Читать книгу The Royal Road to Romance - Richard Halliburton - Страница 5

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While the Rhone Valley is not the most beautiful in Switzerland, it’s too beautiful to dash through on a train. Irvine and I had not seen so much of the country that we could afford to sacrifice even this valley to rapid transportation. I began to ask myself as we bumped along in a third-class coach from Zermatt toward Lausanne why we were in such a hurry anyway. We didn’t know or care where we were going; we had no schedule whatsoever. A rebellion against this waste of Alps suddenly seized me. I reached for my knapsack and informed my companion I was going to abandon that stupid third-class coach and walk a while. Then I jumped off the train, not knowing or caring how far I was from where, and leaving poor Irvine gasping at my demented behavior. Nor did my farewell suggestion that he wait for me in Paris explain this sudden departure. I was a bit surprised myself as I stood on the embankment and watched the last car disappear into the west.

The next thing for me to do was to learn where I was. A passing pedestrian informed me that Lake Geneva was only three kilometers distant. That was joyful news, for Lake Geneva meant Montreux, and Montreux meant Chillon, and Chillon had always been to me a Castle of Romance.

Hurrying my pace, I soon caught sight of Lac Leman, blue and unruffled in the calm of an autumn afternoon. Another moment and “Chillon’s snow-white battlement” rose before me. Rising out of the shining mirror in towers and turrets, surrounded by the clearest of lakes, backed by a mass of verdure, shadowed by the snow-clad Alps, this historic pile is one of the most imposing old castles in all Europe.

Eagerly I stopped to pay homage to the immortal landmark, rambled alone through its halls and dungeons, found Lord Byron’s name carved on one of the seven famous columns in the prison of Bonivard that lies beneath the water-surface. Lines from The Prisoner of Chillon that I had learned as a boy, came to me:

“Below the surface of the lake

The dark vault lies wherein we lay:

We heard it ripple night and day;

Sounding o’er our heads it knocked;

And I have felt the winter’s spray

Wash through the bars when winds were high

And wanton in the happy sky.”

It was nearly sunset, and the beams came slantingly through the narrow windows high above the dungeon floor, to concentrate light on a few spots and leave the rest in darkness. I would have remained longer but the guards ordered me out, as the building was being closed for the night. Reluctantly I departed, and scrambled along the shore among the rocks and trees that border the lake from Chillon toward Montreux. Though it was after six o’clock the afternoon was so warm, Lac Leman so peaceful, I could not resist the appeal of the water. I found a half-hidden cove, removed my dusty clothes and plunged into the glittering path of the red sunset. Striking out into the lake I again sought the castle, and swam beneath the walls of Chillon, past the bars through which the winter’s spray found its way to Bonivard. The sun, huge and crimson, flashed straight against the mellowed battlements as I turned back, breathless but rejuvenated, to the cove. Upon the beach, hidden by overhanging trees, I lay till I was dry, looking toward the sun-silhouetted Alps across the lake in Savoy, and extracting a small copy of The Prisoner bought in the castle, I began to read:

“Eternal spirit of the chainless mind!

Brightest in dungeons, Liberty! thou art,

For there thy habitation is the heart—

The heart which love of thee alone can bind....”

The fiery ball hung suspended in the horizon clouds. Another page was turned—another canto read:

“Lake Leman lies by Chillon’s walls;

A thousand feet in depth below

Its massy waters meet and flow;

Thus much the fathom-line was sent

From Chillon’s snow-white battlement ...”

Once more I looked to the west. Half-hid behind the mountain wall the red disk trembled.

Canto six—canto seven—only the top-most rim remained ... canto eight—one last streak of light—canto nine.....