interlachen! how peacefully, by the margin of the swift-rushing aar, thou liest, on the broad lap of those romantic meadows, all overshadowed by the wide arms of giant trees! only the round towers of thine ancient cloister rise above their summits; the round towers themselves, but a child's playthings under the great church-towers of the mountains. close beside thee are lakes, which the flowing band of the river ties together. before thee opens the magnificent valley of lauterbrunn, where the cloud-hooded monk and pale virgin stand like saint francis and his bride of snow; and all around thee are fields, and orchards, and hamlets green, from which the church-bells answer each other at evening! the eveningsun was setting when i first beheld thee! the sun of life will set ere i forget thee! surely it was a scene like this, that inspired the soul of the swiss poet, in his song of the bell!
"bell! thou soundest merrily,
when the bridal party
to the church doth hie!
bell! thou soundest solemnly,
when, on sabbath morning,
fields deserted lie!
"bell! thou soundest merrily;
tellest thou at evening,
bed-time draweth nigh!
bell! thou soundest mournfully;
tellest thou the bitter
parting hath gone by!
"say! how canst thou mourn?
how canst thou rejoice?
art but metal dull!
and yet all our sorrowings,
and all our rejoicings,
thou dost feel them all!
"god hath wonders many,
which we cannot fathom,
placed within thy form!
when the heart is sinking,
thou alone canst raise it,
trembling in the storm!"
paul flemming alighted at one of the principal hotels. the landlord came out to meet him. he had great eyes and a green coat; and reminded flemming of the innkeeper mentioned in the golden ass, who had been changed by magic into a frog, and croaked to his customers from the lees of a wine-cask. his house, he said, was full; and so was every house in interlachen; but, if the gentleman would walk into the parlour, he would procure a chamber for him, in the neighbourhood.
on the sofa sat a gentleman, reading; a stout gentleman of perhaps forty-five, round, ruddy, and with a head, which, being a little bald on the top, looked not unlike a crow's nest, with one egg in it. a good-humored face turned from the book as flemming entered; and a good-humored voice exclaimed;
"ha! ha! mr. flemming! is it you, or your apparition! i told you we should meet again! though you were for taking an eternal farewell of your fellow-traveller."
saying these words, the stout gentleman rose and shook flemming heartily by the hand. and flemming returned the shake as heartily, recognising in this ruddy personage, a former travelling companion, mr. berkley, whom he had left, a week or two previous, toiling up the righi. mr. berkley was an englishman of fortune; a good-humored, humane old bachelor; remarkable alike for his common sense and his eccentricity. that is to say, the basis of his character was good, sound common sense, trodden down and smoothed by education; but this level groundwork his strange and whimsical fancy used as a dancing-floor, whereon to exhibit her eccentric tricks. his ruling passion was cold-bathing; and he usually ate his breakfast sitting in a tub of cold water, and reading a newspaper. he kissed every child he met; and to every old man, said in passing, "god bless you!" with such an expression of voice and countenance, that no one could doubt his sincerity. he reminded one of roger bontemps, or the little man in gray; though with a difference.
"the last time i had the pleasure of seeing you, mr. berkley," said flemming, "was at goldau, just as you were going up the righi. i hope you were gratified with a fine sunrise on the mountain top."
"no, sir, i was not!" replied mr. berkley. "it is all a humbug! a confounded humbug! they made such a noise about their sunrise, that i determined i would not see it. so i lay snug in bed; and only peeped through the window curtain. that was enough. just above the house, on the top of the hill, stood some fifty half-dressed, romantic individuals, shivering in the wet grass; and, a short distance from them, a miserable wretch, blowing a long, wooden horn. that's your sunrise on the righi, is it? said i; and went to sleep again. the best thing i saw at the culm, was the advertisement on the bed-room doors, saying, that, if the ladies would wear the quilts and blankets for shawls, when they went out to see the sunrise, they must pay for the washing. take my word for it, the righi is a great humbug!"
"where have you been since?"
"at zurich and schaffhausen. if you go to zurich, beware how you stop at the raven. they will cheat you. they cheated me; but i had my revenge, for, when we reached schaffhausen, i wrote in the traveller's book;
beware of the raven of zurich!
't is a bird of omen ill;
with a noisy and an unclean nest,
and a very, very long bill.
if you go to the golden falken you will find it there. i am the author of those lines!"
"bitter as juvenal!" exclaimed flemming.
"not in the least bitter," said mr. berkley. "it is all true. go to the raven and see. but this interlachen! this interlachen! it is the loveliest spot on the face of the earth," he continued, stretching out both arms, as if to embrace the objectof his affection. "there,--only look out there!"
here he pointed to the window. flemming looked, and beheld a scene of transcendent beauty. the plain was covered already by the brown shade of the summer twilight. from the cottage roofs in unterseen rose here and there a thin column of smoke over the tops of the trees and mingled with the evening shadows. the valley of lauterbrunnen was filled with a blue haze. far above, in the clear, cloudless heaven, the white forehead of the jungfrau blushed at the last kiss of the departing sun. it was a glorious transfiguration of nature! and when the village bells began to ring, and a single voice at a great distance was heard yodling forth a ballad, it rather broke than increased the enchantment of a scene, where silence was more musical than sound.
for a long time they gazed at the gloaming landscape, and spake not. at length people came into the parlour, and laid aside their shawls and hats, and exchanged a word or two with berkley to flemming they were all unknown. to him it was all mr. brown and mrs. johnson, and nothing more. the conversation turned upon the various excursions of the day. some had been at the staubbach, others at the grindelwald; others at the lake of thun; and nobody before had ever experienced half the rapture, which they had experienced that day. and thus they sat in the twilight, as people love to do, at the close of a summer day. as yet the lamps had not been lighted; and one could not distinguish faces; but voices only, and forms, like shadows.
presently a female figure, clothed in black, entered the room and sat down by the window. she rather listened to the conversation, than joined in it; but the few words she said were spoken in a voice so musical and full of soul, that it moved the soul of flemming, like a whisper from heaven.
o, how wonderful is the human voice! it is indeed the organ of the soul! the intellect of man sits enthroned visibly upon his forehead and in his eye; and the heart of man is written uponhis countenance. but the soul reveals itself in the voice only; as god revealed himself to the prophet of old in the still, small voice; and in a voice from the burning bush. the soul of man is audible, not visible. a sound alone betrays the flowing of the eternal fountain, invisible to man!
flemming would fain have sat and listened for hours to the sound of that unknown voice. he felt sure, in his secret heart, that the being from whom it came was beautiful. his imagination filled up the faint outline, which the eye beheld in the fading twilight, and the figure stood already in his mind, like raphael's beautiful madonna in the dresden gallery. he was never more mistaken in his life. the voice belonged to a beautiful being, it is true; but her beauty was different from that of any madonna which raphael ever painted; as he would have seen, had he waited till the lamps were lighted. but in the midst of his reverie and saint-painting, the landlord came in, andtold him he had found a chamber, which he begged him to go and look at.
flemming took his leave and departed. berkley went with him, to see, he said, what kind of a nest his young friend was to sleep in.
"the chamber is not what i could wish," said the landlord, as he led them across the street. "it is in the old cloister. but to-morrow or next day, you can no doubt have a room at the house."
the name of the cloister struck flemming's imagination pleasantly. he was owl enough to like ruins and old chambers, where nuns or friars had slept. and he said to berkley;
"so, you perceive, my nest is to be in a cloister. it already makes me think of a bird's-nest i once saw on an old tower of heidelberg castle, built in the jaws of a lion, which formerly served as a spout. but pray tell me, who was that young lady, with the soft voice?"
"what young lady with the soft voice?"
"the young lady in black, who sat by the window."
"o, she is the daughter of an english officer, who died not long ago at naples. she is passing the summer here with her mother, for her health."
"what is her name?"
"ashburton."
"is she beautiful?"
"not in the least; but very intellectual. a woman of genius, i should say."
and now they had reached the walls of the cloister, and passed under an arched gateway, and close beneath the round towers, which flemming had already seen, rising with their cone-shaped roofs above the trees, like tall tapers, with extinguishers upon them.
"it is not so bad, as it looks," said the landlord, knocking at a small door, in the main building. "the bailiff lives in one part of it."
a servant girl, with a candle in her hand, opened the door, and conducted flemming and berkley to the chamber which had been engaged. it was a large room on the lower floor, wainscoted with pine, and unpainted. three lofty and narrowwindows, with leaden lattices and small panes, looked southward towards the valley of lauterbrunnen and the mountains. in one corner was a large square bed, with a tester and checked curtains. in another, a huge stove of painted tiles, reaching almost to the ceiling. an old sofa, a few high-backed antique chairs, and a table, completed the furniture of the room.
thus flemming took possession of his monkish cell and dormitory. he ordered tea, and began to feel at home. berkley passed the evening with him. on going away he said;
"good night! i leave you to the care of the virgin and all the saints. if the ghost of any old monk comes back after his prayer-book, my compliments to him. if i were a younger man, you certainly should see a ghost. good night!"
when he had departed, flemming opened the lattice of one of the windows. the moon had risen, and silvered the dark outline of the nearest hills; while, afar off, the snowy summits of the jungfrau and the silver-horn shone like a white cloud in the sky. close beneath the windows was a flower-garden; and the breath of the summer night came to him with dewy fragrance. there was a grateful seclusion about the place. he blessed the happy accident, which gave him such a lodging, and fell asleep that night thinking of the nuns, who once had slept in the same quiet cells; but neither wimpled nun nor cowled monk appeared to him in his dreams; not even the face of mary ashburton; nor did he hear her voice.
