The Spell of Switzerland Part 9

They expected a melancholy Eastern melody, but, instead, he uttered "a strange, wild howl" admirably suited to the das.h.i.+ng waves with which they were struggling. A few days later the Sh.e.l.leys moved across to the south side of the lake, and settled down at Campagne Mont-Allegre.

Byron stayed at Secheron, but used often to row over to visit them.

Finally, he himself rented the Villa Diodati, which stands a little higher up.

He and Sh.e.l.ley made a tour of the lake and had some exciting experiences. They left Mont-Allegre on June 23 and spent the first night at Nerni, where Byron declared he had not slept in such a bed since he left Greece five years before. At Evian, on the French side, they had trouble with their pa.s.sports, but, when the Syndic learned Byron's name and rank, he apologized for their treatment of him and left him in peace. On June 26 they were at Chillon. Off Meillerie they were attacked by what Byron called a squall. Sh.e.l.ley described it in a letter to Thomas Love Peac.o.c.k:--

"The wind gradually increased in violence, until it blew tremendously; and as it came from the remotest extremity of the lake, produced waves of a frightful height, and covered the whole surface with a chaos of foam. One of our boatmen, who was a dreadfully stupid fellow, persisted in holding the sail at a time when the boat was on the point of being driven under water by the hurricane. On discovering his error he let it entirely go and the boat for a moment refused to obey the helm; in addition the rudder was so broken as to render the management of it very difficult; one wave fell in, and then another. My companion, an excellent swimmer, took off his coat, I did the same, and we sat with our arms crossed, every instant expecting to be swamped. The sail was, however, again held, the boat obeyed the helm, and still in imminent peril from the immensity of the waves, we arrived in a few minutes at a sheltered port, in the village of Saint-Gingoux."

Byron, in a letter to John Murray, wrote:--"I ran no risk, being so near the rocks, and a good swimmer; but our party were wet and incommodated a good deal; the wind was strong enough to blow down some trees, as we found at landing."

He was at this very time engaged in composing the third canto of "Childe Harold."

[Ill.u.s.tration: MONT BLANC.]

On the third of June he had been dazzled by a glimpse of "yonder Alpine snow--Imperishably pure beyond all things below," and a month later he wrote, "I have this day observed for some time the distinct reflection of Mont Blanc and Mont Argentiere in the calm of the lake, which I was crossing in my boat. The distance of these mountains from their mirror is sixty miles." In the poem he sings--I believe that is the proper verb!--

"Lake Leman woos me with its crystal face, The mirror where the stars and mountains view The stillness of their aspect in each trace Its clear depth yields of their far height and hue: There is too much of man here, to look through With a fit mind the might which I behold; But soon in me shall Loneliness renew Thoughts hid, but not less cherished than of old, Ere mingling with the herd had penned me in its fold....

"Is it not better, then, to be alone And love Earth only for its earthly sake By the blue rus.h.i.+ng of the arrowy Rhone, Or the pure bosom of its nursing lake, Which feeds it as a mother who doth make A fair but froward infant her own care, Kissing its cries away as these awake;-- Is it not better thus our lives to wear, Than join the crus.h.i.+ng crowd, doomed to inflict or bear?

"I live not in myself, but I become Portion of that around me; and to me, High mountains are a feeling, but the hum Of human cities torture: I can see Nothing to loathe in nature, save to be A link reluctant in a fleshly chain, Cla.s.sed among creatures, when the soul can flee, And with the sky, the peak, the heaving plain Of ocean, or the stars, mingle, and not in vain."

And again further along:--

"Clear, placid Leman! thy contrasted lake, With the wide world I dwelt in, is a thing Which warns me, with its stillness, to forsake Earth's troubled waters for a purer spring.

This quiet sail is as a noiseless wing To waft me from distraction; once I loved Torn ocean's roar, but thy soft murmuring Sounds sweet as if a Sister's voice reproved, That I with stern delights should e'er have been so moved."

And how beautifully he describes night on the lake:--

"It is the hush of night, and all between Thy margin and the mountains, dusk, yet clear, Mellowed and mingling, yet distinctly seen, Save darkened Jura, whose capt heights appear Precipitously steep; and drawing near, There breathes a living fragrance from the sh.o.r.e, Of flowers yet fresh with childhood; on the ear Drops the light drip of the suspended oar, Or chirps the gra.s.shopper one good-night carol more;

"He is an evening reveller, who makes His life an infancy, and sings his fill; At intervals, some bird from out the brakes Starts into voice a moment, then is still.

There seems a floating whisper on the hill, But that is fancy, for the starlight dews All silently their tears of love instil, Weeping themselves away, till they infuse Deep into Nature's breast the spirit of her hues.

"Ye stars! which are the poetry of heaven, If in your bright leaves we would read the fate Of men and empires,--'tis to be forgiven, That in our aspirations to be great, Our destinies o'erleap their mortal state, And claim a kindred with you; for ye are A beauty and a mystery, and create In us such love and reverence from afar, That fortune, fame, power, life, have named themselves a star.

"All heaven and earth are still--though not in sleep, But breathless, as we grow when feeling most: And silent, as we stand in thoughts too deep:-- All heaven and earth are still: From the high host Of stars, to the lulled lake and mountain-coast, All is concentered in a life intense, Where not a beam, nor air, nor leaf is lost, But hath a part of being, and a sense Of that which is of all Creator and defence."

He is in his darkest, gloomiest, most characteristic pose when he describes a storm at night:--

"The sky is changed! and such a change! O night And storm and darkness, ye are wondrous strong, Yet lovely in your strength, as in the light Of a dark eye in woman! Far along, From peak to peak, the rattling crags among, Leaps the live thunder! Not from one lone cloud, But every mountain now hath found a tongue; And Jura answers, through her misty shroud, Back to the joyous Alps, who call to her aloud!

"And this is in the night:--Most glorious night!

Thou wert not sent for slumber! let me be A sharer in thy fierce and far delight-- A portion of the tempest and of thee!

How the lit lake s.h.i.+nes, a phosphoric sea, And the big rain comes dancing to the earth!

And now again 'tis black,--and now, the glee Of the loud hills shakes with its mountain-mirth, As if they did rejoice o'er a young earthquake's birth.

"Now, where the swift Rhone cleaves his way between Heights which appear as lovers who have parted In hate, whose mining depths so intervene, That they can meet no more, though broken-hearted; Though in their souls, which thus each other thwarted, Love was the very root of the fond rage Which blighted their life's bloom, and then departed; Itself expired, but leaving them an age Of years all winters--war within themselves to wage.

"Now, where the quick Rhone thus hath cleft his way, The mightiest of the storms hath ta'en his stand: For here, not one, but many, make their play, And fling their thunderbolts from hand to hand, Flas.h.i.+ng and cast around; of all the band, The brightest through these parted hills hath forked His lightnings, as if he did understand That in such gaps as desolation worked, There the hot shaft should blast whatever therein lurked.

"Sky, mountains, river, winds, lake, lightnings! ye, With night, and clouds, and thunder, and a soul To make these felt and feeling, well may be Things that have made me watchful; the far roll Of your departing voices, is the knoll Of what in me is sleepless,--if I rest.

But where of ye, O tempests! is the goal?

Are ye like those within the human breast?

Or do ye find at length, like eagles, some high nest?

"Could I embody and unbosom now That which is most within me,--could I wreak My thoughts upon expression, and thus throw Soul, heart, mind, pa.s.sions, feelings, strong or weak, All that I would have sought, and all I seek, Bear, know, feel, and yet breathe--into one word, And that one word were Lightning, I would speak; But as it is, I live and die unheard, With a most voiceless thought, sheathing it as a sword."

The Swiss poet, Juste Olivier, grows enthusiastic over the beauty of Chillon:--

"What perfection!" he exclaims, "What purity of lines, what suavity of harmony! In this gulf which one might describe as merging from the lake like a thought of love, in this manoir growing out of the bosom of the billows with its dentelated towers, petals bourgeonning from a n.o.ble flower, in this encirclement of mountains and these white or rosy peaks which hold them in close embrace, there is something which bids you pause, takes you out of yourself and in order to complete the enchantment compels you to love it."

And he goes on to tell how once dwelt here the little Charlemagne, brave Count Pierre, who, when he was ill, used to look out on the joyous waves, living in memory his battles, his tourneys and his festivities. Here, too, his brother, the Seigneur Aymon, used to lie on a vast bed with hangings of armorial silk and surrounded by candles, while he listened to melancholy tales or comic adventures from the poor pilgrims whom he sheltered. In that day the feudal kitchen, with its marquetrie floor, used to see a whole ox roasted to give meat to the visitors, and great casks of wine from the Haut Cret used to cheer the down-hearted. Little did the revellers care for the poor wretches below in the dungeons where the light filtering through the loop-holes failed to dissipate the gloomy shadows or make clearer the visions which solitude evoked from the stormy strip of sky.

The finest aspect of Chillon is from a point just a few hundred meters out into the lake. There it has a double background; the steep, green-wooded slope tumbling down from the Bois de la Raveyre, and, beyond the head of the lake, the saw-like roof of the snow-capped Dent du Midi. It does indeed look like a tooth--like the colossal molar of the king of the mastodons. It was too early in the day to see the Alpenglow; but afterwards many times I saw it, not only on this imperial height but also on the heads of Mont Blanc and his haughty va.s.sals and on many another sky-defying range, either bare of snow or wearing the ermine of the clouds.

As it happened, that beautiful day in May, not a cloud, not a wisp of cloud, hovered over the rugged bosom of the mighty mountain. It stood out with startling clearness against a dazzling blue sky, and was framed between the converging slopes of the mountains that meet the lake beyond Chillon and on the other side, beyond Villeneuve. The lofty red-capped central tower of the ancient castle seemed as high, or rather made the first step up to the mountains that cut off the view of the base of the grander height.

Taken all in all, is there on earth any bit of landscape more interesting and thrilling in its combination of picturesque beauty and historical a.s.sociation?

CHAPTER IX

A PRINCESS AND THE SPELL OF THE LAKE

Years ago I used to know the Princess Koltsova-Masalskaya, who under the name of Dora d'Istria wrote many stories and semi-historical works. She was a most cultivated and fascinating woman. In her book, "Au Bord des Lacs Helvetiques," she criticizes Lord Byron's description of Lake Leman. She says:--

"When one comes in the spring to the Pays de Vaud, one does not at first see all the beauty so many times celebrated by poets and travelers. In rereading Byron and Jean-Jacques Rousseau, one is inclined to conjecture that they were obliged to have recourse to quite fanciful descriptions, in order to justify their boasts.

"Byron, in spite of the power of his genius, is a rather vulgar painter of the splendors of nature. He contents himself with vague traits and what he says of the Lake of Geneva would apply just as well to the Lake of the Four Cantons or the Lake of Zurich. Rousseau himself seems to have found the subject only partly poetic, for he exhausts himself in describing Julie's imaginary orchard, which would have been much better situated in the Emmenthal than on the vine-covered slopes above Lake Leman. In gazing at the hillsides, rough with the blackened grape-vines, one can easily understand the motive which prompted the author of 'La Nouvelle Helose' to prefer an ideal picture to the reality.

"When one leaves the plain in the month of April, one has already enjoyed the smiles of the Spring. The fresh young gra.s.s covers the earth with an emerald-colored carpet. The willows swing their silvery catkins at the edges of the streams, while along the edges of the forests gleams the silvery calix of the wood-anemone. Here, the vines are slower; the walnut-trees have not been hasty in opening their big buds and, as the sh.o.r.es of the Lake of Geneva have very little other vegetation than walnut-trees and vines, this region presents, during the first fine days, an aspect not calculated to seduce the eye or speak to the imagination.

"We should get a very false idea of it, however, if at this season of the year we visited only the sh.o.r.es of the lake, and did not make our way up into the mountains where so many fruit trees spread over the rejuvenated turf the fragrant snow of their petals."

The Princess tells how Eleonora de Haltingen came to reside at Veytaux with her mother in November, 1858. She liked to go down to Montreux, "the princ.i.p.al group of houses in that parish." She used to follow a path thus described:--"A foot-path worn among the vines led toward the grotto surmounted by the terrace of the church. This foot-path was impracticable for crinolines; no dust was found, or pallid misses with blue veils, or tourists with airs of conquerors, or noisy children--all such things spoil the most delicious landscapes. But one could admire at one's ease the luxurious vegetation of the vines, the transparent grapes, the flexible and s.h.i.+ning leaves of the maise growing amid the vineyards....

"We admired the magnificent spectacle spread before our eyes,"

continues her biographer, "as we picked bouquets of the silene which makes great, rosy cl.u.s.ters in the old walls. These walls are placed there to hold up the vines and they serve as a retreat for a mult.i.tude of swift lizards which sleep there during the winter and whose bright little faces and infantile curiosity were a delight to us. As soon as we had pa.s.sed a few steps beyond their holes we could see them emerge, c.o.c.k up their heads, turning to the right and then to the left, with their bright eyes sparkling, and then dart away whenever there would be heard on the path the heavy shoes used by the Vaudois women, for it is said that their musical ear likes only harmonious noises. This inquisitiveness must cost the poor little saurians dear. The bald-buzzards, wheeling in the blue above our heads, seemed by no means indifferent to their movements. And so we kept finding one and another that showed traces of an existence very difficult to preserve.

One would lack a paw, another its tail. Finally several, covered with dust, their skins faded and their eyes dulled, fled precipitately so as to leave the foot-path free to those of their brethren whose bright and gilded garb contrasted with their air of wretchedness and suffering, so deeply does misfortune modify the most sociable character."

Then, after they had enlarged their bouquets by jasmine and syringa blossoms, with Alpine roses and golden-tinged cytisus, they would go to the grotto and from there to the terrace behind the church. The Princess thus describes the scene:--

"Sheltered by enormous walnut-trees, this grotto, which opens in a crag hung with ivy, gives pa.s.sage to a brook which falls with a gentle murmur past a bathing establishment, a three-storied, rustic chalet charming to look at. Jasmines and rose-bush boxes deck the ground-floor and the first story with their graceful branches and give the place the appearance of a ma.s.s of verdure and of flowers.