A Tramp Abroad
Party--An Unexpected Acquaintance--Getting Mixed Up--Following Blind
Trails--A Happy Half--hour--Defeat and Revenge
CHAPTER XXVI Commerce of Lucerne--Benefits of Martyrdom--A Bit of
History--The Home of Cuckoo Clocks--A Satisfactory Revenge--The Alan
Who Put Up at Gadsby's--A Forgotten Story--Wanted to be Postmaster--A
Tennessean at Washington--He Concluded to Stay A While--Application of
the Story
CHAPTER XXVII The Glacier Garden--Excursion on the Lake--Life on the
Mountains--A Specimen Tourist--“Where're you From?”--An Advertising
Dodge--A Righteous Verdict--The Guide-book Student--I Believe that's All
CHAPTER XXVIII The Rigi-Kulm--Its Ascent--Stripping for Business--A
Mountain Lad--An English Tourist--Railroad up the Mountain--Villages and
Mountain--The Jodlers--About Ice Water--The Felsenthor--Too Late--Lost
in the Fog--The Rigi-Kulm Hotel--The Alpine Horn--Sunrise at Night
CHAPTER XXII
[The Black Forest and Its Treasures]
From Baden-Baden we made the customary trip into the Black Forest. We
were on foot most of the time. One cannot describe those noble woods,
nor the feeling with which they inspire him. A feature of the feeling,
however, is a deep sense of contentment; another feature of it is a
buoyant, boyish gladness; and a third and very conspicuous feature of
it is one's sense of the remoteness of the work-day world and his entire
emancipation from it and its affairs.
Those woods stretch unbroken over a vast region; and everywhere they are
such dense woods, and so still, and so piney and fragrant. The stems of
the trees are trim and straight, and in many places all the ground is
hidden for miles under a thick cushion of moss of a vivid green color,
with not a decayed or ragged spot in its surface, and not a fallen leaf
or twig to mar its immaculate tidiness. A rich cathedral gloom pervades
the pillared aisles; so the stray flecks of sunlight that strike a trunk
here and a bough yonder are strongly accented, and when they strike the
moss they fairly seem to burn. But the weirdest effect, and the most
enchanting is that produced by the diffused light of the low afternoon
sun; no single ray is able to pierce its way in, then, but the diffused
light takes color from moss and foliage, and pervades the place like
a faint, green-tinted mist, the theatrical fire of fairyland. The
suggestion of mystery and the supernatural which haunts the forest at
all times is intensified by this unearthly glow.
We found the Black Forest farmhouses and villages all that the Black
Forest stories have pictured them. The first genuine specimen which
we came upon was the mansion of a rich farmer and member of the Common
Council of the parish or district. He was an important personage in the
land and so was his wife also, of course.
His daughter was the “catch” of the region, and she may be already
entering into immortality as the heroine of one of Auerbach's novels,
for all I know. We shall see, for if he puts her in I shall recognize
her by her Black Forest clothes, and her burned complexion, her plump
figure, her fat hands, her dull expression, her gentle spirit,
her generous feet, her bonnetless head, and the plaited tails of
hemp-colored hair hanging down her back.
The house was big enough for a hotel; it was a hundred feet long and
fifty wide, and ten feet high, from ground to eaves; but from the eaves
to the comb of the mighty roof was as much as forty feet, or maybe even
more. This roof was of ancient mud-colored straw thatch a foot thick,
and was covered all over, except in a few trifling spots, with a
thriving and luxurious growth of green vegetation, mainly moss. The
mossless spots were places where repairs had been made by the insertion
of bright new masses of yellow straw. The eaves projected far down, like
sheltering, hospitable wings. Across the gable that fronted the road,
and about ten feet above the ground, ran a narrow porch, with a wooden
railing; a row of small windows filled with very small panes looked upon
the porch. Above were two or three other little windows, one clear up
under the sharp apex of the roof. Before the ground-floor door was a
huge pile of manure. The door of the second-story room on the side of
the house was open, and occupied by the rear elevation of a cow. Was
this probably the drawing-room? All of the front half of the house from
the ground up seemed to be occupied by the people, the cows, and the
chickens, and all the rear half by draught-animals and hay. But the
chief feature, all around this house, was the big heaps of manure.
We became very familiar with the fertilizer in the Forest. We fell
unconsciously into the habit of judging of a man's station in life
by this outward and eloquent sign. Sometimes we said, “Here is a poor
devil, this is manifest.” When we saw a stately accumulation, we said,
“Here is a banker.” When we encountered a country-seat surrounded by an
Alpine pomp of manure, we said, “Doubtless a duke lives here.”
The importance of this feature has not been properly magnified in the
Black Forest stories. Manure is evidently the Black-Forester's main
treasure--his coin, his jewel, his pride, his Old Master, his ceramics,
his bric-a-brac, his darling, his title to public consideration, envy,
veneration, and his first solicitude when he gets ready to make his
will. The true Black Forest novel, if it is ever written, will be
skeletoned somewhat in this way:
SKELETON FOR A BLACK FOREST NOVEL
Rich old farmer, named Huss.
Has inherited great wealth of manure, and by diligence has added to it.
It is double-starred in Baedeker. [1] The Black forest artist paints
it--his masterpiece. The king comes to see it. Gretchen Huss,
daughter and heiress. Paul Hoch, young neighbor, suitor for Gretchen's
hand--ostensibly; he really wants the manure.
Hoch has a good many cart-loads of the Black Forest currency himself,
and therefore is a good catch; but he is sordid, mean, and without
sentiment, whereas Gretchen is all sentiment and poetry. Hans Schmidt,
young neighbor, full of sentiment, full of poetry, loves Gretchen,
Gretchen loves him. But he has no manure. Old Huss forbids him in the
house. His heart breaks, he goes away to die in the woods, far from the
cruel world--for he says, bitterly, “What is man, without manure?”
1. When Baedeker's guide-books mention a thing and put two stars (**)
after it, it means well worth visiting. M.T.
[Interval of six months.]
Paul Hoch comes to old Huss and says, “I am at last as rich as you
required--come and view the pile.” Old Huss views it and says, “It is
sufficient--take her and be happy,”--meaning Gretchen.
[Interval of two weeks.]
Wedding party assembled in old Huss's drawing-room. Hoch placid and
content, Gretchen weeping over her hard fate. Enter old Huss's head
bookkeeper. Huss says fiercely, “I gave you three weeks to find out why
your books don't balance, and to prove that you are not a defaulter;
the time is up--find me the missing property or you go to prison as
a thief.” Bookkeeper: “I have found it.” “Where?” Bookkeeper
(sternly--tragically): “In the bridegroom's pile!--behold the thief--see
him blench and tremble!” [Sensation.] Paul Hoch: “Lost, lost!”--falls
over the cow in a swoon and is handcuffed. Gretchen: “Saved!” Falls over
the calf in a swoon of joy, but is caught in the arms of Hans Schmidt,
who springs in at that moment. Old Huss: “What, you here, varlet? Unhand
the maid and quit the place.” Hans (still supporting the insensible
girl): “Never! Cruel old man, know that I come with claims which even
you cannot despise.”
Huss: “What, YOU? name them.”
Hans: “Listen then. The world has forsaken me, I forsook the world, I
wandered in the solitude of the forest, longing for death but finding
none. I fed upon roots, and in my bitterness I dug for the bitterest,
loathing the sweeter kind. Digging, three days agone, I struck a manure
mine!--a Golconda, a limitless Bonanza, of solid manure! I can buy you
ALL, and have mountain ranges of manure left! Ha-ha, NOW thou smilest a
smile!” [Immense sensation.] Exhibition of specimens from the mine. Old
Huss (enthusiastically): “Wake her up, shake her up, noble young man,
she is yours!” Wedding takes place on the spot; bookkeeper restored to
his office and emoluments; Paul Hoch led off to jail. The Bonanza king
of the Black Forest lives to a good old age, blessed with the love of
his wife and of his twenty-seven children, and the still sweeter envy of
everybody around.
We took our noon meal of fried trout one day at the Plow Inn, in a very
pretty village (Ottenhoefen), and then went into the public room to rest
and smoke. There we found nine or ten Black Forest grandees assembled
around a table. They were the Common Council of the parish. They had
gathered there at eight o'clock that morning to elect a new member, and
they had now been drinking beer four hours at the new member's expense.
They were men of fifty or sixty years of age, with grave good-natured
faces, and were all dressed in the costume made familiar to us by the
Black Forest stories; broad, round-topped black felt hats with the brims
curled up all round; long red waistcoats with large metal buttons, black
alpaca coats with the waists up between the shoulders. There were no
speeches, there was but little talk, there were no frivolities; the
Council filled themselves gradually, steadily, but surely, with beer,
and conducted themselves with sedate decorum, as became men of position,
men of influence, men of manure.
We had a hot afternoon tramp up the valley, along the grassy bank of a
rushing stream of clear water, past farmhouses, water-mills, and no end
of wayside crucifixes and saints and Virgins. These crucifixes, etc.,
are set up in memory of departed friends, by survivors, and are almost
as frequent as telegraph-poles are in other lands.
We followed the carriage-road, and had our usual luck; we traveled under
a beating sun, and always saw the shade leave the shady places before we
could get to them. In all our wanderings we seldom managed to strike
a piece of road at its time for being shady. We had a particularly hot
time of it on that particular afternoon, and with no comfort but what we
could get out of the fact that the peasants at work away up on the steep
mountainsides above our heads were even worse off than we were. By and
by it became impossible to endure the intolerable glare and heat
any longer; so we struck across the ravine and entered the deep cool
twilight of the forest, to hunt for what the guide-book called the “old
road.”
We found an old road, and it proved eventually to be the right one,
though we followed it at the time with the conviction that it was the
wrong one. If it was the wrong one there could be no use in hurrying;
therefore we did not hurry, but sat down frequently on the soft moss and
enjoyed the restful quiet and shade of the forest solitudes. There
had been distractions in the carriage-road--school-children, peasants,
wagons, troops of pedestrianizing students from all over Germany--but we
had the old road to ourselves.
Now and then, while we rested, we watched the laborious ant at his work.
I found nothing new in him--certainly nothing to change my opinion of
him. It seems to me that in the matter of intellect the ant must be a
strangely overrated bird. During many summers, now, I have watched him,
when I ought to have been in better business, and I have not yet come
across a living ant that seemed to have any more sense than a dead one.
I refer to the ordinary ant, of course; I have had no experience of
those wonderful Swiss and African ones which vote, keep drilled armies,
hold slaves, and dispute about religion. Those particular ants may be