A Tramp Abroad — Volume 05

by Mark Twain

  In the morning, when we looked out of our windows, we saw a wonderfulsight. Across the valley, and apparently quite neighborly and close athand, the giant form of the Jungfrau rose cold and white into the clearsky, beyond a gateway in the nearer highlands. It reminded me, somehow,of one of those colossal billows which swells suddenly up beside one'sship, at sea, sometimes, with its crest and shoulders snowy white, andthe rest of its noble proportions streaked downward with creamy foam.

  I took out my sketch-book and made a little picture of the Jungfrau,merely to get the shape.

  I do not regard this as one of my finished works, in fact I do not rankit among my Works at all; it is only a study; it is hardly more thanwhat one might call a sketch. Other artists have done me the grace toadmire it; but I am severe in my judgments of my own pictures, and thisone does not move me.

  It was hard to believe that that lofty wooded rampart on the left whichso overtops the Jungfrau was not actually the higher of the two, but itwas not, of course. It is only two or three thousand feet high, and ofcourse has no snow upon it in summer, whereas the Jungfrau is not muchshorter of fourteen thousand feet high and therefore that lowest vergeof snow on her side, which seems nearly down to the valley level, isreally about seven thousand feet higher up in the air than the summitof that wooded rampart. It is the distance that makes the deception.The wooded height is but four or five miles removed from us, but theJungfrau is four or five times that distance away.

  Walking down the street of shops, in the fore-noon, I was attracted bya large picture, carved, frame and all, from a single block ofchocolate-colored wood. There are people who know everything. Some ofthese had told us that continental shopkeepers always raise their priceson English and Americans. Many people had told us it was expensive tobuy things through a courier, whereas I had supposed it was just thereverse. When I saw this picture, I conjectured that it was worth morethan the friend I proposed to buy it for would like to pay, but still itwas worth while to inquire; so I told the courier to step in and askthe price, as if he wanted it for himself; I told him not to speak inEnglish, and above all not to reveal the fact that he was a courier.Then I moved on a few yards, and waited.

  The courier came presently and reported the price. I said to myself, "Itis a hundred francs too much," and so dismissed the matter from mymind. But in the afternoon I was passing that place with Harris, and thepicture attracted me again. We stepped in, to see how much higherbroken German would raise the price. The shopwoman named a figure justa hundred francs lower than the courier had named. This was a pleasantsurprise. I said I would take it. After I had given directions as towhere it was to be shipped, the shopwoman said, appealingly:

  "If you please, do not let your courier know you bought it."

  This was an unexpected remark. I said:

  "What makes you think I have a courier?"

  "Ah, that is very simple; he told me himself."

  "He was very thoughtful. But tell me--why did you charge him more thanyou are charging me?"

  "That is very simple, also: I do not have to pay you a percentage."

  "Oh, I begin to see. You would have had to pay the courier apercentage."

  "Undoubtedly. The courier always has his percentage. In this case itwould have been a hundred francs."

  "Then the tradesman does not pay a part of it--the purchaser pays all ofit?"

  "There are occasions when the tradesman and the courier agree upon aprice which is twice or thrice the value of the article, then the twodivide, and both get a percentage."

  "I see. But it seems to me that the purchaser does all the paying, eventhen."

  "Oh, to be sure! It goes without saying."

  "But I have bought this picture myself; therefore why shouldn't thecourier know it?"

  The woman exclaimed, in distress:

  "Ah, indeed it would take all my little profit! He would come and demandhis hundred francs, and I should have to pay."

  "He has not done the buying. You could refuse."

  "I could not dare to refuse. He would never bring travelers here again.More than that, he would denounce me to the other couriers, they woulddivert custom from me, and my business would be injured."

  I went away in a thoughtful frame of mind. I began to see why a couriercould afford to work for fifty-five dollars a month and his fares. Amonth or two later I was able to understand why a courier did not haveto pay any board and lodging, and why my hotel bills were always largerwhen I had him with me than when I left him behind, somewhere, for a fewdays.

  Another thing was also explained, now, apparently. In one town I hadtaken the courier to the bank to do the translating when I drew somemoney. I had sat in the reading-room till the transaction was finished.Then a clerk had brought the money to me in person, and had beenexceedingly polite, even going so far as to precede me to the door andholding it open for me and bow me out as if I had been a distinguishedpersonage. It was a new experience. Exchange had been in my favor eversince I had been in Europe, but just that one time. I got simply theface of my draft, and no extra francs, whereas I had expected to getquite a number of them. This was the first time I had ever used thecourier at the bank. I had suspected something then, and as long as heremained with me afterward I managed bank matters by myself.

  Still, if I felt that I could afford the tax, I would never travelwithout a courier, for a good courier is a convenience whose valuecannot be estimated in dollars and cents. Without him, travel is abitter harassment, a purgatory of little exasperating annoyances, aceaseless and pitiless punishment--I mean to an irascible man who has nobusiness capacity and is confused by details.

  Without a courier, travel hasn't a ray of pleasure in it, anywhere; butwith him it is a continuous and unruffled delight. He is always at hand,never has to be sent for; if your bell is not answered promptly--and itseldom is--you have only to open the door and speak, the courier willhear, and he will have the order attended to or raise an insurrection.You tell him what day you will start, and whither you are going--leaveall the rest to him. You need not inquire about trains, or fares, or carchanges, or hotels, or anything else. At the proper time he will put youin a cab or an omnibus, and drive you to the train or the boat; he haspacked your luggage and transferred it, he has paid all the bills. Otherpeople have preceded you half an hour to scramble for impossible placesand lose their tempers, but you can take your time; the courier hassecured your seats for you, and you can occupy them at your leisure.

  At the station, the crowd mash one another to pulp in the effort to getthe weigher's attention to their trunks; they dispute hotly with thesetyrants, who are cool and indifferent; they get their baggage billets,at last, and then have another squeeze and another rage over thedisheartening business of trying to get them recorded and paid for, andstill another over the equally disheartening business of trying to getnear enough to the ticket office to buy a ticket; and now, with theirtempers gone to the dogs, they must stand penned up and packed together,laden with wraps and satchels and shawl-straps, with the weary wife andbabies, in the waiting-room, till the doors are thrown open--and thenall hands make a grand final rush to the train, find it full, and haveto stand on the platform and fret until some more cars are put on. Theyare in a condition to kill somebody by this time. Meantime, you havebeen sitting in your car, smoking, and observing all this misery in theextremest comfort.

  On the journey the guard is polite and watchful--won't allow anybody toget into your compartment--tells them you are just recovering from thesmall-pox and do not like to be disturbed. For the courier has madeeverything right with the guard. At way-stations the courier comes toyour compartment to see if you want a glass of water, or a newspaper,or anything; at eating-stations he sends luncheon out to you, while theother people scramble and worry in the dining-rooms. If anything breaksabout the car you are in, and a station-master proposes to pack you andyour agent into a compartment with strangers, the courier reveals to himconfidentially that you are a French duke born deaf and dumb, and t
heofficial comes and makes affable signs that he has ordered a choice carto be added to the train for you.

  At custom-houses the multitude file tediously through, hot andirritated, and look on while the officers burrow into the trunks andmake a mess of everything; but you hand your keys to the courier and sitstill. Perhaps you arrive at your destination in a rain-storm at tenat night--you generally do. The multitude spend half an hour verifyingtheir baggage and getting it transferred to the omnibuses; but thecourier puts you into a vehicle without a moment's loss of time, andwhen you reach your hotel you find your rooms have been secured two orthree days in advance, everything is ready, you can go at once to bed.Some of those other people will have to drift around to two or threehotels, in the rain, before they find accommodations.

  I have not set down half of the virtues that are vested in a goodcourier, but I think I have set down a sufficiency of them to show thatan irritable man who can afford one and does not employ him is not awise economist. My courier was the worst one in Europe, yet he was agood deal better than none at all. It could not pay him to be a betterone than he was, because I could not afford to buy things through him.He was a good enough courier for the small amount he got out of hisservice. Yes, to travel with a courier is bliss, to travel without oneis the reverse.

  I have had dealings with some very bad couriers; but I have also haddealings with one who might fairly be called perfection. He was a youngPolander, named Joseph N. Verey. He spoke eight languages, and seemedto be equally at home in all of them; he was shrewd, prompt, posted,and punctual; he was fertile in resources, and singularly gifted in thematter of overcoming difficulties; he not only knew how to do everythingin his line, but he knew the best ways and the quickest; he was handywith children and invalids; all his employer needed to do was to takelife easy and leave everything to the courier. His address is, care ofMessrs. Gay & Son, Strand, London; he was formerly a conductor of Gay'stourist parties. Excellent couriers are somewhat rare; if the reader isabout to travel, he will find it to his advantage to make a note of thisone.

  CHAPTER XXXIII

  [We Climb Far--by Buggy]

  The beautiful Giesbach Fall is near Interlaken, on the other side ofthe lake of Brienz, and is illuminated every night with those gorgeoustheatrical fires whose name I cannot call just at this moment. This wassaid to be a spectacle which the tourist ought by no means to miss. Iwas strongly tempted, but I could not go there with propriety, becauseone goes in a boat. The task which I had set myself was to walk overEurope on foot, not skim over it in a boat. I had made a tacit contractwith myself; it was my duty to abide by it. I was willing to make boattrips for pleasure, but I could not conscientiously make them in the wayof business.

  It cost me something of a pang to lose that fine sight, but I lived downthe desire, and gained in my self-respect through the triumph. I hada finer and a grander sight, however, where I was. This was the mightydome of the Jungfrau softly outlined against the sky and faintlysilvered by the starlight. There was something subduing in the influenceof that silent and solemn and awful presence; one seemed to meet theimmutable, the indestructible, the eternal, face to face, and to feelthe trivial and fleeting nature of his own existence the more sharplyby the contrast. One had the sense of being under the broodingcontemplation of a spirit, not an inert mass of rocks and ice--a spiritwhich had looked down, through the slow drift of the ages, upon amillion vanished races of men, and judged them; and would judge amillion more--and still be there, watching, unchanged and unchangeable,after all life should be gone and the earth have become a vacantdesolation.

  While I was feeling these things, I was groping, without knowing it,toward an understanding of what the spell is which people find in theAlps, and in no other mountains--that strange, deep, nameless influence,which, once felt, cannot be forgotten--once felt, leaves alwaysbehind it a restless longing to feel it again--a longing which is likehomesickness; a grieving, haunting yearning which will plead, implore,and persecute till it has its will. I met dozens of people, imaginativeand unimaginative, cultivated and uncultivated, who had come from farcountries and roamed through the Swiss Alps year after year--they couldnot explain why. They had come first, they said, out of idle curiosity,because everybody talked about it; they had come since because theycould not help it, and they should keep on coming, while they lived, forthe same reason; they had tried to break their chains and stay away, butit was futile; now, they had no desire to break them. Others came nearerformulating what they felt; they said they could find perfect rest andpeace nowhere else when they were troubled: all frets and worries andchafings sank to sleep in the presence of the benignant serenity of theAlps; the Great Spirit of the Mountain breathed his own peace upon theirhurt minds and sore hearts, and healed them; they could not think basethoughts or do mean and sordid things here, before the visible throne ofGod.

  Down the road a piece was a Kursaal--whatever that may be--and we joinedthe human tide to see what sort of enjoyment it might afford. It was theusual open-air concert, in an ornamental garden, with wines, beer, milk,whey, grapes, etc.--the whey and the grapes being necessaries of life tocertain invalids whom physicians cannot repair, and who only continue toexist by the grace of whey or grapes. One of these departed spirits toldme, in a sad and lifeless way, that there is no way for him to live butby whey, and dearly, dearly loved whey, he didn't know whey he did, buthe did. After making this pun he died--that is the whey it served him.

  Some other remains, preserved from decomposition by the grape system,told me that the grapes were of a peculiar breed, highly medicinal intheir nature, and that they were counted out and administered by thegrape-doctors as methodically as if they were pills. The new patient,if very feeble, began with one grape before breakfast, took threeduring breakfast, a couple between meals, five at luncheon, three in theafternoon, seven at dinner, four for supper, and part of a grape justbefore going to bed, by way of a general regulator. The quantity wasgradually and regularly increased, according to the needs and capacitiesof the patient, until by and by you would find him disposing of his onegrape per second all the day long, and his regular barrel per day.

  He said that men cured in this way, and enabled to discard the grapesystem, never afterward got over the habit of talking as if they weredictating to a slow amanuensis, because they always made a pause betweeneach two words while they sucked the substance out of an imaginarygrape. He said these were tedious people to talk with. He said that menwho had been cured by the other process were easily distinguished fromthe rest of mankind because they always tilted their heads back, betweenevery two words, and swallowed a swig of imaginary whey. He said it wasan impressive thing to observe two men, who had been cured by the twoprocesses, engaged in conversation--said their pauses and accompanyingmovements were so continuous and regular that a stranger would thinkhimself in the presence of a couple of automatic machines. One findsout a great many wonderful things, by traveling, if he stumbles upon theright person.

  I did not remain long at the Kursaal; the music was good enough, but itseemed rather tame after the cyclone of that Arkansaw expert. Besides,my adventurous spirit had conceived a formidable enterprise--nothingless than a trip from Interlaken, by the Gemmi and Visp, clear toZermatt, on foot! So it was necessary to plan the details, and get readyfor an early start. The courier (this was not the one I have just beenspeaking of) thought that the portier of the hotel would be able to tellus how to find our way. And so it turned out. He showed us the wholething, on a relief-map, and we could see our route, with all itselevations and depressions, its villages and its rivers, as clearly asif we were sailing over it in a balloon. A relief-map is a great thing.The portier also wrote down each day's journey and the nightly hotel ona piece of paper, and made our course so plain that we should never beable to get lost without high-priced outside help.

  I put the courier in the care of a gentleman who was going to Lausanne,and then we went to bed, after laying out the walking-costumes andputting them into condition for ins
tant occupation in the morning.

  However, when we came down to breakfast at 8 A.M., it looked so muchlike rain that I hired a two-horse top-buggy for the first third of thejourney. For two or three hours we jogged along the level road whichskirts the beautiful lake of Thun, with a dim and dreamlike picture ofwatery expanses and spectral Alpine forms always before us, veiled ina mellowing mist. Then a steady downpour set in, and hid everything butthe nearest objects. We kept the rain out of our faces with umbrellas,and away from our bodies with the leather apron of the buggy; but thedriver sat unsheltered and placidly soaked the weather in and seemedto like it. We had the road to ourselves, and I never had a pleasanterexcursion.

  The weather began to clear while we were driving up a valley called theKienthal, and presently a vast black cloud-bank in front of us dissolvedaway and uncurtained the grand proportions and the soaring loftiness ofthe Blumis Alp. It was a sort of breath-taking surprise; for we had notsupposed there was anything behind that low-hung blanket of sable cloudbut level valley. What we had been mistaking for fleeting glimpses ofsky away aloft there, were really patches of the Blumis's snowy crestcaught through shredded rents in the drifting pall of vapor.