CHAPTER VIII.
WE had now reached Switzerland, so long the final mark and aim of ourexertions. We had looked, I know not wherefore, with hope and pleasingexpectation on her congregation of hills and snowy crags, and opened ourbosoms with renewed spirits to the icy Biz, which even at Midsummer used tocome from the northern glacier laden with cold. Yet how could we nourishexpectation of relief? Like our native England, and the vast extent offertile France, this mountain-embowered land was desolate of itsinhabitants. Nor bleak mountain-top, nor snow-nourished rivulet; not theice-laden Biz, nor thunder, the tamer of contagion, had preserved them--why therefore should we claim exemption?
Who was there indeed to save? What troop had we brought fit to stand atbay, and combat with the conqueror? We were a failing remnant, tamed tomere submission to the coming blow. A train half dead, through fear ofdeath--a hopeless, unresisting, almost reckless crew, which, in thetossed bark of life, had given up all pilotage, and resigned themselves tothe destructive force of ungoverned winds. Like a few furrows of unreapedcorn, which, left standing on a wide field after the rest is gathered tothe garner, are swiftly borne down by the winter storm. Like a fewstraggling swallows, which, remaining after their fellows had, on the firstunkind breath of passing autumn, migrated to genial climes, were struck toearth by the first frost of November. Like a stray sheep that wanders overthe sleet-beaten hill-side, while the flock is in the pen, and dies beforemorning-dawn. Like a cloud, like one of many that were spread inimpenetrable woof over the sky, which, when the shepherd north has drivenits companions "to drink Antipodean noon," fades and dissolves in the clearether--Such were we!
We left the fair margin of the beauteous lake of Geneva, and entered theAlpine ravines; tracing to its source the brawling Arve, through therock-bound valley of Servox, beside the mighty waterfalls, and under theshadow of the inaccessible mountains, we travelled on; while the luxuriantwalnut-tree gave place to the dark pine, whose musical branches swung inthe wind, and whose upright forms had braved a thousand storms--till theverdant sod, the flowery dell, and shrubbery hill were exchanged for thesky-piercing, untrodden, seedless rock, "the bones of the world, waiting tobe clothed with every thing necessary to give life and beauty."[1] Strangethat we should seek shelter here! Surely, if, in those countries whereearth was wont, like a tender mother, to nourish her children, we had foundher a destroyer, we need not seek it here, where stricken by keen penuryshe seems to shudder through her stony veins. Nor were we mistaken in ourconjecture. We vainly sought the vast and ever moving glaciers ofChamounix, rifts of pendant ice, seas of congelated waters, the leaflessgroves of tempest-battered pines, dells, mere paths for the loud avalanche,and hill-tops, the resort of thunder-storms. Pestilence reigned paramounteven here. By the time that day and night, like twin sisters of equalgrowth, shared equally their dominion over the hours, one by one, beneaththe ice-caves, beside the waters springing from the thawed snows of athousand winters, another and yet another of the remnant of the race ofMan, closed their eyes for ever to the light.
Yet we were not quite wrong in seeking a scene like this, whereon to closethe drama. Nature, true to the last, consoled us in the very heart ofmisery. Sublime grandeur of outward objects soothed our hapless hearts, andwere in harmony with our desolation. Many sorrows have befallen man duringhis chequered course; and many a woe-stricken mourner has found himselfsole survivor among many. Our misery took its majestic shape and colouringfrom the vast ruin, that accompanied and made one with it. Thus on lovelyearth, many a dark ravine contains a brawling stream, shadowed by romanticrocks, threaded by mossy paths--but all, except this, wanted the mightyback-ground, the towering Alps, whose snowy capes, or bared ridges, liftedus from our dull mortal abode, to the palaces of Nature's own.
This solemn harmony of event and situation regulated our feelings, and gaveas it were fitting costume to our last act. Majestic gloom and tragic pompattended the decease of wretched humanity. The funeral procession ofmonarchs of old, was transcended by our splendid shews. Near the sources ofthe Arveiron we performed the rites for, four only excepted, the last ofthe species. Adrian and I, leaving Clara and Evelyn wrapt in peacefulunobserving slumber, carried the body to this desolate spot, and placed itin those caves of ice beneath the glacier, which rive and split with theslightest sound, and bring destruction on those within the clefts--nobird or beast of prey could here profane the frozen form. So, with hushedsteps and in silence, we placed the dead on a bier of ice, and then,departing, stood on the rocky platform beside the river springs. All hushedas we had been, the very striking of the air with our persons had sufficedto disturb the repose of this thawless region; and we had hardly left thecavern, before vast blocks of ice, detaching themselves from the roof,fell, and covered the human image we had deposited within. We had chosen afair moonlight night, but our journey thither had been long, and thecrescent sank behind the western heights by the time we had accomplishedour purpose. The snowy mountains and blue glaciers shone in their ownlight. The rugged and abrupt ravine, which formed one side of Mont Anvert,was opposite to us, the glacier at our side; at our feet Arveiron, whiteand foaming, dashed over the pointed rocks that jutted into it, and, withwhirring spray and ceaseless roar, disturbed the stilly night. Yellowlightnings played around the vast dome of Mont Blanc, silent as thesnow-clad rock they illuminated; all was bare, wild, and sublime, while thesinging of the pines in melodious murmurings added a gentle interest to therough magnificence. Now the riving and fall of icy rocks clave the air; nowthe thunder of the avalanche burst on our ears. In countries whose featuresare of less magnitude, nature betrays her living powers in the foliage ofthe trees, in the growth of herbage, in the soft purling of meanderingstreams; here, endowed with giant attributes, the torrent, thethunder-storm, and the flow of massive waters, display her activity. Suchthe church-yard, such the requiem, such the eternal congregation, thatwaited on our companion's funeral!
Nor was it the human form alone which we had placed in this eternalsepulchre, whose obsequies we now celebrated. With this last victim Plaguevanished from the earth. Death had never wanted weapons wherewith todestroy life, and we, few and weak as we had become, were still exposed toevery other shaft with which his full quiver teemed. But pestilence wasabsent from among them. For seven years it had had full sway upon earth;she had trod every nook of our spacious globe; she had mingled with theatmosphere, which as a cloak enwraps all our fellow-creatures--theinhabitants of native Europe--the luxurious Asiatic--the swarthyAfrican and free American had been vanquished and destroyed by her. Herbarbarous tyranny came to its close here in the rocky vale of Chamounix.
Still recurring scenes of misery and pain, the fruits of this distemper,made no more a part of our lives--the word plague no longer rung in ourears--the aspect of plague incarnate in the human countenance no longerappeared before our eyes. From this moment I saw plague no more. Sheabdicated her throne, and despoiled herself of her imperial sceptre amongthe ice rocks that surrounded us. She left solitude and silence co-heirs ofher kingdom.
My present feelings are so mingled with the past, that I cannot say whetherthe knowledge of this change visited us, as we stood on this sterile spot.It seems to me that it did; that a cloud seemed to pass from over us, thata weight was taken from the air; that henceforth we breathed more freely,and raised our heads with some portion of former liberty. Yet we did nothope. We were impressed by the sentiment, that our race was run, but thatplague would not be our destroyer. The coming time was as a mighty river,down which a charmed boat is driven, whose mortal steersman knows, that theobvious peril is not the one he needs fear, yet that danger is nigh; andwho floats awe-struck under beetling precipices, through the darkand turbid waters--seeing in the distance yet stranger and rudershapes, towards which he is irresistibly impelled. What wouldbecome of us? O for some Delphic oracle, or Pythian maid, to utterthe secrets of futurity! O for some Oedipus to solve the riddle ofthe cruel Sphynx! Such Oedipus was I to be--not divining a word's juggle,but whose agonizing pangs
, and sorrow-tainted life were to be the engines,wherewith to lay bare the secrets of destiny, and reveal the meaning of theenigma, whose explanation closed the history of the human race.
Dim fancies, akin to these, haunted our minds, and instilled feelings notunallied to pleasure, as we stood beside this silent tomb of nature, rearedby these lifeless mountains, above her living veins, choking her vitalprinciple. "Thus are we left," said Adrian, "two melancholy blasted trees,where once a forest waved. We are left to mourn, and pine, and die. Yeteven now we have our duties, which we must string ourselves to fulfil: theduty of bestowing pleasure where we can, and by force of love, irradiatingwith rainbow hues the tempest of grief. Nor will I repine if in thisextremity we preserve what we now possess. Something tells me, Verney, thatwe need no longer dread our cruel enemy, and I cling with delight to theoracular voice. Though strange, it will be sweet to mark the growth of yourlittle boy, and the development of Clara's young heart. In the midst of adesert world, we are everything to them; and, if we live, it must be ourtask to make this new mode of life happy to them. At present this is easy,for their childish ideas do not wander into futurity, and the stingingcraving for sympathy, and all of love of which our nature is susceptible,is not yet awake within them: we cannot guess what will happen then, whennature asserts her indefeasible and sacred powers; but, long before thattime, we may all be cold, as he who lies in yonder tomb of ice. We needonly provide for the present, and endeavour to fill with pleasant imagesthe inexperienced fancy of your lovely niece. The scenes which now surroundus, vast and sublime as they are, are not such as can best contribute tothis work. Nature is here like our fortunes, grand, but too destructive,bare, and rude, to be able to afford delight to her young imagination. Letus descend to the sunny plains of Italy. Winter will soon be here, toclothe this wilderness in double desolation; but we will cross the bleakhill-tops, and lead her to scenes of fertility and beauty, where her pathwill be adorned with flowers, and the cheery atmosphere inspire pleasureand hope."
In pursuance of this plan we quitted Chamounix on the following day. We hadno cause to hasten our steps; no event was transacted beyond our actualsphere to enchain our resolves, so we yielded to every idle whim, anddeemed our time well spent, when we could behold the passage of the hourswithout dismay. We loitered along the lovely Vale of Servox; passed longhours on the bridge, which, crossing the ravine of Arve, commands aprospect of its pine-clothed depths, and the snowy mountains that wall itin. We rambled through romantic Switzerland; till, fear of coming winterleading us forward, the first days of October found us in the valley of LaMaurienne, which leads to Cenis. I cannot explain the reluctance we felt atleaving this land of mountains; perhaps it was, that we regarded the Alpsas boundaries between our former and our future state of existence, and soclung fondly to what of old we had loved. Perhaps, because we had now sofew impulses urging to a choice between two modes of action, we werepleased to preserve the existence of one, and preferred the prospect ofwhat we were to do, to the recollection of what had been done. We felt thatfor this year danger was past; and we believed that, for some months, wewere secured to each other. There was a thrilling, agonizing delight in thethought--it filled the eyes with misty tears, it tore the heart withtumultuous heavings; frailer than the "snow fall in the river," were weeach and all--but we strove to give life and individuality to themeteoric course of our several existences, and to feel that no momentescaped us unenjoyed. Thus tottering on the dizzy brink, we were happy.Yes! as we sat beneath the toppling rocks, beside the waterfalls, near
--Forests, ancient as the hills,
And folding sunny spots of greenery, where the chamois grazed, and thetimid squirrel laid up its hoard--descanting on the charms of nature,drinking in the while her unalienable beauties--we were, in an emptyworld, happy.
Yet, O days of joy--days, when eye spoke to eye, and voices, sweeter thanthe music of the swinging branches of the pines, or rivulet's gentlemurmur, answered mine--yet, O days replete with beatitude, days of lovedsociety--days unutterably dear to me forlorn--pass, O pass before me,making me in your memory forget what I am. Behold, how my streaming eyesblot this senseless paper--behold, how my features are convulsed byagonizing throes, at your mere recollection, now that, alone, my tearsflow, my lips quiver, my cries fill the air, unseen, unmarked, unheard!Yet, O yet, days of delight! let me dwell on your long-drawn hours!
As the cold increased upon us, we passed the Alps, and descended intoItaly. At the uprising of morn, we sat at our repast, and cheated ourregrets by gay sallies or learned disquisitions. The live-long day wesauntered on, still keeping in view the end of our journey, but careless ofthe hour of its completion. As the evening star shone out, and the orangesunset, far in the west, marked the position of the dear land we had forever left, talk, thought enchaining, made the hours fly--O that we hadlived thus for ever and for ever! Of what consequence was it to our fourhearts, that they alone were the fountains of life in the wide world? Asfar as mere individual sentiment was concerned, we had rather be left thusunited together, than if, each alone in a populous desert of unknown men,we had wandered truly companionless till life's last term. In this manner,we endeavoured to console each other; in this manner, true philosophytaught us to reason.
It was the delight of Adrian and myself to wait on Clara, naming her thelittle queen of the world, ourselves her humblest servitors. When wearrived at a town, our first care was to select for her its most choiceabode; to make sure that no harrowing relic remained of its formerinhabitants; to seek food for her, and minister to her wants with assiduoustenderness. Clara entered into our scheme with childish gaiety. Her chiefbusiness was to attend on Evelyn; but it was her sport to array herself insplendid robes, adorn herself with sunny gems, and ape a princely state.Her religion, deep and pure, did not teach her to refuse to blunt thus thekeen sting of regret; her youthful vivacity made her enter, heart and soul,into these strange masquerades.
We had resolved to pass the ensuing winter at Milan, which, as being alarge and luxurious city, would afford us choice of homes. We had descendedthe Alps, and left far behind their vast forests and mighty crags. Weentered smiling Italy. Mingled grass and corn grew in her plains, theunpruned vines threw their luxuriant branches around the elms. The grapes,overripe, had fallen on the ground, or hung purple, or burnished green,among the red and yellow leaves. The ears of standing corn winnowed toemptiness by the spendthrift winds; the fallen foliage of the trees, theweed-grown brooks, the dusky olive, now spotted with its blackened fruit;the chestnuts, to which the squirrel only was harvest-man; all plenty, andyet, alas! all poverty, painted in wondrous hues and fantastic groupingsthis land of beauty. In the towns, in the voiceless towns, we visited thechurches, adorned by pictures, master-pieces of art, or galleries ofstatues--while in this genial clime the animals, in new found liberty,rambled through the gorgeous palaces, and hardly feared our forgottenaspect. The dove-coloured oxen turned their full eyes on us, and pacedslowly by; a startling throng of silly sheep, with pattering feet, wouldstart up in some chamber, formerly dedicated to the repose of beauty, andrush, huddling past us, down the marble staircase into the street, andagain in at the first open door, taking unrebuked possession of hallowedsanctuary, or kingly council-chamber. We no longer started at theseoccurrences, nor at worse exhibition of change--when the palace hadbecome a mere tomb, pregnant with fetid stench, strewn with the dead; andwe could perceive how pestilence and fear had played strange antics,chasing the luxurious dame to the dank fields and bare cottage; gathering,among carpets of Indian woof, and beds of silk, the rough peasant, or thedeformed half-human shape of the wretched beggar.
We arrived at Milan, and stationed ourselves in the Vice-Roy's palace. Herewe made laws for ourselves, dividing our day, and fixing distinctoccupations for each hour. In the morning we rode in the adjoining country,or wandered through the palaces, in search of pictures or antiquities. Inthe evening we assembled to read or to converse. There were few books thatwe dared read; few, that did not cr
uelly deface the painting we bestowed onour solitude, by recalling combinations and emotions never more to beexperienced by us. Metaphysical disquisition; fiction, which wandering fromall reality, lost itself in self-created errors; poets of times so far goneby, that to read of them was as to read of Atlantis and Utopia; or such asreferred to nature only, and the workings of one particular mind; but mostof all, talk, varied and ever new, beguiled our hours.
While we paused thus in our onward career towards death, time held on itsaccustomed course. Still and for ever did the earth roll on, enthroned inher atmospheric car, speeded by the force of the invisible coursers ofnever-erring necessity. And now, this dew-drop in the sky, this ball,ponderous with mountains, lucent with waves, passing from the short tyrannyof watery Pisces and the frigid Ram, entered the radiant demesne of Taurusand the Twins. There, fanned by vernal airs, the Spirit of Beauty sprungfrom her cold repose; and, with winnowing wings and soft pacing feet, set agirdle of verdure around the earth, sporting among the violets, hidingwithin the springing foliage of the trees, tripping lightly down theradiant streams into the sunny deep. "For lo! winter is past, the rain isover and gone; the flowers appear on the earth, the time of the singing ofbirds is come, and the voice of the turtle is heard in our land; the figtree putteth forth her green figs, and the vines, with the tender grape,give a good smell."[2] Thus was it in the time of the ancient regal poet;thus was it now.
Yet how could we miserable hail the approach of this delightful season? Wehoped indeed that death did not now as heretofore walk in its shadow; yet,left as we were alone to each other, we looked in each other's faces withenquiring eyes, not daring altogether to trust to our presentiments, andendeavouring to divine which would be the hapless survivor to the otherthree. We were to pass the summer at the lake of Como, and thither weremoved as soon as spring grew to her maturity, and the snow disappearedfrom the hill tops. Ten miles from Como, under the steep heights of theeastern mountains, by the margin of the lake, was a villa called thePliniana, from its being built on the site of a fountain, whose periodicalebb and flow is described by the younger Pliny in his letters. The househad nearly fallen into ruin, till in the year 2090, an English nobleman hadbought it, and fitted it up with every luxury. Two large halls, hung withsplendid tapestry, and paved with marble, opened on each side of a court,of whose two other sides one overlooked the deep dark lake, and the otherwas bounded by a mountain, from whose stony side gushed, with roar andsplash, the celebrated fountain. Above, underwood of myrtle and tufts ofodorous plants crowned the rock, while the star-pointing giant cypressesreared themselves in the blue air, and the recesses of the hills wereadorned with the luxuriant growth of chestnut-trees. Here we fixed oursummer residence. We had a lovely skiff, in which we sailed, now stemmingthe midmost waves, now coasting the over-hanging and craggy banks, thicksown with evergreens, which dipped their shining leaves in the waters, andwere mirrored in many a little bay and creek of waters of translucentdarkness. Here orange plants bloomed, here birds poured forth melodioushymns; and here, during spring, the cold snake emerged from the clefts, andbasked on the sunny terraces of rock.
Were we not happy in this paradisiacal retreat? If some kind spirit hadwhispered forgetfulness to us, methinks we should have been happy here,where the precipitous mountains, nearly pathless, shut from our view thefar fields of desolate earth, and with small exertion of the imagination,we might fancy that the cities were still resonant with popular hum, andthe peasant still guided his plough through the furrow, and that we, theworld's free denizens, enjoyed a voluntary exile, and not a remedilesscutting off from our extinct species.
Not one among us enjoyed the beauty of this scenery so much as Clara.Before we quitted Milan, a change had taken place in her habits andmanners. She lost her gaiety, she laid aside her sports, and assumed analmost vestal plainness of attire. She shunned us, retiring with Evelyn tosome distant chamber or silent nook; nor did she enter into his pastimeswith the same zest as she was wont, but would sit and watch him with sadlytender smiles, and eyes bright with tears, yet without a word of complaint.She approached us timidly, avoided our caresses, nor shook off herembarrassment till some serious discussion or lofty theme called her forawhile out of herself. Her beauty grew as a rose, which, opening to thesummer wind, discloses leaf after leaf till the sense aches with its excessof loveliness. A slight and variable colour tinged her cheeks, and hermotions seemed attuned by some hidden harmony of surpassing sweetness. Weredoubled our tenderness and earnest attentions. She received them withgrateful smiles, that fled swift as sunny beam from a glittering wave on anApril day.
Our only acknowledged point of sympathy with her, appeared to be Evelyn.This dear little fellow was a comforter and delight to us beyond all words.His buoyant spirit, and his innocent ignorance of our vast calamity, werebalm to us, whose thoughts and feelings were over-wrought and spun out inthe immensity of speculative sorrow. To cherish, to caress, to amuse himwas the common task of all. Clara, who felt towards him in some degree likea young mother, gratefully acknowledged our kindness towards him. To me, O!to me, who saw the clear brows and soft eyes of the beloved of my heart, mylost and ever dear Idris, re-born in his gentle face, to me he was deareven to pain; if I pressed him to my heart, methought I clasped a real andliving part of her, who had lain there through long years of youthfulhappiness.
It was the custom of Adrian and myself to go out each day in our skiff toforage in the adjacent country. In these expeditions we were seldomaccompanied by Clara or her little charge, but our return was an hour ofhilarity. Evelyn ransacked our stores with childish eagerness, and wealways brought some new found gift for our fair companion. Then too we madediscoveries of lovely scenes or gay palaces, whither in the evening we allproceeded. Our sailing expeditions were most divine, and with a fair windor transverse course we cut the liquid waves; and, if talk failed under thepressure of thought, I had my clarionet with me, which awoke the echoes,and gave the change to our careful minds. Clara at such times oftenreturned to her former habits of free converse and gay sally; and thoughour four hearts alone beat in the world, those four hearts were happy.
One day, on our return from the town of Como, with a laden boat, weexpected as usual to be met at the port by Clara and Evelyn, and we weresomewhat surprised to see the beach vacant. I, as my nature prompted, wouldnot prognosticate evil, but explained it away as a mere casual incident.Not so Adrian. He was seized with sudden trembling and apprehension, and hecalled to me with vehemence to steer quickly for land, and, when near,leapt from the boat, half falling into the water; and, scrambling up thesteep bank, hastened along the narrow strip of garden, the only level spacebetween the lake and the mountain. I followed without delay; the garden andinner court were empty, so was the house, whose every room we visited.Adrian called loudly upon Clara's name, and was about to rush up the nearmountain-path, when the door of a summer-house at the end of the gardenslowly opened, and Clara appeared, not advancing towards us, but leaningagainst a column of the building with blanched cheeks, in a posture ofutter despondency. Adrian sprang towards her with a cry of joy, and foldedher delightedly in his arms. She withdrew from his embrace, and, without aword, again entered the summer-house. Her quivering lips, her despairingheart refused to afford her voice to express our misfortune. Poor littleEvelyn had, while playing with her, been seized with sudden fever, and nowlay torpid and speechless on a little couch in the summer-house.
For a whole fortnight we unceasingly watched beside the poor child, as hislife declined under the ravages of a virulent typhus. His little form andtiny lineaments encaged the embryo of the world-spanning mind of man. Man'snature, brimful of passions and affections, would have had an home in thatlittle heart, whose swift pulsations hurried towards their close. His smallhand's fine mechanism, now flaccid and unbent, would in the growth of sinewand muscle, have achieved works of beauty or of strength. His tender rosyfeet would have trod in firm manhood the bowers and glades of earth--these reflections were now of little use: he lay,
thought and strengthsuspended, waiting unresisting the final blow.
We watched at his bedside, and when the access of fever was on him, weneither spoke nor looked at each other, marking only his obstructed breathand the mortal glow that tinged his sunken cheek, the heavy death thatweighed on his eyelids. It is a trite evasion to say, that words could notexpress our long drawn agony; yet how can words image sensations, whosetormenting keenness throw us back, as it were, on the deep roots and hiddenfoundations of our nature, which shake our being with earth-quake-throe, sothat we leave to confide in accustomed feelings which like mother-earthsupport us, and cling to some vain imagination or deceitful hope, whichwill soon be buried in the ruins occasioned by the final shock. I havecalled that period a fortnight, which we passed watching the changes of thesweet child's malady--and such it might have been--at night, wewondered to find another day gone, while each particular hour seemedendless. Day and night were exchanged for one another uncounted; we slepthardly at all, nor did we even quit his room, except when a pang of griefseized us, and we retired from each other for a short period to conceal oursobs and tears. We endeavoured in vain to abstract Clara from thisdeplorable scene. She sat, hour after hour, looking at him, now softlyarranging his pillow, and, while he had power to swallow, administered hisdrink. At length the moment of his death came: the blood paused in its flow--his eyes opened, and then closed again: without convulsion or sigh, thefrail tenement was left vacant of its spiritual inhabitant.
I have heard that the sight of the dead has confirmed materialists in theirbelief. I ever felt otherwise. Was that my child--that moveless decayinginanimation? My child was enraptured by my caresses; his dear voicecloathed with meaning articulations his thoughts, otherwise inaccessible;his smile was a ray of the soul, and the same soul sat upon its throne inhis eyes. I turn from this mockery of what he was. Take, O earth, thy debt!freely and for ever I consign to thee the garb thou didst afford. But thou,sweet child, amiable and beloved boy, either thy spirit has sought a fitterdwelling, or, shrined in my heart, thou livest while it lives.
We placed his remains under a cypress, the upright mountain being scoopedout to receive them. And then Clara said, "If you wish me to live, take mefrom hence. There is something in this scene of transcendent beauty, inthese trees, and hills and waves, that for ever whisper to me, leave thycumbrous flesh, and make a part of us. I earnestly entreat you to take meaway."
So on the fifteenth of August we bade adieu to our villa, and theembowering shades of this abode of beauty; to calm bay and noisy waterfall;to Evelyn's little grave we bade farewell! and then, with heavy hearts, wedeparted on our pilgrimage towards Rome.
[1] Mary Wollstonecraft's Letters from Norway.[2] Solomon's Song.