Abbott Jacob
Rollo in Geneva
Chapter XIV.
Walk To Aigle
"Now, Rollo," said Mr. Holiday, as the party sallied forth from the inn to commence their walk up the valley, "we depend entirely on you. This is your excursion, and we expect you will take care and see that every thing goes right."
"Well, sir," said Rollo. "Come with me. I'll show you the way."
On the borders of the village they passed to a high stone bridge which crossed a small stream. This stream came in a slow and meandering course through the meadows, and here emptied into the lake. Farther back it was a torrent leaping from rock to rock and crag to crag, for many thousand feet down the mountain side; but here it flowed so gently, and lay so quietly in its bed, that pond lilies grew and bloomed in its waters.
Just above the bridge there was a square enclosure in the margin of the water, with a solid stone wall all around it. A man stood on the wall with a net in his hand. The net was attached to a pole. The man was just dipping the net into the water when Rollo, with his father and mother, came upon the bridge.
"Let us stop a minute, and see what that man is going to do," said Rollo. "I saw that square wall yesterday, and I could not imagine what it was for."
The man put his net down to the bottom of the reservoir, and after drawing it along on the bottom, he took it out again. There was nothing in it. He then repeated the operation, and this time he brought up two large fishes that looked like trout. They were both more than a foot long.
The man uttered a slight exclamation of satisfaction, and then lifting the net over the wall, he let the fish fall into a basket which he had placed outside. He then went away, carrying the basket with one hand, and the net on his shoulder with the other.
"That's a very curious plan," said Rollo. "I suppose they catch the fish in the lake, and then put them in that pen and keep them there till they are ready to eat them."
So they walked on.
Presently Rollo saw some of the pond lilies growing in the stream, the course of which was here, for a short distance, near the road.
"I wish very much, mother," said he, "that I could get one of those pond lilies for you, but I cannot. I tried yesterday, but they are too far from the shore, and it is so finished, and smooth, and nice about here that there is no such thing as a pole or a stick to be found any where to reach with."
Presently, however, Rollo came to a boy who was fishing on the bank of the stream, and he asked him if he would be good enough to hook in one of those lilies for him with his pole and line. The boy was very willing to do it. He threw a loop of his line over one of the pond lilies, and drew it in. Rollo thanked the boy for his kindness, and gave the pond lily to his mother.
Perhaps there are no flowers that give a higher pleasure to the possessors than those which a boy of Rollo's age gathers for his mother.
The party walked on. Mrs. Holiday's attention was soon strongly attracted to the various groups of peasants which she saw working in the fields, or walking along the road. First came a young girl, with a broad-brimmed straw hat on her head, driving a donkey cart loaded with sheaves of grain. Next an old and decrepit-looking woman, with a great bundle of sticks on her head. It seemed impossible that she could carry so great a load in such a manner. As our party went by, she turned her head slowly round a little way, to look at them; and it was curious to see the great bundle of sticks—which was two feet in diameter, and four or five feet long—slowly turn round with her head, and then slowly turn back again as she went on her way.
Next Mrs. Holiday paused a moment to look at some girls who were hoeing in the field. The girls looked smilingly upon the strangers, and bade them good morning.
"Ask them," said Mrs. Holiday to Rollo, "if their work is not very hard."
So Rollo asked them the question. Mrs. Holiday requested him to do it because she did not speak French very well, and so she did not like to try.
The girls said that the work was not hard at all. They laughed, and went on working faster than ever.
Next they came to a poor wayfaring woman, who was sitting by the roadside with an infant in her arms. Rollo immediately took out one of the little cakes from the parcel in his knapsack, and handed it to the child. The mother seemed very much pleased. She bowed to Rollo, and said,—
"She thanks you infinitely, sir."
Thus they went on for about three quarters of an hour. During all this time Mrs. Holiday's attention was so much taken up with what she saw,—sometimes with the groups of peasants and the pretty little views of gardens, cottages, and fields which attracted her notice by the road side, ever and anon by the glimpses which she obtained of the stupendous mountain ranges that bordered the valley on either hand, and that were continually presenting their towering crags and dizzy precipices to view through the opening of the trees on the plain,—that she had not time to think of being fatigued. At length Rollo asked her how she liked the walk.
"Very well," said she; "only I think now I have walked full as far as I should ever have to go at home, when making calls, before coming to the first house. So as soon as you can you may find me a place to sit down and rest a little while."
"Well," said Rollo, "I see a grove of trees by the roadside, on ahead a little way. When we get there we will sit down in the shade and rest."
So they went on till they came to the grove. The grove proved to be a very pretty one, though it consisted of only four or five trees; but unfortunately there was no place to sit down in it. Rollo looked about for some time in vain, and seemed quite disappointed.
"Never mind," said his mother; "sometimes, when I make a call, I find that the lady I have called to see is not at home; and then, even if I am tired and want to rest, I have to go on to the next house. We will suppose that at this place the lady is not at home."
Rollo laughed and walked on. It was not long before they reached a place where there was a kind of granary, or some other farm building of that sort, near the road, with a little yard where some logs were lying. Rollo found excellent seats for his father and mother on these logs. They sat on one of them, and leaned their backs against another that was a little higher up. They were in the shade of the building, too, so that the place was very cool.
"This is a very nice place to rest," said Mrs. Holiday; "and while we are sitting, we can amuse ourselves in looking at the people that go by."
The first person that came was a pretty-looking peasant girl of about seventeen, who had a tub upon her head. What was in the tub Rollo could not see. With such a burden on her head, however, it is plain that the girl could not wear her hat in the ordinary manner, and so she carried it tied to the back of her neck, with its broad brim covering her shoulders. This, Mr. Holiday said, seemed to him to be carrying the modern fashion of wearing the bonnet quite to an extreme.
THE BASKET RIDE.
The Swiss women have other ways of bearing burdens, besides loading them upon their heads. They carry them upon their backs, sometimes, in baskets fitted to their shoulders. A woman came by, while Rollo and his father and mother were sitting upon the logs, with her child taking a ride in such a basket on her back. As soon as this woman was past, Rollo was so much struck with the comical appearance that the child made, sitting upright in the basket, and looking around, that he took out some paper and a pencil immediately from his portfolio, and asked his mother to make a drawing of the woman, with the child in the basket on her back. This Mrs. Holiday could easily do, even from the brief glimpse which she had of the woman as she went by; for the outlines of the figure and dress of the woman and of the basket and child were very simple. Mrs. Holiday afterwards put in some of the scenery for a background.
When the drawing was finished, Rollo told his mother that he calculated that they had come one third of the way, and asked her if she felt tired; and she said she did not feel tired at all, and so they rose and went on.
In a short time they came to a village. It consisted of a narrow street, with stone houses on each side of it. The houses were close together and close to the street. In one place several people were sitting out before the door, and among them was a poor, sickly child, such as are found very often in the low valleys of Switzerland, of the kind called cretins. These children are entirely helpless, and they have no reason, or at least very little. The one which Rollo saw was a girl, and appeared to be about ten years old; but it did not seem to have strength enough to sit up in its chair. It was continually lolling and falling about on this side and that, and trying to look up. The mother of the child sat by her, and kept her from falling out of the chair. She was talking, the mean while, with the neighbors, who were sitting there on a bench, knitting or sewing.
The face of the child was deformed, and had scarcely a human expression. Both Rollo and his mother were much shocked at the spectacle.
"It is a cretin—is it not?" said Mrs. Holiday to her husband, in a whisper, as soon as they had passed by.
"Yes," said Mr. Holiday.
"Mother," said Rollo, "would you give that poor little thing a cake?"
"Yes," said Mrs. Holiday; "I would."
"Do you think she will understand?" asked Rollo.
"Yes," said Mrs. Holiday; "I think she will; and at any rate her mother will."
Rollo had by this time taken out his cake. He went back with it to the place where the women were sitting, and held it out, half, as it were, to the mother, and half to the child, so that either of them might take it, saying, at the same time, to the mother, in French,—
"For this poor little child."
The mother smiled, and looked very much pleased. The cretin, whose eyes caught a glimpse of the cake, laughed, and began to try to reach out her hand to take it. It seemed hard for her to guide her hand to the place, and she fell over from side to side all the time while attempting to do so. She would have fallen entirely if her mother had not held her up. At length she succeeded in getting hold of the cake, which she carried directly to her mouth, and then laughed again with a laugh that seemed scarcely human, and was hideous to see.
"Does she understand?" asked Rollo.
"Yes," said the mother; "she understands, but she can't speak, poor thing. But she is very much obliged to you indeed."
So Rollo bowed to the mother of the child, and to the other women, and then went on and rejoined his father and mother.
They passed through the village, and then came into the open country again. Sometimes the mountains that bordered the valley receded to some distance; at other times they came very near; and there was one place where they formed a range of lofty precipices a thousand feet high, that seemed almost to overhang the road. Here Rollo stopped to look up. He saw, near a rounded mass of rock, half way up the mountain, two young eagles that had apparently just left their nest, and were trying to learn to fly. The old eagles were soaring around them, screaming. They seemed to be afraid that their young ones would fall down the rocks and get killed. Rollo wished that they would fall down, or at least fly down, to where he was, in order that he might catch one of them. But they did not. They took only short flights from rock to rock and from thicket to thicket, but they did not come down. So, after watching them for a time, Rollo went on.
Next they came to a place where the valley took a turn so as to expose the mountain side to the sun in such a manner as to make a good place there for grapes to grow and ripen. The people had accordingly terraced the whole declivity by building walls, one above another, to support the earth for the vineyards; and when Rollo was going by the place he looked up and saw a man standing on the wall of one of the terraces, with the tool which he had been working with in his hand. He seemed suspended in mid air, and looked down on the road and on the people walking along it as a man would look down upon a street in London from the gallery under the dome of St. Paul's.
"That's a pleasant place to work," said Rollo, "away up there, between the heavens and the earth."
"Yes," said his mother; "and I should think that taking care of vines and gathering the grapes would be very pretty work to do."
There was a little building on the corner of one of the terraces, which Mr. Holiday said was a watch tower. There were windows on all the sides of it.
"When the grapes begin to ripen," said he, "there is a man stationed there to watch all the vineyards around, in order to prevent people from stealing the grapes."
"I should think there would be danger of their stealing the grapes," said Rollo.
After going on a little way beyond this, they began to approach the town of Aigle. Mrs. Holiday was surprised that she could have come so far with so little fatigue. Rollo told her that it was because she had walked along so slowly.
"Yes," said Mr. Holiday; "and because there have been so many things to take up our attention by the way."
When they arrived at the village they went directly to the inn. The inns in these country towns in Switzerland are the largest and most conspicuous looking buildings to be seen. Rollo went first, and led the way. He went directly to the dining room.
The dining rooms in these inns, as I have already said, are the public rooms, where the company always go, whether they wish for any thing to eat or not. There is usually one large table, for dinner, in the centre of the room, and several smaller tables at the sides or at the windows, for breakfasts and luncheons, and also for small dinner parties of two or three. Besides these tables, there is often one with a pen and ink upon it for writing, and another for knapsacks and carpet bags; and there are sofas for the company to repose upon while the waiter is setting the table for them.
Rollo accordingly led the way at once to the dining room of the inn, and conducted his mother to a sofa.
"Now, Rollo," said Mr. Holiday, "order us a dinner."
So Rollo went to the waiter, and after talking with him a little while, came back and said that he had ordered some fried trout, some veal cutlets, fried potatoes, an omelette, and some coffee.
"And besides that," said Rollo, "he is going to give us some plums and some pears. This is a famous place for plums and pears."
"And for grapes, too, in the season of them," said Mr. Holiday.
This was very true. Indeed, on looking about the walls of the room, to see the maps and the pretty pictures of Swiss scenery that were there, Rollo found among the other things an advertisement of what was called the grape cure. It seems that eating ripe grapes was considered a cure for sickness in that country, and that people were accustomed to come to that very town of Aigle to procure them. There was no place in Switzerland, the advertisement said, where the grapes were richer and sweeter than there.
The advertisement went on to say that the season for the grape cure was in September, October, and November; that there were a number of fine vineyards in the vicinity of the town which produced the most delicious grapes; and that these vineyards were placed at the disposal of the guests of the hotel at the rate of a franc a day for each person; so that for that sum they could have every day as many as they could eat; and this was to be their medicine, to make them well.
Rollo read this advertisement aloud to his father and mother, with a tone of voice which indicated a very eager interest in it.
"Father," said he, "I wish you would come here and try it. Perhaps it would make you well."
The advertisement was in French, and Rollo translated it as he read it. He succeeded very well in rendering into English all that was said about the grapes, and the manner of taking them, and the terms for boarders at the hotel; but when he came to the names of the diseases that the grapes would cure, he was at a loss, as most of them were learned medical words, which he had never seen before. So he read off the names in French, and concluded by asking his father whether he did not think it was some of those things that was the matter with him.
"Very likely," said his father.
"Then, father," said Rollo, "I wish you would come here in October, and try the grape cure, and bring me too."
"Very likely I may," said his father. "This is on the great road to Italy, and we may conclude to go to Italy this winter."
Just at this time the door of the dining room opened, and a new party came in. It consisted of a gentleman and lady, who seemed to be a new married pair. They came in a carriage. Rollo looked out the window, and saw the carriage drive away from the door to go to the stable.
The gentleman put his haversack and the lady's satchel and shawl down upon the table, and then took a seat with her upon another sofa which was in the room.
The dinner which Rollo had ordered was soon ready, and they sat down to eat it with excellent appetites. While they were at dinner, Rollo inquired of the waiter what time the omnibus went to Villeneuve, and he learned that it did not go for some hours. So Mr. Holiday told his wife that she might either have a chamber, and lie down and rest herself during that time, or they might go out and take a walk.
Mrs. Holiday said that she did not feel at all fatigued, and so she would like to go and take a walk.
There was a castle on a rising ground just in the rear of the village, which had attracted her attention in coming into the town, and she was desirous of going to see it.
So they all set off to go and see the castle. They found their way to it without any difficulty. It proved to be an ancient castle, built in the middle ages, but it was used now for a prison. The family of the jailer lived in it too. It looked old and gone to decay.
When they entered the court yard, a woman looked up to the windows and called out Julie! Presently a young girl answered to the call, and the woman told her that here were some people come to see the castle. So Julie came down and took them under her charge.
The party spent half an hour in rambling over the castle. They went through all sorts of intricate passages, and up and down flights of stone stairs, steep, and narrow, and winding. They saw a number of dismal dungeons. Some were dark, so that the girl had to take a candle to light the way. The doors were old, and blackened by time, and they moved heavily on rusty hinges. The bolts, and bars, and locks were all rusted, too, so that it was very difficult to move them.
The visitors did not see all the dungeons and cells, for some of them had prisoners in them then, and those doors Julie said she was not allowed to open, for fear that the prisoners should get away.
After rambling about the old castle as much as they desired to do, and ascending to the tower to view the scenery, the party came down again, and returned to the inn.
They found the dining room full of boys. These boys were sitting at a long table, eating a luncheon. They were the boys of a school. The teacher was at the head of the table. Rollo talked with some of the boys, for he found two or three that could talk French and English, though their English was not very good.
In due time the omnibus came to the door, and then Rollo conducted his father and mother to it, and assisted them to get in. The sun was now nearly down, and the party had a delightful ride, in the cool air of the evening, back to Villeneuve.
The next day they embarked on board the steamer, and returned to Geneva.
Chapter XV.
The Jewelry
I have already said that Geneva is a very famous place for the manufacture of watches and jewelry, and that almost every person who goes there likes to buy some specimen of these manufactures as a souvenir of their visit.
There is a great difference in ladies, in respect to the interest which they take in dress and ornaments. Some greatly undervalue them, some greatly overvalue them.
Some ladies, especially such as are of a very conscientious and religious turn of mind, are apt to imagine that there is something wrong in itself in wearing ornaments or in taking pleasure in them. But we should remember that God himself has ornamented every thing in nature that has not power to ornament itself. Look at the flowers, the fruits, the birds, the fields, the butterflies, the insects; see how beautiful they all are made by ornaments with which God has embellished them.
God has not ornamented man, nor has he clothed him; but he has given him the powers and faculties necessary to clothe and ornament himself. He has provided him with the means, too, and with the means as much for the one as for the other. There are cotton and flax which he can procure from plants, and wool and fur from animals, for his clothing; and then there are gold and silver in the earth, and rubies, emeralds, and diamonds, for his ornaments; and if we are not to use them, what were they made for?
They, therefore, seem to be in error who discard all ornaments, and think that to wear them or to take pleasure in them is wrong.
But this, after all, is not the common failing. The danger is usually altogether the other way. A great many ladies overvalue ornaments. They seem to think of scarcely any thing else. They cannot have too many rings, pins, bracelets, and jewels. They spend all their surplus money for these things, and even sometimes pinch themselves in comforts and necessaries, to add to their already abundant supplies. This excessive fondness for dress and articles for personal adornment is a mark of a weak mind. It is seen most strongly in savages, and in people of the lowest stages of refinement and cultivation. The opposite error, though far less common, is equally an error; and though it is not the mark of any weakness of the mind, it certainly denotes a degree of perversion in some of the workings of it.
The morning after the return of our party to Geneva from their excursion along the lake, they made their arrangements for leaving Geneva finally on the following day.
"And now," said Mr. Holiday to his wife, "Geneva is a famous place for ornaments and jewelry; and before we go, I think you had better go with me to some of the shops, and buy something of that kind, as a souvenir of your visit."
"Well," said Mrs. Holiday, "if you think it is best, we will. Only I don't think much of ornaments and jewelry."
"I know you do not," said Mr. Holiday; "and that is the reason why I think you had better buy some here."
Mrs. Holiday laughed. She thought it was rather a queer reason for wishing her to buy a thing—that she did not care much about it.
Rollo was present during this conversation between his father and mother, and listened to it; and when, finally, it was decided that his mother should go to one or two of the shops in Geneva, to look at, and perhaps purchase, some of the ornaments and jewelry, he wished to go too.
"Why?" said his mother; "do you wish to buy any of those things?"
Rollo said he did. He wished to buy some for presents.
"Have you got any money?" asked his father.
"Yes, sir, plenty," said Rollo.
Rollo was a very good manager in respect to his finances, and always kept a good supply of cash on hand, laid up from his allowance, so as to be provided in case of any sudden emergency like this.
So the party set out together, after breakfast, to look at the shops. They knew the shops where jewelry was kept for sale by the display of rings, pins, bracelets, and pretty little watches, that were put up at the windows. They went into several of them. The shops were not large, but the interior of them presented quite a peculiar aspect. There were no goods of any kind, except those in the windows, to be seen, nor were there even any shelves; but the three sides of the room were filled with little drawers, extending from the floor to the ceiling. These drawers were filled with jewelry of the richest and most costly description; and thus, though there was nothing to be seen at first view, the value of the merchandise ready to be displayed at a moment's notice was very great.
In the centre of the room, in front of the drawers, were counters—usually two, one on each side; and sometimes there was a table besides. The table and the counters were elegantly made, of fine cabinet work, and before them were placed handsome chairs and sofas, nicely cushioned, so that the customers might sit at their ease, and examine the ornaments which the shopkeeper showed them. The counters were of the same height as the table, and there were drawers in them below, and also in the table, like those along the sides of the room.
At the first shop where our party went in, two ladies, very showily dressed, were sitting at a table, looking at a great variety of pins, rings, and bracelets that the shopkeeper had placed before them. The articles were contained in little rosewood and mahogany trays, lined with velvet; and they looked very brilliant and beautiful as they lay, each in its own little velvet nest.
The ladies looked up from the table, and gazed with a peculiar sort of stare, well known among fashionable people of a certain sort, upon Mrs. Holiday, as she came in. One of them put up a little eye glass to her eye, in order to see her more distinctly. Mr. and Mrs. Holiday, followed by Rollo, advanced and took their places on a sofa before one of the counters. The ladies then continued their conversation, apparently taking no notice of the new comers.
One of the ladies was holding a bracelet in her hand. She had already two bracelets on each wrist, and ever so many rings on her fingers, besides a large brooch in her collar, and a double gold chain to her watch, with a great number of breloques and charms attached to it. She seemed to be considering whether she should buy the bracelet that she was holding in her hand or not.
"It certainly is a beauty," said she.
"Yes," said the other; "and if I were you, Almira, I would take it without hesitating a moment. You can afford it just as well as not."
"It is so high!" said Almira, doubtingly, and holding up the bracelet, so as to see the light reflected from the surfaces of the precious stones.
"I don't think it is high at all," said her friend; "that is, for such stones and such setting. A thousand francs, he says, and that is only two hundred dollars. That is nothing at all for so rich a husband as yours."
"I know," said Almira; "but then he always makes such wry faces if I buy any thing that costs more than fifty or seventy-five dollars."
SHOPPING AT GENEVA.
"I would not mind his wry faces at all," said her friend. "He does not mean any thing by them. Depend upon it, he is as proud to see you wear handsome things as any man, after he has once paid for them. Then, besides, perhaps the man will take something off from the thousand francs."
"I will ask him," said Almira.
So she called the shopman to her, and asked him in French whether he could not take eight hundred francs for the bracelet.
She accosted him in French, for that is the language of Geneva; and the two ladies had talked very freely to each other in English, supposing that neither the shopkeeper nor the new party of customers would understand what they were saying. But it happened that the shopkeeper himself, as well as Mr. and Mrs. Holiday, understood English very well, and thus he knew the meaning of all that the ladies had been saying; and he was too well acquainted with human nature not to know that the end of such a consultation and deliberation as that would be the purchase of the bracelet, and was therefore not at all disposed to abate the price.
"No, madam," said he, speaking in French, and in a very polite and obliging manner; "I cannot vary from the price I named at all. We are obliged to adopt the system of having only one price here. Besides, that bracelet could not possibly be afforded for less than a thousand francs. Earlier in the season we asked twelve hundred francs for it; and I assure you, madam, that it is a great bargain at a thousand."
After looking at the bracelet a little longer, and holding it up again in different lights, and hearing her friend's solicitations that she would purchase it repeated in various forms, Almira finally concluded to take it.
It may seem, at first view, that Almira's friend evinced a great deal of generosity in urging her thus to buy an ornament more rich and costly than she could hope to purchase for herself; but her secret motive was not a generous one at all. She wished to quote Almira's example to her own husband, as a justification for her having bought a richer piece of jewelry than he would otherwise have approved of.
"Mine only cost eight hundred francs," she was going to say; "and cousin Almira bought one that cost a thousand."
In this way she hoped to exhibit to her husband that which he might otherwise have regarded as foolish extravagance in the light of self-denial and prudent economy.
In the mean time, while Almira and her friend had been making their purchases at the table, another shopman had been displaying a great many trays to Mrs. Holiday on one of the counters. The ornaments contained in these trays were by no means as costly as those which had been shown to the two ladies at the table; for Mrs. Holiday had said to the shopman, as she came in, that she wished to see only some simple pins and other ornaments worth from fifty to one hundred francs. They were, however, just as pretty in Mrs. Holiday's opinion. Indeed, the beauty of such ornaments as these seldom has any relation to the costliness of them. This, however, constitutes no reason, in the opinion of many ladies, why they should buy the less expensive ones; for with these ladies it is the costliness of an ornament, rather than the beauty of it, that constitutes its charm.
