The memory of things seen and done in moonlight is like the memory of
dreams. It is as a dream that I recall the night of our tobogganing to
Klosters, though it was full enough of active energy. The moon was in
her second quarter, slightly filmed with very high thin clouds, that
disappeared as night advanced, leaving the sky and stars in all their
lustre. A sharp frost, sinking to three degrees above zero Fahrenheit,
with a fine pure wind, such wind as here they call 'the mountain
breath.' We drove to Wolfgang in a two-horse sledge, four of us
inside, and our two Christians on the box. Up there, where the Alps of
Death descend to join the Lakehorn Alps, above the Wolfswalk, there
is a world of whiteness--frozen ridges, engraved like cameos of aërial
onyx upon the dark, star-tremulous sky; sculptured buttresses of snow,
enclosing hollows filled with diaphanous shadow, and sweeping aloft
into the upland fields of pure clear drift. Then came the swift
descent, the plunge into the pines, moon-silvered on their frosted
tops. The battalions of spruce that climb those hills defined the
dazzling snow from which they sprang, like the black tufts upon an
ermine robe. At the proper moment we left our sledge, and the big
Christian took his reins in hand to follow us. Furs and greatcoats
were abandoned. Each stood forth tightly accoutred, with short coat,
and clinging cap, and gaitered legs for the toboggan. Off we started
in line, with but brief interval between, at first slowly, then
glidingly, and when the impetus was gained, with darting, bounding,
almost savage swiftness--sweeping round corners, cutting the hard
snow-path with keen runners, avoiding the deep ruts, trusting to
chance, taking advantage of smooth places, till the rush and swing and
downward swoop became mechanical. Space was devoured. Into the massy
shadows of the forest, where the pines joined overhead, we pierced
without a sound, and felt far more than saw the great rocks with their
icicles; and out again, emerging into moonlight, met the valley spread
beneath our feet, the mighty peaks of the Silvretta and the vast blue
sky. On, on, hurrying, delaying not, the woods and hills rushed by.
Crystals upon the snow-banks glittered to the stars. Our souls would
fain have stayed to drink these marvels of the moon-world, but our
limbs refused. The magic of movement was upon us, and eight minutes
swallowed the varying impressions of two musical miles. The village
lights drew near and nearer, then the sombre village huts, and soon
the speed grew less, and soon we glided to our rest into the sleeping
village street.
V
It was just past midnight. The moon had fallen to the western horns.
Orion's belt lay bar-like on the opening of the pass, and Sirius shot
flame on the Seehorn. A more crystalline night, more full of fulgent
stars, was never seen, stars everywhere, but mostly scattered in large
sparkles on the snow. Big Christian went in front, tugging toboggans
by their strings, as Gulliver, in some old woodcut, drew the fleets
of Lilliput. Through the brown wood-châlets of Selfrangr, up to the
undulating meadows, where the snow slept pure and crisp, he led us.
There we sat awhile and drank the clear air, cooled to zero, but
innocent and mild as mother Nature's milk. Then in an instant, down,
down through the hamlet, with its châlets, stables, pumps, and logs,
the slumbrous hamlet, where one dog barked, and darkness dwelt upon
the path of ice, down with the tempest of a dreadful speed, that
shot each rider upward in the air, and made the frame of the toboggan
tremble--down over hillocks of hard frozen snow, dashing and bounding,
to the river and the bridge. No bones were broken, though the race was
thrice renewed, and men were spilt upon the roadside by some furious
plunge. This amusement has the charm of peril and the unforeseen. In
no wise else can colder, keener air be drunken at such furious speed.
The joy, too, of the engine-driver and the steeplechaser is upon us.
Alas, that it should be so short! If only roads were better made for
the purpose, there would be no end to it; for the toboggan cannot lose
his wind. But the good thing fails at last, and from the silence of
the moon we pass into the silence of the fields of sleep.