The Car That Went Abroad Part 9

nor "_Que votre coeur ne se trouble point_" with "Let not your heart be troubled." Or, at any rate, I can never bring myself to think so.

Any language is hard enough to learn--bristling with difficulties which seem needless, even offensively silly to the student. We complain of the genders and silent letters of the French, but when one's native tongue spells "cough" and calls it "cof," "rough" and calls it "ruff," "slough"

and calls it "slu" or "sluff," by choice, and "plough" and is unable to indicate adequately without signs just how it should be p.r.o.nounced, he is not in a position to make invidious comparisons. I wonder what a French student really thinks of those words. He has rules for his own sound variations, and carefully indicates them with little signs. We have sound signs, too, but an English page printed with all the necessary marks is a cause for anguish. I was once given a primary reader printed in that way, and at sight of it ran screaming to my mother. So we leave off all signs in English and trust in G.o.d for results. It is hard to be an American learning French, but I would rather be that than a Frenchman learning American.

Chapter XXI

WE LUGE

When winter comes in America, with a proper and sufficient thickness of ice, a number of persons--mainly young people--go out skating, or coasting, or sleighing, and have a very good time. But this interest is incidental--it does not exclude all other interests--it does not even provide the main topic of conversation.

It is not like that in Switzerland. Winter sport is a religion in Switzerland; the very words send a thrill through the dweller--native or foreign--among the Swiss hills. When the season of white drift and congealed lake takes possession of the land, other interests and industries are put aside for the diversions of winter.

Everything is subserved to the winter sports. French, German, and English papers report each day the thickness of snow at the various resorts, the conditions of the various courses, the program of events.

Bills at the railway stations announce the names of points where the sports are in progress, with a schedule of the fares. Hotels publish their winter attractions--their coasting (they call it "luging"--soft g), curling, skating, ski-ing accommodations, and incidentally mention their rooms. They also cover their hall carpetings with canvas to protect them from the lugers' ponderous hobnailed shoes. To be truly sporty one must wear those shoes; also certain other tr.i.m.m.i.n.gs, such as leggings, breeches, properly cut coat, cap and scarf to match. One cannot really enjoy the winter sports without these decorations, or keep in good winter society. Then there are the skis. One must carry a pair of skis to be complete. They must be as tall as the owner can reach, and when he puts them on his legs will branch out and act independently, each on its own account, and he will become a house divided against itself, with the usual results. So it is better to carry them, and look handsome and graceful, and to confine one's real activities to the more familiar things.

Our hotel was divided on winter sports. Not all went in for it, but those who did went in considerably. We had a Dutch family from Sumatra, where they had been tobacco planting for a number of years, and in that tropic land had missed the white robust joys of the long frost. They were a young, superb couple, but their children, who had never known the cold, were slender products of an enervating land. They had never seen snow and they shared their parents' enthusiasm in the winter prospect.

The white drifts on the mountaintops made them marvel; the first light fall we had made them wild.

That Dutch family went in for the winter sports. You never saw anything like it. Their plans and their outfit became the chief interest of the hotel. They engaged far in advance their rooms at Chateau d'Oex, one of the best known resorts, and they daily acc.u.mulated new and startling articles of costume to make their experience more perfect. One day they would all have new shoes of wonderful thickness and astonishing nails.

Then it would be gorgeous new scarfs and caps, then sweaters, then skates, then snowshoes, then skis, and so on down the list. Sometimes they would organize a drill in full uniform. But the children were less enthusiastic then. Those slim-legged little folks could hardly walk, weighted with several pounds of heavy hobnailed shoes, and they complained bitterly at this requirement. Their parents did not miss the humor of the situation, and I think enjoyed these preparations and incidental discomforts for the sake of pleasure as much as they could have enjoyed the sports themselves, when the time came. We gave them a hearty send-off, when reports arrived that the snow conditions at Chateau d'Oex were good, and if they had as good a time as we wished them, and as they gave us in their preparations, they had nothing to regret.

As the winter deepened the winter sport sentiment grew in our midst, until finally in January we got a taste of it ourselves. We found that we could take a little mountain road to a point in the hills called Les Avants, then a funicular to a still higher point, and thus be in the white whirl for better or worse, without being distinctly of it, so to speak. We could not be of it, of course, without the costumes, and we did not see how we could afford these and also certain new adjuncts which the car would need in the spring. So we went primarily as spectators--that is, the older half of the family. The children had their own winter sports at school.

[Ill.u.s.tration: "YOU CAN SEE SON LOUP FROM THE HOTEL STEPS IN VEVEY, BUT IT TAKES HOURS TO GET TO IT"]

We telephoned to the Son Loup hotel at the top of the last funicular, and got an early start. You can see Son Loup from the hotel steps in Vevey, but it takes hours to get to it. The train goes up, and up, along gorges and abysses, where one looks down on the tops of Christmas trees, gloriously mantled in snow. Then by and by you are at Les Avants and in the midst of everything, except the ski-ing, which is still higher up, at Son Loup.

We got off at Les Avants and picked our way across the main street among flying sleds of every pattern, from the single, st.u.r.dy little bulldog _luge_ to the great polly-straddle bob, and from the safe vantage of a cafe window observed the slide.

It was divided into three parts--one track for bobsledders--the wild riders--a track for the more daring single riders, and a track for fat folks, old folks, and children. Certainly they were having a good time.

Their ages ranged from five to seventy-five, and they were all children together. Now and then there came gliding down among them a big native sled, loaded with hay or wood, from somewhere far up in the hills. It was a perfect day--no cold, no wind, no bright sun, for in reality we were up in the clouds--a soft white veil of vapor was everywhere.

By and by we crossed the track, entered a wonderful snow garden belonging to a hotel, and came to a little pond where some old men and fat men were curling. Curling is a game where you try to drive a sort of stone decoy duck from one end of the pond to the other and make it stop somewhere and count something. Each man is armed with a big broom to keep the ice clean before and after his little duck. We watched them a good while and I cannot imagine anything more impressive than to see a fat old man with a broom padding and puffing along by the side of his little fat stone duck, feverishly sweeping the snow away in front of it, so that it will get somewhere and count. When I inadvertently laughed I could see that I was not popular. All were English there--all but a few Americans who pretended to be English.

Beyond the curling pond was a skating pond, part of it given over to an international hockey match, but somehow these things did not excite us.

We went back to our cafe corner to watch the luging and to have luncheon. Then the lugers came stamping in for refreshments, and their costumes interested us. Especially their shoes. Even the Dutch family had brought home no such wonders as some of these. They were of appalling size, and some of them had heavy iron claws or toes such as one might imagine would belong to some infernal race. These, of course, were to dig into the snow behind, to check or guide the flying sled.

They were useful, no doubt, but when one saw them on the feet of a tall, slim girl the effect was peculiar.

By the time we had finished luncheon we had grown brave. We said we would luge--modestly, but with proper spirit. There were sleds to let, by an old Frenchman, at a little booth across the way, and we looked over his a.s.sortment and picked a small bob with a steering attachment, because to guide that would be like driving a car. Then we hauled it up the fat folks' slide a little way and came down, hoo-hooing a warning to those ahead in the regulation way. We did this several times, liking it more and more. We got braver and tried the next slide, liking it still better. Then we got reckless and crossed into the bobsled scoot and tried that. Oh, fine! We did not go to the top--we did not know then how far the top was; but we went higher each time, liking it more and more, until we got up to a place where the sleds stood out at a perpendicular right angle as they swirled around a sudden circle against a constructed ice barrier. This looked dangerous, but getting more and more reckless, we decided to go even above that.

We hauled our sled up and up, constantly meeting bobsleds coming down and hearing the warning hoo-hoo-hooing of still others descending from the opaque upper mist. Still we climbed, dragging our sled, meeting bob after bob, also loads of hay and wood, and finally some walking girls who told us that the top of the slide was at Son Loup--that is, at the top of the funicular, some miles away.

We understood then; all those bobsledders took their sleds up by funicular and coasted down. We stopped there and got on our sled. The grade was very gradual at first, and we moved slowly--so slowly that a nice old lady who happened along gave us a push. We kept moving after that. We crossed a road, rounded a turn, leaped a railway track and struck into the straightway, going like a streak. We had thought it a good distance to the sharp turn, with its right-angle wall of ice, but we were there with unbelievable suddenness. Then in a second we were on the wall, standing straight out into s.p.a.ce; then in another we had shot out of it; but our curve seemed to continue.

There was a little barnyard just there and an empty hay sled--placed there on purpose, I think now. At any rate, the owner was there watching the performance. I think he had been expecting us. When all motion ceased he untelescoped us, and we limped about and discussed with him in native terms how much we ought to pay for the broken runner on his hay sled, and minor damages. It took five francs to cure the broken runner, which I believe had been broken all the time and was just set there handy to catch inadvertent persons like ourselves. We finished our slide then and handed in our sled, which the old Frenchman looked at fondly and said: "_Tres bon--tres vite._" He did not know how nearly its speed had come to landing us in the newspapers.

We took the funicular to Son Loup, and at the top found ourselves in what seemed atmospheric milk. We stood at the hotel steps and watched the swift coasters pa.s.s. Every other moment they flashed by, from a white mystery above--a vision of faces, a call of voices--to the inclosing mystery again. It was like life; but not entirely, for they did not pa.s.s to silence. The long, winding hill far below was full of their calls'--m.u.f.fled by the mist--their hoo-hoo-hoos of warning to those ahead and to those who followed. But it was suggestive, too. It was as if the lost were down there in that cold whiteness.

The fog grew thicker, more opaque, as the day waned. It was an impalpable wall. We followed the road from the hotel, still higher into its dense obscurity. When a tree grew near enough to the road for us to see it, we beheld an astonishing sight. The mist had gathered about the evergreen branches until they were draped, festooned, fairly clotted with pendulous frost embroidery.

We had been told that there was ski-ing up there and we were anxious to see it, but for a time we found only blankness and dead silence. Then at last--far and faint, but growing presently more distinct--we heard a light sound, a movement, a "swish-swish-swirl"--somewhere in the mist at our right, coming closer and closer, until it seemed right upon us, and strangely mysterious, there being no visible cause. We waited until a form appeared, no, grew, materialized from the intangible--so imperceptibly, so gradually, that at first we could not be sure of it.

Then the outlines became definite, then distinct; an athletic fellow on skis maneuvered across the road, angled down the opposite slope, "swish-swish-swirl"--checking himself every other stroke, for the descent was steep--faded into unknown deeps below--the whiteness had shut him in. We listened while the swish-swish grew fainter, and in the gathering evening we felt that he had disappeared from the world into ravines of dark forests and cold enchantments from which there could be no escape.

We climbed higher and met dashing sleds now and then, but saw no other ski-ers that evening. Next morning, however, we found them up there, gliding about in that region of vapors, appearing and dissolving like cinema figures, their voices coming to us m.u.f.fled and unreal in tone. I left the road and followed down into a sort of basin which seemed to be a favorite place for ski practice. I felt exactly as if I were in a ghostly aquarium.

I was not much taken with ski-ing, as a whole. I noticed that even the experts fell down a good many times and were not especially graceful getting up.

But I approve of coasting under the new conditions--_i. e._ with funicular a.s.sistance. In my day coasting was work--you had to tug and sweat up a long slippery incline for a very brief pleasure. Keats (I think it was Keats, or was it Carolyn Wells?) in his, or her, well-known and justly celebrated poem wrote:

It takes a long time to make the climb, And a minute or less to come down;

But that poetry is out of date--in Switzerland. It no longer takes a long time to make the climb, and you do it in luxury. You sit in a comfortable seat and your sled is loaded on an especially built car.

Switzerland is the most funiculated country in the world; its hills are full of these semi-perpendicular tracks. They make you shudder when you mount them for the first time, and I think I never should be able to discuss frivolous matters during an ascent, as I have seen some do.

Still, one gets hardened, I suppose.

They are cheap. You get commutation tickets for very little, and all day long coasters are loading their sleds on the little shelved flatcar, piling themselves into the coach, then at the top s.n.a.t.c.hing off their sleds to go whooping away down the long track to the lower station.

Coasters get killed now and then, and are always getting damaged in one way and another; for the track skirts deep declivities, and there are bound to be slips in steering, and collisions. We might have stayed longer and tried it again, but we were still limping from our first experiment. Besides, we were not dressed for the real thing. Dress may not make the man, but it makes the sportsman.

Part II

MOTORING THROUGH THE GOLDEN AGE

Chapter I

THE NEW PLAN

But with the breaking out of the primroses and the hint of a pale-green beading along certain branches in the hotel garden, the desire to be going, and seeing, and doing; to hear the long drowse of the motor and look out over the revolving distances; to drop down magically, as it were, on this environment and that--began to trickle and p.r.i.c.kle a little in the blood, to light pale memories and color new plans.

We could not go for a good while yet. For spring is really spring in Switzerland--not advance installments of summer mixed with left-overs from winter, but a fairly steady condition of damp coolness--sunlight that is not hot, showers that are not cold--the snow on the mountainsides advancing and retreating--sometimes, in the night, getting as low down as Chardonne, which is less than half an hour's walk above the hotel.

There is something curiously unreal about this Swiss springtime. We saw the trees break out into leaf, the fields grow vividly green and fresh, and then become gay with flowers, without at all feeling the reason for such a mood. In America such a change is wrought by hot days--cold ones, too, perhaps, but certainly hot ones; we have sweltered in April, though we have sometimes s...o...b..lled in May. The Swiss spring was different. Three months of gradual, almost unnoticeable, mellowing kept us from getting excited and gave us plenty of time to plan.

That was good for us--the trip we had in mind now was no mere matter of a few days' journey, from a port to a destination; it was to be a wandering that would stretch over the hills and far away, through some thousands of kilometers and ten weeks of time. That was about all we had planned concerning it, except that we were going back into France, and at one point in those weeks we expected to touch Cherbourg and pick up a missing member of the family who would be dropped there by a pa.s.sing ship. We studied the maps a good deal, and at odd times I tinkered with the car and wondered how many things would happen to it before we completed the long circle, and if I would return only partially crippled or a hopeless heap of damage and explanations. Never mind--the future holds sorrow enough for all of us. Let us antic.i.p.ate only its favors.

So we planned. We sent for a road map of France divided into four sections, showing also western Germany and Switzerland. We spread it out on the table and traced a variety of routes to Cherbourg; by Germany, by Paris direct, by a long loop down into southern France. We favored the last-named course. We had missed some things in the Midi--Nimes, Pont du Gard, Orange--and then there was still a quality in the air which made us feel that the south would furnish better motor weather in May.

Ah, me! There is no place quite like the Provence. It is rather dusty, and the people are drowsy and sometimes noisy, and there are mosquitoes there, and maybe other unpleasant things; but in the light chill of a Swiss spring day there comes a memory of rich mellowness and September roadsides, with gold and purple vintage ripening in the sun, that lights and warms the soul. We would start south, we said. We were not to reach Cherbourg until June. Plenty of time for the north, then, and later.