内河航程 英文版 An Inland Voyage
罗伯特.路易斯.史蒂文森 Robert Louis Stevenson
AT COMPIEGNE
one should have any correspondence on a journey; it is badenough to have to write; but the receipt of letters is the death ofall holiday feeling.awaited us.
We put up at a big, bustling hotel in Compiegne, where nobodyobserved our presence.
Reservery and general militarismus (as the Germans call it) wererampant. A camp of conical white tents without the town lookedlike a leaf out of a picture Bible; sword-belts decorated the wallsof the cafes; and the streets kept sounding all day long withmilitary music. It was not possible to be an Englishman and avoida feeling of elation; for the men who followed the drums weresmall, and walked shabbily. Each man inclined at his own angle,and jolted to his own convenience, as he went. There was nothingof the superb gait with which a regiment of tall Highlanders movesbehind its music, solemn and inevitable, like a natural phenomenon.Who that has seen it can forget the drum-major pacing in front, thedrummers' tiger-skins, the pipers' swinging plaids, the strangeelastic rhythm of the whole regiment footing it in time--and thebang of the drum, when the brasses cease, and the shrill pipes takeup the martial story in their place?
A girl, at school in France, began to describe one of our regimentson parade to her French schoolmates; and as she went on, she toldme, the recollection grew so vivid, she became so proud to be thecountrywoman of such soldiers, and so sorry to be in anothercountry, that her voice failed her and she burst into tears. Ihave never forgotten that girl; and I think she very nearlydeserves a statue. To call her a young lady, with all its niminyassociations, would be to offer her an insult. She may restassured of one thing: although she never should marry a heroicgeneral, never see any great or immediate result of her life, shewill not have lived in vain for her native land.
But though French soldiers show to ill advantage on parade, on themarch they are gay, alert, and willing like a troop of fox-hunters.I remember once seeing a company pass through the forest ofFontainebleau, on the Chailly road, between the Bas Breau and theReine Blanche. One fellow walked a little before the rest, andsang a loud, audacious marching song. The rest bestirred theirfeet, and even swung their muskets in time. A young officer onhorseback had hard ado to keep his countenance at the words. Younever saw anything so cheerful and spontaneous as their gait;schoolboys do not look more eagerly at hare and hounds; and youwould have thought it impossible to tire such willing marchers.
My great delight in Compiegne was the town-hall. I doted upon thetown-hall. It is a monument of Gothic insecurity, all turreted,and gargoyled, and slashed, and bedizened with half a score ofarchitectural fancies. Some of the niches are gilt and painted;and in a great square panel in the centre, in black relief on agilt ground, Louis XII. rides upon a pacing horse, with hand on hipand head thrown back. There is royal arrogance in every line ofhim; the stirruped foot projects insolently from the frame; the eyeis hard and proud; the very horse seems to be treading withgratification over prostrate serfs, and to have the breath of thetrumpet in his nostrils. So rides for ever, on the front of thetown-hall, the good king Louis XII., the father of his people.
Over the king's head, in the tall centre turret, appears the dialof a clock; and high above that, three little mechanical figures,each one with a hammer in his hand, whose business it is to chimeout the hours and halves and quarters for the burgesses ofCompiegne. The centre figure has a gilt breast-plate; the twoothers wear gilt trunk-hose; and they all three have elegant,flapping hats like cavaliers. As the quarter approaches, they turntheir heads and look knowingly one to the other; and then, kling gothe three hammers on three little bells below. The hour follows,deep and sonorous, from the interior of the tower; and the gildedgentlemen rest from their labours with contentment.
I had a great deal of healthy pleasure from their manoeuvres, andtook good care to miss as few performances as possible; and I foundthat even the Cigarette, while he pretended to despise myenthusiasm, was more or less a devotee himself. There is somethinghighly absurd in the exposition of such toys to the outrages ofwinter on a housetop. They would be more in keeping in a glasscase before a Nurnberg clock. Above all, at night, when thechildren are abed, and even grown people are snoring under quilts,does it not seem impertinent to leave these ginger-bread figureswinking and tinkling to the stars and the rolling moon? Thegargoyles may fitly enough twist their ape-like heads; fitly enoughmay the potentate bestride his charger, like a centurion in an oldGerman print of the Via Dolorosa; but the toys should be put awayin a box among some cotton, until the sun rises, and the childrenare abroad again to be amused.
heads and look knowingly one to the other; and then, kling gothe.
In Compiegne post-office a great packet of letters awaited us; andthe authorities were, for this occasion only, so polite as to handthem over upon application.
In some ways, our journey may be said to end with this letter-bagat Compiegne. The spell was broken. We had partly come home fromthat moment.
No one should have any correspondence on a journey; it is badenough to have to write; but the receipt of letters is the death ofall holiday feeling.
'Out of my country and myself I go.' I wish to take a dive amongnew conditions for a while, as into another element. I havenothing to do with my friends or my affections for the time; when Icame away, I left my heart at home in a desk, or sent it forwardwith my portmanteau to await me at my destination. After myjourney is over, I shall not fail to read your admirable letterswith the attention they deserve. But I have paid all this money,look you, and paddled all these strokes, for no other purpose thanto be abroad; and yet you keep me at home with your perpetualcommunications. You tug the string, and I feel that I am atethered bird. You pursue me all over Europe with the littlevexations that I came away to avoid. There is no discharge in thewar of life, I am well aware; but shall there not be so much as aweek's furlough?
We were up by six, the day we were to leave. They had taken solittle note of us that I hardly thought they would havecondescended on a bill. But they did, with some smart particularstoo; and we paid in a civilised manner to an uninterested clerk,and went out of that hotel, with the india-rubber bags, unremarked.No one cared to know about us. It is not possible to rise before avillage; but Compiegne was so grown a town, that it took its easein the morning; and we were up and away while it was still indressing-gown and slippers. The streets were left to peoplewashing door-steps; nobody was in full dress but the cavaliers uponthe town-hall; they were all washed with dew, spruce in theirgilding, and full of intelligence and a sense of professionalresponsibility. Kling went they on the bells for the half-past sixas we went by. I took it kind of them to make me this partingcompliment; they never were in better form, not even at noon upon aSunday.
There was no one to see us off but the early washerwomen--early andlate--who were already beating the linen in their floating lavatoryon the river. They were very merry and matutinal in their ways;plunged their arms boldly in, and seemed not to feel the shock. Itwould be dispiriting to me, this early beginning and first colddabble of a most dispiriting day's work. But I believe they wouldhave been as unwilling to change days with us as we could be tochange with them. They crowded to the door to watch us paddle awayinto the thin sunny mists upon the river; and shouted heartilyafter us till we were through the bridge.