FOR PARENTS AND GUARDIANS
I have attempted in the foregoing pages to give some general account of
the out-door sports which are, as a rule, indulged in by altitudinists
in winter. But any picture of this enchanting Swiss life, however
slight, would be imperfect without some allusion to other entertainments
which take place between sunset and sunrise. As a matter of fact, there
are a good many such, and at most Swiss resorts there is in one hotel or
another a dance, or a fancy-dress ball, or a concert, or very often more
than one of these, practically nightly.
Now this piece of information, which I have thus baldly set down (for I
do not believe in the gradual breaking of bad news), will, I am aware,
strike a species of terror into many middle-aged and austere breasts.
There are large quantities of folk who would sooner die than dance, and
who would feel themselves affronted if, at the end of an active day out
of doors, they were expected to sit in rows and be sung to or amused, or
even worse, were expected to sing or amuse. At the most, they think they
would desire merely to sit quietly and read or converse, or perhaps
occupy a morose corner in a card-room, and the thought of being kept
awake after they have retired to their early beds by the sound of bands
or dancers would rouse them to a state of frenzied rage. As for dancing
themselves----
Now, I hasten to add words of consolation for all sedate folk. There is
not the slightest need for them to be apprehensive, for they will find
their quiet corners and card-rooms provided for them, unraided by the
frivolous, and nobody wants them to dance and sing unless they feel
inclined to. They have an erroneous notion, from hearing enthusiastic
young friends on their return from Switzerland say that they had a dance
every night, often fancy-dress, except when there was an ice-carnival or
a concert, that they are expected to appear as Pierrots or Columbines,
or otherwise cover themselves with shame and glory by public
performances of some such kind, or, after dinner, sally forth again with
a false nose and tights and proceed to dash about the skating-rink among
squibs and fireworks. But there is no kind of reason why they should
harbour any such fears; they can be as quiet and sedentary as they like.
But the probability is that they will not, when they have become
altitudinists, feel quite so sedentary as they do in, let us say,
Cromwell Road, after the day’s work in town. Without doubt there is
something slightly intoxicating to the mind, some sort of juvenile
effervescence in the air and the sun of these high places, which seems
to affect the steadiest head, and it is not uncommon to see sober
persons of middle-age capering about in a manner altogether surprising.
They get a sudden access of youth and high spirits, and make themselves
ridiculous (this would be their judgment on themselves while still in
Cromwell Road) with immense enjoyment and _élan_. Probably in Cromwell
Road they would never dream, for instance, if there was a fall of snow,
of making a snow-man in the back-garden, even if the snow was not
covered with smuts, but out here if by chance a heavy fall renders rink
and toboggan-run impracticable for the moment, they are perfectly likely
(they will not believe me, but it is quite true) to build up a sumptuous
piece of statuary. Similarly, unaccustomed as they are to go out of
doors on a winter’s night after dinner, except to be taken in a taxi to
the theatre, it is quite probable that they will don coats and gouties
and see what is going on at this absurd ice-carnival, which they have
been told is to take place on the rink. And really it is almost worth
seeing, even if you take no part in it.
A circle of light from hundreds of electric lamps, or a less potent but
more variously-coloured illumination from lines of Chinese lanterns,
surrounds the rink, so that in that blaze of light the great
frosty-burning stars are invisible in the vault overhead, and even the
full moon seems no more luminous than a circle of pale yellow paper.
These are reflected, wherever there is room for reflection, on the ice
they enclose, but there is not very much room for anything, as the whole
surface of the rink is covered with brilliant, gaily-dressed figures
gliding about in some interval of the dancing. Each carries a Chinese
lantern on a stick, and the whole place is an intricate pattern of
interweaving lights and colours. Then the band rings out again
(“ringing” is the only word that the least describes the sound of
violins and horns in this resonant frosty air), and instantly this sheet
of weaving light and figures begins to be permeated by rhythm. Couple
by couple are swept into this rhythm, circling, oscillating with long
gliding steps, their lanterns making a series of luminous loops as they
swing to the measure of the dance. What was but a company of mysterious,
huge fire-flies, all darting about on separate businesses, is turned
into a rhythmical and living pattern of flame, controlled by the lilt
and measure of the band. Eye and ear alike are dazzled by this musical
and moving and illuminated rhythm. Faster grows the tune as it
approaches its end, faster is formed this living and luminous pattern.
Then it stops, and the pattern dissolves itself again into streaks of
darting lights; the dance of the uncontrolled fire-flies again. And it
is far from unlikely that the middle-aged and sedate will hurry back to
the hotel to get some skates and a lantern, and some sort of
preposterous headgear.
Or, while still the fireworks and Bengal lights are unlit, you can walk
to the end of the rink, and, turning your back on its brightness, look
out over the lower valley below and the hills beyond. Away from the
glare of the festooned lights, your eye gets accustomed to the gloom,
and presently it ceases to be gloom at all. Ivory white shine the
untrodden snows beneath the full moon and the glory of innumerable
stars: far below, perhaps, a level sea of cloud extends like a marble
floor over the valley, and across it the aiguilles of Mont Blanc, and
nearer the summits of the Dent du Midi stand sparkling like crystals.
Then from behind you sounds the swish of an aspiring rocket, and across
the firmament streams a line of light. Slower and slower it mounts, then
from the end of it bursts a huge constellation of coloured
[Illustration: THE ICE CARNIVAL
_From the Drawing by Fleming Williams_]
globes of flame. Then suddenly the whole hillside, the village, the
pine-trees, and the snow-slopes begin to shine with a red glow as if the
whole world was on fire. Then stars are quenched, the moon resigns
altogether, even the lights on and around the rink grow dim in the glow
that turns everything into molten fire. But it is only a Bengal light
behind the châlet. “Only” indeed! As if there was anything more magical
than these blood-red snows and red-hot pines beneath the cold of the
winter night! For it requires a hideously-sensible person to outlive the
joys of fireworks.
Then after a while the lights are quenched and the band goes home, and
you walk back beneath the moon to your hotel. All that artificial fire
has not stained the white radiance of the guardians of the night. They
whirl steadfast and remote and sparkling, turning the snow to glistening
ivory and the shadows to ebony, as they “quire to the bright-eyed
seraphim.” And all night long (thoughts come strangely and incongruously
mixed in this intoxicating air) the patient and laborious ice-man will
be clearing up the rink, and sprinkling it through the dark hours, so
that to-morrow you shall have a virgin field for your quavering rockers.
The most absorbed votary of quavering rockers must not mind an
occasional violation of his frozen sanctuary by day as well as by night,
for there are entertainments known as ice-gymkhanas that must from time
to time be permitted to those more frivolous than he. In other words, he
will come down to the rink on some fine morning with perhaps a new and
illuminating theory that shall make all his difficulties with regard to
rockers vanish like breath on a frosty morning, to find his ice
desecrated by the presence of crowds in gouties, and shovels and
potatoes and sacks and barrels. Eager young people will put other eager
young people on the shovels and race against each other: they will pick
up a series of potatoes singly, and see who can deposit them most
speedily in a receptacle placed at the end of the line. They will have
obstacle-races and climb through barrels, or more probably stick in
them, they will perform every imaginable antic on a surface which
renders those antics most perilous, and they will assuredly shout with
laughter all the time, and cut up the ice in a manner that makes the
grim skater’s heart to bleed. But it really is all great fun, and if he
finds he cannot bear it he had better go for a walk until it is over.
The best plan of all, however, when such things are going on is to join
in them. The worst that can happen to you is that you are disqualified
for some profoundly unsatisfactory reason.
But the main point for parents and guardians to remember is, that they
will feel quite different, when they are at a sufficient altitude on a
sunny day, from what they do when they are coming out of the twopenny
tube into a London fog. An exhilaration, approaching, as I have said, to
a sort of intoxication, will invade their stately limbs, and they will
feel inclined to do all kinds of things which their sober and city minds
tell them are silly and ridiculous. But then a sober and city mind, like
the tubercle bacillus, cannot live in this enchanted atmosphere.
Fortunately or unfortunately, it does not quite die, for it slowly
resumes its activity when they have returned to Cromwell Road, and they
will find that it is probably quite unimpaired by this temporary
anæsthetic of the air at 4000 feet up in winter. They need not feel
afraid of becoming schoolboys permanently again, or of behaving like the
adorable Mr. Bultitude when his son had changed places with him in Mr.
Anstey’s _Vice-Versa_. Their business capacities will be quite
unimpaired when they get home: indeed they will very likely prove to
have been brightened up by such experiences.
And already the year is on the turn again, and these foolish long summer
days are beginning to get short. Very soon it will be time to settle
whether we go to A----, or B----, or try that new place C----.... And
then people speak well of D----, but on the other hand E----, which we
went to three years ago, has got a new ice-run, and the rink has been
enlarged. But there is more sun at F----, and even in that awful winter
of 1911-1912, when Switzerland was a mere puddle, G---- held out against
the thaw. But the hotels at H---- are very comfortable, and the ski-ing
is good, though not so good as at I----.... That is the only Debating
Society in which I enjoy taking a part.
Printed by BALLANTYNE, HANSON & CO.
at Paul’s Work, Edinburgh
* * * * *
_The original Drawings in colour by C. Fleming Williams reproduced in
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_For particulars apply to the Publishers._
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End of Project Gutenberg's Winter Sports in Switzerland, by E. F. Benson