PARIS
PARIS
"Now," said Jimmie as our train was pulling into Paris, "we are all decided, are we not, that we shall stay in Paris only two days?"
His eyes met ours with apprehension and a determination that ended in a certain amount of questioning in their glance.
"Certainly!" we all hastened to assure him. "Not over two days."
"Just long enough," said Jimmie, beamingly, "to have one lunch at the Café Marguery forsole à la Normande—"
"And one afternoon at the Louvre to see the Venus and the Victory—" I pleaded.
"And the Father Tiber—" added Jimmie, waxing enthusiastic.
"Yes, and one dinner at the Pavilion d'Armenonville to hear the Tziganes—" said Bee.
"And one afternoon on the Seine to go to St. Cloud to see the brides dance at the Pavilion Bleu, and a supper afterward in the open to have apouletand apêche flambée."
Jimmie by this time was wriggling in ecstasy.
"And just time to order two or three gowns apiece and have one look at hats," added Mrs. Jimmie, complacently.
"'Two or three gowns apiece and one look at hats,'" cried Jimmie. "And how long will that take? We agreed on two days, and you never said a word about clothes. That means a whole week!"
"Not at all, Jimmie," said Bee. "It's too late to do anything to-night. To-morrow morning we'll go and look. In the afternoon we'll think it over while we're doing the Louvre. It is always cool and quiet there, and looking at statuary always helps me to make up my mind about clothes. The next morning we'll go and order. In the afternoon we'll buy our hats, and with one day more for the first fittings, I believe we might manage and have the things sent after us to Baden-Baden."
"Not at all," put in Mrs. Jimmie. "They will never be satisfactory unless we put our minds on the subject and give them plenty of time. We must stay at least two days more. Give us four days, Jimmie."
I had to laugh at Jimmie's rueful face. He was about to remonstrate, but Bee switched him off diplomatically by saying, in her most deferential manner:
"What hotel have you decided on, Jimmie? It's such a comfort to be getting to a Paris hotel. What one do you think would be best?"
Bee's tone was so flattering that Jimmie forgot clothes and said:
"Well, you know at the Binda you can get corn on the cob and American griddle cakes—"
"Oh, but the rooms are so small and dark, and we could go there for luncheon to get those things," said his wife.
"Do let's go to the Hotel Vouillemont," I begged. "We won't see any Americans there, and it is so lovely and old and French, and so heavenly quiet."
"But then there is the new Élysée Palace," said Bee. "We haven't seen that."
"And they say it's finer than the Waldorf," said Mrs. Jimmie.
Jimmie and I looked at each other in comical despair.
"Let 'em have their own way, Jimmie," I whispered in his ear, "while we're in their country. They know that we are going to make 'em dodge Switzerland and go up in the Austrian Tyrol and perhaps even get them to Russia, so we'll be obliged to give them their head part of the way. Let's be handsome about it."
We went to the Élysée Palace, and we spent two weeks in Paris. Part of this time we were fashionable with Mrs. Jimmie and Bee, and part of the time they were Latin Quartery with us. We made them go to the Concert Rouge and to the Restaurant Foyot, and occasionally even to sit on the sidewalk at one of the little tables at Scossa's, where you havedéjeuner au choixfor one franc fifty, including wine, and which they couldn't help enjoying in spite of pretending to despise it and us, while occasionally we went with them to call on the grand and distinguished personages to whom they had letters. But it remained for the last days of our stay for us to have our experiences. The first came about in this wise.
I had brought a letter to Max Nordau from America, but I heard after I got to Paris that he was so fierce a woman hater, that I determined not to present it. I read it over every once in awhile, but failed to screw my courage to the sticking point, until one day I mentioned that I had this letter, and Jimmie to my surprise threw up both hands, exclaiming:
"A letter to Max Nordau! Why, it is like owning a gold mine! Present it by all means, and then tell us what he is like."
Afraid to present it in person, I sent it by mail, saying that I had heard that he hated women and that I was scared to death of him, but if he had a day in the near future on which he felt less fierce than usual, I would come to see him, and I asked permission to bring a friend. By "friend" I meant Jimmie.
The most charming note came in answer that a polished man of the world could write—not in the least like the bear I had imagined him to be, but courteous and even merry. In it he said he should feel honoured if I would visit his poor abode, and he seemed to have read my books and knew all about me, so with very mixed feelings Jimmie and I called at the hour he named.
He lives in one of the regulation apartment houses of Paris, of the meaner sort—by no means as fine as those in the American quarter. The most horrible odour of German cookery—cauliflower and boiled cabbage and vinegar and all that—floated out when the door opened. The room—a sort of living-room—into which we were ushered was a mixture of all sorts of furniture, black haircloth, dingy and old, with here and there a good picture or one fine chair, which I imagined had been presented to him.
Jimmie was much excited at the idea of meeting him. Max Nordau is one of his idols,—Nordau's horrible power of invective fully meeting Jimmie's ideas of the way crimes of the bestial sort should be treated. Jimmie is often a surprise to me in his beliefs and ideals, but when Doctor Nordau entered the room I forgot Jimmie and everything else in the world except this one man.
I can see him now as he stood before me—a thick-set man with a magnificent torso, but with legs which ought to have been longer. For that body he ought to have been six feet tall. When he is seated he appears to be a very large man. You would know that he was a physician from the way he shakes hands—even from the touch of his hand, which seems to be in itself a soothing of pain.
He was exquisitely clean. Indeed he seemed, after one look into his face, to be one of the cleanest men I ever had seen. And to look into the face of a man in Paris and to be able to say that,meanssomething.
His eyes were gray blue—very clear in colour. Their whites were really white—not bloodshot nor yellow. His skin was the clear, beautiful colour which you sometimes see in a young and handsome Jew. There was the same clear red and white. This distinguishing quality of clearness was noticeable too in his lips, for his short white moustache shows them to be full, very red, and with the line where the red joins the white extremely clear cut. His teeth were large, full, even, and white, like those of a primitive man, who tore his rare meat with those same white teeth, and who never heard of a dentist. His hair was short, white, and bristling. He seemed to have some Jewish blood in him, but he seemed more than all to be perfectly well, perfectly normal, filled to the brim with abounding life. It was like a draught from the Elixir of Life to be in his presence. What a man!
All at once the whole of "Degeneration" was made clear to me. How could any man as sane, as normal, as superbly health-loving and health-bestowing keep from writing such a book! I never met any one who so impressed me with his knowledge. Not pedantry, but with the deep-lying fundamental truth that humanity ought to know. His sympathies are so broad, his intuitions so keen, his understanding so subtle.
He asked us at once into his study—a small room, lined with books bound in calf. Both the chair and his couch had burst out beneath, showing broken springs and general dilapidation. He speaks many languages, and his English is very pure and beautiful.
Like all great men, his manner was extremely simple. He did not pose. He was interested in me, in my work, in my ambitions, hopes, and aims. He seemed to have no overpoweringly high idea of himself, nor of what he had achieved. He was thoroughly at home in French, German, English, Scandinavian, and Russian literature. He read them in the originals, and his knowledge of the classics seemed to be equally complete. The well-worn books upon his shelves testified to this.
I asked him if he intended to come to America in the near future. To which he replied:
"Unhappily I cannot tell. I should like to go. I consider America the country of the world at present. Whether we admit it or not, all nations are watching you. The rest of the world cannot live without you. Russia is the only country in the world which could go to war without your assistance. You must feed Europe. Your men are the financiers of the world and your women rule and educate and are the saviours of the men. Therefore to my mind the greatest factor in the world's civilisation to-day is the great body of the American women. You little know your power.Youseem to have got the ear of the American woman, and the only advice I have to give you is to be more bold. Don't be afraid of being too pedantic. You are too subtle. You bury your truths sometimes too deeply. The busy are too busy to dig for it, and the stupid do not know it is there."
"I think 'Degeneration' is the most wonderful book ever written," Jimmie broke in at this point as if unable to keep silent any longer. Then he looked deeply embarrassed at Doctor Nordau's hearty laughter.
"Thank you a thousand times," he said; "such a decided opinion I seldom hear. Your great country was the first to appreciate and read it. I have many friends there whom I never saw but who love me and whom I love. They often write to me."
"And beg autographs and photographs of you," I said.
"Oh, yes, but it is very easy to do what they ask. But one curious thing strikes me about America. See, here on my book shelves I have books written explaining the government of all countries in all languages—all countries, that is to say, except America. Why has no one ever written such an one about the United States?"
Jimmie pricked up his ears as this phase of the conversation came home to him. He forgot his awe and said:
"What's the matter with Bryce?"
Doctor Nordau looked puzzled. He is a practising physician.
"'What's the matter with Bryce?'" he repeated.
Jimmie blushed.
"Haven't you read 'Bryce's Commonwealth?'" I broke in, to give Jimmie time to get on his legs again.
"Is there a book on American government by an American that I never heard of?" asked Nordau of Jimmie.
"Well, Bryce is an Englishman, but he knows more about America than any American I know," answered Jimmie. "I'll send you the book if you would like to read it."
Doctor Nordau thanked him and said he would be delighted to have it. While Jimmie was making a note of this, Doctor Nordau looked quizzically at me and said:
"Do American publishers rob all foreign authors as I have been robbed, or am I mistaken in thinking that large numbers of 'Degeneration' have been sold in America?"
Alas, wherever I go in Europe, I am obliged to hear this denunciation of our publishers! I cannot get beyond the sound of it. To hear foreign authors denounce American publishers by every term of opprobrium which could commonly be applied to Barabbas! I was puzzled to know whether they really are the most unscrupulous robbers in creation or if they only have the name of being.
"You are not mistaken in thinking that large numbers of 'Degeneration' have been sold," I said, "and if your book was properly copyrighted and protected and you did not sign away all your rights to your American publishers for a song, as too many foreign authors do in their scorn of American appreciation of good literature, you should not be obliged to complain, for I distinctly remember that 'Degeneration' often led in the lists of best selling books which our booksellers report at the end of each week."
"Then I will leave you to judge for yourself," said Doctor Nordau. "The entire amount I have received from my American publishers for 'Degeneration' is fifty pounds! That is every sou!"
"Fifty pounds!" cried Jimmie, in consternation. "Why that is only two hundred and fifty dollars of our money!"
"I leave it to you to judge for yourselves," said Doctor Nordau again.
We said nothing, for as Jimmie said after we left, there was really nothing to say.
But evidently our consternation touched him, for he broke out into a big German laugh, saying:
"Don't take it so deeply to heart! You are too sensitive. Do you take the criticisms of your books so deeply to heart as you take a criticism of your countrymen? Don't do it! Remember, there are few critics worth reading."
"I never read them while they are fresh," I admitted. "I keep them until their heat has had time to cool. Then if they are favourable I say, 'This is just so much extra pleasure that, as it is all over. I had no right to expect.' And if they are unfavourable I think, 'What difference does it make? It was published weeks ago and everybody has forgotten it by this time!'"
"You have the right spirit," he said. "Where would I be if I had taken to heart the criticisms of the degenerates on 'Degeneration?' I sit back and laugh at them for holding a hand mirror up to their faces and unconsciously crying out 'I see a fool!' To understand great truths,—and great truths are seldom popular,—one must bring a willing mind. Yet how often it is that the very sick one wishes most to help are the ones who refuse, either from conceit or stupidity, to believe and be healed. Remember this: no one can get out of a book more than he brings to it. Readers of books seldom realise that by their written or spoken criticisms they are displaying themselves in all their weaknesses, all their vanities, all their strength for their hearers to make use of as they will."
"I shouldn't think anything ever would disturb you," said Jimmie, regarding Doctor Nordau's gigantic strength admiringly.
Doctor Nordau laughed.
"It is the little things of this life, my friend, which often disturb a mental balance which is always poised to receive great shocks. The gnat-bites and mosquito buzzings are sometimes harder to bear than an operation with a surgeon's knife."
I looked triumphantly at Jimmie as Doctor Nordau said that, for Jimmie never has got over it that I once dragged the whole party off a train and made them wait until the next one, because the wheels of our railway carriage squeaked. But Jimmie's mind is open to persuasion, especially from one whose opinions he admires as he admires Max Nordau's, for he looked at me with more tolerance, as he said:
"It is the nervous organisation, I suppose. She can bear neuralgia for days at a time which would drive me crazy in an hour, but I've seen her burst into tears because a door slammed."
"Exactly so!" said Doctor Nordau. "I understand perfectly."
"Now, I never hear such noises," pursued Jimmie. "But I suppose there must besomedifference between you both, who can write books, and me, who can't even write a letter without dictating it!"
Soon after this we came away, Jimmie beaming with delight over one idol who had not tumbled from his pedestal at a near view.
We were still in the midst of the Paris season. It was very gay and Bee and Mrs. Jimmie had made some amiable friends among the very smartest of the Parisian smart set. When we went to tea or dinner with these people Jimmie and I had to be dragged along like dogs who are muzzled for the first time. Every once in awhileen routewe would plant our fore feet and try to rub our muzzles off, but the hands which held our chains were gentle but firm, and we always ended by going.
On one Sunday we were invited to havedéjeunerwith the Countess S., and as it was her last day to receive she had invited us to remain and meet her friends. At the breakfast there were perhaps sixteen of us and the conversation fell upon palmistry. We had just seen Cheiro in London, and as he had amiably explained a good many of our lines to us, I was speaking of this when the old Duchesse de Z. thrust her little wrinkled paw loaded down with jewels across the plate of her neighbour and said:
"Mademoiselle, can you see anything in the lines of my hand?"
I make no pretence of understanding palmistry, but I saw in her hand a queer little mark that Cheiro had explained to us from a chart. I took her hand in mine and all the conversation ceased to hear the pearls of wisdom which were about to drop from my lips. The duchesse was very much interested in the occult and known to be given to table tipping and the invocation of spirits.
"I see something here," I began, hesitatingly, "which looks to me as if you had once been threatened with a great danger, but had been miraculously preserved," I said.
The old woman drew her hand away.
"Humph," she muttered with her mouth full of homard. "I wondered if you would see that. It was assassination I escaped. It was enough to leave a mark, eh, mademoiselle?"
"I should think so," I murmured.
The young Count de X. on my right said, in a tone which the duchesse might have heard:
"When she was a young girl, only nineteen, her husband tied her with ropes to her bed and set fire to the bed curtains. Her screams brought the servants and they rescued her."
My fork fell with a clatter.
"What an awful man!" I gasped.
"He was my uncle, mademoiselle!" said the young man, imperturbably, arranging the gardenia in his buttonhole, "but as you say, he was a bad lot."
"I beg your pardon!" I exclaimed.
"It is nothing," he answered. "It is no secret. Everybody knows it."
Later in the afternoon I took occasion to apologise to the duchesse for having referred to the subject.
"Why should you be distressed, mademoiselle," said the old woman, peering up into my face from beneath her majenta bonnet with her little watery brown eyes, "such things will go into books and be history a few years hence. We make history, such families as ours," she added, proudly.
I turned away rather bewildered and for an hour or two watched Bee and Mrs. Jimmie being presented to those who called to pay their respects to our hostess. They were of all descriptions and fascinating to a degree. Finally the duchesse came up to me bringing a lady whom she introduced as the Countess Y.
"She is a compatriot of yours, mademoiselle."
It so happened that Bee and Mrs. Jimmie were standing near me and overheard.
"Ah, you are an American," I said.
"Well," said the countess, moving her shoulders a little uneasily, "I am an American, but my husband does not like to have me admit it."
It was a small thing. She had a right to deny her nationality if she liked, but in some way it shocked the three of us alike and we moved forward as if pulled by one string.
"I think we must be going," said Bee, haughtily.
Jimmie's jaw was so set as we left the house of the countess, and Bee and Mrs. Jimmie looked so disturbed that I suggested that we drive down to the Louvre and take one last look at our treasures. Mine are the Venus de Milo and the Victory, and Jimmie's is the colossal statue of the river Tiber. Jimmie loves that old giant, Father Tiber, lying there with the horn of plenty and dear little Romulus and Remus with their foster mother under his right hand. Jimmie says thetoesof the giant fascinate him.
It looked like rain, so we hastily checked our parasols and Jimmie's stick and cut down the left corridor to the stairs, and so on down to the chamber where we left Jimmie and the Tiber to stare each other out of countenance. The rest of us continued our way to the room where the Venus stands enthroned in her silent majesty. We sat down to rest and worship, and then coming up the steps again and mounting another flight, we stood looking across the arcade at the brilliant electric poise of the Victory, and in taking our last look at her, we did not notice that it had gradually grown very dark.
When we came out, rested, uplifted, and calmed as the effect of that glorious Venus always is upon our fretted spirits, we discovered that the most terrific rainstorm was in progress it ever was our luck to behold. The water came down in cataracts and blinding sheets of rain. Every one except us had been warned by the darkness and had got themselves home. The streets were empty except for the cabs and carriages which skurried by with fares. Our frantic signals and Jimmie's dashes into the street were of no avail.
We would have walked except that Bee and I had colds, and big, beautiful Mrs. Jimmie was subject to croup, which as every one knows is terrible in its attacks upon grown people.
Poor Jimmie ran in every direction in his wild efforts for a carriage, but none was to be had. We waited two hours, then Mrs. Jimmie saw a black covered wagon approaching and she gathered up her skirts and hailed it. The driver obligingly pulled up at the curb.
"You must drive us to our hotel." she said, firmly. "We have waited two hours."
"Impossible, madame!" said the man.
"But youmust," we all said in chorus.
"You shall have much money," said Jimmie in his worst French.
"All the same it is impossible, monsieur," said the man.
He regretted exceedingly his inability to oblige the ladies, but—and he prepared to drive off.
"Get in, girls," said Mrs. Jimmie, firmly, pushing us in at the back of the wagon. The man expostulated, not in anger but appealingly. Mrs. Jimmie would not listen. She said there ought to be more cabs in Paris, and that she regretted it as much as he did, but she climbed in as she talked, and gave the address of the hotel.
"You shall have three times your fare," she said, calmly, "drive on!"
"But what madame demands is impossible," pleaded the poor man. "I am on my way for another body. Madame sits in the morgue wagon!"
But there he was mistaken, for madame sat nowhere. Before he had done speaking madame was flying through the air, alighting on poor Jimmie's foot, while Bee and I clawed at our dripping skirts in a mad effort to follow suit.
The morgue wagon pursued its way down the Rue de Rivoli, while we risked colds, croup, and everything else in an endeavour to find a "grand bain," splashing through puddles but marching steadily on, Jimmie in a somewhat strained silence limping uncomplainingly at our side.
STRASBURG AND BADEN-BADEN
STRASBURG AND BADEN-BADEN
We are on our way to the Passion Play, and although each of the four of us is a monument of amiability when taken individually, as a quartet we sometimes clash. At present we are fighting over the route we shall take between Paris and Oberammergau. Bee and Mrs. Jimmie have replenished their wardrobes in the Rue de la Paix, and wish to follow the trail of American tourists going to Baden-Baden, while Jimmie and I, having rooted out of a German student in the Latin Quarter two or three unknown carriage routes through the mountains which lead to unknown spots not double starred, starred, or even mentioned in Baedeker, are wondering how the battle between clothes and Bohemianism will end.
We arrived at Strasburg still in an amiable wrangle, but all four agreed on seeing the clock which has made the town famous. Our time was so limited that there was not, as is often the case, an opportunity for all four of us to get our own way.
Anybody who did not know her, would imagine by the quiet way that Bee has let the subject of Baden-Baden alone for the whole day, that she had quite given up going there, but I know Bee. She has left Jimmie and me to defend the front of the fortress, while she is bringing all her troops up in the rear. Bee does not believe in a charge with plenty of shouting and galloping and noise. Bee's manoeuvres never raise any dust, but on a flank movement, a midnight sortie or an ambush, Bee could outgeneral Napoleon and Alexander and General Grant and every other man who has helped change the maps of the world. Only by indication and past sad experience do I know what she is up to. One thing to-day has given me a clue. I have a necktie—the only really saucy thing about the whole of my wardrobe, the only distinguishing smartness to my toilet—upon which Bee has fixed her affection, and which she means to get away from me. I don't know how I came to buy it in the first place. However, I sha'n't have it long. Bee is bargaining for it—that means that we are going to Baden-Baden. She is not openly bargaining, for that would let me know how much she wants it, but she has admired it pointedly. She tied my veil on for me this morning, and even as I write, she is sewing a button on my glove. Bee in the politest way possible is going to force me to give her that tie. I wish she wouldn't, for I really need it, but I must get all the wear I expect to have out of it in the next two days, for by the end of the week, if these attentions continue, that Charvet tie will belong to Bee.
Last night, as soon as we arrived and had our dinner, we went to the Orangerie. This great park with myriads of walks is one of the most attractive things about Strasburg. A very good band was playing a Sousa march as we came in and took our seats at one of the little tables.
But just here let me record something which has surprised me all during my travels in Europe; and that is the small amount of good music one hears outside of opera. I have always imagined Germany to be distinguished equally by her music and her beer. I have not been disappointed in the beer, for it is there by the tub, but as to the music, there is not in my opinion in the whole of Germany or Austria one such as Sousa's, and as to men choruses, not one that I have heard, and I have followed them closely wherever I heard of their existence, is to be compared with any of our College Glee Clubs. In my opinion the casual open-air music of Germany is another of the disappointments of Europe—to be set down in the same category with the linden trees of Berlin and the trousers of the French Army.
German music seems to be too universally indulged in to be good. It is performed with more earnestness than skill and the programme is gone through with with more fervour than taste. The musicians of a typical German band dig through the evening's numbers with the same dogged perseverance and perspiration that they would exercise in tunnelling through a mountain. In this connection I am not speaking of any of the trained orchestras, but solely of the band music that one hears all through the Rhine land. It is only tradition that Germans are the most musical people in the world, for in my opinion the rank and file of Germans have no ear for key. That they listen well and perform earnestly is perfectly true. That they respect music and give it proper attention is equally true, but that they know the difference between a number performed with no expression, with one or two instruments or voices, as the case may be, entirely out of pitch, and the same number correctly rendered, is impossible to believe by one who has watched them as carefully as I.
Sousa once made the statement to the American Press that in his opinion the American nation was the most musical nation in the world. He based this astonishing belief, which was violently attacked by the German-American Press, upon his observation of his audiences and by the street music, even including whistling and singing. I agree with his opinion with all my heart. In an American audience of the most common sort an instrument off the key or improperly tuned will be sure to be detected. It may be, nay, it probably is true, that the person so detecting the discord will not know where the trouble lies or of what it consists, but his ear, untrained as it is, tells him that something is wrong, and he shows his discomfort and disapproval. I claim that the ordinary American—the common or garden variety of American—has a more correct ear than the common or garden variety of German. I claim that the rank and file in America is for this reason more truly musical than the same class in the German nation, although the German nation has a technical knowledge of music which it will take the Americans a thousand years to equal. For this reason an open-air concert in America is so much more enjoyable both from the numbers selected and the spirit of their playing, that the two performances are not to be mentioned in the same day.
A criticism which the wayfaring man will whip out to floor me at this point, viz., that nearly all performers in American bands are Germans, will not cause me to wink an eyelash, for the effect of American audiences on German performers has raised the standard of their music so that I am informed by Germans and Austrians that the most annoying, irritating, and insulting factor in their otherwise peaceful lives is the return of a German-American to his native heath. They tell me that his arrogance and conceit are unbearable—that he claims that Americans alone know how to make practical use of the technical knowledge of the German—that the Teuton gathers the knowledge, the Yankee applies it. This goes to prove my point.
We Americans are a curious people. We get better music under our own vine and fig-tree than they have anywhere else in the world but we don't know it. There is no such band on earth as Sousa's, no better orchestra than Theodore Thomas's or the Boston Symphony, and we hear the Metropolitan and French operas.
Take also our chamber music and from that come down to our street ballads, and then to the whistling and singing heard in the streets, with no thought of audience or even listeners.
I have followed German music closely, and I claim that German musicians, or rather let me say German producers of music, lack ear just about half of the time. Their students cannot compare with our college singing, their pedestrian parties, which one meets all through the country, singing, often from notes (and if you take the trouble to inquire, they will frequently tell you with pride that they belong to such and such a singing society) almost drive sensitive ears crazy. But they love it—they adore music, they take such comfort out of it, that one is forced to forgive this lack of ear and this polyglot pitch, or else be considered a churl.
The Orangerie has, however, a very good average band—for Germany. The picture of the great crowd of people gathered at little tables around the band-stand, whole families together; of a tiny boy baby, just able to toddle around, being dragged about by an enormous St. Bernard dog, whose chain the baby tugged at most valiantly; the long dim avenues under the trees where an occasional young couple lost themselves from fathers and mothers; the music; the cheerful beer-drinking; the general air of rosy-cheeked contentment has formed in my mind a most agreeable recollection of the Orangerie of Strasburg.
Strasburg has, however, much more to boast of than her clock. The city was founded by the Romans, and in the middle ages was one of the most powerful of the free cities of the German Empire, on the occasions of imperial processions her citizens enjoying the proud distinction of having their banner borne second only to the imperial eagle.
Then, because of its strategical importance, in a time of peace, Louis XIV. of France seized the city of Strasburg, and this delicate attention on his part was confirmed by the Peace of Ryswick in 1679, thereby giving Strasburg to France. The French kept it nearly two hundred years, but Germany got it back at the Peace of Frankfort, 1871, and it is now the capital of German Alsace and Lorraine.
I never think of Alsace and Lorraine that I do not recall the statue in the Place de la Concorde, with gay coloured wreaths looking more like a festival of joy than mourning,—in fact I never think of Paris mourning for anything, from a relative to a dead dog, that I can keep my countenance.
On the Jour des Morts, I once went to the Père-Lachaise and found in the family lot of a duchesse with a grand name, a stuffed dog of the rare old breed known as mongrel. In America he would have slouched at the heels of a stevedore—or any sort of a man who shuffles in his walk and smokes a short black pipe. But this yellow cur was in a glass case mounted on a marble pedestal, and his yellowness in life was represented by a coat of small yellow beads put on in patches where the hair had disappeared. His yellow glass eyes peered staringly at the passer-by and his tomb was literally heaped with expensivecouronnestied with long streamers of crape, whilecouronneson the grass-grown tomb of the defunct husband of the duchesse, buried in the back of the lot behind the dog, were conspicuous by their absence. I wondered if the widow took this ingenious method of publishing to the world that in life her husband had been less to her than her dog.
Paris crape is this slippery, shiny sort of stuff, like thin haircloth—the kind they used to cover furniture with. It is made up into "costumes" which have such an air of fashion that the deceased relative is instantly forgotten in one's interest in the cut and fit of the gown. A butterfly of a bonnet, a tiny face veil coming just to the tip of the nose, with the long one in the back sweeping almost to the ground, completes a picture of such a jaunty grief, such a saucy sorrow, that one would be quite willing to lose one or two distant relatives in order to be clad in such a manner.
The University of Strasburg changed its nationality as often as the town, but not at the same time. In one of its German periods Goethe graduated there as doctor of laws—which fact ought to be better known. At leastIdidn't know it. But Bee says that doesn't signify, because I know so little. But Bee only says that when she has asked me some stupid date that nobody ever knows or ever did know except in a history class.
The next day after our evening at the Orangerie, at half after eleven, we went to the Cathedral to see the clock. It only performs all its functions at noon, and as there is always a crowd of tourists about it, we went early.
The most wonderful feature of this clock to Jimmie is that it regulates itself and adapts its motions to the revolutions of the seasons, year after year and year after year, as if it had a wonderful living human mind somewhere in its insides. Its perpetual calendar, too, is a marvel! How can that insensate clock tell when to put twenty-eight days and when to give thirty-one, when I can't even do it myself without saying:
"Thirty days hath September,April, June, and November,All the rest have thirty-one,Except February alone,Which has but twenty-eight in fineTill leap-year gives it twenty-nine."
"Thirty days hath September,April, June, and November,All the rest have thirty-one,Except February alone,Which has but twenty-eight in fineTill leap-year gives it twenty-nine."
"Thirty days hath September,
April, June, and November,
All the rest have thirty-one,
Except February alone,
Which has but twenty-eight in fine
Till leap-year gives it twenty-nine."
And who tells that clock when leap year comes, and when the moon changes, and when it's going to rain, and when hoop-skirts will be worn again? Wonderful people, these Germans.
We were there on Monday when the clock struck noon. Monday is the day when Diana steps out upon the first gallery. Each day has its deity—Apollo on Sunday, Diana on Monday, etc.
On the first gallery an angel strikes the quarters on a bell in his little mechanical hand. Then a gentleman who has nothing else to do the whole year round reverses an hour-glass each hour in the twenty-four; so that you can tell the time by counting the grains of sand or by glancing at the face of the clock,—whichever way you have been brought up to tell time.
Above this there is a skeleton, which strikes the hours, and evidently cheerfully reminds us what our end will be, around which are grouped the quarter-hours, represented by the four figures, boyhood, youth, manhood, and old age.
But the two most remarkable things are those which crown the clock. In the highest niche, at noon, the twelve apostles, also representing the hours, come out of a door and march around the figure of the Saviour. Judas hangs his head, and the eyes of the Christ follow him until he disappears. Then on the highest pinnacle of all, a cock comes out, preens himself, flaps his wings, and gives such an exultant crow that Peter pauses in his walk, then drops his head forward on his breast, and so passes out of sight.
When the performance is over, the crowd melts away. Some few stay to do the Cathedral, but we went to luncheon. At luncheon it was decided to go to Baden-Baden. Jimmie and I compromised on three days of it.
There is nothing particularly interesting about the journey thither. When you come to the village of Oos, you get off the train and take a little train which is waiting on a siding, and in less than five minutes, before you have time to sit down, in fact, you are at Baden, at the entrance of the Black Forest, and find it beautiful.
It was the height of the season and we went to a very smart hotel, where they have very badly dressed people, because nearly everybody there except us had money and titles.
Now the height of the season at any watering-place depresses me. If I could wear fern seed in my shoes to make me invisible, and sit on thepiazzarailing in a shirt-waist and a short skirt, I would love it. But both Bee and Mrs. Jimmie, with the light of heaven in their eyes, pulled out and put on their most be-yew-tiful Paris clothes, and if I do say it of my sister—well, for modesty's sake, I will only say that Mrs. Jimmie looked ripping.Iwas happily travelling with a steamer trunk and a big hat-box, and had hitherto rejoiced that my lack of clothes would prevent my being obliged to dress. I thought perhaps Jimmie and I would be allowed to roam about hunting little queer restaurants like Old Tom's or the Cheshire Cheese. But when Jimmie's boyish face appeared over a white expanse of tucked shirt front, I sank down in a dejected heap.
"And thou, Brutus?" I said.
"Couldn't help it," he answered, laconically. "We'd better give in handsomely for three days. It'll pay us in the end. Get into your 'glad rags' and be good."
"But I didn't bring my 'glad rags,'" I said.
Just then Bee looked around from fastening a lace butterfly in her hair on a jewelled spiral.
"I had two extra trays in my trunk and I put a few of your things in. Would you like to wear your lace gown? You've never even tried it on."
My mouth flew open, contrary to politeness and my excellent bringing-up. Jimmie collapsed with a silent grin, while I meekly followed Bee into my room.
When I saw my new gown all full of rolls of tissue-paper, packed by poor dear Bee, I went to my trunk and pulled out my smart Charvet tie. I handed it to her in silence.
"Take it," I said. "I hate to give it up, but you deserve it."
Bee accepted it gratefully.
"It's good of you to give it to me," she said. "You really need it more than I do, only this peculiar shade of blue is so becoming to me. I'll tell you what I'll do though," she added, heroically. "I'lllendit to you whenever you want it."
I thanked her, dressed, and then humbly trailed down to dinner in the wake of my gorgeous party.
Jimmie had engaged a table on the piazza, nearest the street and commanding the best view of all the other diners. I very willingly sat with my back to all the people, with the panorama of the Lichtenthaler Strasse passing before my eyes, and in quiet moments the sounds of the great military band playing on the promenade in front of theConversationshauscoming to our ears.
A great deal of grandeur always makes me homesick. It isn't envy. I don't want to be a princess and have the bother of winding a horn for my outriders when I want to run to the drug-store for postage stamps, but pomp depresses me. Everybody was strange, foreign languages were pelting me from the rear, noiseless flunkies were carrying pampered lap-dogs with crests on their nasty little embroidered blankets, fat old women with epilepsy and gouty old men with scrofula, representing the aristocracy at its best, were being half carried to and from tables, and the degeneracy of noble Europe was being borne in upon my soul with a sickening force.
The purple twilight was turning black on the distant hills, and the silent stars were slowly coming into view. Clean, health-giving Baden-Baden, in the Valley of the Oos, with its beauty and its pure air, was holding out her arms to all the disease and filth that degenerate riches produce.
I wasn't exactly blue, but I was gently melancholy. Jimmie was smoking, and Bee and Mrs. Jimmie had their heads together, casting politely furtive glances at a table which held royalty. I certainlywasfeeling neglected.
Suddenly a voice in English at my elbow said:
"Pardon me, madame, but were not you at the Grand Hotel at Rome last winter?"
"Yes," I said.
"I mean no impertinence in addressing you. I am the head waiter there in winter, here in summer. I remembered you at once, and I came to say that if anything goes wrong with any of your distinguished party during your stay, I shall count it a favour if you will permit me to remedy it. The hotel is at your disposal. I will send a private maid to attend you during your stay. I hope you will be happy here, madame."
Then with a bow he was gone.
I was in a state of exhilaration inside which threatened to break through at the sudden attentions of my party.
"Who's your friend?" said Jimmie.
"How nice of him!" commented his wife.
"Servants never remember me, yet I always fee better than you do," complained Bee.
"Console yourself. It is only porters and head waiters who care whether I am happy or not," I said, bitterly.
"Deary me!" said Jimmie, sitting up. "Come, let's get out of this. We must walk her over where she'll hear some music and see some pretty lights or she'll drown herself in her bath to-morrow."
We went, we promenaded, we showed our clothes, and came home smirking with satisfaction. We had been pointed out everywhere for Americans, which spoke volumes for our clothes and the smallness of our feet.
During two mortal weeks we stayed at Baden-Baden, taking the baths, improving our German and driving through the Black Forest and the Oos Valley to the green hills beyond.
Then on one happy day we were all packed to go. We sent our trunks down, saw every drawer emptied, pulled the bed to pieces, looked under it and decided thatthistime we hadn't left so much as a pin. Bee stuck her "blaue cravatte," as we now called the necktie, under the bureau mat to put on when we came up, and then we snatched a hasty luncheon. In the meantime we turned our "private maid" and the chambermaid loose to see if we had overlooked anything.
When we came up they were still rummaging, but had found nothing.
Bee hurried to the bureau and looked under the mat. No tie. She asked the two women. They had not seen it. Then everybody hunted. Jimmie swore we had packed it. But Bee's gray eyes turned to green as she watched the flurried movements of the two maids. She walked up to them.
"Give me that blue necktie," she said, in awful German.
At that Jimmie, who hates a row when it is not of his own making, interfered and insisted that we must have packed it—he remembered numbers of times when we had made a fuss over nothing—it was of no account anyway, and if we would only come along and not miss the train he would send back to Charvet and get Bee another "blaue cravatte."
"For heaven's sake, take that man downstairs," I said to Mrs. Jimmie, "and let us manage this affair."
So poor Jimmie was whisked from the scene of action, still protesting and gesticulating, and being soothed but marched steadily onward by his wife.
When we came down we were heated but unsuccessful. I insisted upon reporting the affair to my friend the head waiter. He almost went back on his devotion to me in his assurances that those maids were honest. Then Jimmie had to come up and interfere, and those two men decided that we had packed it.
Bee was in a cold ladylike fury.
We gave all the servants double fees to assure them that meanness had not prompted the search, and got into the carriage.
"Remember," said Bee, "I claim that one of those women has that tie in her pocket now, because all four of us looked every inch of the rooms over together. I advise you to have them searched. On the other hand I will telegraph you from Nuremberg if I find it in my trunks."
We had half an hour before the train left. Bee, who was riding backward, kept looking out down the road whence we had come with a curious expression on her face. Jimmie, in spite of warning pressures from his wife's foot, kept sputtering about women's poor memories, etc. Bee didn't even seem to hear.
Presently, in a cloud of dust, up drove one of the men from the hotel, with a little package in his hand.
"Blaue cravatte," he said, bowing.
"Where did you find it?" demanded Mrs. Jimmie.
"Between the mattress and the springs of the bed. Madame must have put it there to press it."
Jimmie looked sheepish and put us into the train with a red face. Bee simply slipped the tie into her satchel and put on her travelling-cap without a word, and began to read. Bee never nags or crows.
So much for Baden-Baden.