"It is as hard as a brownstone front."
"It's delightful not to know in the least what's coming next," says
another. "I've just reached a stratum of jelly and am going deeper.
Farewell."
"Echt Nuernberger, echt Nuernberger!" croaked the old dame, still
nodding, still blessing; and so, meditatively eating her cakes, we gazed
at her and wondered if any one could possibly be as old as she looked,
and if she too were a product of "Nuremberg the ancient," to which
"quaint old town of toil and traffic" we wandered off through the medium
of Longfellow's poem, as every conscientious American in Europe is in
duty bound to do. It is always a comfort to go where he has led the way.
We are sure of experiencing the proper emotions. They are gently and
quietly instilled into us, and we never know they do not come of
themselves, until we happen to realize that some verse of his, familiar
to our childhood, has been haunting us all the time. What a pity he
never has written a poetical guide-book!
These unusual objects penetrating our quiet study hours told us
Christmas was coming, and the aspect of the Stuttgart streets also
proclaimed the glad tidings. They were a charming, merry sight. The
Christmas fair extended its huge length of booths and tables through the
narrow, quaint streets by the old _Stiftskirche_, reaching even up to
the _Koenigstrasse_, where great piles of furniture rose by the
pavements, threatening destruction to the passer-by. Thronging about the
tables, where everything in the world was for sale and all the world was
buying, could be seen many a dainty little lady in a costume fresh from
Paris; many a ruddy peasant-girl with braids and bodice, short gown and
bright stockings; many types of feature, and much confusion of tongues;
and you are crowded and jostled: but you like it all, for every face
wears the happy Christmas look that says so much.
These fairs are curious places, and have a benumbing effect upon the
brain. People come home with the most unheard-of purchases, which they
never seriously intended to buy. Perhaps a similar impulse to that which
makes one grasp a common inkstand in a burning house, and run and
deposit it far away in a place of safety, leads ladies to come from the
"Messe" with a wooden comb and a string of yellow-glass beads. In both
cases the intellect is temporarily absent, it would seem. Buy you must,
of course. What you buy, whether it be a white wooden chair, or a
child's toy, or a broom, or a lace barbe, or a blue-glass breastpin,
seems to be pure chance. The country people, who come into the city
especially to buy, know what they want, and no doubt make judicious
purchases. But we, who go to gaze, to wonder, and to be amused, never
know why we buy anything, and, when we come home and recover our senses,
look at one another in amazement over our motley collections.
At this last fair a kind fate led us to a photograph table, where old
French beauties smiled at us, and all of Henry the VIII.'s hapless wives
gazed at us from their ruffs, and the old Greek philosophers looked as
if they could tell us a thing or two if they only would. The discovery
of this haven in the sea of incongruous things around us was a fortunate
accident. The photograph-man was henceforth our magnet. To him our
little family, individually and collectively, drifted, and day by day
the stock of Louise de la Vallieres, and Maintenons, and Heloises, and
Anne Boleyns, and Pompadours, and Sapphos, and Socrates, and Diogenes,
etc.,--(perfect likenesses of all of them, I am sure!)--increased in our
_pension_, where we compared purchases between the courses at dinner,
and made Archimedes and the duchess of Lamballe stand amicably side by
side against the soup-tureen. Halcyon, but, alas! fleeting days, when we
could buy these desirable works of art for ten _pfennig_, which, I
mention with satisfaction, is two and one half cents!
But, of all the Christmas sights, the Christmas-trees and the dolls were
the most striking. The trees marched about like Birnam Wood coming to
Dunsinane. There were solid family men going off with solid, respectable
trees, and servants in livery condescending to stalk away with trees of
the most lofty and aristocratic stature; and many a poor woman dragging
along a sickly, stunted child with one hand and a sickly, stunted tree
with the other.
As to the doll-world into which I have recently been permitted to
penetrate, all language, even aided by a generous use of
exclamation-points, fails to express its wondrous charm. A doll
kindergarten, with desks and models and blackboards, had a competent,
amiable, and elderly doll-instructress with spectacles. The younger
members were occupied with toys and diversions that would not fatigue
their infant minds, while the older ones pored over their books. They
had white pinafores, flaxen hair, plump cheeks. I think they were all
alive.
Then there were dolls who looked as if they lay on the sofa all day and
read French novels, and dolls that looked as if they were up with the
birds, hard-working, merry, and wise,--elegant, aristocratic countess
dolls, with trunks of fine raiment; and jolly little peasant dolls, with
long yellow braids hanging down their backs, and stout shoes, and a
general look of having trudged in from the Black Forest to see the great
city-world at Christmas. Such variety of expression, so many phases of
doll-nature,--for nature they have in Germany! And in front of two
especially alluring windows, where bright lights streamed upon fanciful
decorations, toys, and a wonderful world of dolls, was always a great
group of children. Once, in the early evening, they fairly blockaded the
pavement and reached far into the street, wide-eyed, open-mouthed, not
talking much, merely devouring those enchanted windows with their eager
eyes; some wishing, some not daring to wish, but worshipping only, like
pale, rapt devotees. And we others, who labor under the disadvantage of
being "grown up," looked at the pretty doll-world within the windows and
the lovely child-world without, and wished that old Christmas might
bring to each of us the doll we want, and never, never let us know that
it is stuffed with sawdust.