Letters from Switzerland and Travels in Italy. Иоганн Вольфганг фон Гёте

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СКАЧАТЬ tree. She was going, she told me, to Botzen for the fair, where she guessed I too was hastening. When she met me there I must buy her a fairing, which, of course, I promised to do. She intended to put on there her new coif which she had had made out of her earnings at Munich. She would show it to me beforehand. So she opened the bandbox and I could not do less than admire the head-gear, with its rich embroidery and beautiful ribbons.

      Over another pleasant prospect we felt a mutual pleasure. She asserted that we had fine weather before us. For they always carried their barometer with them and that was the harp. When the treble-string twanged it was sure to be fine weather, and it had done so yesterday. I accepted the omen, and we parted in the best of humours, and with the hope of a speedy meeting.

      On the Brenner, September 8, 1786, Evening.

      Hurried, not to say driven, here by necessity, I have reached at last a resting-place, in a calm, quiet spot, just such as I could wish it to be. It has been a day which for many years it will be a pleasure to recall. I left Mittelwald about 6 in the morning, and a sharp wind soon perfectly cleared the sky. The cold was such as one looks for only in February. But now, in the splendour of the setting sun, the dark foreground, thickly planted with fig-trees, and peeping between them the grey limestone rocks, and behind all, the highest summit of the mountain covered with snow, and standing out in bold outline against the deep blue sky, furnish precious and ever-changing images.

      One enters the Tyrol by Scharnitz. The boundary line is marked by a wall which bars the passage through the valley, and abuts on both sides on the mountains. It looks well: on one side the rocks are fortified, on the other they ascend perpendicularly. From Seefeld the road continually grew more interesting, and if from Benedictbeuern to this place it went on ascending, from height to height, while all the streams of the neighbouring districts were making for the Isar, now one caught a sight over a ridge of rocks of the valley of the Inn, and Inzingen lay before us. The sun was high and hot, so that I was obliged to throw off some of my coats, for, indeed, with the varying atmosphere of the day, I am obliged frequently to change my clothing.

      At Zierl one begins to descend into the valley of the Inn. Its situation is indescribably beautiful, and the bright beams of the sun made it look quite cheerful. The postilion went faster than I wished, for he had not yet heard mass, and was anxious to be present at it at Innspruck, where, as it was the festival of the Nativity of the Virgin Mary, he hoped to be a devout participant. Accordingly, we rattled along the banks of the Inn, hurrying by Martinswand, a vast, precipitous, wall-like rock of limestone. To the spot where the Emperor Maximilian is said to have lost himself, I ventured to descend and came up again without a guide, although it is, in any case, a rash undertaking.

      Innsbruck-Meteorology.

      Innsbruck is gloriously situated in a rich, broad valley, between high rocks and mountains. Everybody and everything was decked out in honour of the Virgin's Nativity. At first I had some wish to stop there, but it promised neither rest nor peace. For a little while I amused myself with the son of my host. At last the people who were to attend to me came in one by one. For the sake of health and prosperity to the flocks, they had all gone on a pilgrimage to Wilden, a place of worship on the mountains, about three miles and a half from the city. About 2 o'clock, as my rolling carriage divided the gay, merry throng, every one was in holiday garb and promenade.

      From Innsbruck the road becomes even still more beautiful; no powers of description can equal it. The most frequented road, ascending a gorge which empties its waters into the Inn, offers to the eye innumerable varieties of scenery. While the road often runs close to the most rugged rocks—indeed is frequently cut right through them—one sees the other side above you slightly inclining, and cultivated with the most surprising skill. On the high and broad-ascending surface lie valleys, houses, cottages, and cabins, whitewashed, glittering among the fields and hedges. Soon all changed; the land becomes available only for pastime, until it, too, terminates on the precipitous ascent. I have gained some ideas for my scheme of a creation; none, however, perfectly new and unexpected. I have also dreamed much of the model I have so long talked about, by which I am desirous to give a notion of all that is brooding in my own mind, and which, in nature itself, I cannot point out to every eye.

      Now it grew darker and darker; individual objects were lost in the obscurity; the masses became constantly vaster and grander; at last, as the whole moved before me like some deeply mysterious figure, the moon suddenly illuminated the snow-capt summits; and now I am waiting till morning shall light up this rocky chasm in which I am shut up on the boundary line of the north and south.

      I must again add a few remarks on the weather, which, perhaps, favours me so highly, in return for the great attention I pay to it. On the lowlands one has good or bad weather when it is already settled for either; on the mountains one is present with the beginning of the change. I have so often experienced this when on my travels, or walks, or hunting excursions, I have passed days and nights between the cliffs in the mountain forests. On such occasions, a conceit occurred to me, which I give you as nothing better, but which, however, I cannot get rid of, as indeed, generally, such conceits are, of all things, most difficult to get rid of. I altogether look upon it as a truth, and so I will now give utterance to it, especially as I have already so often had occasion to prove the indulgence of my friends.

      When we look at the mountains, either closely or from a distance, and see their summits above us at one time glittering in the sunshine, at another enveloped in mist, swept round with strong clouds, or blackened with showers, we are disposed to ascribe it all to the atmosphere, as we can easily with the eye see and discern its movements and changes. The mountains, on the other hand, with their glorious shapes lie before our outward senses immoveable. We take them to be dead because they are rigid, and we believe them to be inactive because they are at rest. For a long while, however, I cannot put off the impulse to ascribe, for the most part, to their imperceptible and secret influence the changes which are observable in the atmosphere. For instance, I believe that the mass of the earth generally, and, therefore, also in an especial way its more considerable continents do not exercise a constant and invariable force of attraction, but that this attractive force manifests itself by a certain pulse which, according to intrinsic, necessary, and probably also accidental, external causes, increases or decreases. Though all attempts by other objects to determine this oscillation may be too limited and rude, the atmosphere furnishes a standard both delicate and large enough to test their silent operations. When this attractive force decreases never so little, immediately the decrease in the gravity and the diminished elasticity of the air indicates this effect. The atmosphere is now unable to sustain the moisture which is diffused throughout it either chemically or mechanically; the clouds lower, and the rain falls and passes to the lowlands. When, however, the mountains increase their power of attraction, then the elasticity of the air is again restored, and two important phenomena result. First of all, the mountains collect around their summits vast masses of clouds; hold them fast and firm above themselves like second heads, until, as determined by the contest of electrical forces within them, they pour down as thunder-showers, rain or mist, and then, on all that remains the electricity of the air operates, which is now restored to a capacity of retaining more water, dissolving and elaborating it. I saw quite clearly the dispersion of a cloudy mass of this kind. It was hanging on the very highest peak; the red tints of the setting sun still illuminated it. Slowly and slowly pieces detached themselves from either end. Some fleecy nebulæ were drawn off and carried up still higher, and then disappeared, and in this manner, by degrees, the whole mass vanished, and was strangely spun away before my eyes, like a distaff, by invisible hands.

      Meteorology-Vegetation.

      If my friends are disposed to laugh at the itinerant meteorologist and his strange theories, I shall, perhaps, give them more solid cause for laughter by some other of my remarks, for I must confess that, as my journey was, in fact, a flight from all the unshapely things which tormented me in latitude 51°, I hoped, in 48°, to meet with a true Goshen. But I found myself disappointed; for latitude alone does not make a climate and fine weather, СКАЧАТЬ