CHAPTER XXI.FRANKFORT.
WITH faces at last fairly turned towards Russia, we stopped to rest for a day at the old town of Frankfort—theFord of the Franks. Towards evening I wandered out to an old graveyard.
Like some in our own cities, it had ceased to be used for interments, and its walks and shade and vacant squares had become places of recreation for the children of the town. The gates were never shut, and, indeed, the walls were broken, so that it was a public square for the living rather than a quiet resting-place for the dead. A party of little folks were amusing themselves with children’s plays, and I paused in my solitary stroll to see them go through the old-time game of “Oats, peas, beans, and barley grow,” the same that our children from generation to generation play with so much zest on the grass or the carpet at home. It was pleasant to know that the young ones, in another language, were singing the same simple song that millions on the other side of the sea have sung and will sing in their childish glee. It was a queer place for children to make a playground. Our children would not fancy it. The Germans have more pleasing associations with the burial-places of their dead than we have. They indulge in cheerful sentimentalism more than we do, in this direction. These old graves are covered with flowering shrubs; some of them are cared for by the children or friends of the sleepers who have been here so many years that their namesmight be forgotten but for the tombstones. I read the inscriptions on many, and sought and found names familiar in history.
One grave was covered with wreaths and flowers. Yet it was an old grave, and evidently some special interest attached to it. I drew near and read in German,—
“The Grave of the Mother of Goethe. Born Feb.19, 1731. Died Sept. 13, 1808.”
“The Grave of the Mother of Goethe. Born Feb.19, 1731. Died Sept. 13, 1808.”
“The Grave of the Mother of Goethe. Born Feb.
19, 1731. Died Sept. 13, 1808.”
It was her request that this inscription should be put upon her headstone. The mother’s pride is in it, but so beautiful and so just! No man of this century has wrought himself more thoroughly into the German mind, and only one writer has led captive more minds in the world at large, than Johan Wolfgang Von Goethe, whose mother lies under this brick wall, with deep shade-trees hanging over her grave, and fresh flowers lying on it, though she was laid here sixty years ago. “From my dear little mother,” said the poet in one of his poems, “I derive my happy disposition and my love of story-telling.” And she said of herself, “Order and quiet are mycharacteristics. I despatch at once what I have to do, the most disagreeable always first, and I gulp down the devil without looking at him. I always seek out what is good in people, and leave what is bad to Him who made mankind, and knows how to round off the angles.”
If this saying of Goethe’s mother could be told in all the world as a memorial of her, it is quite likely it would do as much for the good of mankind as all that her son ever wrote, though he was the prince of German poets, and the master intellect of the age.
His coffin lies in the Duke’s vault at Weimar, or did when I was there, by the side of Schiller, and not by the side of the Duke, as royal etiquette forbade, even in the grave, such common dust as that of these two great poets tobe laid along with that of royal clay. Yet the Duke is more honored by having had the friendship of the poets than by his crown or kingdom.
Twelve years after the birth of Goethe’s mother, in 1743, a Jew was born in Frankfort, whose name and power in the world are quite as great as that of the poet. It is a question for the debating societies, whether money or mind rules in this age; but there is little doubt that the Rothschilds have been more of a power in Europe during the present century than Goethe and all the poets put together. This man was named Anselm. He had five daughters and five sons: all of the sons becoming bankers like the father, and establishing themselves in various cities, London, Paris, Vienna, and Frankfort, came to control the finances of Europe, and to wield an influence before which the conquerors of kingdoms were often compelled to bow. They furnish one good lesson that is rarely mentioned or thought of: the father and five sons, and their children, have continued in one firm,—the five brothers were at one time the firm,—and, thus standing by one another, have been strong and prosperous; in this particular, Jews as they are, they set an example for Christians to follow. So great is their wealth and credit, that when the revolutions of 1848 in Europe instantly robbed them of forty millions of dollars, it did not disturb them, nor the confidence of the world in their stability. Kings and emperors are their guests as well as their customers; and this summer, one of them on the banks of Lake Leman, and another at his palace in Paris, has entertained royalty in right regal style. To us sovereigns in our own right, this is nothing very remarkable; but here, in the land of kings and princes, it is a matter always of wonderment, and it is also just a little detriment to dignity, when a crowned head condescends to eat off the plate of anybody but a brother of blue blood.
This old city of Frankfort has had its ancestral pridesadly humbled in being swallowed by all-devouring Prussia. A lady said to me, “I hate the Prussians; I know it is not very Christian, but I do hate them; and I believe the royal family will be poisoned yet!” This venerable city was once the capital of the German empire, the seat of its Congress; here the German emperors were elected, for successive generations. The glory that invests a spot so sacred has now departed; and the firm policy of Bismark, and the unification of Germany, have reduced the proud old town to one of the many second-rate cities of Europe. A city, now-a-days, cannot live on the past. Trade and travel will not obey traditions. Frankfort still holds a financial importance that is fast passing away; and more people will linger here for a day to see the marbleAriadne, by Danneker, than to visit the “Hall of the Cæsars,” where the portraits of the emperors are hung.
We left by rail at nine in the morning. The cars were large, convenient, and elegant. For first-class passengers they were divided into apartments for six, and were lined with red plush. The second class were quite as good, but lined with drab; and the chief difference was in the price, which, being high in the first class, makes the company moreselect. In all the carssmokingis allowed, unless notice is posted on the outside to the contrary. In our compartment, which was one of theinterdicted, there were three ladies and as many men, only one of them a smoker; and he kept on, regardless of the notice and the company. The third-class cars had plain board seats with no backs; but they were clean, and very decent-looking people rode in them. A fourth class were like our cattle cars, only not so good, for ours are well ventilated, whereas these were close, and were filled with dirty people, standing up, and getting what air they could through one or two little windows. Yet these people were generally smoking, their poverty compelling them to ride like cattle, but not prevailing to make them give up tobacco.
We passed through large pine forests. Wind-mills were frequent, as they are in flat countries, where no waterfall power can be had. Women were at work repairing the railroads; showing that here woman has her “rights,” as the women reformers call the privilege of doing any thing that men do. Of course they are degraded, as they will be with us just as fast as public sentiment allows them to assume the duties that do not belong to their sex. The waiting-rooms at the stations are restaurants also, and beer is guzzled incessantly. Little children drink beer with their parents.
Vast tracts of level country are on our right and left. Not a hill is in sight. The scenery is uninterrupted prairie. Passengers are informed, by notice posted in the cars, that they can have a dinner served at certain stations ahead, and that the conductors will send on the order by telegraph without charge. At all the stations cake and beer are passed along by waiters at the windows of the cars, and you may take in the dishes if you please, and leave them at the next station.
Frankfort-on-the-Oderis a venerable town of 37,000 inhabitants, memorable as the scene of a great battle in 1759, when Frederick the Great was defeated by the Russians and Austrians. We crossed the Oder at Castion, the bridge being strongly fortified, as if war were imminent or guns relied on as the best peace preservers. Immense tracts of peat-beds are on the route, and women are at work wheeling heavy loads of it just cut out, and men cutting it, the women being made to do the hardest work.
Frankfort Dinner-Table.
Frankfort Dinner-Table.
Frankfort Dinner-Table.
At Krewz we stopped for dinner. We had sent forward our names by telegraph, and were curious to see what was the result. It proved to be a good soup, a stew of beef and potatoes, roast veal with stewed prunes, and the usual condiments, but no dessert or wine, unless extra. The tables for dinner were set out on the platform, under shade, andevery thing neat and clean, and the table furniture good. Beautiful gardens are around the railroad stations: large peonies and lilacs, seringas and roses, and other flowers like our own, in full bloom. We met an excursion train with two or three hundred people, who had left the cars at a way-station to get water; and as our train came between them and theirs, they were thrown into the greatest alarm and confusion, lest they should be left behind. The cottages of the peasantry are very neat and comfortable; no signs of great poverty, no beggars at the stations. I havescarcely been solicited by a beggar in Germany. As we are going north, the country appears less fertile: there is more grass and less grain; few fruit-trees, some apples, cherries, and pears; poplar trees, sycamores, and some willows are seen. We have ceased to see forests on the line of the road: we pass another peat-bed, and a dozen women are working it, one man overseeing them.
AtNakaltwenty peasants were standing, each with a staff in hand, as if they had just arrived from a journey on foot, and were waiting for a train to take them on to the seaboard to emigrate. They were swarthy, stout, and well clad. They will all be voters soon on the other side of the sea.
Two hundred miles from Berlin, on our way to Warsaw, we came to Bromberg. We had marked it down as the half-way place, and here we were to pass the night. We found an elegant railroad station; porters from three hotels, with plates on their hats, begged the pleasure of our company at their respective houses. TheEnglischer Hofhad the honor of taking us in, and we were hospitably and comfortably cared for. This city was once in Poland. When the kingdom was carved and partitioned, this fell to Prussia. But Polish names predominate upon the signs, and the Polish language still prevails. Its trade is in wool and iron and steel, by canal connecting it with Oder and Wexsel. We went to the top of a hill near the hotel, and found beautiful walks and seats, commanding fine views of the town. The churches are both Protestant and Catholic. We were near a cemetery, and all the tombstones had their inscriptions in Hebrew. It was a Jewish burial-place. Adjoining it was a dead-house, into which every dead person of this people is brought, and washed, and ceremonially prepared for the grave. A young man showed us over the apartments. He seemed to be the solitary dweller in this gloomy house. A fine monument in the grove near by is in memory of the good citizen who hadgiven the grounds, and embellished them, as a resort for the people.
Only in Germany have we had bolsters in shape of awedge, hard, and designed to be laid with the edge under the shoulders, making an inclined plane, from which one is slipping down all the time. The old feather-bed comforter on top is now dispensed with; but in place of it is a quilt inside of a sheet, like a bag to hold it, and a very uncomfortable thing to manage. It requires a deal of patience to put up with the curious ways of other people; but when one gets used to them, they are just as well as his own.
We were to take an early start, and the servant was so anxious to do his whole duty, that he called us, as Samuel the prophet was called, three times in the course of the night, and finally succeeded in getting us out an hour too soon. But that was better than to be an hour too late, and so we had breakfast, and were off again by the rail at six in the morning. By eight we were at the frontier of Poland, now Russia. Our passports were demanded, and our baggage searched. Even the little bags were taken out of the cars and examined. The only article sought for was tobacco, and nobody ever found a bit of that in any luggage of mine. At the station signs of progress were evident. Carts drawn by oxen were loaded with brick, each brick twice as large as one of ours. Large iron pipes for aqueducts were lying around. A photographic apparatus, of a pattern quite novel to me, was in use, taking views of the works going on. The names of all the passengers were copied from their passports into a register; the passports were returned to their several owners, then each passenger was asked if he had his passport, and, the formality being over, we were allowed to proceed after an hour’s detention.
We are now travelling in Poland. We soon pass miserable dwellings, half under ground, and with stagnant water about them, giving every appearance of unhealthiness andwretchedness. Yet the country was better tilled than in Northern Germany. We are now on the Vistula. At one of the stations we saw a meeting of friends, men kissing each other; young people stooped down, and old men kissed them on the back of their heads. Elegant parks and gardens surrounded the villa of the Princess Racziwill. For centuries it has been the residence of the titled and rich.
At half-past threeP.M.we arrived at Warsaw. All the passengers, as they left the cars, were required to give up their passports again; were led into a room where all ingress and egress was cut off; here to each person was given a receipt for his passport, and he was required to give the name of the house at which he intended to stay, also to state when he expected to leave. He was then allowed to go. At the door a metal check was handed him, having on it the number of the hack in which he would ride; and thus, with a deep conviction that we are at last in a country where we are to be looked after, we were taken to our hotel.