The Germans have three years--that is too long, that is bad.'
I told him how the soldiers in Bavaria hated the military service.
'Yes,' he said, 'that is true of Germans. The system is different. Ours
is much better; in Switzerland a man enjoys his time as a soldier. I
want to go.'
So we watched the black dots of soldiers crawling over the high snow,
listened to the unnatural dry rattle of guns, up there.
Then we were aware of somebody whistling, of soldiers yelling down the
road. We were to come on, along the level, over the bridge. So we
marched quickly forward, away from the slopes, towards the hotel, once a
monastery, that stood in the distance. The light was blue and clear on
the reedy lakes of this upper place; it was a strange desolation of
water and bog and rocks and road, hedged by the snowy slopes round the
rim, under the very sky.
The soldier was yelling again. I could not tell what he said.
'He says if we don't run we can't come at all,' said Emil.
'I won't run,' I said.
So we hurried forwards, over the bridge, where the soldier on guard was
standing.
'Do you want to be shot?' he said angrily, as we came up.
'No, thanks,' I said.
Emil was very serious.
'How long should we have had to wait if we hadn't got through now?' he
asked the soldier, when we were safely out of danger.
'Till one o'clock,' was the reply.
'Two hours!' said Emil, strangely elated. 'We should have had to wait
two hours before we could come on. He was riled that we didn't run,' and
he laughed with glee.
So we marched over the level to the hotel. We called in for a glass of
hot milk. I asked in German. But the maid, a pert hussy, elegant and
superior, was French. She served us with great contempt, as two
worthless creatures, poverty-stricken. It abashed poor Emil, but we
managed to laugh at her. This made her very angry. In the smoking-room
she raised up her voice in French:
'_Du lait chaud pour les chameaux._'
'Some hot milk for the camels, she says,' I translated for Emil. He was
covered with confusion and youthful anger.
But I called to her, tapped the table and called:
'_Mademoiselle!_'
She appeared flouncingly in the doorway.
'_Encore du lait pour les chameaux_,' I said.
And she whisked our glasses off the table, and flounced out without a
word.
But she would not come in again with the milk. A German girl brought it.
We laughed, and she smiled primly.
When we set forth again, Emil rolled up his sleeves and turned back his
shirt from his neck and breast, to do the thing thoroughly. Besides, it
was midday, and the sun was hot; and, with his bulky pack on his back,
he suggested the camel of the French maid more than ever.
We were on the downward slope. Only a short way from the hotel, and
there was the drop, the great cleft in the mountains running down from
this shallow pot among the peaks.
The descent on the south side is much more precipitous and wonderful
than the ascent from the north. On the south, the rocks are craggy and
stupendous; the little river falls headlong down; it is not a stream, it
is one broken, panting cascade far away in the gulley below, in
the darkness.
But on the slopes the sun pours in, the road winds down with its tail in
its mouth, always in endless loops returning on itself. The mules that
travel upward seem to be treading in a mill.
Emil took the narrow tracks, and, like the water, we cascaded down,
leaping from level to level, leaping, running, leaping, descending
headlong, only resting now and again when we came down on to another
level of the high-road.
Having begun, we could not help ourselves, we were like two stones
bouncing down. Emil was highly elated. He waved his thin, bare, white
arms as he leapt, his chest grew pink with the exercise. Now he felt he
was doing something that became a member of his Sportverein. Down we
went, jumping, running, britching.
It was wonderful on this south side, so sunny, with feathery trees and
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