Multimedia Mania/abacus-multimedia-mania.iso/dp/0062/00623.txt

Text File | 1993-07-27 | 18KB | 335 lines

$Unique_ID{bob00623}
$Pretitle{}
$Title{(A) Message From The Sea
Chapter III - Part V}
$Subtitle{}
$Author{Dickens, Charles}
$Affiliation{}
$Subject{brother
battisto
christien
like
little
now
cameos
day
fair
morning}
$Date{}
$Log{}
Title:       (A) Message From The Sea
Author:      Dickens, Charles

Chapter III - Part V

     Mr. Parvis had so greatly disquieted the minds of the Gentlemen King
Arthurs for some minutes by snoring, with strong symptoms of apoplexy, -
which, in a mild form, was his normal state of health, - that it was now
deemed expedient to wake him and entreat him to allow himself to be escorted
home.  Mr. Parvis's reply to this friendly suggestion could not be placed on
record without the aid of several dashes, and is therefore omitted.  It was
conceived in a spirit of the profoundest irritation, and executed with
vehemence, contempt, scorn, and disgust.  There was nothing for it but to let
the excellent gentleman alone, and he fell, without loss of time, into a
defiant slumber.

     The teetotum being twirled again, so buzzed and bowed in the direction of
the young fisherman, that Captain Jorgan advised him to be bright, and prepare
for the worst.  But it started off at a tangent, late in its career, and fell
before a well-looking, bearded man (one who made working drawings for
machinery, the captain was informed by his next neighbour), who promptly took
it up, like a challenger's glove.

     "Oswald Penrewen!" said the chairman.

     "Here's Unchris'en at last!" the captain whispered Alfred Raybrock.
"Unchris'en goes ahead right smart; don't he?"

     He did, without one introductory word.

     Mine is my brother's Ghost Story.  It happened to my brother about thirty
years ago, while he was wandering, sketch-book in hand, among the High Alps,
picking up subjects for an illustrated work on Switzerland. Having entered the
Oberland by the Brunig Pass, and filled his portfolio with what he used to
call "bits" from the neighbourhood of Meyringen, he went over the Great
Scheideck to Grindlewald, where he arrived one dusky September evening, about
three quarters of an hour after sunset.  There had been a fair that day, and
the place was crowded.  In the best inn there was not an inch of space to
spare - there were only two inns at Grindlewald thirty years ago - so my
brother went to one at the end of the covered bridge next the church, and
there, with some difficulty, obtained the promise of a pile of rugs and a
mattress, in a room which was already occupied by three other travellers.

     The Adler was a primitive hostelry, half farm, half inn, with great
rambling galleries outside, and a huge general room, like a barn.  At the
upper end of this room stood long stoves, like metal counters, laden with
steaming pans, and glowing underneath like furnaces.  At the lower end
smoking, supping, and chatting, were congregated some thirty or forty guests,
chiefly mountaineers, char-drivers, and guides.  Among these my brother took
his seat, and was served, like the rest, with a bowl of soup, a platter of
beef, a flagon of country wine, and a loaf made of Indian corn.  Presently a
huge St. Bernard dog came and laid his nose upon my brother's arm.  In the
mean time he fell into conversation with two Italian youths, bronzed and
dark-eyed, near whom he happened to be seated. They were Florentines.  Their
names, they told him, were Stefano, and Battisto.  They had been travelling
for some months on commission, selling cameos, mosaics, sulphur-casts, and the
like pretty Italian trifles, and were now on their way to Interlaken and
Geneva.  Weary of the cold North, they longed, like children, for the moment
which should take them back to their own blue hills and grey-green olives; to
their workshop on the Ponte Vecchio, and their home down by the Arno.

     It was quite a relief to my brother, on going up to bed, to find that
these youths were to be two of his fellow-lodgers.  The third was already
there, and sound asleep, with his face to the wall.  They scarcely looked at
this third.  They were all tired, and all anxious to rise at daybreak, having
agreed to walk together over the Wengern Alp as far as Lauterbrunnen.  So my
brother and the two youths exchanged a brief goodnight, and, before many
minutes, were all as far away in the land of dreams as their unknown
companion.

     My brother slept profoundly, - so profoundly that, being roused in the
morning by a clamour of merry voices, he sat up dreamily in his rugs, and
wondered where he was.  "Good day, Signor," cried Battisto.  "Here is a
fellow-traveller going the same way as ourselves."

     "Christien Baumann, native of Kandersteg, musical-box maker by trade,
stands five feet eleven in his shoes, and is at monsieur's service to
command," said the sleeper of the night before.

     He was a fine young fellow as one would wish to see.  Light and strong,
and well-proportioned, with curling brown hair, and bright honest eyes that
seemed to dance at every word he uttered.

     "Good morning," said my brother.  "You were asleep last night when we
came up."

     "Asleep!  I should think so, after being all day in the fair, and walking
from Meyringen the evening before.  What a capital fair it was!"

     "Capital, indeed," said Battisto.  "We sold cameos and mosaics yesterday
for nearly fifty francs."

     "O, you sell cameos and mosaics, you two!  Show me your cameos, and I
will show you my musical boxes.  I have such pretty ones, with coloured views
of Geneva and Chillon on the lids, playing two, four, six, and even eight
tunes.  Bah!  I will give you a concert!"

     And with this he unstrapped his pack, displayed his little boxes on the
table, and wound them up one after the other, to the delight of the Italians.

     "I helped to make them myself, every one," said he, proudly.  "Is it not
pretty music?  I sometimes set one of them when I go to bed at night, and fall
asleep listening to it.  I am sure, then, to have pleasant dreams!  But let us
see your cameos.  Perhaps I may buy one for Marie, if they are not too dear.
Marie is my sweetheart, and we are to be married next week."

     "Next week!" exclaimed Stefano.  "That is very soon.  Battisto has a
sweetheart also, up at Impruneta; but they will have to wait a long time
before they can buy the ring."

     Battisto blushed like a girl.

     "Hush, brother!" said he.  "Show the cameos to Christien, and give your
tongue a holiday!"

     But Christien was not so to be put off.

     "What is her name?" said he.  "Tush!  Battisto, you must tell me her
name!  Is she pretty?  Is she dark or fair?  Do you often see her when you are
at home?  Is she very fond of you?  Is she as fond of you as Marie is of me?"

     "Nay, how should I know that?" asked the soberer Battisto.  "She loves
me, and I love her, - that is all."

     "And her name?"

     "Margherita."

     "A charming name!  And she is herself as pretty as her name, I'll engage.
Did you say she was fair?"

     "I said nothing about it one way or the other," said Battisto, unlocking
a green box clamped with iron, and taking out tray after tray of his pretty
wares.  "There!  Those pictures all inlaid in little bits are Roman mosaics, -
the flowers on a black ground are Florentine.  The ground is of hard, dark
stone, and the flowers are made of thin slices of jasper, onyx, carnelian, and
so forth.  Those forget-me-nots, for instance, are bits of turquoise and that
poppy is cut from a piece of coral."

     "I like the Roman ones best," said Christien.  "What place is that with
all the arches?"

     "This is the Coliseum, and the one next to it is St. Peter's.  But we
Florentines care little for the Roman work.  It is not half so fine or so
valuable as ours.  The Romans make their mosaics of composition."

     "Composition or no, I like the little landscapes best," said Christien.
"There is a lovely one, with a pointed building, and a tree, and mountains at
the back.  How I should like that one for Marie!"

     "You may have it for eight francs," replied Battisto; "we sold two of
them yesterday for ten each.  It represented the tomb of Caius Cestius, near
Rome."

     "A tomb!" echoed Christien, considerably dismayed.  "Diable!  That would
be a dismal present to one's bride."

     "She would never guess that it was a tomb if you did not tell her,"
suggested Stefano.

     Christien shook his head.

     "That would be next door to deceiving her," said he.

     "Nay," interposed my brother, "the owner of that tomb has been dead these
eighteen or nineteen hundred years.  One almost forgets that he was ever
buried in it."

     "Eighteen or nineteen hundred years?  Then he was a heathen!"

     "Undoubtedly, if by that you mean that he lived before Christ."

     Christien's face lighted up immediately.

     "Oh, that settles the question," said he, pulling out his little canvas
purse, and paying his money down at once.  "A heathen's tomb is as good as no
tomb at all.  I'll have it made into a brooch for her, at Interlaken.  Tell
me, Battisto, what shall you take home to Italy for your Margherita?"

     Battisto laughed and chinked his eight francs.  "That depends on trade,"
said he; "if we make good profits between this and Christmas I may take her a
Swiss muslin from Berne; but we have already been away seven months, and we
have hardly made a hundred francs over and above our expenses."

     And with this the talk turned upon general matters, and the Florentines
locked away their treasures, Christien restrapped his pack, and my brother and
all went down together, and breakfasted in the open air outside the inn.

     It was a magnificent morning; cloudless and sunny, with a cool breeze
that rustled in the vine upon the porch and flecked the table with shifting
shadows of green leaves.  All around and about them stood the great mountains
with their blue-white glaciers bristling down to the verge of the pastures,
and the pine-woods creeping darkly up their sides.  To the left the
Wetterhorn; to the right, the Eigher; straight before them, dazzling and
imperishable, like an obelisk of frosted silver, the Schreckhorn, or Peak of
Terror.  Breakfast over, they bade farewell to their hostess, and, mountain
staff they bade farewell to their hostess, and, mountain staff in hand, took
the path to the Wengern Alp.  Half in light, half in shadow, lay the quiet
valley, dotted over with farms, and traversed by a torrent that rushed,
milk-white, from its prison in the glacier.  The three lads walked briskly in
advance, their voices chiming together every now and then in chorus of
laughter.  Somehow my brother felt sad.  He lingered behind, and plucking a
little red flower from the bank, watched it hurry away with the torrent, like
a life on the stream of time.  Why was his heart so heavy, and why were their
hearts so light?

     As the day went on my brother's melancholy and the mirth of the young men
seemed to increase.  Full of youth and hope they talked of the joyous future,
and built up pleasant castles in the air.  Battisto, grown more communicative,
admitted that to marry Margherita, and become a master mosaicist, wonld fulfil
the dearest dream of his life.  Stefano, not being in love, preferred to
travel.  Christien, who seemed to be the most prosperous, declared that it was
his darling ambition to rent a farm in his native Kander Valley, and lead the
patriarchal life of his fathers. As for the musical-box trade, he said, one
should live in Geneva, to make it answer; and for his part he loved the
pine-forests and the snow-peaks better than all the towns in Europe.  Marie,
too, had been born among the mountains, and it would break her heart if she
thought she were to live in Geneva all her life and never see the Kander Thal
again.  Chatting thus the morning wore on to noon, and the party rested awhile
in the shade of a clump of gigantic firs festooned with trailing banners of
gray green moss.

     Here they ate their lunch, to the silvery music of one of Christien's
little boxes, and by and by heard the sullen echo of an avalanche far away on
the shoulder of the Jungfrau.

     Then they went on again in the burning afternoon, to heights where the
Alp-rose fails from the sterile steep, and the brown lichen grows more and
more scantily among the stones.  Here only the bleached and barren skeletons
of a forest of dead pines varied the desolate monotomy; and high on the summit
of the pass stood a little solitary inn, between them and the sky.

     At this inn they rested again, and drank to the health of Christien and
his bride in a jug of country wine.  He was in uncontrollable spirits, and
shook hands with them all, over and over again.

     "By nightfall to-morrow," said he, "I shall hold her once more in my
arms!  It is now nearly two years since I came home to see her, at the end of
my apprenticeship.  Now I am foreman, with a salary of thirty francs a week,
and well able to marry."

     "Thirty francs a week!" echoed Battisto.  "Corpo di Bacco!  that is a
little fortune."

     Christien's face beamed.

     "Yes," said he, "we shall be very happy; and by and by - who knows? - we
may end our days in the Kander Thal, and bring up our children to succeed us.
Ah!  if Marie knew that I should be there to-morrow night how delighted she
would be!"

     "How so, Christien?" said my brother.  "Does she not expect you?"

     "Not a bit of it.  She has no idea that I can be there till the day after
to-morrow, - nor could I if I took the road all round by Unterseen and
Frutigen.  I mean to sleep to-night at Lauterbrunnen, and to-morrow morning
shall strike across the Tschlingel glacier to Kandersteg.  If I rise a little
before daybreak I shall be at home by sunset."

     At this moment the path took a sudden turn, and began to descend in sight
of an immense prospective of very distant valleys.  Christien flung his cap
into the air and uttered a great shout.

     "Look!" said he, stretching out his arms as if to embrace all the dear
familiar scene, - "Oh!  Look!  There are the hills and woods of Interlaken;
and here, below the precipices on which we stand, lies Lauterbrunnen!  God be
praised, who has made our native land so beautiful!"

     The Italians smiled at each other, thinking their own Arno Valley far
more fair; but my brother's heart warmed to the boy, and echoed his
thanksgiving in that spirit which accepts all beauty as a birthright and an
inheritance.  And now their course lay across an immense plateau, all rich
with corn-fields and meadows, and studded with substantial homesteads built of
old brown wood, with huge, sheltering eaves, and strings of Indian corn
hanging like golden ingots along the carven balconies.  Blue whortleberries
grew beside the footway, and now and then they came upon a wild gentian, or a
star-shaped immortelle.  Then the path became a mere zigzag on the face of the
precipice, and in less than half an hour they reached the lowest level of the
valley.  The glowing afternoon had not yet faded from the uppermost pines when
they were all dining together in the parlour of a little inn looking to the
Jungfrau.  In the evening my brother wrote letters, while the three lads
strolled about the village. At nine o'clock they bade each other good night,
and went to their several rooms.

     Weary as he was, my brother found it impossible to sleep.  The same
unaccountable melancholy still possessed him, and when at last he dropped into
an uneasy slumber, it was but to start over and over again from frightful
dreams, faint with a nameless terror.  Toward morning he fell into a profound
sleep, and never woke until the day was fast advancing toward noon.  He then
found, to his regret, that Christien had long since gone.  He had risen before
daybreak, breakfasted by candle-light, and started off in the gray dawn, - "as
merry," said the host, "as a fiddler at a fair."

     Stefano and Battisto were still waiting to see my brother, being charged
by Christien with a friendly farewell message to him, and an invitation to the
wedding.  They, too, were asked, and meant to go; so my brother agreed to meet
them at Interlaken on the following Tuesday, whence they might walk to
Kandersteg by easy stages, reaching their destination on the Thursday morning,
in time to go to church with the bridal party. My brother then bought some of
the little Florentine cameos, wished the two boys every good fortune, and
watched them down the road till he could see them no longer.

     Left now to himself, he wandered out with his sketchbook, and spent the
day in the upper valley; at sunset he dined alone in his chamber, by the light
of a single lamp.  This meal despatched, he drew nearer to the fire, took out
a pocket edition of Goethe's Essays on Art, and promised himself some hours of
pleasant reading.  (Ah, how well I know that very book, in its faded cover,
and how often have I heard him describe that lonely evening!) The right had by
this time set in cold and wet.  The damp logs spluttered on the hearth, and a
wailing wind swept down the valley, bearing the rain in sudden gusts against
the panes.  My brother soon found that to read was impossible.  His attention
wandered incessantly.  He read the same sentence over and over again,
unconscious of its meaning, and fell into long trains of thought leading far
into the dim past.