Selected letters of Mendelssohn/Letter 11

by Felix Mendelssohn

TO HIS SISTERS.

Charney, 6th August, 1831.

My Dear Sisters,—You have read all through Ritter’s Africa of course, but I don’t fancy you know the whereabouts of Charney. Then fetch the old atlas up from the cellar, for you must be prepared to give me your company on my travels. Go with your finger from Vevay to Clarens, and then on to the peak of Jaman, straight as a string. This string is a footpath, and where you must go with your fingers I have come this morning on my feet. (It is now half-past seven, and I am still fasting.) I am going to have breakfast here, and am now writing in a clean wooden-walled room till the milk is hot.

From outside comes in the gleam of the bright, blue lake. I am beginning my diary here, and will go on with it while I travel on foot as well as I can.

 

After breakfast.—Great heaven! consider my misfortune. The hostess has come in with a face full of trouble to say there is no one in the village to be my guide to Jaman and carry my bundle except a young girl; the men are all at their work. You must know I always set out alone in the morning with my bundle and cloak on my back; the guides from the inns are too dear and too tedious for me. The first honest-looking young fellow whom I find after two hours gets hired, and so I get on better on foot. How charming the lake and the path hither were is more than I can say. Fancy all the beauties you have ever delighted in—it is that. The footpath is always sloping upwards under the shade of nut trees, past country houses and castles; on all the slope down to the glittering lake lie villages scattered here and there, and the villages are full of the sound of streams and fountains splashing at every corner; most beautiful it was, and one felt so free and bright! Now comes the village-girl with her straw hat; she is wonderfully pretty, and her name is Pauline. She puts my baggage in the basket on her shoulder, and so we march for the mountains. Adieu!

 

Evening at Chateau d’Oex.—I have had the most charming journey. Could I get you such a day, I would give much for it, but then you would first have to turn into two young men, and be able to climb vigorously, drink milk when you had the chance, make little of a great deal of heat, a great many stones, also of many holes in the path, and still more holes in your boots. I fear you are much too tender for that. But it was wonderfully beautiful. Never shall I forget the walk with Pauline, who was one of the jolliest girls I ever met in my life, so pretty and healthy and full of natural cleverness. She told me stories about her village, and I told her stories about Italy, but I know which of us amused the other most. Last Sunday all the young people of distinction in her village were taken to a place far across the mountains for a dance that was to happen at noon. They started a little after midnight, were on the mountains while it was still dark, and there made a great fire and cooked coffee. About dawn the men had a leaping match before the ladies—we went by the broken fence that marked the spot—then they had the dance, and by Sunday evening were all home again. Early on Monday the work began again in the vineyards. By heaven! I was taken with a vast desire to be a peasant of the Canton de Vaud as I heard her stories, and she showed me villages down below where the people dance when the cherries are ripe, and others where they dance when the cows go up to the pastures and there is fresh milk again. To-morrow there is a dance at St. Gingolph; they row across the lake, and those skilled in music take their instruments with them. Pauline, though, does not go with them, as her mother does not permit her for fear of the broad lake; and a number of other girls do not go either, because they always keep together. Then she asked my permission to go and say good-day to her cousin, and went down to a charming house on the meadow-land. Presently the two girls came out and sat chattering on the seat; above, on the Col de Jaman, I could see their kinsmen, who were mowing and pasturing the cows; they called and screamed to them, and were answered with jodels from above; then everybody laughed. I understood no word of the patois but the first, and that was “Adieu, Pierrot.” All the time there went on a jovial mocking echo, that sent back all the shoutings and laughter and jodeling. About midday we got to Allières. After a little rest, I took my bundle again on my own shoulders, for I didn’t take to a certain sturdy old porter who wanted to carry it for me, and shaking hands with Pauline took leave of her and descended through the Alpine meadow. If the peasant girl fails to please you, or, indeed, has bored you, I cannot help it, you must put the blame on my description, for in reality she was delightful, and so was my journey on. I came on a group of people eating fruit under a cherry tree, lay down with them in the grass, and ate fruit, too, for a while. Then I took a midday rest at La Tine in a cleanly house all built of wood. The carpenter, who had built it for himself, gave me his company to a dish of roast lamb, and proudly pointed out to me the tables, chairs, and cupboards.

And to conclude, I reached here this evening through dazzling green meadows, where the houses stand all about between pine trees and waterfalls. The church here stands on a knoll, all one mass of green. Far away the houses are dotted about, and beyond them are huts among the crags, while in a gorge above the meadows a little snow is still lying. It is an idyllic place, like the one we saw together in Wattwyl, only the village is smaller and the mountains broader and greener. But to-day I must close with a pæan in honour of the Canton de Vaud. Of all the countries that I know it is the most beautiful, and the one where I should best like to live when I am downright old. The people are so contented and look so healthy, and the country is the same. Coming from Italy, one is profoundly touched by the honesty that still exists in the world, by the happy faces here, and then by the absence of beggars and bad-tempered officials, such a wonderful contrast there is between one people and another. I thank God for making many things so beautiful, and may He give us all in Berlin and England and Chateau d’Oex a pleasant evening and a good night!

Boltigen, 7th August.

Evening.—Outside there is terrible thunder and lightning, and heavy rain as well. In the mountains one learns to treat the weather with respect. I did not go on from here, for it would have been a pity to travel down the lovely Simmenthal beneath an umbrella. It was a grey day, but beautifully cool for walking in the forenoon. The valley about Saanen and the whole route is indescribably fresh and delightful. I can never see too much green; if I were to stare all my life long at a sloping meadow-land with a couple of reddish-brown houses, I should always find the same pleasure in it. And the road winds among such meadows all the way up and down along the streamlets.

At midday, I was at Zweisimmen in one of the monstrous Bernese houses where everything shines so; all order and cleanliness, all polished down to the very smallest detail. From there I sent my bundle by the post to Interlaken, and am now regularly marching through the country, with my nightshirt in my pocket, together with brush, comb, and guide-book. There is nothing further that I want. However, I am very tired—if only it would be fine weather to-morrow.

Weissenburg, 8th August.

I had breakfast at this place. I had to draw it for you with a pen, so do not laugh at my ingenuous water. At Boltigen I had a terrible night. There was no room in the inn on account of the fair, so I had to take refuge in a neighbouring house. There one had all sorts of nuisances, like in Italy—a loud, harsh clock that struck all the hours immensely loud, and a little child that cried the entire night through. I was really obliged to study the child for a while; it cried in every key, and with every sort of suggestion in its voice. First captious, then furiously angry, then plaintive, and when it could scream no longer, it began to snore deeply. And people will tell one we ought to wish our childhood back, children are so happy! but I am persuaded a little rascal like that has as many bad tempers as one of us grown-up folk; its sleepless nights, too, its passions, and all the rest of it. This philosophic reflection occurred to me this morning while I was sketching Weissenburg, and I was going to give it you all hot, but I found a copy of the “Constitutional,” in which I read that Casimir Perrier insists on resigning, and much other matter for thought. Among other things was a remarkable article on the cholera, that one ought to copy for the sake of its foolishness. The whole thing is denied; only one Jew had it at Dantzic, and he got well again. On the heels of that came a string of abstract reflections as bad as Hegel, and in French!—then the election of deputies—oh, the world! As soon as I had got through my reading, I couldn’t help going out in the rain across the meadows; and, indeed, in no dream could one see such a charming country as this. In the worst of weathers the churches, the groups of houses, bushes and streams, are delightful. And the green, too; that was in its element to-day. Now it is pouring outside long after the midday dinner. This evening I shall get no further than Spiez. I am disappointed not to see the country here, which seems to lie so beautifully; nor yet Spiez, which I know already from Rösel’s drawings. This is just the capital point of the whole Simmenthal, as it says in the old song:—

I was singing that all to-day along the rod. But the Siebethal did not thank me for the compliment, but went raining on.

Unterseen.

Evening of the 9th.—My joke is turned to bitter earnest as may easily happen nowadays. The frightful weather has done great damage, and the country is half devastated. The people cannot remember such a furious storm and rain for many years. And all that happens with such incredible rapidity! Early this morning it was only uncomfortable bad weather, and this afternoon all the bridges are swept away, the routes blocked for the time. Landslips are happening on the Lake of Brientz, everything is upside down. And now I hear that war is declared in Europe as well, so things are going wildly in the world, and one may be glad to have a warm room and a decent roof over one’s head for the moment, as I have here. The rain ceased for a while this morning, and I thought the clouds had drained themselves out. So I started from Wyler, and soon found the road pretty well destroyed; the weather played me a trick as well. The rain began again softly, then about nine dashed down with such fury that one saw something uncommon was going on. I crept into a half-built hut where there was a great bundle of hay, and made a bed for myself in the sweet smelling stuff. A soldier of the canton going to Thun, crept in from the opposite side as well. After an hour, as things got no better, we went on, each in his own direction. At Leisingen I had to get under a roof again and wait a long time, but as my things were at Interlaken, only two hours off, I thought I could manage it, and set off about one. There was nothing to see except the grey mirror of the lake, no mountains, seldom the outline of the opposite shore.

The streams which, as you remember, often run down the footpaths, had turned into torrents, along which one had to wade, and when the path was level for a little, the water stood still and formed a lake. Then I had to get through the wet hedges into the squelchy meadows, for all the tree-trunks, by which one is supposed to cross the streams, lay under water. Once I came between two brooks that had overflowed into one another, and had to wade up against the current with water up to my chin. All this water was black or chocolate coloured. It looked as if streams of liquid earth were flowing down and leaping one above the other. From above the rain streamed down, and the wind every now and then shook the water from the dripping walnut-trees, and the waterfalls that pour themselves into the lake roared with a terrible sound on either shore. One’s eye could follow the brown streaks they made far down till they fell plashing into the clear lake, which remained all the time quite calm, and quietly received all the wild seething that rushed down on it.

Then I met a man wading with shoes and stockings off, and his breeches turned up. By this time I was getting rather depressed. Two women came along, who told me I could not get through the village, all the bridges were down. I asked them how far it was to Interlaken. “A good hour,” was the answer. Turning back was not to be thought of, so I pushed on into the village. Then the people shouted to me out of the windows that I could go no further, the water was coming down from the mountains too strong, and there was indeed a terrible business going on in the middle of the village. The earth-coloured torrent had swept everything before it. It poured round the corners of houses through the pastures, high above the bridges, and went roaring down to the lake below. Luckily there was a small boat at hand, in which I got myself put over to Neuhaus, though the passage in this sort of open punt in the furious rain was by no means pleasant. My condition when I reached Neuhaus was fairly wretched; I looked as if I had top-boots on. Shoes, stockings, and everything up to the knees were dark brown, then came the real white colour, then a soft blue overcoat; even my sketch-book that I had tucked under my waistcoat was moist. In this fashion I reached Interlaken, and was received with small hospitality; the people either could not or would not find me a room, and so I had to find my way back to Unterseen, where I am now comfortably housed. It was very curious how I had felt pleased all the time at the idea of getting back to my inn at Interlaken, where so many recollections would be waiting me, and when I actually drove on to the square with the walnut-trees, in the little trap I had hired at Neuhaus, and saw my well-remembered glass gallery and met the fair hostess, changed and aged indeed, at the door, really all the bad weather and discomfort I had gone through did not vex me so much as that I couldn't stop there. For the first time since leaving Vevey I was out of humour for half an hour, and had to sing Beethoven, E flat major,

Adagio.

three or four times, before I came right again.

It was here that I first found out what damage the storm had done, and may do yet, for it is still pouring steadily.

9.30 in the evening.—The bridge at Zweilütchinen has been swept away. The coach-drivers for Brienz and Grindelwald refuse to go for fear of getting a rock or two on their head. Here the water is a foot and a half under the bridge on the Aar, and the gloominess of the sky is beyond description. Still I can wait to see it out here, for one wants nothing from circumstances to call back old memories. They have even put me in a room where there is a piano. It dates from 1794, and its tone is rather like the little old Silbermann in my study, so, at the first note I felt friendly towards it, and while playing I can think of you. It has lived through a great deal this piano, and doubtless never had an idea that I, who was only born in 1809, would come to compose on it. I am twenty-two years old, and the piano is already thirty-seven, and good for a while yet. There are going to be some new songs, my sisters! You don’t know as yet my great “Travellers’ Song” in E major. It is wonderfully sentimental. Now I am composing one that I am afraid will not turn out much, but it will do for us three; it is very well meant. The words are Goethe’s, but I won’t say what; it is too foolish to compose on just that theme. Besides, it doesn’t really suit the music, but I think it so heavenly that I must always be singing it. And that is the end for to-day. Good-night, my loves!

Felix.

 

Lauterbrunnen, 13th August, 1831.

I have just got in from a walk to the Schmadri-Bach and towards the Breithorn. All that one imagines of the mass and sweep of the mountains is very poor compared to the reality. That Goethe contrived to write nothing from Switzerland, but a couple of feeble poems, and some still more feeble letters, is just as unintelligible to me as a great many other things in the world. The road up to here was again all topsy-turvey. Where was an admirable road a week ago is now a wild heap of rocks, great boulders in piles, gravel and sand everywhere, no trace of human labour to be seen. The water has gone down, indeed, but the streams are not quiet yet; now and then one hears the grinding of stones that are hurled together at the bottom, and the waterfalls sweep down pieces of black rock in their white foam. My guide showed me a handsome new house standing in the midst of the furious current. He said it belonged to his brother-in-law, and that there had been a fine meadow all round it, that used to bring in a great deal. The man had been compelled to fly from the house during the night; the meadow had disappeared for ever, nothing but gravel and stones there now! “He was never rich, but now he is poor,” so ended the story of misfortune.

It was curious in the middle of this desolate scene, where the Lutschine had overflowed the entire breadth of the valley, to see a char-a-banc standing among the swamped meadows and blocks of stones, where no ghost of a road remained. There it is likely to stand for some time to come. Some people wanted to drive through right in the middle of the storm, but the tempest came down on them, and they had to leave trap and all in the mud, so there it stands waiting events. It was an ugly sight when we reached a place where the entire valley with the road and the dams on each side of the stream were covered with a mere sea of rocks. My guide, who was going on in front, kept murmuring to himself, “Awful work.” In the middle of the stream the water had whirled down two great tree trunks, and caught them on the sudden between two rocks, which pinned them in so as to leave the naked stems standing half upright. I could never get to an end of telling you all the shapes of devastation that one sees coming up here from Unterseen. But nevertheless the beauty of the valley made a greater impression on me than I can tell you. It was most unlucky that you never went up further than the Staubbach, the point where the real Lauterbrunnen valley begins. As you go up the Schwarze Mönch, with all the snows behind, it rises grander and grander; on every side flashing torrents fall like dust into the valley; one sees the snow mountains and glaciers quite near through the woods of pine, oak, and maple, and the wet meadows are strewn with innumerable bright flowers. On one side the Lutschine was hurling down the boulders one over another. As my guide said, it had brought down rocks “bigger than a stove.” But it is beautiful beyond everything. Unfortunately, we could not get up to the Smadribach, because all the bridges and pathways were destroyed. Still I shall never forget that walk. I made an attempt at a sketch of the Mönch, but what use is one’s little pencil? I know Hegel says that every human thought is something more sublime than the whole of nature, but here that strikes me as hardly modest. It is a fine idea, but a confounded paradox. For once I will be on the side of the whole of nature, which, indeed, is likely to be the safe side.

You know the position of the inn here, or if you have forgotten take my old Swiss sketch-book, where I have drawn it from every point of view, with the footpath in front, and which still makes me laugh privately. I am looking out of the self-same window now, getting a peep at the dark outlines of the mountains, for it is late in the evening, a quarter to eight, in fact. And I have an idea which is higher than the whole of nature, namely, that I will go to bed. So good-night, my loves.

Grindelwald.

The 14th, evening.—It went hard to leave the Jungfrau behind, but what a day it has been for me! Since we were here together I have always wanted to see the Lesser Scheideck again. So I woke early this morning almost in a state of fear, so many things might happen to spoil my chance, bad weather, clouds, rain, or mist. But no, it was a day that might have been made solely for me to cross the Wengernalp. The sky was flecked with light clouds, that swept clear of the highest peaks; there was no mist on any of the mountains, every summit sparkling in the clear air with every point and mass on it clear cut—how am I to describe it? You know the Wengernalp, but then we saw it in bad weather. To-day all the mountains were arrayed as for a feast, nothing was wanting, from the thundering avalanches to the people in their Sunday clothes going to church, just as they were doing then. I really remembered little of the mountains except the wild jagged outline of them high up against the sky; but to-day I felt overpowered by their measureless breadth, the mass of the white expanses, the harmonious placing of all these monstrous towers, the way in which they enfold each other and join hands, as it were, round one. Fancy besides all the glaciers, all the snow fields, all the crags lit up to a dazzling whiteness, and flashing in it, and then the distant summits of other chains struggling up to peep into the landscape. I have a feeling that God’s own thoughts must look something like that. Whoever does not know God may find Him here, and the nature He has made, clear before his very eyes. And through it all there is the dear fresh air that rouses you when you are tired, and cools you when you are overheated. And then the waterfalls! I have quite a treatise to write to you still on the nature of waterfalls, but to-day there is no time, for now I have a different sort of story to tell. Now, you think, he is just going to descend and find the country below very pleasant. No, that isn’t it; but when I reached the Sennhütte, I heard that in a meadow, right up among the mountains, there was going to be a festival, and now and then one saw people in the distance climbing up. I wasn’t in the least tired, and an Alpine village festival is not to be seen every day. The good weather said, “Yes,” and my guide was immensely pleased at the prospect, so I said then, let us make for Itramen. The old cowherd pushed on, so we had to take manfully to climbing again, for Itramen is a good thousand feet above the Lesser Scheideck. The cowherd was a sort of wild man of the mountains; he rushed on in front of us like a cat. Presently, however, he took pity on my guide, and relieved him of the bundle and cloak; and even with these he still ran ahead so fast that we had no chance of catching him. The path was horribly steep, but he said it was good, and that formerly he used to take a steeper and shorter one. He was about sixty years old, and yet when my young guide and I had struggled up to a hill-top, we invariably saw him disappearing over the next. For two hours we went over the hardest bit of mountain I ever attempted, now high up, now far down again, over loose stones and streams and crevasses, across two snow fields, all in the utmost loneliness without a path or the least trace of human labour. Now and again one heard the avalanches on the Jungfrau; otherwise all was quiet, and not a tree near us. But in the middle of all this silence and solitude, on reaching the top of a little grassy hill, we suddenly came in sight of a great crowd of people standing in a circle, all talking and laughing and calling to one another. All were dressed in their finery, with flowers in their hats; there were many girls among them. Two tables with butts of wine were in the middle—all round the vast stillness and the awful mountains. It was curious that while climbing I could think of nothing but the rocks and stones, or else the snow and the track we had to follow; but from the moment I saw the people all that went out of my mind, and I thought only of them and their jovial festival. It was delightful there; the broad green meadow far above the clouds served for a stage. Straight in front the snow mountains lifted themselves in the sky, the mighty spire of the Eiger, with the Schreckhorn, the Wetterhorn and all the rest, away to the Blumlisalp. In the misty depth below lay the Lauterbrunnen valley looking quite small, and down there we could see all the route we had been the day before with its waterfalls marked like threads, the houses just little points, and the trees showing like tufts of grass. Behind, one now and then caught a glimpse of the Lake of Thun through the dimness. Among the crowd of good, stalwart, hearty peasants it was all leaping and singing, drinking and laughing. I saw the leaping for the first time with great interest. When it was over, the girls handed the men cherry brandy and schnaps; the bottles passed round from hand to hand, and I drank with the company. Then I treated three little children to cakes, and made them very happy. An old peasant who was extremely drunk sang me several songs; then they all sang, and my guide gave us quite a modern song in the finest of styles, and presently two small boys began to fight. Everything seemed delightful on that mountain. I lay on the grass till towards evening, and made myself at home. Then we went leaping down to the meadows, and soon came in sight of our well-known inn with its windows flashing in the sunset. A fresh wind blew from the glaciers and cooled us. Now it is late, and from time to time one hears the avalanches. That was my Sunday; it was a festival indeed!