LECTOR. You do nothing but dwell.
AUCTOR. It is the essence of lonely travel; and if you have come to
this book for literature you have come to the wrong booth and counter.
As I was saying: it is a curious thing that some people (or races)
jump from one subject to another naturally, as some animals (I mean
the noble deer) go by bounds. While there are other races (or
individuals--heaven forgive me, I am no ethnologist) who think you a
criminal or a lunatic unless you carefully plod along from step to
step like a hippopotamus out of water. When, therefore, I asked this
family-drilling, house-managing, mountain-living woman whether she
could make omelettes, she shook her head at me slowly, keeping her
eyes fixed on mine, and said in what was the corpse of French with a
German ghost in it, 'The bed is a franc.'
'Motherkin,' I answered, 'what I mean is that I would sleep until I
wake, for I have come a prodigious distance and have last slept in the
woods. But when I wake I shall need food, for which,' I added, pulling
out yet another coin, 'I will pay whatever your charge may be; for a
more delightful house I have rarely met with. I know most people do
not sleep before sunset, but I am particularly tired and broken.'
She showed me my bed then much more kindly, and when I woke, which was
long after dusk, she gave me in the living room of the hut eggs beaten
up with ham, and I ate brown bread and said grace.
Then (my wine was not yet finished, but it is an abominable thing to
drink your own wine in another person's house) I asked whether I could
have something to drink.
'What you like,' she said.
'What have you?' said I.
'Beer,' said she.
'Anything else?' said I.
'No,' said she.
'Why, then, give me some of that excellent beer.'
I drank this with delight, paid all my bill (which was that of a
labourer), and said good-night to them.
In good-nights they had a ceremony; for they all rose together and
curtsied. Upon my soul I believe such people to be the salt of the
earth. I bowed with real contrition, for at several moments I had
believed myself better than they. Then I went to my bed and they to
theirs. The wind howled outside; my boots were stiff like wood and I
could hardly take them off; my feet were so martyrized that I doubted
if I could walk at all on the morrow. Nevertheless I was so wrapped
round with the repose of this family's virtues that I fell asleep at
once. Next day the sun was rising in angry glory over the very distant
hills of Germany, his new light running between the pinnacles of the
clouds as the commands of a conqueror might come trumpeted down the
defiles of mountains, when I fearlessly forced my boots on to my feet
and left their doors.
The morning outside came living and sharp after the gale--almost
chilly. Under a scattered but clearing sky I first limped, then, as
my blood warmed, strode down the path that led between the trees of
the farther vale and was soon following a stream that leaped from one
fall to another till it should lead me to the main road, to Belfort,
to the Jura, to the Swiss whom I had never known, and at last to
Italy.
But before I call up the recollection of that hidden valley, I must
describe with a map the curious features of the road that lay before
me into Switzerland. I was standing on the summit of that knot of
hills which rise up from every side to form the Ballon d'Alsace, and
make an abrupt ending to the Vosges. Before me, southward and
eastward, was a great plain with the fortress of Belfort in the midst
of it. This plain is called by soldiers 'the Gap of Belfort', and is
the only break in the hill frontier that covers France all the way
from the Mediterranean to Flanders. On the farther side of this plain
ran the Jura mountains, which are like a northern wall to Switzerland,
and just before you reach them is the Frontier. The Jura are fold on
fold of high limestone ridges, thousands of feet high, all parallel,
with deep valleys, thousands of feet deep, between them; and beyond
their last abrupt escarpment is the wide plain of the river Aar.
Now the straight line to Rome ran from where I stood, right across
that plain of Belfort, right across the ridges of the Jura, and cut
the plain of the Aar a few miles to the west of a town called
Solothurn or Soleure, which stands upon that river.
It was impossible to follow that line exactly, but one could average
it closely enough by following the high road down the mountain through
Belfort to a Swiss town called Porrentruy or Portrut--so far one was a
little to the west of the direct line.
From Portrut, by picking one's way through forests, up steep banks,
over open downs, along mule paths, and so forth, one could cross the
first ridge called the 'Terrible Hill', and so reach the profound
gorge of the river Doubs, and a town called St Ursanne. From St
Ursanne, by following a mountain road and then climbing some rocks and
tracking through a wood, one could get straight over the second ridge
to Glovelier. From Glovelier a highroad took one through a gap to
Undervelier and on to a town called Moutier or Munster. Then from
Munster, the road, still following more or less the line to Rome but
now somewhat to the east of it, went on southward till an abrupt turn
in it forced one to leave it. Then there was another rough climb by a
difficult path up over the last ridge, called the Weissenstein, and
from its high edge and summit it was but a straight fall of a mile or
two on to Soleure.
So much my map told me, and this mixture of roads and paths and rock
climbs that I had planned out, I exactly followed, so as to march on
as directly as possible towards Rome, which was my goal. For if I had
not so planned it, but had followed the highroads, I should have been
compelled to zig-zag enormously for days, since these ridges of the
Jura are but little broken, and the roads do not rise above the
crests, but follow the parallel valleys, taking advantage only here
and there of the rare gaps to pass from one to another.
Here is a sketch of the way I went, where my track is a white line,
and the round spots in it are the towns and villages whose names are
written at the side. In this sketch the plains and low valleys are
marked dark, and the crests of the mountains left white. The shading
is lighter according to the height, and the contour lines (which are
very far from accurate) represent, I suppose, about a thousand feet
between each, or perhaps a little more; and as for the distance, from
the Ballon d'Alsace to Soleure might be two long days' march on a flat
road, but over mountains and up rocks it was all but three, and even
that was very good going. My first stage was across the plain of
Belfort, and I had determined to sleep that night in Switzerland.
I wandered down the mountain. A little secret path, one of many, saved
me the long windings of the road. It followed down the central hollow
of the great cleft and accompanied the stream. All the way for miles
the water tumbled in fall after fall over a hundred steps of rock, and
its noise mixed with the freshness of the air, and its splashing
weighted the overhanging branches of the trees. A little rain that
fell from time to time through the clear morning seemed like a sister
to the spray of the waterfalls; and what with all this moisture and
greenery, and the surrounding silence, all the valley was inspired
with content. It was a repose to descend through its leaves and
grasses, and find the lovely pastures at the foot of the descent, a
narrow floor between the hills. Here there were the first houses of
men; and, from one, smoke was already going up thinly into the
morning. The air was very pure and cold; it was made more nourishing
and human by the presence and noise of the waters, by the shining wet
grasses and the beaded leaves all through that umbrageous valley. The
shreds of clouds which, high above the calm, ran swiftly in the upper
air, fed it also with soft rains from time to time as fine as dew; and
through those clear and momentary showers one could see the sunlight.
When I had enjoyed the descent through this place for but a few miles,
everything changed. The road in front ran straight and bordered--it
led out and onwards over a great flat, set here and there with
hillocks. The Vosges ended abruptly. Houses came more thickly, and by
the ceaseless culture of the fields, by the flat slate roofs, the
white-washed walls, and the voices, and the glare, I knew myself to be
once more in France of the plains; and the first town I came to was
Giromagny.
Here, as I heard a bell, I thought I would go up and hear Mass; and I
did so, but my attention at the holy office was distracted by the
enormous number of priests that I found in the church, and I have
wondered painfully ever since how so many came to be in a little place
like Giromagny. There were three priests at the high altar, and nearly
one for each chapel, and there was such a buzz of Masses going on,
beginning and ending, that I am sure I need not have gone without my
breakfast in my hurry to get one. With all this there were few people
at Mass so early; nothing but these priests going in and out, and
continual little bells. I am still wondering. Giromagny is no place
for relics or for a pilgrimage, it cures no one, and has nothing of a
holy look about it, and all these priests--