obliged to
put one’s head out of the carriage and look up, and then it was as if
one looked up from the bottom of the deepest well, dark and narrow.
Every moment I kept thinking, ‘Nay, if these two walls should come
together!’ We with carriage and horses were only like ants on a pebble.
We drove through the ribs of the earth! The water roared; the clouds
hung like fleeces on the gray, craggy walls. In a valley we saw boys
and girls dressed in sheep-skins, who looked as wild as if they had been
brought up among beasts.
“Suddenly the air became wondrously mild. We saw the first fig-tree by
the road-side. Chestnuts hung over our heads; we were in Isella, the
boundary town of Italy. Otto sang, and was wild with delight; I studied
the first public-house sign, ‘Tabacca e vino.’
“How luxuriant became the landscape! Fields of maize and vineyards! The
vine was not trained on frames as in Germany!--no, it hung in luxuriant
garlands, in great huts of leaves! Beautiful children bounded along the
road, but the heavens were gray, and that I had not expected in Italy.
From Domo d’Ossola, I looked back to my beloved Switzerland! Yes, she
turns truly the most beautiful side toward Italy. But there was not
any time for me to gaze; on we must. In the carriage there sat an old
Signorina; she recited poetry, and made: with her eyes ‘che bella cosa!’
“About ten o’clock at night we were in Baveno, drank tea, and slept,
whilst Lago Maggiore splashed under our window. The lake and the
Borromaen island we were to see by daylight.
“‘Lord God!’ thought I, ‘is this all?’ A scene as quiet and riant as
this we--have at home! Funen after this should be called Isola bella,
and the East Sea is quite large enough to be called Lago Maggiore. We
went by the steamboat past the holy Borromeus [Author’s Note: A colossal
statue on the shore of Lago Maggiore.] to Sesto de Calende; we had a
priest on board, who was very much astonished at our having come from so
far. I showed him a large travelling map which we had with us, where
the Lago Maggiore was the most southern, and Hamburg the most northern
point. ‘Yet still further off,’ said I; ‘more to the north!’ and he
struck his hands together when he perceived that we were from beyond the
great map. He inquired whether we were Calvinists.
“We sped through glorious scenes. The Alps looked like glass mountains
in a fairy tale. They lay behind us. The air was warm as summer, but
light as on the high mountains. The women wafted kisses to us; but they
were not handsome, the good ladies!
“Tell the Kammerjunker that the Italian pigs have no bristles, but have
a coal-black shining skin like a Moor.
“Toward night we arrived at Milan, where we located ourselves with
Reichmann, made a good supper, and had excellent beds; but I foresee
that this bliss will not last very long. On the other side of the
Apennines we shall be up to the ears in dirt, and must eat olives
preserved in oil; but let it pass. Otto adapts himself charmingly to
all things; he begins to be merry--that is, at times! I, too, have had
a sort of vertigo--I am taken with Italian music; but then there is a
difference in hearing it on the spot. It has more than melody; it has
character. The luxuriance in nature and in the female form; the light,
fluttering movement of the people, where even pain is melody, has won my
heart and my understanding. Travelling changes people!
“Kiss mamma for me! Tell Eva about the health-drinking on the Simplon,
and about the falling avalanche: do not forget that; that is precisely
the point in my letter! Tell me too how Eva blushed, and smiled, and
said, ‘He thought of me!’ Yes, in fact it is very noble of me. My sweet
Sophie and her Kammerjunker, Jakoba and Mamsell, must have a bouquet of
greetings, which you must arrange properly. If you could but see Otto
and me with our mustaches! We make an impression, and that is very
pleasant. If the days only did not go on so quickly--if life did not
pass so rapidly!
“‘Questa vita mortale
Che par si bella, a quasi piuma al vento
Che la porta a la perde in un momento,’ [Note: Guarini]
as we Italians say. Cannot you understand that?
“Thy affectionate brother,
“WILHELM.”
Otto wrote in the margin of the letter, “Italy is a paradise! Here the
heavens are three times as lofty as at home. I love the proud pine-trees
and the dark-blue mountains. Would hat everybody could see the glorious
objects!”
Wilhelm added to this, “What he writes about the Italian heavens is
stupid stuff. Ours at home is just as good. He is an odd person, as you
very well know!
“‘Addic! A rivederci!’”