CHAPTER XXXII
[The Jungfrau, the Bride, and the Piano]
We located ourselves at the Jungfrau Hotel, one of those hugeestablishments which the needs of modern travel have created in everyattractive spot on the continent. There was a great gathering at dinner,and, as usual, one heard all sorts of languages.
The table d'h?te was served by waitresses dressed in the quaint andcomely costume of the Swiss peasants. This consists of a simple gros delaine, trimmed with ashes of roses, with overskirt of scare bleu ventresaint gris, cut bias on the off-side, with facings of petit polonaiseand narrow insertions of p?te de foie gras backstitched to the miseen sce`ne in the form of a jeu d'esprit. It gives to the wearer asingularly piquant and alluring aspect.
One of these waitresses, a woman of forty, had side-whiskers reachinghalf-way down her jaws. They were two fingers broad, dark in color,pretty thick, and the hairs were an inch long. One sees many women onthe continent with quite conspicuous mustaches, but this was the onlywoman I saw who had reached the dignity of whiskers.
After dinner the guests of both sexes distributed themselves about thefront porches and the ornamental grounds belonging to the hotel, toenjoy the cool air; but, as the twilight deepened toward darkness, theygathered themselves together in that saddest and solemnest and mostconstrained of all places, the great blank drawing-room which is thechief feature of all continental summer hotels. There they groupedthemselves about, in couples and threes, and mumbled in bated voices,and looked timid and homeless and forlorn.
There was a small piano in this room, a clattery, wheezy, asthmaticthing, certainly the very worst miscarriage in the way of a piano thatthe world has seen. In turn, five or six dejected and homesick ladiesapproached it doubtingly, gave it a single inquiring thump, andretired with the lockjaw. But the boss of that instrument was to come,nevertheless; and from my own country--from Arkansaw.
She was a brand-new bride, innocent, girlish, happy in herself and hergrave and worshiping stripling of a husband; she was about eighteen,just out of school, free from affectations, unconscious of thatpassionless multitude around her; and the very first time she smotethat old wreck one recognized that it had met its destiny. Her striplingbrought an armful of aged sheet-music from their room--for this bridewent "heeled," as you might say--and bent himself lovingly over and gotready to turn the pages.
The bride fetched a swoop with her fingers from one end of the keyboardto the other, just to get her bearings, as it were, and you could seethe congregation set their teeth with the agony of it. Then, withoutany more preliminaries, she turned on all the horrors of the "Battle ofPrague," that venerable shivaree, and waded chin-deep in the blood ofthe slain. She made a fair and honorable average of two false notes inevery five, but her soul was in arms and she never stopped to correct.The audience stood it with pretty fair grit for a while, but when thecannonade waxed hotter and fiercer, and the discord average rose tofour in five, the procession began to move. A few stragglers held theirground ten minutes longer, but when the girl began to wring the trueinwardness out of the "cries of the wounded," they struck their colorsand retired in a kind of panic.
There never was a completer victory; I was the only non-combatant lefton the field. I would not have deserted my countrywoman anyhow, butindeed I had no desires in that direction. None of us like mediocrity,but we all reverence perfection. This girl's music was perfection in itsway; it was the worst music that had ever been achieved on our planet bya mere human being.
I moved up close, and never lost a strain. When she got through, Iasked her to play it again. She did it with a pleased alacrity and aheightened enthusiasm. She made it _all_ discords, this time. She got anamount of anguish into the cries of the wounded that shed a new light onhuman suffering. She was on the war-path all the evening. All the time,crowds of people gathered on the porches and pressed their noses againstthe windows to look and marvel, but the bravest never ventured in.The bride went off satisfied and happy with her young fellow, when herappetite was finally gorged, and the tourists swarmed in again.
What a change has come over Switzerland, and in fact all Europe, duringthis century! Seventy or eighty years ago Napoleon was the only man inEurope who could really be called a traveler; he was the only man whohad devoted his attention to it and taken a powerful interest in it; hewas the only man who had traveled extensively; but now everybody goeseverywhere; and Switzerland, and many other regions which were unvisitedand unknown remotenesses a hundred years ago, are in our days a buzzinghive of restless strangers every summer. But I digress.
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 theofficial 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.