"'Tis a very good world we live in,To lend, or to spend, or to give in;But to beg, or to borrow, or get a man's own,'Tis the very worst world that ever was known."
"'Tis a very good world we live in,To lend, or to spend, or to give in;But to beg, or to borrow, or get a man's own,'Tis the very worst world that ever was known."
September 19th.—At the eleventh hour and when I seemed at the end of my resources, help came from a most unexpected quarter! I can never cease to be grateful for the goodness and kindness which relieved my distress. The Germans look downcast, the Russians jubilant. How paternal this Government is no one who has not lived in Germany can imagine. For instance, above the nearest pillar box I saw a notice written "Don't forget address and stamps!"
September 20th.—Our passports are now in the hands of the military authorities at Frankfort, and Mr. Ives, the American Vice-Consul, is doing all in his power to get us leave to go. The Superintendent of the Inhalatorium is most kind and sympathetic. She inquired why I had not been there for three days, and when I told her "Gar kein Geld" (no money) was the cause, she cried with real feeling, "Schrecklich!" (terrible). Any thing to do with money or the want of it appealsto the Teutonic mind, although the Germans sneer at us for being a nation of shopkeepers. There are two words we hope never to hear again, "Kultur" and "Unser." "Unser Deutschland," "Unser Kaiser," "Unser Kultur." How weary and trite are these! What an extraordinary mixture the Germans are, brave, conceited, sentimental, prosaic, patriotic, and yet no people so soon lose their national characteristics, and become citizens of another country as Germans. Many of their intellectual poses are absolutely morbid. They adore Ibsen as a playwright and despise Goldsmith and Sheridan; they worship Gauguin, and the school of Impressionists, and have little appreciation nowadays for pre-Raphaelitism. They are intensely and truly musical, and it is amazing, taking into consideration their extraordinary lack of humour, that they should be such accomplished students of Shakespeare, but of real wit or humour the German possesses not an atom. Take, for instance, the modern novels of Suderman, of Rudolph Herzog, of Rudolph Stratz, of Bernard Kellerman, of Paul Heyse, and you will find intense seriousness, tragedy, pathos, masterly drawing of character, and absolutely no fun from cover to cover. As for the"Fliegende Blätter," the German "Punch," it is the sickliest imitation of humour possible to conceive. Foremost in science, the German is yet a neophyte in the graces and arts of life. What cooking! what clothes!
September 22nd.—If we may believe such good news we are to be released from this irksome life, and set at liberty next Saturday. Our joy is much damped, however, by hearing that none of the men are to be allowed to leave, and, of course, their wives stay with them. Mr. Ives has made a special journey to Berlin on behalf of our poor men, but the authorities are obdurate.
People say that the loss of life in this terrible war is beyond belief as far as the Germans are concerned. To hide this the Emperor requests that no one shall wear mourning for the dead until the war is over. Also, no complete catalogues of casualties are issued, only lists for each kingdom, or duchy, so that the bulk of the people have no idea of the waste of life. The wounded being so numerous, the doctors now have little time to attend to them on the spot, and therefore they are put into trains and sent off to "Lazaretts" sometimes beforeeven their wounds are washed. A Belgian lady who had a special police permit to go to Frankfort, returned this afternoon in a train full of wounded soldiers. One of these was put into her carriage. He had been badly shot in the arm; his sleeve was soaked with blood, and that had coagulated; his wound had never been washed, and French earth was still on his boots, and yet he had been sent in this condition from Rheims to Giessen!
September 23rd.—Terrible news! A telegram was posted up in the town this morning, saying that three English "Panzerkreuzers" had been sunk by one German submarine. Of course the church bells pealed, and the flags came out, and the children sang "Nun danket alle Gott," because 950 brave Englishmen had gone under. We are much depressed, and our depression is aggravated by the want of occupation here. We dare not sketch for fear of being "verhaftet" (arrested). It is no good writing because every scrap of paper will be taken from us on the frontier; nobody I know plays bridge, and so I read and walk all day long. Miss H—— tells me that a rude young clerk in the "Löwen-Apotheke" refused to talk Englishto her this morning, "You will have to learn German now, because we shall be in London within a fortnight," said he! No German I have yet known foresees any other result of this war but success. The Fatherland Commissariat, according to the Italian papers, leaves much to be desired. The unfortunate soldiers are almost starving, and often live for days together on raw carrots, turnips, herbs, or any other vegetable they can root up out of the ground. The doctors are puzzled because men have died of such seemingly slight wounds. One case seemed so incomprehensible that an autopsy was decided on, and a raw root with fragments of earth upon it was found in the poor creature's stomach. The Russians left at 5 a.m. this morning, men and women. It is more than hard that our poor men should be left behind. Lady M——, who has been ill, and her daughter, an invalid lady, and her maid, were given special passes to go a couple of days ago. Miss M—— and Miss G—— went to the police station armed with these passes, and requested to have their passports back. "The Demon" curtly refused. "But youmustgive them to us," said Miss M——. "Don't saymüssento me!" said "the Demon,""bittenis the word!" (Don't saymustto me,begis the word).
September 24th.—Joyfully packing! A last meeting was held at the "Prince of Wales' Hotel" where kind Mr. S—— presided, and we all received instructions for our journey, and our long detained passports!
Fifty women and children go. We sleep in Frankfort, and cross from Flushing to Folkestone. Oh! that terrible mined sea, and the "untersuchung" of the Frontier. I tremble for this Diary, all letters I have destroyed.
Frankfort,September 25th.—We are still in the enemy's country of course, but have come out of our prison Altheim. All were early at the Bahn-Hof. There for the last time, please God! we found our old horror the Chief of Police. He had a long paper in his hand, and read out our names; "Hamilton?" "Here!" "Your passport?" (which he scrutinised as if he had never seen such a thing before), and so on. As we got our precious papers back we passed through the barrier, where our tickets were clipped, and on tothe platform above. The train when it came in was crammed with soldiers, and we were advised to wait two hours for the next, but (to a woman) we all preferred travelling third, or even fourth class, rather than remain another hour where we had suffered so much. Miss G—— told me afterwards that she had travelled with two German men, who cursed England up and down, using the most horrible language about her.
Presently a wounded soldier came into the carriage, and they asked him where he had been fighting. "On the Western Frontier," said he.
"With the French?"
"Yes."
"Did you see the English?"
"No."
"Of course not! They had all run away. Cowards, cowards!"
These are the things which make life so unendurable in an enemy's land. I was sent here to the "Hessicher-Hof," which, although it masquerades under another name, I had no difficulty in recognising as the former "Englischer-Hof." Miss H—— went to the "Hotel Bristol," and whenshe got there found over the door the one word "Hotel." What we women should have done without the able committee who arranged all details for us with such kindness and thoroughness, I cannot imagine.
September 28th.—There were few tears shed when we steamed out of Frankfort two days ago on our way to home and freedom. It was wonderful to feel that we might talk above a whisper in the railway-carriage; amazing that we had not to scrutinize carefully every corner to be sure no spies lurked there, and most delightful of all to know that we had got beyond the reach of the Demon of the Burg-Strasse. Egotistically enough we went over in retrospect our anxieties, disappointments and miseries. Should we ever get rid of that evil shadow, we wondered, which had darkened so cruelly two weary months of our lives!
Now and then we looked out of the windows with distaste—agreed that the outskirts of Frankfort were hideous with their obtrusive and insistent collection of factory chimneys; and shuddered at the distant and beautiful background of mountainand forest, to us so teeming with painful memories. We exclaimed at the unsightliness of the huge skeleton lettering proclaiming to all the world that amaschinen-Fabrikwas below. Even when we entered a bucolic region of modest gardens and saw nothing more aggressive than cabbages and turnips, we turned away from the sight with aversion. Yet the villages are picturesque enough, and so are the towns. Timber-framed and gabled houses, steeply pitched red roofs and stunted grey and mossy church spires, certainly make no unpleasing picture. In happier days I have admired the grape-vines meandering over the whitewashed cottages, and marvelled at the monotony of taste which furnished every window-ledge with exactly four pots of scarlet geraniums. Now, nothing pleased us that was German; scenery, architecture or people! "This," we said to ourselves, is "the sunny Rhineland through which we are passing, and we see no obvious signs as we go by of the struggle which is devastating Belgium and menacing France." At the first station, however, we realised that Germany was indeed at war. Red Cross nurses seemed everywhere. Long tables were spread with snowy cloths and bore coffee urns,zwiebacks, hörnchen and huge bowls of steaming soup ready for the poor wounded as they pass through. Now and then pale bandaged faces looked out at us from passing trains, and men on crutches hobbled by, and the horrors of mutilating war came home to us all. At Goch we had to show our passports, and have our luggage examined, but the reality proved not nearly so bad as our imaginings, and on the whole the officials were kind and courteous compared to our Altheim demon. The sun was setting blood-red behind a distant line of black forest when we left Goch and our enemies and imprisonment behind us and entered the Land of Promise.
We had all been saddened in the morning to learn that Mr. Ives' strenuous efforts to get permission for the men left behind to go soon, had met with a curt refusal from the Commandant at Frankfort. "When England returns our men, not before, and she had better be quick about it," said he. But how true is Rochefoucauld's cynical epigram—"Nous avons tous assez de force pour supporter les maux d'Autrui!" Even our sympathy with, and sorrow for, those left in Altheim could not damp the joy we felt to be freeagain; and when we quitted Goch, the German frontier station, I thought how blessed would be that day when "They shall beat their swords into ploughshares and their spears into pruning hooks; nation shall not lift up a sword against nation,neither shall they learn war any more. But they shall sit every man under his vine and under his fig-tree; and none shall make them afraid."
Hewho knows his Rhine and loves it must take of its charms in small doses, or satiety is the outcome. There are those, of course, who can travel from Dan to Beersheba and cry, "'Tis all barren"; but the ordinarily intelligent traveller may find much to delight and interest on the banks of the Rhine, always provided that he suits his mood to his environment, and takes but little of Rhine scenery at a time. For surely between Coblentz and Bingen there is an iteration as regards castles and ruins which is downright wearisome. Do we not between these points find Lahneck, Marksburg, Sterrenberg, Liebenstein, The Mouse, Rheinfels, The Cat, Schönburg, Gutenfels, The Pfalz, Stahleck, Furstenberg, Hohneck, Sooneck, Falkenburg, Rheinstein, and Ehrenfels?
Moreover, there is an affinity of form and colour and, indeed, of situation between all these whichproduces the effect of perpetual repetition. And we owe Byron a grudge for having written such trite words as "the castled crag" in relation to the Rhine, since no commonplace mind of the present day acquainted with his works but has fallen back on "the castled crag" to describe Drachenfels or Marksburg or Rheinfels, because, forsooth, its own English is too limited to supply a better adjective. So it is that conventional and inadequate English is perpetuated and individual force and expression are lost because people accept the ideas of others and will not seek language to convey their own.
All of which above prosing is the result of a day on the Rhine when the thermometer registered 74° to 84° in the shade, and a white vapour hid the banks of the river from Köln till close on Bonn. At Bonn a huge party of "personally-conducted" American tourists came on board. Their sharp, keen, eager, shrewd faces and shrill voices proclaimed their nationality at the outset. They were all obviously outside the pale of Society, and their thirst for information and keen interest in their surroundings were amazing. One learned before long that they had "done" the Paris Exhibition and meant to have a "look in" at most Europeancountries before sailing from Naples. They took the whole ship into their confidence before a quarter of an hour had passed; and we shared alike in thrilling intelligences conveyed through the medium of Baedeker's pages. "The castled crag" resounded from one end of the boat to the other; and as for Roland and Hildegunde, the tragedy of their lives was discussed, and exclaimed over, and lamented, until, happily, a bend of the river hid Nonnenwerth from sight.
In emphatic contrast to the nervous alertness of the Yankee was the spectacle of the middle-class German and his ways. He sat by his plain, stout, ill-dressed Frau, with his back to the scenery, and ate. Occasionally he spoke in monosyllables: more often he drank; but the end and object of his Rhine trip seemed to be that of consuming as much food as lay within the limits of possibility. What Nemesis has in store for him and those of his manner of life I can only imagine!
At a table near us sat three women and two men. Directly we left Köln a waiter set forth trays in front of them laden with coffee, zwiebacks, hörnchens, and eggs. This meal over, they sat sleepily blinking their eyes, whisking away flies,and mopping the moisture from their faces until the sound of "Eis! meine Herrschaften!" "Bier! meine Herrschaften!" roused them from their lethargy. Ices and beer and cherries and peaches successively filled up the weary hours until "the tocsin of the soul, the dinner bell," carried joy to their hearts. I can never forget the rapturous look of anticipation and satisfaction which those stolid middle-class Teutonic countenances wore when "Mittagsessen" was announced. They shook off their normal and habitual torpidity, and cheerfully elbowed their neighbours, nearly tumbling down the companion-ladder in their eagerness to be first in the field. They lost no time over the unlovely detail of tucking a corner of their napkins down their necks, and smoothing its folds over their protuberant persons; and they studied the Speise-Karte with a conscientiousness that was worthy of a better cause.
Dinner began with a tolerably good soup, followed by tough roast beef, cut in thick slices and garnished with carrots, peas and beans. Next came veal, equally uneatable, and then a surprise in the shape of Rhine salmon; after which followed chicken, salad, andcompôte. Finally, a stodgypudding, sufficiently satisfying, and dessert. Not one item of the menu was neglected by the five. They calmly and conscientiously and readily ate through the Speise-Karte from start to finish. Then they returned to deck, only to order coffee and ices, and called for a bottle of champagne, three of light Rhine wine, and a plateful of peaches; out of which they brewed a cup, ladling it from a Taunus ware bowl into their long Munich glasses, and sipping it lazily all the afternoon between such trifles as Kuchen and fresh relays of cherries. They ate and drank from Köln to Bingen with rare intervals of dozing, and I never once saw any of the party take the faintest interest in the Rhine, so far as its banks were concerned.
It was a relief to turn from such grossness to its antithesis in the shape of two American ladies who sat near us. They were well-preserved, well-bred spinsters under forty. Everything about them was dainty and exquisitely neat. I likened them in my mind to bowls of dried rose-leaves—the freshness gone, the perfume left. Such was their intense and intelligent interest in travel that, rather than lose a timber-framed village or historic castle, a vineyard or watch-tower, they abstained from lunch andpicnicked lightly on deck off tea and eggs and hörnchen. They knew the legends of the Rhine as you and I know (or ought to know) our Prayer-Books. They had studied the history of Germany, and mastered the intricacies alike of the Thirty Years' War and of the Hohenzollern pedigree; and they talked well, expressing their ideas in good Saxon words; at times, perhaps a trifle pedantic, but never offensively so.
As the day wore on the temperature became almost overpowering. The water reflected a blinding glare, and a heat like that of a burning fiery furnace was radiated from the engines. I was wondering whether a hammock in a cool English garden would not have been more desirable, when I heard a plaintive, uneducated American voice behind me ask a question of its mate which exactly embodied my own unuttered sentiments:
"WhatIwant to know, Jake, is: Is this pleasure, or ain't it? Did we come here to enjoy ourselves, or what?"
Jake: "Wall, I guess you ain't used to travelling around, my dear, and you don't understand it. Oh, yes" (with an obvious effort), "this is real fust-class pleasure, this is!"
Mrs. Jake: "Wall, I'm darned! I'd as lief be in our store."
Jake: "Sakes alive! Youdosurprise me! Think what Keren-Happuch Jones will say when you mention casual on your return something that happened when you was sailing up the Rhine. She'll die of envy, she will, and spite to think you've seen more'n her."
Mrs. Jake(cheered somewhat): "Wall, I reckon, Jake, there's summat in that. Keren-Happuch don't like anyone to do what she don't do."
Jake: "And then, my dear, think of your noo bonnet from Paris! That'll be another pill for Keren-Happuch to swallow."
Mrs. Jake: "My! Yes! I don't think much of Europe, anyway, but I could never have bought that bonnet in Baltimore. But, Jake, do look on the map and tell me when we get to Heidelberg."
Jake: "It ain't any good my lookin', my dear, for I wasn't raised to these sort of things, and I'm darned if I know where to find it."
A groan from Mrs. Jake, followed by: "Wall, I reckon when I find myself again in No. 9, Mount Mascal Street, I won't want to go travelling around even to cut out Keren-Happuch Jones."
I came to the rescue at this point, and showed the good lady where Heidelberg lay. She was a hard-featured, plain woman of some thirty-eight summers, her hair was dragged back uncompromisingly from her forehead, and there were no "adulteries of art" about either coiffure or costume.
"You see," she said apologetically, "Jake here and me are travelling around, and the only way we can get on is to ask for a ticket to a place, and never stop travelling till we get there. We speak German all right because my parents were Germans, and Jake was born in Germany; but he don't know much about it because he was only two years old when he left it eight-and-thirty years ago. We thought we'd like to see the Paris Exposition, but my! it ain't to be compared to the Chicago Exhibition, and as for Paris, it can't come up to Noo York, and these river steamers ain't a patch on the Hudson River boats, and I don't think much of Europe anyway."
Jake, a good-looking, gentle-mannered man, tried to soften the asperity of his wife's strictures without success. He evidently adored her.
"The way we travel," resumed Mrs. Jake, "is to think of a place we've heard of, and to ask for aticket to it. Now, we'd heard of Paris and Cologne, and Heidelberg, and Baden, and Dresden, and Berlin, and Hamburg, but we don't know now how they come—see? So we hev' to go cavortin' around to find out which to take next. A gentleman way back at Cologne"—she pronounced it "Klon"—"told me Heidelberg came next. I quite thought Baden was near Hamburg, and that we should take it last; but they tell me it ain't, and that, you see, has upset all our calculations. Guess you're a Londoner, anyway; thought so by your accent!"
When we left the steamer at Bingen, the last I heard of Mrs. Jake was a plaintive moan:
"Guess I don't think much of Europe, anyway, and I wouldn't come again, not even to cut out Keren-Happuch!"
"Ja Wohl!Frau Rittergutsbesitzer. I have lived in the Herr Professor's house for five-and-thirty years. I have pickled his cabbage and preserved his fruit. I have minced with my own hand the pork for his sausages before they had mincing-machines in Schleswig-Holstein. I have seen personally to the smoking of his hams and fish. I make his Apfelkuchen and Nusskuchen myself, and do not buy them in the shop, like that lazy Hausfrau opposite us at No 2, who comes from that God-forgotten country England, where all the women are so badly brought up. I grant you that what I do is no more than the duty of every God-fearing GermanHaushälterin; none the less, I do not mean all my work to go for nothing, and I will not be ousted by a hussy! In the time of thevielbedauertenmother (Frau Regierungsrat Lenbach)I had no worries about his matrimonial affairs; she looked after those. Butsieh mal, Frau Riedel, now the care of him is on my shoulders. He has no more idea of taking care of himself than a baby! He is exactly like that learned man—I think it was our great Neander—who was running out of his college one day and ran into a cow; so he pulled off his hat and said, 'Gnädige Frau, ich bitte um Verzeihung' ('Gracious lady, I beg your pardon'), and went on; and the week after he came tearing round the same corner, thinking, I suppose, of those heathen gods and goddesses whose pictures shame a modest woman to look at, and he ran up against a lady, so he cried out: 'Oh! du dumme Kuh! warum kommst du mir immer in den Weg?' ('Oh, you stupid cow, why will you always get in my way?') Yes, my Herr Professor is just like that—quite as stupid, though they call him so wise and clever; and what chance has a born innocent like he is against a designing spinster of forty-five who makes him presents ofWeihnachtstollenat Christmas,Oster-Eierat Easter, andGeburtstagstorteon his birthday? I ask you what chance of escape a poorJunggesellehas?
"Told him she wanted to marry him! Not I.Why,liebe Frau, I have not lived sixty-five and a half years in this world for nothing! If I let him suppose she was in love with him, that would be the very way to make him like her. So as I laid the cloth for the Herr Professor'sAbendtisch, I remarked casually that Fräulein Bettine Meyer was not at all a bad sort of woman really, and that she had some excellent qualities, if only she did not make herself so ridiculous. 'How ridiculous?' says he, sitting up. 'What does she do ridiculous, I should like to know?' 'Why, wears a false front and curls bought at Frau Kölsch's shop,' says I. 'Poor thing, she can't make herself look young and beautiful, whatever she does, and Frau Rittmeister Bernstorf was laughing at her the other day, and at the high heels and at the stuffing theSchneiderinround the corner puts into her gowns to cover the angular bones! She would look much more respectable,' said I, 'if she would brush her scanty grey locks back, and smooth them with pomatum as I do, and wear a black laceMützeover them, instead of making herself the laughing-stock of Schleswig.' And away I walked. And the Professor ate no supper that night, and next day he left for hisFerienausflug, and never called to saygood-bye to Fräulein Meyer; and so I put the extinguisher on that little candle just as its flame was beginning to burn up, and—why! here we are at Mainz."
And this is what I heard, and how I was entertained, in the "elektrische Bahn" on my little expedition from Wiesbaden to Mainz. I reflected, as I saw the Haushälterin get down heavily with all the deliberation of her sixty-five and a half years, that feline amenities are much the same in Germany as in England; and I felt sorry for poor Fräulein Meyer, who might have given up her small vanities and made pancakes andApfelkuchenfor the Professor quite as well in the end as the Haushälterin.
The cathedral of Mainz was, of course, the object of our expedition. It dominates the city from afar, with its wonderful towers and pinnacles, making of Mainz (a commonplace city enough) a thing of beauty. From the shores of the Rhine we crossed a wide street planted with trees and lined on each hand with modern German houses of pinkish stone (covered with heavy sculpture and breaking out into countless balconies and bay windows), and soon found ourselves in the market-place.And here, indeed, one felt oneself in the Germany of bygone days. Instead of pseudo-classic buildings, heavy with meaningless ornamentation, we found beautiful old timber-framed houses, with deep eaves and wood carvings. On one of these I read:
Zum KurfürstlichenWappen.Erneuert in Jahrdes Heils1899.
It was evidently a Gasthaus of considerable antiquity, and had been carefully restored. Close by a Brobdingnagian finger lured the unwary to where it pointed—a low doorway above which was inscribed the legend: "Hier essen Sie gut." The market-place had been dismantled of its stalls and umbrellas all but one, which was being furled as we arrived on the scene. A couple of men in blue smocks were sweeping up the cabbage leaves, straw and refuse, market carts were driving off, and smart-looking officers in beautiful uniforms strolled across what we English miscall "a square" for want of a better word.
But to get a good view of the exterior of thecathedral was what we wanted, and to this end we dived down strange, evil-smelling alleys, and went round and round a labyrinth of streets, always expecting to see, and never arriving at, the cathedral's façade. At last we realised that the quest was hopeless, since the building is so surrounded and deformed by commonplace, ugly houses that nothing of it but roof and towers can be seen from outside. We entered it at last by a narrow lane between poor, ugly houses, an unfit approach indeed to this beautiful Romanesque cathedral—one of the four famous Romanesque Gothic cathedrals of Germany. The general effect of the interior is that of strength, solidity, and simplicity. The grand structural lines are noble and pure. There is an entire absence of the florid in architecture, and no attempt at all at decoration as one understands it in Spanish cathedrals. The tone of the walls and floor is a pinkish brown, and the whole church has a warm glowing effect from its richly-coloured stone. I could have spared most, if not all, of the overladen rococo monuments to the Electors of Mainz, with their monstrous records of impossible perfections; but my companion (a German lady) thought them beautiful. The whole church struck one as ratherill-kept; perhaps the red stone floor had something to do with it. Dust and mud do not adhere somehow to an opus Alexandrinum pavement. A guide appeared to offer his services, almost obsequiously polite in his attentions to the English lady. Whatever their opinions may be as to our failings and vices, our shortcomings and our iniquities, most Germans are civil to us nowadays.[3]They hate us cordially, envy us sincerely, attack us in the press and out of it, and are insanely jealous of the people they affect to despise. But while the superficialententelasts, they smile and bow and are outwardly polite. I asked an English lady, the widow of a German official, if her husband, having married an English wife, did not cherish kindlier sentiments towards us than the majority of his countrymen. "He died during the Boer war," she said, "and he died in the sure and certain hope that England was done for."
[3]This was written before the war.
[3]This was written before the war.
Apart from the Domkirche, there is little to see in Mainz, although the city is of great antiquity, having been founded by Drusus. It is a strongly fortified place, and stood once upon a time a memorable siege. There are pleasant walks by the Rhine, beautiful Anlagen, a picturesque old tower, and thesite of Gutenberg's house to see. The Grand Ducal Palace once sheltered Napoleon the First, as did many another palace in Germany. The present Grand Duke prefers his palace in Darmstadt, the Neue Palais (built by Queen Victoria for Princess Alice), and comes little to the ancient city of bygone Electors.
We have fallen into German ways—alarming thought!—and become unquestionably alive to the virtues of cafés and Restaurations as a wind-up to a day's expedition. At Mainz we discovered a café close to the theatre, and sipped coffee and ateStreuselkuchenout of doors in the shadow of the cathedral and Gutenberg's statue. A pleasant-faced Gretchen brought us miniature Mont Blancs of whipped cream on small glass plates, and loitered near us ostensibly rearranging a table, but in reality studying our gowns and hats. Before we paid our Rechnung, the Haushälterin and Frau Rittergutsbesitzer turned up hot and rather cross, having spent their time since we parted in futile attempts to match Schleswig-Holstein ribbons with those of the sunny Rhineland.
Schlangenbad, although a charmingly pretty spot, is not one to fascinate a painter. The landscape is unvaryingly green, and that green is too monotonous in tone for effect in a picture. Moreover, it lies shut in by hills, and there is no distant horizon to give the value of foreground and middle distance. But less critical eyes find much to admire in Schlangenbad. The great wide road leading to it from Eltville testifies to its former popularity in the days of family coaches and postilions. Nowadays an ugly steam tram transports the traveller from the Rhine to the "Serpent's Bath," and nearly poisons and chokes himen routewith the horrible smoke it emits. Half of the tram is open to the air at the sides, like a char-a-banc; and when we travelled by it a little party of Germans were enjoying anAusflug, each man with one eyecocked on the scenery and the other on the look-out for aBier-garten.
Next to me sat a student, whose face was so slashed and gashed that it reminded one of "Amtshauptmann Weber" (in Reuter's delightful book), whose "face looked as if he had sat down upon it on a cane-bottomed chair." Opposite the student was a middle-aged fat "Assessor," with a small girl in long frilled drawers and short petticoats; and on the other side of the gangway were two homely-looking women in lead-coloured garments. As we passed through Altdorf the child drew her father's attention to a fat goose which waddled away as the tram approached. "Sieh mal, Vater," said she, "die schöne Gans." ("Look, father, at the beautiful goose.") "O!die Gans," said her practical and prosaic parent, "wird viel schöner sein, mein Kind, wenn sie gebraten ist." ("The goose will be much more beautiful, my child, when it is roast.") "And has an accompaniment of sage-stuffing and apple-sauce," I added, to which he in all serious conviction bowed an assent.
The valley up which we journeyed was green and pleasant. There were no walls or fences on either side of the road, but trees shaded thewayfarer, and his outlook on gardens, bean-poles, orchards, and vines was agreeable enough. If he chose to look further afield a silvery streak called the Rhine was visible, and beyond that again low blue hills stretched away until their cobalt and that of the sky got mixed on the palette of Nature. From this valley comes the famous Rauen-thaler wine. Most of the hills, indeed, are covered with vines, and the village houses showed grapes hanging from their eaves and peeping in at their windows.
At Neudorf we paused to pick up aBarmherzige Schwester; and as our halt was exactly in front of the village shop I amused myself by making a mental inventory of its contents. The window—an ordinary one—had wooden shelves nailed across it; and on these were displayed soap, slates and slate-pencils, bottles of peppermint lozenges, hearthstone, flannel, lemon-drops, gingham, sausages, and gingerbread.
The houses of the village were covered with rough stucco, and white or yellow-wash was swished liberally over them. Under their deep eaves an occasional small image ofDie Mutter Gotteswas to be seen. Many were covered withgrape-vines, and all had clean muslin blinds at their windows, and often pots of geraniums and fuchsias outside. Sunflowers, dahlias, and roses grew in the little patches of garden by the road; and all was charming and primitive, save for the discordant electric fittings which hung midway on the telegraph-posts, and the anomaly of a brand new brickBrod-fabrikjust outside the village.
All the way up the "cane-bottomed chair" and the "Assessor" smoked stolidly, while their women-folk cackled like human geese. "Wie schön!" "Colossal!" "Entzückend!" "Reizend!" Nothing but incessant and weary adjectives! I turned with relief to the "Barmherzige Schwester," a prim and silent little figure in neat blue cotton gown, black apron, and white kerchief pinned over her shining hair.
The tram stopped at last before the village church, and we all got out. To our left, as we faced the Kurhaus, straggled a long line of houses with deep verandahs and balconies, to our right shady walks and bath-houses and beautiful woods. Here and there amid the hotels and villas was a shop, and we knew that Schlangenbad marched with the times when we saw the word "Schamponieren"and a bunch of Empire curls exhibited as a modern trophy. We stopped at a shop and examined its wares, which, indeed, hung chiefly on the shutters. There were Swiss embroidered gowns and blouses to be bought, edelweiss penwipers, wooden paper-cutters, and clocks with chamois climbing wooden rocks. Nothing apparently in that shop had been "made in Germany." When we reached the verandah of the "Nassauer Hof" we were gladdened by bows from the "Assessor" and the student, who with the "cackling geese" were seated at a long table consuming piles of Apfelkuchen, Streuselkuchen, and Napfkuchen to an accompaniment of steaming coffee.
As for dull, useful information Schlangenbad, of course, was known to the Romans, and they bathed in its waters. The Middle Ages seem to have neglected Spas generally, and to have been dead to the joys of a bath. At all events, nothing more was heard about Schlangenbad or its springs until in 1687 a wooden hut was put over what was known as the "Römer Bad." Next the Landgraf of Hesse awoke to the virtues of its waters, and caused the "Oberes Kurhaus" to be built. Fiveyears later, the "Nassauer Hof" was erected, and a time of prosperity and fashion set in for Schlangenbad. The waters have always had a great reputation for beautifying the skin and healing wounds and sores. It is on record that Frederick the First of Sweden ordered four thousand bottles of Schlangenbad water a year aseau de toilette, and another and still vainer sovereign three hundred a week. After this who shall dare say that women have the monopoly of vanity?
Besides embellishing, the Schlangenbad waters are good in nervous disorders, rheumatism, and asthma. They are of an exquisite light-blue colour, and when bathing in them one's limbs have the appearance of marble. That the Schlangenbad people think highly of their "cure" is obvious. I bought a map of the district (manufactured in the place) and found the word Schlangenbad printed in huge letters, while the neighbouring town of Wiesbaden was in such small ones that it looked as if scarcely worth mentioning at all.
Herein the Thuringian Forest, aloof from the stir and roar of life, lies a Kur-Ort little known to the English world. Its waters are analogous to those of Schwalbach, its air is as pure, its scenery more beautiful, and its prices half those of the Taunus Wald. Its people still retain their primitive charm, unspoilt as yet by the potentialities of South African or American money-bags. Within easy reach of such interesting towns as Eisenach, Weimar, Erfurt, Gotha, and Coburg, it offers many alluring baits to the sightseer; yet to the coming and going of tourists is it altogether unaccustomed. Liebenstein lies in a green and beautiful valley, and the hills which surround it are covered for the most part with great black forests. Patches of wheat and rye vibrate in the winds which sweep up the valleys, and the fields of potatoes alternate on the low grounds with pasturage and orchards. Under thegreat limestone rocks, which near Liebenstein rise sheer out of the plain, nestle charming villages, and long avenues of poplars conduct you where you would go along the high roads. By the roadside a wealth of flowers is yours for the picking—wild thyme and asparagus and mallow, periwinkles, and the picturesque dock and crowfoot. The woods are starred with flowers, and the perfume of the pines is a revelation.
The humbler houses of Liebenstein (for the greater part timber-framed and red-tiled) straggle up the immediate hills which surround it. Those of more pretention and inevitable ugliness range themselves decently and in order along two parallel roads. Aloof as this village is from "the madding crowd's ignoble strife," it has yet been touched to its undoing by the ruthless finger of conventionality. The inevitable Kur-Haus and bandstand and Anlagen are here; worst of all, a Trink-Halle! The Trink-Halle stands a mute and awful warning to the vaulting ambition which overleaps itself, since a classic temple in the heart of Liebenstein is surely as much out of place as a tiara would be on the head of the peasant woman who hands you your daily portion of Stahlwasser. Even the spring itoriginally sheltered has revolted against its sham marble pillars and grotesque entablature, and betaken itself elsewhere! Nowadays the paint and plaster are peeling off the columns, and its door is padlocked. Happily—although a melancholy warning to the educated—it remains a source of pride to the peasant, who loves his shabby temple as the Romans do the marble glories of their Vesta.
Immediately behind the temple are the springs of Georg and Kasimir, at which stand two charming maidens ready to fill your glasses. No conventional and hideous hat or bonnet disfigures the neat outline of their heads. No travesty of Berlin or Paris fashion burlesques their sturdy figures. Theirs the traditional costume of the Thuringian female peasant—a dark skirt, and white, short-sleeved chemisette, a blue apron and the daintiest of white silk kerchiefs, fringed sparsely and brocaded abundantly with red roses. Albeit their arms are red and coarse with the combined effect of iron-water, hot sun, and exposure to the air, their faces make ample amends in their innocent, good-tempered comeliness. They greet you with a kindly "Guten Tag" or "Guten Abend," and, in the case of a lady, seldom omit the pretty "GnädigeFrau," for which our "Ma'am" is but a poor correlative.
Wandering through the streets of Liebenstein, one is struck by the intensely picturesque sights of its older and original part. The little houses are timber-framed and whitewashed, with deep projecting eaves and often many gables. Their windows are made gay outside by boxes filled with geraniums, nasturtiums, and fuchsias. Beneath the windows lie small gardens, in which bloom roses and single dahlias, while scarlet runners send their tendrils climbing over the palings which separate road and garden. Many of the little houses have projecting signs, on which one reads such legends as "Tabak, Cigarren, Cigaretten;" "Adolf Schmidt,Herren kleidermacher;" "Weinhandlung Naturreinheit garantirt;" or the very indispensable "Bäckerei." One house bears a tablet announcing to an admiring world that "Herzoglich. Sachsen-Meiningen Stadtesbeamter" lives within. Cocks and hens, dogs and children, make common playground of these narrow streets, and one sees in them pretty well every form of animal life represented, except horses. Now a long cart, drawn by oxen and well filled, toils up the hill, and not long afterfollows one drawn by a big dog. At a pump two tiny girls are busily employed filling stone jars, which by the beauty and purity of their outlines might have been Etruscan. Mothers beat mats at their cottage doors, and shrilly scream at their children to get out of the way of the passing carts; and the world in this remote village goes on pretty much as it does elsewhere.
But the fashionable life of Liebenstein does not concern itself with such mean sights and bucolic sounds as oxen-carts and crowing of cocks. It takes its pleasure up and down the long avenues of beech trees which lie between the Kur-Haus and the Hôtel Bellevue. It rallies round the bandstand, and makes great show of studying the programmes of the daily concert. It chatters glibly over the previous evening's illuminations, and describes them as "colossal!" and "wunderschön." Beauty is not in vogue at Liebenstein, judging by the middle-class Kur guests who haunt the shade of the beech trees. Indeed, if anywhere in the world an Englishman might be forgiven for thanking God that he is not as other men are, it would be here among the "Ober-Lieutenants" and "Herr Professors" and their mates. Figures, both male andfemale, seem to be of the switchback order—faces rudimentary in their modelling, and uncompromising in their plainness, dressing of the ugliest. Yet,Gott sei Dank!Hans thinks his Gretchen perfection, and it would never enter into innocent Gretchen's head, as it does mine, to bestow upon Hans the carping criticism of Portia upon Monsieur Le Bon: "God made him, and therefore let him pass for a man."
Thedominant glory of the Moselle region is Trèves. No town or city near has the smallest affinity with its peculiar character, and all seem modern and prosaic compared with its well-preserved tale of antiquity. "Nowhere north of the Alps," we are told in weary iteration, "exist such magnificent Roman remains." It is generally on the obvious that the unimaginative English parson takes upon himself to comment. We listen submissively to much school-book lore as to "Claudius" and the "fourth century" and the "residence of Roman Emperors," but when it rains Bishops and Archbishops and Electors we fly before them. For, after all, what signifies the paltry learning of a dry-as-dust dominie compared with the vivid tales these grand old ruins tell if suffered to speak for themselves? In Trèves people need to absorb silently, and then assimilate undisturbed by weary chatter. One looksat the tender turquoise sky, flecked with luminous clouds; at the fine horizontal distance, with its sense of breadth and breathing-space; at the low hills covered with vines; at the cornfields, and orchards, and river—and we wonder what the old Romans thought of it all, and reflect on the strangeness of life that a people so remote from our times should have lived and loved and died, as we live and love and die to-day. Whether Trèves lie on the right or left bank of the Moselle is immaterial except to the tiresomely precise or to those who pin their faith to guide-books and such shallow teachers. There is a more valuable lesson to be learnt of the place than that of its exact situation; and no Baedeker or Murray can help you to appreciate Trèves as quiet communings with your own intelligence will. If it so happens that you have none to commune with, then God help you—and yours!
In Trèves you have not far to go in search of the Romans. Theirmagnum opusconfronts you boldly at the very threshold of the town. Solid and massive and symmetrical, it stands a pregnant lesson to the jerry-builders of to-day. There is little affinity indeed between the building methods of the ancient Romans and those of their trade whose sorry,pitiable record exists in the Quartiere Nuovo of Rome. About the Porta Nigra is no trace of stucco or rubble. The huge blocks of which it is built stand one upon the other clean-hewn and square. No signs of mortar are left, but we see marks of iron or brass clamps. Its colour is a warm, deep red, softened here and there by streaks of green.
The Porta Nigra has passed through strange phases since first it started in life as a city gate. Obviously built for purposes of fortification, and equipped with towers of defence, its second phase was an ecclesiastical one, and the "spears" were indeed turned into "pruning-hooks" when the bellicose propugnaculum found itself transformed into a church.