“My Lord! Ain’t she got vinegar!”
I repeated this to Madame Carreno at Jenbach, and
she seized my hands and shouted with laughter.
Such a grip as she has! Her hands are filled
with steel wires instead of muscles, and her arms have
the strength of an athlete in training.
The car propelled by the hunchbacked engine grated
and bumped its way over its cog-wheel road, pushing
its delighted quota of passengers higher and higher
into the mountains. The Inn valley fell away from
our view, and wooded slopes, fir-trees, patches of
snow on far hillsides, and tiny hamlets took its place.
“Here and there among these little villages
live my summer pupils,” said Madame Carreno.
“I have six. One from San Francisco, one
from Australia, one from Paris, one from Geneva, and
two from Russia—all young girls, and with
such talent! They live all the way from
Jenbach to the Achensee, and come to see me once a
week.”
The train stopped with a final squeal of the chain,
and a lurch which loosened our joints.
Before us spread a sheet of water of such a blueness,
such a limpid, clear, deep sapphire blue as I never
saw in water before.
Around it rose the hills of Tyrol, guarding it like
sentinels.
It was the Achensee!
DANCING IN THE AUSTRIAN TYROL
Jimmie is such a curious mixture that it is really
very much worth while to study his emotions.
I think perhaps that even I, who find it so hard to
discover either man, woman, child, or dog whom I would
designate as “typically American,” am
forced to admit that Jimmie’s mental make-up
is perfect as a certain type of the American business
man, travelling extensively in Europe. The real
bread of life to Jimmie is the New York Stock Exchange;
but being on the verge of a nervous breakdown, he
brought his fine steel-wire will to bear upon his recreation
with as much nervous force as he ever expended in
a deal in Third Avenue or Union Pacific.
Hence he travels nervously yet deliberately, and views
Europe from the point of view of the American stock
market, scoffing at my enthusiasm, ironical of Bee’s
most cherished preferences, patient with his wife’s
serious love of society, and chivalrously tolerant,
as only the American man can be, of the prejudices
of his travelling family.
I notice that he is taking on a certain amount of
true culture. He is broadening. Jimmie is
beginning to let his emotions out; however, very gradually,
with a firm, nervous hand on the throttle-valve, with
the sensitive American’s fear of ridicule as
his steam-gauge.
I watched Jimmie as he first saw the Achensee.
The colour came into his face, his eyes brightened,
and he clenched his hands—a sure sign of
feeling in Jimmie.
