STRASSBURG AND THE BLACK FOREST
Our tires were distressingly bad now. I had to do some quick repairing
at Domremy, also between Domremy and Vaucouleurs, where we spent the
night. Then next morning at Vaucouleurs, in an unfrequented back street
behind our ancient inn, I established a general overhauling plant, and
patched and relined and trepanned during almost an entire forenoon,
while the rest of the family scoured the town for the materials. We put
in most of our time at Vaucouleurs in this way. However, there was
really little to see in the old town. Our inn was as ancient as
anything, and our landlord assured us that Joan's knights probably
stopped there, and even Uncle Laxart, but he could not produce his
register to prove it. There are the remains of the chateau where Joan is
said to have met the governor, and a monument to the Maid's memory has
been begun, but remains unfinished through lack of funds. The real
interest in Vaucouleurs, to-day, is that it was the starting point of
Joan's great march. One could reflect upon that and repair tires
simultaneously.
We got away in time to have luncheon in the beautiful country below
Toul, and then kept on to Nancy. At both places there seemed to be
nothing but soldiers and barracks, and one did not have to get out of
the car to see those. Not that Nancy is not a fine big town, but its
cathedral and its Arch of Triumph are both of the eighteenth century.
Such things seemed rather raw and new, while museums did not interest us
any more.
Lorraine itself is beautiful. It seemed especially fair where we crossed
the line into Germany, and we did not wonder that France could not
forget her loss of that fertile land. There was no difficulty at the
customs. We were politely O. K.'d by the French officials and
courteously passed by the Germans, with no examination beyond our
_triptyques_. Then another stretch of fine road and fair fields, and we
were in a village of cobbled streets and soldiers--German soldiers--and
were told that it was Dieuze; also that there was an inn--a very good
inn--a little way down the street. So there was--an inn where they spoke
French and German and even a variety of English, and had plenty of good
food and good beds for a very modest sum indeed. Dieuze was soon to
become a war town, but beyond a few soldiers--nothing unusual--we saw no
signs of it that first week in July.
[Illustration: STRASSBURG, SHOWING THE CATHEDRAL]
Strassburg was our next stopping place. We put in a day there wandering
about its fine streets, looking at its picturesque old houses, its royal
palace, and its cathedral. I do not think we cared for the cathedral as
we did for those of France. It is very old and very wonderful, and
exhibits every form of architecture that has been employed in church
building for nearly a thousand years; but in spite of its great size,
its imposing height, its rich facade, there was something repellant
about it all, and particularly in its great bare interior. It seemed to
lack a certain light of romance, of poetry, of spiritual sympathy that
belongs to every French church of whatever size.
And we were disappointed in the wonderful clock. It was very wonderful,
no doubt, but we had expected too much. We waited for an hour for the
great midday exhibition, and collected with a jam of other visitors in
the little clock chapel, expecting all the things to happen that we had
dreamed of since childhood. They all did happen, too, but they came so
deliberately and with so little liveliness of demonstration that one had
to watch pretty closely sometimes to know that anything was happening at
all. I think I, for one, had expected that the saints and apostles, and
the months and seasons, would all come out and do a grand walk around to
lively music. As for the rooster that crows, he does not crow as well as
Narcissa, who has the gift of imitation and could have astonished that
crowd if she had let me persuade her to try.
There have been several of these Strassburg clocks. There was one of
them in the cathedral as far back as 1352. It ran for about two
centuries, when another, finished in 1574, took its place. The mechanism
of the new clock was worn out in another two centuries, but its
framework forms a portion of the great clock of to-day, which dates from
1840. It does a number of very wonderful things, but in this age of
contrivance, when men have made mechanical marvels past all belief, the
wonder of the Strassburg clock is largely traditional. The rooster that
crows and flaps his wings is really the chief feature, for it is the
rooster of the original clock, and thus has daily amused the generations
for five hundred years.
Gutenberg, the first printer, began his earliest experiments in a
cloister outside the Strassburg gates, and there is a small public
square named for him, and in the center of it a fine statue with relief
groups of the great printers of all nations. Of course Franklin was
there and some other Americans. It gave us a sort of proprietary
interest in that neighborhood, and a kindly feeling for the city in
general.
It was afternoon when we left Strassburg, and by nightfall we were in
the Black Forest--farther in than we had intended to be, by a good deal.
With our tires in a steady decline we had no intention of wandering off
into dark depths inhabited by fairies and woodcutters and full of weird
enchantments, with all of which Grimm's tales had made us quite
familiar. We had intended merely to go in a little way, by a main road
that would presently take us to Freiburg, where there would be a new
supply of patches and linings, and even a possibility of tires, in case
our need became very sore.
But the Black Forest made good its reputation for enchantments. When we
came to the spot where, by our map, the road should lead to Freiburg,
there were only a deserted mill, with a black depth of pine growing
where the road should have been. Following along, we found ourselves
getting deeper and deeper into the thick forest, while the lonely road
became steeper and narrower and more and more awesome in the gathering
evening. There were no villages, no more houses of any kind. There had
been rain and the steep hills grew harder to climb. But perhaps a good
fairy was helping us, too, a little, for our crippled tires held. Each
time we mounted a perpendicular crest I listened for the back ones to
go, but they remained firm.
By and by we started down--down _where_ we had no notion--but certainly
down. Being under a spell, I forgot to put on the engine brake, and by
the time we were halfway down the hill the brake bands were hot and
smoking. By the time we were down the greasy linings were afire. There
was a brook there, and we stopped and poured water on our hot-boxes and
waited for them to cool. A woodcutter--he must have been one, for only
woodcutters and fairies live in the Black Forest--came along and told us
we must go to Haslach--that there was no other road to Freiburg, unless
we turned around and went back nearly to Strassburg. I would not have
gone back up that hill and through those darkening woods for much money.
So we went on and presently came out into a more open space, and some
houses; then we came to Haslach.
By our map we were in the depths of the Schwarzwald, and by observation
we could see that we were in an old, beautiful village, of the right
sort for that locality, and in front of a big inn, where frauleins came
out to take our bags and show us up to big rooms--rooms that had great
billowy beds, with other billowy beds for covering. After all, the
enchantment was not so bad. And the supper that night of _Wiener
schnitzel_ and _pfannekuchen_ was certainly good, and hot, and plentiful
beyond belief.
But there was more trouble next morning. One of those old back tires was
in a desperate condition, and trying to improve it I seemed to make
matters worse. I took it off and put in a row of blow-out patches all
the way around, after which the inner tubes popped as fast as I could
put them in and blow them up. Three times I yanked that tire off, and
then it began to occur to me that all those inside patches took up too
much room. It would have occurred to any other man sooner, but it takes
a long and violent period of pumping exercise to get a brain like mine
really loosened up once it is caked by a good night's sleep.
So I yanked those patches out and put on our last hope--a spare tire in
fairly decent condition, and patiently patched those bursted tubes--all
of which work was done in a hot place under the eyes of a kindly but
maddening audience.
Three times in the lovely land between Haslach and Freiburg Narcissa and
I had to take off a tire and change tubes, those new patches being not
air-proof. Still, we got on, and the scenery made up for a good deal.
Nothing could be more picturesque than the Black Forest houses, with
their great overhanging thatched roofs--their rows and clusters of
little windows, their galleries and ladders, and their clinging vines.
And what kindly people they are. Many of the roads are lined with cherry
trees and this was cherry season. The trees were full of gatherers, and
we had only to stop and offer to buy to have them load us with the
delicious black fruit, the sweetest, juiciest cherries in the world.
They accepted money, but reluctantly; they seemed to prefer to give them
to us, and more than once a boy or a man ran along by the car and threw
in a great loaded branch, and laughed, and waved and wished us _gute
reise_. But this had happened to us in France, too, in the Lorraine.