Читать книгу Letters from Switzerland and Travels in Italy - Johann Wolfgang von Goethe - Страница 37

I was met by a woman with figs, which, as the first, tasted delicious. But the fruit in general is not good considering the latitude of forty-eight degrees. Every one is complaining here of the wet and cold. A mist, which might well be called a rain, overtook me this morning early before I reached Munich. Throughout the day the wind has continued to blow cold from off the Tyrolese mountains. As I looked towards them from the tower I found them covered, and the whole heavens shrouded with clouds. Now, at setting, the sun is shining on the top of the ancient tower, which stands right opposite to my window. Pardon me that I dwell so much on wind and weather. The traveller by land is almost as much dependent upon them as the voyager by sea, and it would be a sad thing if my autumn in foreign lands should be as little favoured as my summer at home.

And now straight for Innspruck. What do I not pass over, both on my right and on my left, in order to carry out the one thought which has become almost too old in my soul.

Mittelwald, September 7, 1786.

It seems as if my guardian-spirit had said "Amen" to my "Credo," and I thank him that he has brought me to this place on so fine a day. My last postilion said, with a joyous exclamation, it was the first in the whole summer. I cherish in quiet my superstition that it will long continue so; however, my friends must pardon me if again I talk of air and clouds.

As I started from Munich about 5 o'clock, the sky cleared up. On the mountains of the Tyrol the clouds stood in huge masses. The streaks, too, in the lower regions did not move. The road lies on the heights over hills of alluvial gravel, while below one sees the Isar flowing slowly. Here the work of the inundations of the primal oceans become conceivable. In many granite-rubbles I found the counterparts of the specimens in my cabinet, for which I have to thank Knebel.

The mists from the river and the meadows hung about for a time, but, at last, they, too, dispersed. Between these gravelly hills, which you must think of as extending, both in length and breadth, for many leagues, is a highly beautiful and fertile region like that in the basin of the Regen. Now one comes again upon the Isar, and observe, in its channel, a precipitous section of the gravel hills, at least a hundred and fifty feet high. I arrived at Wolfrathshausen and reached the eight-and-fortieth degree. The sun was scorching hot; no one relies on the fine weather; every one is complaining of the past year, and bitterly weeping over the arrangements of Providence.

And now a new world opened upon me. I was approaching the mountains which stood out more and more distinctly.

Benedictbeuern has a glorious situation and charms one at the first sight. On a fertile plain is a long and broad white building, and, behind it, a broad and lofty ridge of rocks. Next, one ascends to the Kochel-see, and, still higher on the mountains, to the Walchen-see. Here I greeted the first snow-capt summit, and, in the midst of my admiration at being so near the snowy mountains, I was informed that yesterday it had thundered in these parts, and that snow had fallen on the heights. From these meteoric tokens people draw hopes of better weather, and from this early snow, anticipate change in the atmosphere. The rocks around me are all of limestone, of the oldest formation, and containing no fossils. These limestone mountains extend in vast, unbroken ranges from Dalmatia to Mount St. Gothard. Hacquet has travelled over a considerable portion of the chain. They dip on the primary rocks of the quartz and clay.