by Mark Twain
“Yes . . . . . . . . very true . . . . . . . . . that is correct. And then what?”
“Executive session of the Senate at 2 p. m.,—got to get the appointment confirmed,—I reckon you’ll grant that?”
“Yes . . . . . . yes,” said Riley, meditatively, “you are right again. Then you take the train for New York in the evening, and the steamer for San Francisco next morning?”
“That’s it,—that’s the way I map it out?”
Riley considered a while, and then said,—
“You couldn’t stay . . . . . . . a day . . . . . . well, say two days longer?”
“Bless your soul, no! It’s not my style. I ain’t a man to go fooling around,—I’m a man that does things, I tell you.”
The storm was raging, the thick snow blowing in gusts. Riley stood silent, apparently deep in a reverie, during a minute or more, then he looked up and said,—
“Have you ever heard about that man who put up at Gads-by’s, once? . . . . . But I see you haven’t.”
He backed Mr. Lykins against an iron fence, buttonholed him, fastened him with his eye, like the ancient mariner, and proceeded to unfold his narrative as placidly and peacefully as if we were all stretched comfortably in a blossomy summer meadow instead of being persecuted by a wintry midnight tempest:
“I will tell you about that man. It was in Jackson’s time. Gadsby’s was the principal hotel, then. Well, this man arrived from Tennessee about nine o’clock, one morning, with a black coachman and a splendid four-horse carriage and an elegant dog, which he was evidently fond and proud of; he drove up before Gadsby’s and the clerk and the landlord and everybody rushed out to take charge of him, but he said, ‘Never mind’ and jumped out and told the coachman to wait,—said he hadn’t time to take anything to eat, he only had a little claim against the government to collect, would run across the way, to the Treasury, and fetch the money, and then get right along back to Tennessee, for he was in considerable of a hurry.
“Well, about eleven o’clock that night he came back and ordered a bed and told them to put the horses up,—said he would collect the claim in the morning. This was in January, you understand,—January 1834,—the 3d of January,—Wednesday.
“Well, on the 5th of February, he sold the fine carriage, and bought a cheap second-hand one,—said it would answer just as well to take the money home in, and he didn’t care for style.
“On the 11th of August he sold a pair of the fine horses,—said he’d often thought a pair was better than four, to go over the rough mountain roads with where a body had to be careful about his driving,—and there wasn’t so much of his claim but he could lug the money home with a pair easy enough.
“On the 13th of December he sold another horse,—said two warn’t necessary to drag that old light vehicle with,—in fact one could snatch it along faster than was absolutely necessary, now that it was good solid winter weather and the roads in splendid condition.
“On the seventeenth of February, 1835, he sold the old carriage and bought a cheap second-hand buggy,—said a buggy was just the trick to skim along mushy, slushy early spring roads with, and he had always wanted to try a buggy on those mountain roads, anyway.
“On the 1st of August he sold the buggy and bought the remains of an old sulky,—said he just wanted to see those green Tennesseans stare and gawk when they saw him come a-ripping along in a sulky,—didn’t believe they’d ever heard of a sulky in their lives.
“Well, on the 29th of August he sold his colored coachman, —said he didn’t need a coachman for a sulky,—wouldn’t be room enough for two in it anyway,—and besides it wasn’t every day that Providence sent a man a fool who was willing to pay nine hundred dollars for such a third-rate negro as that,—been wanting to get rid of the creature for years, but didn’t like to throw him away.
“Eighteen months later,—that is to say, on the 15th of February, 1837,—he sold the sulky and bought a saddle,—said horse-back riding was what the doctor had always recommended him to take, and dog’d if he wanted to risk his neck going over those mountain roads on wheels in the dead of winter, not if he knew himself.
“On the 9th of April he sold the saddle,—said he wasn’t going to risk his life with any perishable saddle-girth that ever was made, over a rainy, miry April road, while he could ride bare-back and know and feel he was safe,—always had despised to ride on a saddle, anyway.
“On the 24th of April he sold his horse,—said ‘I’m just 57 to-day, hale and hearty,—it would be a pretty howdy-do for me to be wasting such a trip as that and such weather as this, on a horse, when there ain’t anything in the world so splendid as a tramp on foot through the fresh spring woods and over the cheery mountains, to a man that is a man,—and I can make my dog carry my claim in a little bundle anyway, when it’s collected. So to-morrow I’ll be up bright and early, make my little old collection, and mosey off to Tennessee, on my own hind legs, with a rousing Good-bye, to Gadsby’s.’
“On the 22d of June he sold his dog,—said ‘Dern a dog, anyway, where you’re just starting off on a rattling bully pleasure-tramp through the summer woods and hills,—perfect nuisance,—chases the squirrels, barks at everything, goes a-capering and splattering around in the fords,—man can’t get any chance to reflect and enjoy nature,—and I’d a blamed sight ruther carry the claim myself, it’s a mighty sight safer; a dog’s mighty uncertain in a financial way,—always noticed it,—well, good-bye, boys,—last call,—I’m off for Tennessee with a good leg and a gay heart, early in the morning!’ ”
There was a pause and a silence,—except the noise of the wind and the pelting snow. Mr. Lykins said, impatiently,—
“Well?”
Riley said,—
“Well,—that was thirty years ago.”
“Very well, very well,—what of it?”
“I’m great friends with that old patriarch. He comes every evening to tell me good-bye. I saw him an hour ago,—he’s off for Tennessee early to-morrow morning,—as usual; said he calculated to get his claim through and be off before night-owls like me have turned out of bed. The tears were in his eyes, he was so glad he was going to see his old Tennessee and his friends once more.”
Another silent pause. The stranger broke it,—
“Is that all?”
“That is all.”
“Well, for the time of night, and the kind of night, it seems to me the story was full long enough. But what’s it all for?”
“O, nothing in particular.”
“Well, where’s the point of it?”
“O, there isn’t any particular point to it. Only, if you are not in too much of a hurry to rush off to San Francisco with that post-office appointment, Mr. Lykins, I’d advise you to ‘put up at Gadsby’s’ for a spell, and take it easy. Good-bye. God bless you!”
So saying, Riley blandly turned on his heel and left the astonished school teacher standing there, a musing and motionless snow image shining in the broad glow of the street lamp.
He never got that post-office.
To go back to Lucerne and its fishers, I concluded, after about nine hours’ waiting, that the man who proposes to tarry till he sees somebody hook one of those well-fed and experienced fishes will find it wisdom to “put up at Gadsby’s” and take it easy. It is likely that a fish has not been caught on that lake pier for forty years; but no matter, the patient fisher watches his cork there all the day long, just the same, and seems to enjoy it. One may see the fisher-loafers just as thick and contented and happy and patient all along the Seine at Paris, but tradition says that the only thing ever caught there in modern times is a thing they don’t fish for at all,—the recent dog and the translated cat.
CHAPTER XXVII
CLOSE BY THE Lion of Lucerne is what they call the “Glacier Garden,”—and it is the only one in the world. It is on high ground. Four or five years ago, some workmen who were digging foundations for a house came upon this interesting relic of a long departed age. Scientific men perceiv
ed in it a confirmation of their theories concerning the glacial period; so through their persuasions the little tract of ground was bought and permanently protected against being built upon. The soil was removed, and there lay the rasped and guttered track which the ancient glacier had made as it moved along upon its slow and tedious journey. This track was perforated by huge pot-shaped holes in the bed-rock, formed by the furious washing-around in them of boulders by the turbulent torrent which flows beneath all glaciers. These huge round boulders still remain in the holes; they and the walls of the holes are worn smooth by the long continued chafing which they gave each other in those old days. It took a mighty force to churn these big lumps of stone around in that vigorous way. The neighboring country had a very different shape, at that time,—the valleys have risen up and become hills, since, and the hills have become valleys. The boulders discovered in the pots had traveled a great distance, for there is no rock like them nearer than the distant Rhone Glacier.
For some days we were content to enjoy looking at the blue lake Lucerne and at the piled-up masses of snow mountains that border it all around,—an enticing spectacle, this last, for there is a strange and fascinating beauty and charm about a majestic snow-peak with the sun blazing upon it or the moonlight softly enriching it,—but finally we concluded to try a bit of excursioning around on a steamboat, and a dash on foot at the Rigi. Very well, we had a delightful trip to Fluelen, on a breezy, sunny day. Everybody sat on the upper deck, on benches, under an awning; everybody talked, laughed, and exclaimed at the wonderful scenery; in truth, a trip on that lake is almost the perfection of pleasuring. The mountains were a never ceasing marvel. Sometimes they rose straight up out of the lake, and towered aloft and overshadowed our pigmy steamer with their prodigious bulk in the most impressive way. Not snow-clad mountains, these, yet they climbed high enough toward the sky to meet the clouds and veil their foreheads in them. They were not barren and repulsive, but clothed in green, and restful and pleasant to the eye. And they were so almost straight-up-and-down, sometimes, that one could not imagine a man being able to keep his footing upon such a surface, yet there are paths, and the Swiss people go up and down them every day.
Sometimes one of these monster precipices had the slight inclination of the huge ship-houses in dock yards,—then high aloft, toward the sky, it took a little stronger inclination, like that of a mansard roof,—and perched on this dizzy mansard one’s eye detected little things like martin boxes, and presentlperceived that these were the dwellings of peasants,—an airy place for a home, truly. And suppose a peasant should walk in his sleep, or his child should fall out of the front yard?—the friends would have a tedious long journey down out of those cloud-heights before they found the remains. And yet those far-away homes looked ever so seductive, they were so remote from the troubled world, they dozed in such an atmosphere of peace and dreams,—surely no one who had learned to live up there would ever want to live on a meaner level.
We swept through the prettiest little curving arms of the lake, among these colossal green walls, enjoying new delights, always, as the stately panorama unfolded itself before us and re-rolled and hid itself behind us; and now and then we had the thrilling surprise of bursting suddenly upon a tremendous white mass like the distant and dominating Jungfrau, or some kindred giant, looming head and shoulders above a tumbled waste of lesser Alps.
Once, while I was hungrily taking in one of these surprises, and doing my best to get all I possibly could of it while it should last, I was interrupted by a young and care-free voice,
“You’re an American, I think,—so’m I.”
He was about eighteen, or possibly nineteen; slender and of medium height; open, frank, happy face; a restless but independent eye; a snub nose, which had the air of drawing back with a decent reserve from the silky new-born moustache below it until it should be introduced; a loosely hung jaw, calculated to work easily in the sockets. He wore a low-crowned, narrow-brimmed straw hat, with a broad blue ribbon around it which had a white anchor embroidered on it in front; nobby short-tailed coat, pantaloons, vest, all trim and neat and up with the fashion; red-striped stockings, very low-quarter patent leather shoes, tied with black ribbon; blue ribbon around his neck, wide-open collar; tiny diamond studs; wrinkleless kids; projecting cuffs, fastened with large oxydized silver sleeve-buttons, bearing the device of a dog’s face,—English pug. He carried a slim cane, surmounted with an English pug’s head with red glass eyes. Under his arm he carried a German Grammar,—Otto’s. His hair was short, straight and smooth, and presently when he turned his head a moment, I saw that it was nicely parted behind. He took a cigarette out of a dainty box, stuck it into a meerschaum holder which he carried in a morocco case, and reached for my cigar. While he was lighting, I said,—
“Yes,—I am an American.”
“I knew it,—I can always tell them. What ship did you come over in?”
“Holsatia.”
“We came in the Batavia,—Cunard, you know. What kind of a passage did you have?”
“Tolerably rough.”
“So did we. Captain said he’d hardly ever seen it rougher. Where are you from?”
“New England.”
“So’m I. I’m from New Bloomfield. Anybody with you?”
“Yes,—a friend.”
“Our whole family’s along. It’s awful slow, going around alone,—don’t you think so?”
“Rather slow.”
“Ever been over here before?”
“Yes.”
“I haven’t. My first trip. But we’ve been all around,—Paris and everywhere. I’m to enter Harvard next year. Studying German all the time, now. Can’t enter till I know German. I know considerable French,—I get along pretty well in Paris, or anywhere where they speak French. What hotel are you stopping at?”
“Schweitzerhof.”
“No! is that so? I never see you in the reception room. I go to the reception room a good deal of the time, because there’s so many Americans there. I make lots of acquaintances. I know an American as soon as I see him,—and so I speak to him and make his acquaintance. I like to be always making acquaintances, —don’t you?”
“Lord, yes!”
“You see it breaks up a trip like this, first rate. I never get bored on a trip like this, if I can make acquaintances and have somebody to talk to. But I think a trip like this would be an awful bore, if a body couldn’t find anybody to get acquainted with and talk to on a trip like this. I’m fond of talking, ain’t you?”
“Passionately.”
“Have you felt bored, on this trip?”
“Not all the time, part of it.”
“That’s it!—you see you ought to go around and get acquainted, and talk. That’s my way. That’s the way I always do,—I just go ’round, ’round, ’round, and talk, talk, talk,—I never get bored. You been up the Rigi yet?”
“No.”
“Going?”
“I think so.”
“What hotel you going to stop at?”
“I don’t know. Is there more than one?”
“Three. You stop at the Schreiber—you’ll find it full of Americans. What ship did you say you came over in?”
“City of Antwerp.”
“German, I guess. You going to Geneva?”
“Yes.”
“What hotel you going to stop at?”
“Hotel de l’ Ecu de Genève.”
“Don’t you do it! No Americans there? You stop at one of those big hotels over the bridge,—they’re packed full of Americans.”
“But I want to practice my Arabic.”
“Good gracious, do you speak Arabic?”
“Yes,—well enough to get along.”
“Why, hang it, you won’t get along in Geneva,—they don’t speak Arabic, they speak French. What hotel are you stopping at here?”
“Hotel Pension-Beaurivage.”
“Sho, you ought to stop at the Schweitzerhof. Didn’t you know the Schweitzerhof was the
best hotel in Switzerland?—look at your Baedecker.”
“Yes, I know,—but I had an idea there warn’t any Americans there.”
“No Americans! Why bless your soul it’s just alive with them! I’m in the great reception room most all the time. I make lots of acquaintances there. Not as many as I did at first, because now only the new ones stop in there,—the others go right along through. Where are you from?”
“Arkansaw.”
“Is that so? I’m from New England,—New Bloomfield’s my town when I’m at home. I’m having a mighty good time to-day, ain’t you?”
“Divine.”
“That’s what I call it. I like this knocking around, loose and easy, and making acquaintances and talking. I know an American, soon as I see him; so I go and speak to him and make his acquaintance. I ain’t ever bored, on a trip like this, if I can make new acquaintances and talk. I’m awful fond of talking when I can get hold of the right kind of a person, ain’t you?”
“I prefer it to any other dissipation.”
“That’s my notion, too. Now some people like to take a book and sit down and read, and read, and read, or moon around yawping at the lake or these mountains and things, but that ain’t my way; no, sir, if they like it, let ’em do it, I don’t object; but as for me, talking’s what I like. You been up the Rigi?”
“Yes.”
“What hotel did you stop at?”
“Schreiber.”
“That’s the place!—I stopped there too. Full of Americans, wasn’t it? It always is,—always is. That’s what they say. Everybody says that. What ship did you come over in?”
“Ville de Paris.”
“French, I reckon. What kind of a passage did . . . . . . . . excuse me a minute, there’s some Americans I haven’t seen before.”
And away he went. He went uninjured, too,—I had the murderous impulse to harpoon him in the back with my alpenstock, but as I raised the weapon the disposition left me; I found I hadn’t the heart to kill him, he was such a joyous, innocent, good-natured numscull.
Half an hour later I was sitting on a bench inspecting, with strong interest, a noble monolith which we were skimming by, —a monolith not shaped by man, but by Nature’s free great hand,—a massy pyramidal rock eighty feet high, devised by Nature ten million years ago against the day when a man worthy of it should need it for his monument. The time came at last, and now this grand remembrancer bears Schiller’s name in huge letters upon its face. Curiously enough, this rock was not degraded or defiled in any way. It is said that two years ago a stranger let himself down from the top of it with ropes and pulleys, and painted all over it, in blue letters bigger than those in Schiller’s name, these words:“TRY SOZODONT;”