EXCELSIOR AND THE MAIDEN.
The hero of Longfellow’s poem, “Excelsior,” has long been a favorite
subject with artists. Among the many full-length fancy portraits of
that rash young man, is one which represents him in a loose sack-coat
with knee-breeches, a rolling shirt-collar displaying his open throat,
and the long ends of a necktie streaming in the winds. The costume was
charming, but too airy for the higher Alps, to which he was bound. He
had a little kit, presumably of clothes, slung across his shoulder. He
held aloft a stick to which was tied a white flag or banner inscribed
“Excelsior.” The artist had caught the spirit of Longfellow’s verse,
and had stamped enthusiasm and high resolve on the pleasant face of
this young fellow.
I had been sitting for some time over an out-door luncheon in front
of the Hôtel des Avalanches, with lines of “Excelsior” running in my
head. Before me was the Queen of Mountains. The landlord had assured
me that the top of the symmetrical peak was fifteen good miles away.
It did not seem more than a mile off in the transparent atmosphere of
that perfect June morning. It was equally impossible to realize that
you could not see, with the naked eye, the figures--showing black
against the spotless snow--of persons climbing the Jungfrau by paths
directly opposite the house. There was no one so occupied that day,
as the season for ascents does not begin till July. So I was obliged
to take the landlord’s word for it that the largest parties attacking
the mountain were invisible from his hotel, except through the fine
telescope which stood there on its tripod with joints greased and ready
for use. Then I fell to meditating on the sad fate of the willful young
hero of the poem. I amused myself imagining him as he toiled up those
awful heights, after dark, floundering through the snow waist-deep,
just missing the crevasses by an inch, starting little avalanches
of loose rocks and ice (the larger, more overwhelming and dangerous
snow-slides occurring only in the hours of full sunshine), and finally
succumbing to fatigue and exhaustion and cold, and dying up there, far
from human aid, with his banner still gripped in his hand. How much
better, I thought, if he had taken a fancy to the maiden of the valley,
and remained comfortable and happy down below!
And there was the identical maiden at my elbow! She had just poured
out a cup of smoking, fragrant coffee for me, and stood waiting meekly
to take another order. A prettier girl never ’tended on travelers. I
addressed her in English, and found she spoke it well; and when she
added--noticing that I was an American--that she had relatives in
the United States, and had spent two years there on a visit, I felt
that here was a sort of country-woman in this out-of-the-way place.
Surely I had seen few American girls of twenty or thereabout comelier
than this true daughter of the Alps. She was a niece of the landlord,
she said, and she had the manners of a lady. As the season had but
recently opened, and the tide of tourists not yet set in, there was a
scarcity of hired help at the inn. She was assisting in the humblest
ways to make everybody contented. She served me without any sense of
humiliation, such as possibly I might have observed in her had she
passed a few more years in America before returning to her dear old
Swiss home.
Her pretty face and innocent, winning ways had divided my attention
with the avalanches. I am not sure but that I missed some little
ones while chatting with her. As I sipped the delicious coffee, my
imagination paired her off with that headstrong youth in “Excelsior.” I
could not help thinking what a fool he was not to rest his weary head
on that breast, as per invitation, instead of climbing the terrible
mountain after dark.
Perhaps it was the mountain air--perhaps it was the coffee. Anyhow, my
imagination became so excited that I thought I saw that same young man
right before me, coming up the steep road from Lauterbrunnen. He was
not two hundred feet away. There was no mistaking him. He had on the
knee-breeches, the bob-tailed jacket, the cut-away collar and flowing
necktie of the picture, and a small knapsack of the roll-pattern was
strapped to his back. There, too, was the attractive face stamped with
fierce resolution. But the most striking mark of identity was a white
flag attached to a walking-stick which he carried over his shoulder
like a musket. The wind was brisk and blew the flag out straight
behind him. It did not, so far as I could see, bear the inscription
“Excelsior,” and this was the first shock to the illusion. As I looked
wonderingly at him, he turned on his heels and shook his flag, which I
could now see was only a pocket-handkerchief, high in the air, as if
signaling some distant person.
This dumb show lasted about half a minute. Then he lowered his flag and
strode up to the hotel. As he drew near enough, I saw that his eyes
were deep blue, like those of the hero of the poem. So, for all these
reasons, I at once christened him “Excelsior.”
Excelsior, though a young man, was not a green traveler. He knew a
good thing when he saw it. There was a pretty girl, and there was a
little table covered with a clean white cloth, all set out with plates,
glasses, knives, forks, and napkins, under an awning that screened it
from the sun, with the peerless Jungfrau in full view. So, when he took
his seat at the spare table near me, I was not surprised. He looked at
the maiden, and she looked at him. Everybody would have said they were
made for each other, so far as good looks are reasons for mating. She
was not a full-blooded brunette, but her deep-brown hair and eyes and
swarthy ruddiness of cheeks differentiated her from the blonde school
of beauty. He was fair-haired, with a skin which the sun had reddened
but not freckled, and just such a forehead (now that he had cast his
slouched hat aside) as you see in Shelley’s portraits. As he sat
there, with his strong, shapely arm flung over the back of his chair,
he looked the embodiment of youthful vigor and careless grace. The
misleading outlines of modern clothes could not conceal the symmetry of
his figure. How the sculptors must have wanted him for a model, if he
ever came under their eyes, in Rome or Florence. And they would have
been equally glad, I am sure, to secure a like favor from the Swiss
maiden.
Suddenly he glanced at his watch, and then accosted me in the language
I expected to hear, for I knew him to be an American at first sight.
“Not a bad job, that--only four hours and ten minutes from Interlaken,
and the muddiest road I ever saw, up the Wengern Alp.”
“Well done,” I replied. “The guide-books give six hours for it. But
aren’t you tired?”
“Not the slightest,” he said, laughing pleasantly, and showing his fine
white teeth. “Lucky for me, as I must do Grindelwald and the lower
glacier before night.”
This astonished me. I had found the ascent from Grindelwald over
thousands of rude stone steps and through seas of mud, hard enough on
horseback, and was dreading the descent as still more trying. And here
was Excelsior talking about it as if it were only a little promenade
on Broadway, not to mention the visit to the lower glacier, a good two
hours’ stretch (going and returning) from Grindelwald and more mud from
three to six inches deep all the way, except for the stepping-stones.
“Well, you are plucky--young America all over!” I at length remarked,
with a pride in the gameness of my countryman.
“I’m from Illinois,” said he.
“And I from New York.”
“Then we’re sure not to quarrel,” he rejoined, “for I’ve noticed that
New-Yorkers and Westerners get along better together in Europe than
Americans from any other parts of the country.”
I said that I had often noticed the same thing, without being able
to explain it. There was a singular instinctive aversion between
New-Yorkers themselves and also between them and Bostonians and
Philadelphians. But, whenever New York and Chicago met in any foreign
country, the fraternization was spontaneous. Then I took the liberty of
asking my young friend why he waved his handkerchief on the end of a
stick just before pulling up at the hotel.
“Oh! only to signal a fellow over there on the Murren. We had walked
together up the Lauterbrunnen Valley, and he turned off to climb the
Murren while I kept on for the Wengern Alp. We agreed to exchange
signals from the tops of the two mountains, or foot-hills, or whatever
else they should be called. But he hasn’t got up there yet, for I don’t
see a flutter of his handkerchief.”
“Possibly because it is at least eight miles from here to Murren in an
air-line,” I said, smiling.
The maiden, who had been listening with great interest to this
dialogue, her tender eyes fixed on the younger of the two speakers all
the time, here broke in to say:
“Perhaps you would like to look through the glass down there. That will
show you everything on the Murren plain enough.” She spoke English with
a foreign accent so delicate that types can not reproduce it.
“Thank you, miss,” said Excelsior, sweetly, “I shall be very glad. But
let me order the lunch first.”
The young girl seemed happy to serve him. She handed him a bill of
fare, and waited by his side while he looked it over. It was as good as
a play to watch the two thus thrown together by Fate.
Excelsior examined the bill with great apparent interest. Every item in
it seemed to raise a question which he asked in a voice so low that I
could not hear him. I never saw a man so particular about his luncheon,
and so long ordering it. But at last he got through, and the maiden
hastened into the house.
“Fine girl, or rather, young lady, that,” said I to Excelsior. “The
niece of the landlord, and has been in America two years.”
“I thought she was superior,” replied Excelsior, “and wondered where
she picked up her good English. What a musical voice and lovely--”
But while he was speaking the fair object of our comments reappeared
upon the scene. I may have been mistaken, but it seemed to me that a
cherry-colored ribbon, over which rolled a plain, broad white collar,
had been retied in her absence. And this reminded me that Excelsior
had, while speaking to me, been smoothing out the rumpled ends of his
blue neckerchief. To my eye it looked more pleasing before, but I dare
say he was not thinking of my taste in dress.
What I had told Excelsior about this young girl had caused a
perceptible change in his manner toward her. He had been civil enough
before, but now he was quite polite, as one who recognizes the
difference between a landlord’s niece and a common house-servant. But
it was plain that her two years’ residence in America had impressed him
most deeply. To him she was in some sense an American girl. It was with
a bow almost deferential that he said, if she pleased, he would now try
the telescope, and perhaps be able to get a sight of his friend on the
Murren. The maiden acted very much as if she expected and wanted this,
for she smiled and tripped down the little slope before the house to
the spot where the glass rested on its three spindle legs. Excelsior
followed. What was said down there I do not know, for I did not think
it my business to join them, and from the place where I still sat,
watching for avalanches, I could not catch a word. I only repeat what I
saw.
It seemed to take a great while to get that telescope into working
trim. Nothing was the matter with it when I used it twenty minutes
before; but now they had the greatest trouble in lengthening or
shortening the focus and elevating or depressing the object-glass. For
me one hand was enough to adjust the instrument, but now it took four
hands, and they were for a long time unsuccessful. As far as I could
make out things clearly, these hands appeared to be getting in each
other’s way occasionally; and, besides, there was one head too many.
It sometimes seemed as if they were both trying to look through the
telescope at once, and this was obviously impossible. And, finally,
when they had the telescope all right, as I supposed, and Excelsior was
about to pick up his Murren friend in good earnest, they would stop and
lean on the long brass tube and fall to conversing with each other, as
if they had clean forgotten the business in hand. Then, looking up,
they saw me gazing down at them, and resumed their absurd manipulations
of the glass with increased energy.
I felt just mischievous enough to shout to them: “Anything the matter?
Can I help you?”
“No, thanks,” he cried. “We are just catching the range now; something
the matter with the swivel. Oh, there he is, swinging his handkerchief
on the piazza of the Murren Hotel! And now he is looking through a
telescope, too. He sees us!” Excelsior thereupon fluttered his own
signal for about one minute with great enthusiasm. By means of the two
glasses the friends had exchanged salutes across an interval of eight
miles.
This ceremony over, Excelsior apparently transferred his interest
to the Jungfrau, the Monch, the Eiger, and lesser peaks, as well he
might have done, for there is no single view in the Bernese Oberland
more sublime and satisfactory in all its details than that of the
mountain-chain seen from the Wengern Alp. Here, too, the telescope
was continually getting out of gear and defying the joint efforts of
Excelsior and the maiden to make it work right. I do not know if they
would ever have quitted the task which occupied them so intently had
not a horseman and a lady in a _chaise-porte_, swinging between two
stalwart peasants, arrived on the scene. The new-comers, of course,
required immediate attention, and the maiden was too good a niece of
the landlord to neglect his interests. So, with this single remark,
made so loud that all of us could hear it, “I think you understand how
to do it now, sir,” she bounded up the slope like a chamois to look
after the new guests. Excelsior followed a moment later, and sat down
at the little table where his hot luncheon was about due.
I felt that a pretty comedy of real life had been interrupted by these
arrivals. I hoped to see a second act of it when the maiden served
Excelsior with his repast, but in this I was disappointed. She soon
brought out the dishes and the half-bottle of Yvorne he had ordered,
and put them before him. But she was silent and demure now, for there
were new eyes upon her. Excelsior himself had an attack of gravity,
for he ate and drank without saying a word to the maiden, who came and
went. If it was not a case of love at first sight on his part, then I
am no judge of the symptoms of that passion. As for the maiden, who can
tell?
I am sorry not to gratify the legitimate curiosity of my readers
further on this point; but I could not tarry longer on the Wengern Alp,
even to report the progress of a genuine love-affair. An appointment
at Grindelwald compelled me to hasten my departure. I bade good-by to
Excelsior, with a hope that I should meet him at the Hôtel de l’Ours
that night or next morning. He replied, in a confused manner, that he
did not know. Perhaps he would spend just one night on the Wengern Alp;
the house there seemed so snug and comfortable. “It would not be a bad
idea, you know, to visit the glacier over there in the morning, while
the snow is still hard and the footing good.”
I did not feel familiar enough with Excelsior to joke him about another
attraction--a second Jungfrau--so I only smiled. When I said good-by to
the maiden, I could not help adding that I hoped she would see America
again some day, and perhaps stay there; and, by a natural association
of ideas, I glanced at the same time at Excelsior. For, far-fetched
as the thought may seem, the mountain air was so stimulating that I
persisted in imagining that the chance meeting of these two emotional
young persons on the Wengern Alp was the beginning of a romance
destined to end in a happy marriage. What a good-looking couple they
would make!
I have never seen him or her from that day to this. But we all find out
for ourselves the truth of the old saying that the world is small. I
should not be much astonished to meet Mr. and Mrs. Excelsior some day;
and then I shall tell him how much more sensible I think him to be than
the young man in the poem, who had no taste for pretty Swiss girls.