"That is the reason I named it. Do you mean to say you

want an audience?"

"It is no time to bandy words. I am astonished that M. Fourtou

should ever have agreed to so strange an innovation.

Go at once and require a later hour."

I ran downstairs, threw open the front door, and almost

plunged into the arms of M. Fourtou's second. He said:

"I have the honor to say that my principal strenuously

objects to the hour chosen, and begs you will consent

to change it to half past nine."

"Any courtesy, sir, which it is in our power to extend

is at the service of your excellent principal. We agree

to the proposed change of time."

"I beg you to accept the thanks of my client." Then he

turned to a person behind him, and said, "You hear, M. Noir,

the hour is altered to half past nine." Whereupon

M. Noir bowed, expressed his thanks, and went away.

My accomplice continued:

"If agreeable to you, your chief surgeons and ours shall

proceed to the field in the same carriage as is customary."

"It is entirely agreeable to me, and I am obliged

to you for mentioning the surgeons, for I am afraid

I should not have thought of them. How many shall

I want? I supposed two or three will be enough?"

"Two is the customary number for each party. I refer

to 'chief' surgeons; but considering the exalted positions

occupied by our clients, it will be well and decorous

that each of us appoint several consulting surgeons,

from among the highest in the profession. These will

come in their own private carriages. Have you engaged

a hearse?"

"Bless my stupidity, I never thought of it! I will attend

to it right away. I must seem very ignorant to you;

but you must try to overlook that, because I have never

had any experience of such a swell duel as this before.

I have had a good deal to do with duels on the Pacific coast,

but I see now that they were crude affairs. A hearse--sho!

we used to leave the elected lying around loose, and let

anybody cord them up and cart them off that wanted to.

Have you anything further to suggest?"

"Nothing, except that the head undertakers shall ride together,

as is usual. The subordinates and mutes will go on foot,

as is also usual. I will see you at eight o'clock

in the morning, and we will then arrange the order

of the procession. I have the honor to bid you a good day."

I returned to my client, who said, "Very well;

at what hour is the engagement to begin?"

"Half past nine."

"Very good indeed.; Have you sent the fact to the newspapers?"

"SIR! If after our long and intimate friendship you can

for a moment deem me capable of so base a treachery--"

"Tut, tut! What words are these, my dear friend? Have I

wounded you? Ah, forgive me; I am overloading you with labor.

Therefore go on with the other details, and drop this

one from your list. The bloody-minded Fourtou will be

sure to attend to it. Or I myself--yes, to make certain,

I will drop a note to my journalistic friend, M. Noir--"

"Oh, come to think of it, you may save yourself the trouble;

that other second has informed M. Noir."

"H'm! I might have known it. It is just like that Fourtou,

who always wants to make a display."

At half past nine in the morning the procession approached

the field of Plessis-Piquet in the following order: first

came our carriage--nobody in it but M. Gambetta and myself;

then a carriage containing M. Fourtou and his second;

then a carriage containing two poet-orators who did

not believe in God, and these had MS. funeral orations

projecting from their breast pockets; then a carriage

containing the head surgeons and their cases of instruments;

then eight private carriages containing consulting surgeons;

then a hack containing a coroner; then the two hearses;

then a carriage containing the head undertakers;

then a train of assistants and mutes on foot; and after

these came plodding through the fog a long procession

of camp followers, police, and citizens generally.

It was a noble turnout, and would have made a fine display

if we had had thinner weather.

There was no conversation. I spoke several times to

my principal, but I judge he was not aware of it, for he

always referred to his note-book and muttered absently,

"I die that France might live."

Arrived on the field, my fellow-second and I paced off

the thirty-five yards, and then drew lots for choice

of position. This latter was but an ornamental ceremony,

for all the choices were alike in such weather.

These preliminaries being ended, I went to my principal

and asked him if he was ready. He spread himself out

to his full width, and said in a stern voice, "Ready! Let

the batteries be charged."

The loading process was done in the presence of duly

constituted witnesses. We considered it best to perform

this delicate service with the assistance of a lantern,

on account of the state of the weather. We now placed

our men.

At this point the police noticed that the public had massed

themselves together on the right and left of the field;

they therefore begged a delay, while they should put

these poor people in a place of safety.

The request was granted.

The police having ordered the two multitudes to take

positions behind the duelists, we were once more ready.

The weather growing still more opaque, it was agreed between

myself and the other second that before giving the fatal

signal we should each deliver a loud whoop to enable

the combatants to ascertain each other's whereabouts.

I now returned to my principal, and was distressed

to observe that he had lost a good deal of his spirit.

I tried my best to hearten him. I said, "Indeed, sir,

things are not as bad as they seem. Considering the character

of the weapons, the limited number of shots allowed,

the generous distance, the impenetrable solidity of the fog,

and the added fact that one of the combatants is one-eyed

and the other cross-eyed and near-sighted, it seems to me

that this conflict need not necessarily be fatal. There are

chances that both of you may survive. Therefore, cheer up;

do not be downhearted."

This speech had so good an effect that my principal

immediately stretched forth his hand and said, "I am

myself again; give me the weapon."

I laid it, all lonely and forlorn, in the center of the vast

solitude of his palm. He gazed at it and shuddered.

And still mournfully contemplating it, he murmured in a

broken voice:

"Alas, it is not death I dread, but mutilation."

I heartened him once more, and with such success that he

presently said, "Let the tragedy begin. Stand at my back;

do not desert me in this solemn hour, my friend."

I gave him my promise. I now assisted him to point

his pistol toward the spot where I judged his adversary

to be standing, and cautioned him to listen well and

further guide himself by my fellow-second's whoop.

Then I propped myself against M. Gambetta's back,

and raised a rousing "Whoop-ee!" This was answered from

out the far distances of the fog, and I immediately shouted:

"One--two--three--FIRE!"

Two little sounds like SPIT! SPIT! broke upon my ear,

and in the same instant I was crushed to the earth under

a mountain of flesh. Bruised as I was, I was still able

to catch a faint accent from above, to this effect:

"I die for... for ... perdition take it,

what IS it I die for? ... oh, yes--FRANCE! I die

that France may live!"

The surgeons swarmed around with their probes in

their hands, and applied their microscopes to the whole

area of M. Gambetta's person, with the happy result of

finding nothing in the nature of a wound. Then a scene

ensued which was in every way gratifying and inspiriting.

The two gladiators fell upon each other's neck, with floods

of proud and happy tears; that other second embraced me;

the surgeons, the orators, the undertakers, the police,

everybody embraced, everybody congratulated, everybody cried,

and the whole atmosphere was filled with praise and with

joy unspeakable.

It seems to me then that I would rather be a hero

of a French duel than a crowned and sceptered monarch.

When the commotion had somewhat subsided, the body

of surgeons held a consultation, and after a good deal

of debate decided that with proper care and nursing there

was reason to believe that I would survive my injuries.

My internal hurts were deemed the most serious, since it

was apparent that a broken rib had penetrated my left lung,

and that many of my organs had been pressed out so far

to one side or the other of where they belonged, that it

was doubtful if they would ever learn to perform their

functions in such remote and unaccustomed localities.

They then set my left arm in two places, pulled my right

hip into its socket again, and re-elevated my nose.

I was an object of great interest, and even admiration;

and many sincere and warm-hearted persons had themselves

introduced to me, and said they were proud to know

the only man who had been hurt in a French duel in

forty years.

I was placed in an ambulance at the very head of the procession;

and thus with gratifying 'ECLAT I was marched into Paris,

the most conspicuous figure in that great spectacle,

and deposited at the hospital.

The cross of the Legion of Honor has been conferred

upon me. However, few escape that distinction.

Such is the true version of the most memorable private

conflict of the age.

I have no complaints to make against any one. I acted

for myself, and I can stand the consequences.

Without boasting, I think I may say I am not afraid

to stand before a modern French duelist, but as long

as I keep in my right mind I will never consent to stand

behind one again.

CHAPTER IX

[What the Beautiful Maiden Said]

One day we took the train and went down to Mannheim

to see "King Lear" played in German. It was a mistake.

We sat in our seats three whole hours and never understood

anything but the thunder and lightning; and even that

was reversed to suit German ideas, for the thunder came

first and the lightning followed after.

The behavior of the audience was perfect. There were

no rustlings, or whisperings, or other little disturbances;

each act was listened to in silence, and the applauding

was done after the curtain was down. The doors opened at

half past four, the play began promptly at half past five,

and within two minutes afterward all who were coming were

in their seats, and quiet reigned. A German gentleman

in the train had said that a Shakespearian play was an

appreciated treat in Germany and that we should find the

house filled. It was true; all the six tiers were filled,

and remained so to the end--which suggested that it is

not only balcony people who like Shakespeare in Germany,

but those of the pit and gallery, too.

Another time, we went to Mannheim and attended a shivaree

--otherwise an opera--the one called "Lohengrin." The

banging and slamming and booming and crashing were

something beyond belief. The racking and pitiless

pain of it remains stored up in my memory alongside

the memory of the time that I had my teeth fixed.

There were circumstances which made it necessary for me

to stay through the hour hours to the end, and I stayed;

but the recollection of that long, dragging, relentless season

of suffering is indestructible. To have to endure it

in silence, and sitting still, made it all the harder.

I was in a railed compartment with eight or ten strangers,

of the two sexes, and this compelled repression;

yet at times the pain was so exquisite that I could hardly

keep the tears back. At those times, as the howlings

and wailings and shrieking of the singers, and the ragings

and roarings and explosions of the vast orchestra rose

higher and higher, and wilder and wilder, and fiercer

and fiercer, I could have cried if I had been alone.

Those strangers would not have been surprised to see

a man do such a thing who was being gradually skinned,

but they would have marveled at it here, and made remarks

about it no doubt, whereas there was nothing in the

present case which was an advantage over being skinned.

There was a wait of half an hour at the end of the first act,

and I could not trust myself to do it, for I felt that I

should desert to stay out. There was another wait

of half an hour toward nine o'clock, but I had gone

through so much by that time that I had no spirit left,

and so had no desire but to be let alone.

I do not wish to suggest that the rest of the people there

were like me, for, indeed, they were not. Whether it

was that they naturally liked that noise, or whether it

was that they had learned to like it by getting used to it,

I did not at the time know; but they did like--this was

plain enough. While it was going on they sat and looked

as rapt and grateful as cats do when one strokes their backs;

and whenever the curtain fell they rose to their feet,

in one solid mighty multitude, and the air was snowed thick

with waving handkerchiefs, and hurricanes of applause

swept the place. This was not comprehensible to me.

Of course, there were many people there who were not

under compulsion to stay; yet the tiers were as full at

the close as they had been at the beginning. This showed

that the people liked it.

It was a curious sort of a play. In the manner

of costumes and scenery it was fine and showy enough;

but there was not much action. That is to say,

there was not much really done, it was only talked about;

and always violently. It was what one might call a

narrative play. Everybody had a narrative and a grievance,

and none were reasonable about it, but all in an offensive

and ungovernable state. There was little of that sort

of customary thing where the tenor and the soprano stand

down by the footlights, warbling, with blended voices,

and keep holding out their arms toward each other and drawing

them back and spreading both hands over first one breast

and then the other with a shake and a pressure--no,

it was every rioter for himself and no blending.

Each sang his indictive narrative in turn, accompanied by

the whole orchestra of sixty instruments, and when this had

continued for some time, and one was hoping they might come

to an understanding and modify the noise, a great chorus

composed entirely of maniacs would suddenly break forth,

and then during two minutes, and sometimes three, I lived

over again all that I suffered the time the orphan asylum burned

down.

We only had one brief little season of heaven and heaven's

sweet ecstasy and peace during all this long and diligent

and acrimonious reproduction of the other place.

This was while a gorgeous procession of people marched around

and around, in the third act, and sang the Wedding Chorus.

To my untutored ear that was music--almost divine music.

While my seared soul was steeped in the healing balm

of those gracious sounds, it seemed to me that I could

almost resuffer the torments which had gone before,

in order to be so healed again. There is where the deep

ingenuity of the operatic idea is betrayed. It deals so

largely in pain that its scattered delights are prodigiously

augmented by the contrasts. A pretty air in an opera is

prettier there than it could be anywhere else, I suppose,

just as an honest man in politics shines more than he

would elsewhere.

I have since found out that there is nothing the Germans

like so much as an opera. They like it, not in a mild

and moderate way, but with their whole hearts.

This is a legitimate result of habit and education.

Our nation will like the opera, too, by and by, no doubt.

One in fifty of those who attend our operas likes

it already, perhaps, but I think a good many of the other

forty-nine go in order to learn to like it, and the

rest in order to be able to talk knowingly about it.

The latter usually hum the airs while they are being sung,

so that their neighbors may perceive that they have been

to operas before. The funerals of these do not occur

often enough.

A gentle, old-maidish person and a sweet young girl

of seventeen sat right in front of us that night at the

Mannheim opera. These people talked, between the acts,

and I understood them, though I understood nothing

that was uttered on the distant stage. At first they

were guarded in their talk, but after they had heard

my agent and me conversing in English they dropped their

reserve and I picked up many of their little confidences;

no, I mean many of HER little confidences--meaning

the elder party--for the young girl only listened,

and gave assenting nods, but never said a word. How pretty

she was, and how sweet she was! I wished she would speak.

But evidently she was absorbed in her own thoughts,

her own young-girl dreams, and found a dearer pleasure

in silence. But she was not dreaming sleepy dreams--no,

she was awake, alive, alert, she could not sit still

a moment. She was an enchanting study. Her gown was

of a soft white silky stuff that clung to her round

young figure like a fish's skin, and it was rippled

over with the gracefulest little fringy films of lace;

she had deep, tender eyes, with long, curved lashes;

and she had peachy cheeks, and a dimpled chin, and such

a dear little rosebud of a mouth; and she was so dovelike,

so pure, and so gracious, so sweet and so bewitching.

For long hours I did mightily wish she would speak.

And at last she did; the red lips parted, and out leaps her

thought--and with such a guileless and pretty enthusiasm,

too: "Auntie, I just KNOW I've got five hundred fleas

on me!"

That was probably over the average. Yes, it must have been

very much over the average. The average at that time

in the Grand Duchy of Baden was forty-five to a young

person (when alone), according to the official estimate

of the home secretary for that year; the average for older

people was shifty and indeterminable, for whenever a

wholesome young girl came into the presence of her elders

she immediately lowered their average and raised her own.

She became a sort of contribution-box. This dear young

thing in the theater had been sitting there unconsciously

taking up a collection. Many a skinny old being in our

neighborhood was the happier and the restfuler for her coming.

In that large audience, that night, there were eight very

conspicuous people. These were ladies who had their hats

or bonnets on. What a blessed thing it would be if a lady

could make herself conspicuous in our theaters by wearing

her hat. It is not usual in Europe to allow ladies

and gentlemen to take bonnets, hats, overcoats, canes,

or umbrellas into the auditorium, but in Mannheim this

rule was not enforced because the audiences were largely

made up of people from a distance, and among these were

always a few timid ladies who were afraid that if they had

to go into an anteroom to get their things when the play

was over, they would miss their train. But the great mass

of those who came from a distance always ran the risk

and took the chances, preferring the loss of a train

to a breach of good manners and the discomfort of being

unpleasantly conspicuous during a stretch of three or four hours.

CHAPTER X

[How Wagner Operas Bang Along]

Three or four hours. That is a long time to sit in one place,

whether one be conspicuous or not, yet some of Wagner's

operas bang along for six whole hours on a stretch!

But the people sit there and enjoy it all, and wish it

would last longer. A German lady in Munich told me

that a person could not like Wagner's music at first,

but must go through the deliberate process of learning

to like it--then he would have his sure reward;

for when he had learned to like it he would hunger

for it and never be able to get enough of it. She said

that six hours of Wagner was by no means too much.

She said that this composer had made a complete revolution

in music and was burying the old masters one by one.

And she said that Wagner's operas differed from all others

in one notable respect, and that was that they were not

merely spotted with music here and there, but were ALL music,

from the first strain to the last. This surprised me.

I said I had attended one of his insurrections, and found

hardly ANY music in it except the Wedding Chorus.

She said "Lohengrin" was noisier than Wagner's other operas,

but that if I would keep on going to see it I would find

by and by that it was all music, and therefore would

then enjoy it. I COULD have said, "But would you advise

a person to deliberately practice having a toothache

in the pit of his stomach for a couple of years in order

that he might then come to enjoy it?" But I reserved

that remark.

This lady was full of the praises of the head-tenor

who had performed in a Wagner opera the night before,

and went on to enlarge upon his old and prodigious fame,

and how many honors had been lavished upon him by the

princely houses of Germany. Here was another surprise.

I had attended that very opera, in the person of my agent,

and had made close and accurate observations. So I

said:

"Why, madam, MY experience warrants me in stating

that that tenor's voice is not a voice at all,

but only a shriek--the shriek of a hyena."

"That is very true," she said; "he cannot sing now;

it is already many years that he has lost his voice,

but in other times he sang, yes, divinely! So whenever

he comes now, you shall see, yes, that the theater

will not hold the people. JAWOHL BEI GOTT! his voice

is WUNDERSCHOEN in that past time."

I said she was discovering to me a kindly trait in the

Germans which was worth emulating. I said that over

the water we were not quite so generous; that with us,

when a singer had lost his voice and a jumper had lost

his legs, these parties ceased to draw. I said I had been

to the opera in Hanover, once, and in Mannheim once,

and in Munich (through my authorized agent) once, and this

large experience had nearly persuaded me that the Germans

PREFERRED singers who couldn't sing. This was not such

a very extravagant speech, either, for that burly Mannheim

tenor's praises had been the talk of all Heidelberg for

a week before his performance took place--yet his voice

was like the distressing noise which a nail makes when you

screech it across a window-pane. I said so to Heidelberg

friends the next day, and they said, in the calmest and

simplest way, that that was very true, but that in earlier

times his voice HAD been wonderfully fine. And the tenor

in Hanover was just another example of this sort.

The English-speaking German gentleman who went with me

to the opera there was brimming with enthusiasm over that tenor.

He said:

"ACH GOTT! a great man! You shall see him. He is so celebrate

in all Germany--and he has a pension, yes, from the government.

He not obliged to sing now, only twice every year;

but if he not sing twice each year they take him his pension

away."

Very well, we went. When the renowned old tenor appeared,

I got a nudge and an excited whisper:

"Now you see him!"

But the "celebrate" was an astonishing disappointment to me.

If he had been behind a screen I should have supposed

they were performing a surgical operation on him.

I looked at my friend--to my great surprise he seemed

intoxicated with pleasure, his eyes were dancing

with eager delight. When the curtain at last fell,

he burst into the stormiest applause, and kept it up--as

did the whole house--until the afflictive tenor had

come three times before the curtain to make his bow.

While the glowing enthusiast was swabbing the perspiration

from his face, I said:

"I don't mean the least harm, but really, now, do you

think he can sing?"

"Him? NO! GOTT IM HIMMEL, ABER, how he has been able to

sing twenty-five years ago?" [Then pensively.] "ACH, no,

NOW he not sing any more, he only cry. When he think

he sing, now, he not sing at all, no, he only make

like a cat which is unwell."

Where and how did we get the idea that the Germans

are a stolid, phlegmatic race? In truth, they are

widely removed from that. They are warm-hearted,

emotional, impulsive, enthusiastic, their tears come

at the mildest touch, and it is not hard to move them

to laughter. They are the very children of impulse.

We are cold and self-contained, compared to the Germans.

They hug and kiss and cry and shout and dance and sing;

and where we use one loving, petting expressions they pour

out a score. Their language is full of endearing diminutives;

nothing that they love escapes the application of a petting

diminutive--neither the house, nor the dog, nor the horse,

nor the grandmother, nor any other creature, animate or

inanimate.

In the theaters at Hanover, Hamburg, and Mannheim,

they had a wise custom. The moment the curtain went up,

the light in the body of the house went down.

The audience sat in the cool gloom of a deep twilight,

which greatly enhanced the glowing splendors of the stage.

It saved gas, too, and people were not sweated to death.

When I saw "King Lear" played, nobody was allowed to see

a scene shifted; if there was nothing to be done but slide

a forest out of the way and expose a temple beyond, one did

not see that forest split itself in the middle and go

shrieking away, with the accompanying disenchanting spectacle

of the hands and heels of the impelling impulse--no,

the curtain was always dropped for an instant--one heard

not the least movement behind it--but when it went up,

the next instant, the forest was gone. Even when the

stage was being entirely reset, one heard no noise.

During the whole time that "King Lear" was playing

the curtain was never down two minutes at any one time.

The orchestra played until the curtain was ready to go up

for the first time, then they departed for the evening.

Where the stage waits never each two minutes there is no

occasion for music. I had never seen this two-minute

business between acts but once before, and that was when

the "Shaughraun" was played at Wallack's.

I was at a concert in Munich one night, the people

were streaming in, the clock-hand pointed to seven,

the music struck up, and instantly all movement in

the body of the house ceased--nobody was standing,

or walking up the aisles, or fumbling with a seat,

the stream of incomers had suddenly dried up at its source.

I listened undisturbed to a piece of music that was fifteen

minutes long--always expecting some tardy ticket-holders

to come crowding past my knees, and being continuously and

pleasantly disappointed--but when the last note was struck,

here came the stream again. You see, they had made

those late comers wait in the comfortable waiting-parlor

from the time the music had begin until it was ended.

It was the first time I had ever seen this sort of

criminals denied the privilege of destroying the comfort

of a house full of their betters. Some of these were

pretty fine birds, but no matter, they had to tarry

outside in the long parlor under the inspection of

a double rank of liveried footmen and waiting-maids

who supported the two walls with their backs and held

the wraps and traps of their masters and mistresses on their

arms.

We had no footmen to hold our things, and it was not

permissible to take them into the concert-room; but there

were some men and women to take charge of them for us.

They gave us checks for them and charged a fixed price,

payable in advance--five cents.

In Germany they always hear one thing at an opera

which has never yet been heard in America, perhaps--I

mean the closing strain of a fine solo or duet.

We always smash into it with an earthquake of applause.

The result is that we rob ourselves of the sweetest

part of the treat; we get the whiskey, but we don't get

the sugar in the bottom of the glass.

Our way of scattering applause along through an act seems

to me to be better than the Mannheim way of saving it

all up till the act is ended. I do not see how an actor

can forget himself and portray hot passion before a cold

still audience. I should think he would feel foolish.

It is a pain to me to this day, to remember how that old

German Lear raged and wept and howled around the stage,

with never a response from that hushed house, never a

single outburst till the act was ended. To me there was

something unspeakably uncomfortable in the solemn dead

silences that always followed this old person's tremendous

outpourings of his feelings. I could not help putting

myself in his place--I thought I knew how sick and flat

he felt during those silences, because I remembered a case

which came under my observation once, and which--but I

will tell the incident:

One evening on board a Mississippi steamboat, a boy of ten

years lay asleep in a berth--a long, slim-legged boy,

he was, encased in quite a short shirt; it was the first

time he had ever made a trip on a steamboat, and so he

was troubled, and scared, and had gone to bed with his

head filled with impending snaggings, and explosions,

and conflagrations, and sudden death. About ten o'clock

some twenty ladies were sitting around about the ladies'

saloon, quietly reading, sewing, embroidering, and so on,

and among them sat a sweet, benignant old dame with round

spectacles on her nose and her busy knitting-needles

in her hands. Now all of a sudden, into the midst of this

peaceful scene burst that slim-shanked boy in the brief shirt,

wild-eyed, erect-haired, and shouting, "Fire, fire!

JUMP AND RUN, THE BOAT'S AFIRE AND THERE AIN'T A MINUTE

TO LOSE!" All those ladies looked sweetly up and smiled,

nobody stirred, the old lady pulled her spectacles down,

looked over them, and said, gently:

"But you mustn't catch cold, child. Run and put on

your breastpin, and then come and tell us all about it."

It was a cruel chill to give to a poor little devil's

gushing vehemence. He was expecting to be a sort of

hero--the creator of a wild panic--and here everybody

sat and smiled a mocking smile, and an old woman made

fun of his bugbear. I turned and crept away--for I

was that boy--and never even cared to discover whether

I had dreamed the fire or actually seen it.

I am told that in a German concert or opera, they hardly

ever encore a song; that though they may be dying to hear

it again, their good breeding usually preserves them

against requiring the repetition.

Kings may encore; that is quite another matter;

it delights everybody to see that the King is pleased;

and as to the actor encored, his pride and gratification

are simply boundless. Still, there are circumstances

in which even a royal encore--

But it is better to illustrate. The King of Bavaria is

a poet, and has a poet's eccentricities--with the advantage

over all other poets of being able to gratify them,

no matter what form they may take. He is fond of opera,

but not fond of sitting in the presence of an audience;

therefore, it has sometimes occurred, in Munich,

that when an opera has been concluded and the players

were getting off their paint and finery, a command has

come to them to get their paint and finery on again.

Presently the King would arrive, solitary and alone,

and the players would begin at the beginning and do the

entire opera over again with only that one individual

in the vast solemn theater for audience. Once he took

an odd freak into his head. High up and out of sight,

over the prodigious stage of the court theater is a maze

of interlacing water-pipes, so pierced that in case

of fire, innumerable little thread-like streams of

water can be caused to descend; and in case of need,

this discharge can be augmented to a pouring flood.

American managers might want to make a note of that.

The King was sole audience. The opera proceeded,

it was a piece with a storm in it; the mimic thunder

began to mutter, the mimic wind began to wail and sough,

and the mimic rain to patter. The King's interest rose

higher and higher; it developed into enthusiasm. He cried

out:

"It is very, very good, indeed! But I will have real

rain! Turn on the water!"

The manager pleaded for a reversal of the command; said it

would ruin the costly scenery and the splendid costumes,

but the King cried:

"No matter, no matter, I will have real rain! Turn

on the water!"

So the real rain was turned on and began to descend in

gossamer lances to the mimic flower-beds and gravel walks

of the stage. The richly dressed actresses and actors

tripped about singing bravely and pretending not to mind it.

The King was delighted--his enthusiasm grew higher.

He cried out:

"Bravo, bravo! More thunder! more lightning! turn

on more rain!"

The thunder boomed, the lightning glared, the storm-winds raged,

the deluge poured down. The mimic royalty on the stage,

with their soaked satins clinging to their bodies,

slopped about ankle-deep in water, warbling their sweetest

and best, the fiddlers under the eaves of the state sawed

away for dear life, with the cold overflow spouting down

the backs of their necks, and the dry and happy King sat

in his lofty box and wore his gloves to ribbons applauding.

"More yet!" cried the King; "more yet--let loose all

the thunder, turn on all the water! I will hang the man

that raises an umbrella!"

When this most tremendous and effective storm that had

ever been produced in any theater was at last over,

the King's approbation was measureless. He cried:

"Magnificent, magnificent! ENCORE! Do it again!"

But the manager succeeded in persuading him to recall

the encore, and said the company would feel sufficiently

rewarded and complimented in the mere fact that the

encore was desired by his Majesty, without fatiguing

him with a repetition to gratify their own vanity.

During the remainder of the act the lucky performers

were those whose parts required changes of dress;

the others were a soaked, bedraggled, and uncomfortable lot,

but in the last degree picturesque. The stage scenery

was ruined, trap-doors were so swollen that they wouldn't

work for a week afterward, the fine costumes were spoiled,

and no end of minor damages were done by that remarkable storm.

It was royal idea--that storm--and royally carried out.

But observe the moderation of the King; he did not

insist upon his encore. If he had been a gladsome,

unreflecting American opera-audience, he probably would

have had his storm repeated and repeated until he drowned

all those people.

CHAPTER XI

[I Paint a "Turner"]

The summer days passed pleasantly in Heidelberg.

We had a skilled trainer, and under his instructions we

were getting our legs in the right condition for the

contemplated pedestrian tours; we were well satisfied

with the progress which we had made in the German language,

[1. See Appendix D for information concerning this

fearful tongue.] and more than satisfied with what we had

accomplished in art. We had had the best instructors in

drawing and painting in Germany--Haemmerling, Vogel, Mueller,

Dietz, and Schumann. Haemmerling taught us landscape-painting.

Vogel taught us figure-drawing, Mueller taught us to do

still-life, and Dietz and Schumann gave us a finishing

course in two specialties--battle-pieces and shipwrecks.

Whatever I am in Art I owe to these men. I have something

of the manner of each and all of them; but they all said that I

had also a manner of my own, and that it was conspicuous.

They said there was a marked individuality about my

style--insomuch that if I ever painted the commonest

type of a dog, I should be sure to throw a something

into the aspect of that dog which would keep him from

being mistaken for the creation of any other artist.

Secretly I wanted to believe all these kind sayings,

but I could not; I was afraid that my masters'

partiality for me, and pride in me, biased their judgment.

So I resolved to make a test. Privately, and unknown

to any one, I painted my great picture, "Heidelberg Castle

Illuminated"--my first really important work in oils--and

had it hung up in the midst of a wilderness of oil-pictures

in the Art Exhibition, with no name attached to it. To my

great gratification it was instantly recognized as mine.

All the town flocked to see it, and people even came from

neighboring localities to visit it. It made more stir than

any other work in the Exhibition. But the most gratifying

thing of all was, that chance strangers, passing through,

who had not heard of my picture, were not only drawn to it,

as by a lodestone, the moment they entered the gallery,

but always took it for a "Turner."

Apparently nobody had ever done that. There were ruined

castles on the overhanging cliffs and crags all the way;

these were said to have their legends, like those on the Rhine,

and what was better still, they had never been in print.

There was nothing in the books about that lovely region;

it had been neglected by the tourist, it was virgin soil for

the literary pioneer.

Meantime the knapsacks, the rough walking-suits and the stout

walking-shoes which we had ordered, were finished and brought

to us. A Mr. X and a young Mr. Z had agreed to go with us.

We went around one evening and bade good-by to our friends,

and afterward had a little farewell banquet at the hotel.

We got to bed early, for we wanted to make an early start,

so as to take advantage of the cool of the morning.

We were out of bed at break of day, feeling fresh

and vigorous, and took a hearty breakfast, then plunged

down through the leafy arcades of the Castle grounds,

toward the town. What a glorious summer morning it was,

and how the flowers did pour out their fragrance,

and how the birds did sing! It was just the time for a

tramp through the woods and mountains.

We were all dressed alike: broad slouch hats, to keep the

sun off; gray knapsacks; blue army shirts; blue overalls;

leathern gaiters buttoned tight from knee down to ankle;

high-quarter coarse shoes snugly laced. Each man had

an opera-glass, a canteen, and a guide-book case slung

over his shoulder, and carried an alpenstock in one hand

and a sun-umbrella in the other. Around our hats were

wound many folds of soft white muslin, with the ends

hanging and flapping down our backs--an idea brought

from the Orient and used by tourists all over Europe.

Harris carried the little watch-like machine called

a "pedometer," whose office is to keep count of a man's

steps and tell how far he has walked. Everybody stopped

to admire our costumes and give us a hearty "Pleasant march

to you!"

When we got downtown I found that we could go by rail to

within five miles of Heilbronn. The train was just starting,

so we jumped aboard and went tearing away in splendid spirits.

It was agreed all around that we had done wisely,

because it would be just as enjoyable to walk DOWN the Neckar

as up it, and it could not be needful to walk both ways.

There were some nice German people in our compartment.

I got to talking some pretty private matters presently,

and Harris became nervous; so he nudged me and said:

"Speak in German--these Germans may understand English."

I did so, it was well I did; for it turned out that there

was not a German in that party who did not understand

English perfectly. It is curious how widespread our language

is in Germany. After a while some of those folks got out

and a German gentleman and his two young daughters got in.

I spoke in German of one of the latter several times,

but without result. Finally she said:

"ICH VERSTEHE NUR DEUTCH UND ENGLISHE,"--or words to

that effect. That is, "I don't understand any language

but German and English."

And sure enough, not only she but her father and sister

spoke English. So after that we had all the talk we wanted;

and we wanted a good deal, for they were agreeable people.

They were greatly interested in our customs; especially

the alpenstocks, for they had not seen any before.

They said that the Neckar road was perfectly level, so we

must be going to Switzerland or some other rugged country;

and asked us if we did not find the walking pretty fatiguing

in such warm weather. But we said no.

We reached Wimpfen--I think it was Wimpfen--in about

three hours, and got out, not the least tired; found a

good hotel and ordered beer and dinner--then took

a stroll through the venerable old village. It was very

picturesque and tumble-down, and dirty and interesting.

It had queer houses five hundred years old in it,

and a military tower 115 feet high, which had stood there

more than ten centuries. I made a little sketch of it.

I kept a copy, but gave the original to the Burgomaster.

I think the original was better than the copy, because it

had more windows in it and the grass stood up better and had

a brisker look. There was none around the tower, though;

I composed the grass myself, from studies I made in a field

by Heidelberg in Haemmerling's time. The man on top,

looking at the view, is apparently too large, but I found

he could not be made smaller, conveniently. I wanted

him there, and I wanted him visible, so I thought out a

way to manage it; I composed the picture from two points

of view; the spectator is to observe the man from bout

where that flag is, and he must observe the tower itself

from the ground. This harmonizes the seeming discrepancy.

[Figure 2]

Near an old cathedral, under a shed, were three crosses

of stone--moldy and damaged things, bearing life-size

stone figures. The two thieves were dressed in the fanciful

court costumes of the middle of the sixteenth century,

while the Saviour was nude, with the exception of a cloth

around the loins.

We had dinner under the green trees in a garden belonging

to the hotel and overlooking the Neckar; then, after a smoke,

we went to bed. We had a refreshing nap, then got up

about three in the afternoon and put on our panoply.

As we tramped gaily out at the gate of the town,

we overtook a peasant's cart, partly laden with odds and

ends of cabbages and similar vegetable rubbish, and drawn

by a small cow and a smaller donkey yoked together.

It was a pretty slow concern, but it got us into Heilbronn

before dark--five miles, or possibly it was seven.

We stopped at the very same inn which the famous old

robber-knight and rough fighter Goetz von Berlichingen,

abode in after he got out of captivity in the Square Tower

of Heilbronn between three hundred and fifty and four hundred

years ago. Harris and I occupied the same room which he

had occupied and the same paper had not quite peeled off

the walls yet. The furniture was quaint old carved stuff,

full four hundred years old, and some of the smells

were over a thousand. There was a hook in the wall,

which the landlord said the terrific old Goetz used to

hang his iron hand on when he took it off to go to bed.

This room was very large--it might be called immense

--and it was on the first floor; which means it was in

the second story, for in Europe the houses are so high

that they do not count the first story, else they

would get tired climbing before they got to the top.

The wallpaper was a fiery red, with huge gold figures in it,

well smirched by time, and it covered all the doors.

These doors fitted so snugly and continued the figures

of the paper so unbrokenly, that when they were closed

one had to go feeling and searching along the wall

to find them. There was a stove in the corner--one

of those tall, square, stately white porcelain things

that looks like a monument and keeps you thinking

of death when you ought to be enjoying your travels.

The windows looked out on a little alley, and over that

into a stable and some poultry and pig yards in the rear

of some tenement-houses. There were the customary two beds

in the room, one in one end, the other in the other,

about an old-fashioned brass-mounted, single-barreled

pistol-shot apart. They were fully as narrow as the usual

German bed, too, and had the German bed's ineradicable

habit of spilling the blankets on the floor every time

you forgot yourself and went to sleep.

A round table as large as King Arthur's stood in the

center of the room; while the waiters were getting

ready to serve our dinner on it we all went out to see

the renowned clock on the front of the municipal buildings.

CHAPTER XII

[What the Wives Saved]

The RATHHAUS, or municipal building, is of the quaintest

and most picturesque Middle-Age architecture. It has a

massive portico and steps, before it, heavily balustraded,

and adorned with life-sized rusty iron knights in

complete armor. The clock-face on the front of the building

is very large and of curious pattern. Ordinarily, a gilded

angel strikes the hour on a big bell with a hammer;

as the striking ceases, a life-sized figure of Time raises

its hour-glass and turns it; two golden rams advance

and butt each other; a gilded cock lifts its wings;

but the main features are two great angels, who stand

on each side of the dial with long horns at their lips;

it was said that they blew melodious blasts on these

horns every hour--but they did not do it for us.

We were told, later, than they blew only at night,

when the town was still.

Within the RATHHAUS were a number of huge wild boars'

heads, preserved, and mounted on brackets along the wall;

they bore inscriptions telling who killed them and how many

hundred years ago it was done. One room in the building

was devoted to the preservation of ancient archives.

There they showed us no end of aged documents; some were

signed by Popes, some by Tilly and other great generals,

and one was a letter written and subscribed by Goetz von

Berlichingen in Heilbronn in 1519 just after his release

from the Square Tower.

This fine old robber-knight was a devoutly and sincerely

religious man, hospitable, charitable to the poor,

fearless in fight, active, enterprising, and possessed

of a large and generous nature. He had in him a

quality of being able to overlook moderate injuries,

and being able to forgive and forget mortal ones as

soon as he had soundly trounced the authors of them.

He was prompt to take up any poor devil's quarrel and risk

his neck to right him. The common folk held him dear,

and his memory is still green in ballad and tradition.

He used to go on the highway and rob rich wayfarers;

and other times he would swoop down from his high castle

on the hills of the Neckar and capture passing cargoes

of merchandise. In his memoirs he piously thanks the

Giver of all Good for remembering him in his needs and

delivering sundry such cargoes into his hands at times

when only special providences could have relieved him.

He was a doughty warrior and found a deep joy in battle.

In an assault upon a stronghold in Bavaria when he was

only twenty-three years old, his right hand was shot away,

but he was so interested in the fight that he did not

observe it for a while. He said that the iron hand

which was made for him afterward, and which he wore for

more than half a century, was nearly as clever a member

as the fleshy one had been. I was glad to get a facsimile

of the letter written by this fine old German Robin Hood,

though I was not able to read it. He was a better artist

with his sword than with his pen.

We went down by the river and saw the Square Tower.

It was a very venerable structure, very strong,

and very ornamental. There was no opening near the ground.

They had to use a ladder to get into it, no doubt.

We visited the principal church, also--a curious

old structure, with a towerlike spire adorned with all

sorts of grotesque images. The inner walls of the church

were placarded with large mural tablets of copper,

bearing engraved inscriptions celebrating the merits

of old Heilbronn worthies of two or three centuries ago,

and also bearing rudely painted effigies of themselves

and their families tricked out in the queer costumes of

those days. The head of the family sat in the foreground,

and beyond him extended a sharply receding and diminishing

row of sons; facing him sat his wife, and beyond

her extended a low row of diminishing daughters.

The family was usually large, but the perspective bad.

Then we hired the hack and the horse which Goetz von

Berlichingen used to use, and drove several miles into

the country to visit the place called WEIBERTREU--Wife's

Fidelity I suppose it means. It was a feudal castle

of the Middle Ages. When we reached its neighborhood we

found it was beautifully situated, but on top of a mound,

or hill, round and tolerably steep, and about two hundred

feet high. Therefore, as the sun was blazing hot,

we did not climb up there, but took the place on trust,

and observed it from a distance while the horse leaned up

against a fence and rested. The place has no interest

except that which is lent it by its legend, which is

a very pretty one--to this effect:

THE LEGEND

In the Middle Ages, a couple of young dukes, brothers,

took opposite sides in one of the wars, the one fighting

for the Emperor, the other against him. One of them

owned the castle and village on top of the mound which I

have been speaking of, and in his absence his brother

came with his knights and soldiers and began a siege.

It was a long and tedious business, for the people

made a stubborn and faithful defense. But at last

their supplies ran out and starvation began its work;

more fell by hunger than by the missiles of the enemy.

They by and by surrendered, and begged for charitable terms.

But the beleaguering prince was so incensed against them

for their long resistance that he said he would spare none

but the women and children--all men should be put to the

sword without exception, and all their goods destroyed.

Then the women came and fell on their knees and begged for

the lives of their husbands.

"No," said the prince, "not a man of them shall escape alive;

you yourselves shall go with your children into houseless

and friendless banishment; but that you may not starve

I grant you this one grace, that each woman may bear

with her from this place as much of her most valuable

property as she is able to carry."

Very well, presently the gates swung open and out filed

those women carrying their HUSBANDS on their shoulders.

The besiegers, furious at the trick, rushed forward

to slaughter the men, but the Duke stepped between and

said:

"No, put up your swords--a prince's word is inviolable."

When we got back to the hotel, King Arthur's Round Table

was ready for us in its white drapery, and the head waiter

and his first assistant, in swallow-tails and white cravats,

brought in the soup and the hot plates at once.

Mr. X had ordered the dinner, and when the wine came on,

he picked up a bottle, glanced at the label, and then turned

to the grave, the melancholy, the sepulchral head waiter

and said it was not the sort of wine he had asked for.

The head waiter picked up the bottle, cast his undertaker-eye

on it and said:

"It is true; I beg pardon." Then he turned on his

subordinate and calmly said, "Bring another label."

At the same time he slid the present label off with his hand

and laid it aside; it had been newly put on, its paste

was still wet. When the new label came, he put it on;

our French wine being now turned into German wine,

according to desire, the head waiter went blandly about his

other duties, as if the working of this sort of miracle

was a common and easy thing to him.

Mr. X said he had not known, before, that there were

people honest enough to do this miracle in public,

but he was aware that thousands upon thousands of labels

were imported into America from Europe every year,

to enable dealers to furnish to their customers in a quiet

and inexpensive way all the different kinds of foreign

wines they might require.

We took a turn around the town, after dinner, and found

it fully as interesting in the moonlight as it had been

in the daytime. The streets were narrow and roughly paved,

and there was not a sidewalk or a street-lamp anywhere.

The dwellings were centuries old, and vast enough for hotels.

They widened all the way up; the stories projected

further and further forward and aside as they ascended,

and the long rows of lighted windows, filled with little bits

of panes, curtained with figured white muslin and adorned

outside with boxes of flowers, made a pretty effect.

The moon was bright, and the light and shadow very strong;

and nothing could be more picturesque than those curving

streets, with their rows of huge high gables leaning

far over toward each other in a friendly gossiping way,

and the crowds below drifting through the alternating blots

of gloom and mellow bars of moonlight. Nearly everybody

was abroad, chatting, singing, romping, or massed in lazy

comfortable attitudes in the doorways.

In one place there was a public building which was

fenced about with a thick, rusty chain, which sagged

from post to post in a succession of low swings.

The pavement, here, was made of heavy blocks of stone.

In the glare of the moon a party of barefooted children

were swinging on those chains and having a noisy good time.

They were not the first ones who have done that;

even their great-great-grandfathers had not been the first

to do it when they were children. The strokes of the bare

feet had worn grooves inches deep in the stone flags;

it had taken many generations of swinging children to

accomplish that. Everywhere in the town were the mold

and decay that go with antiquity, and evidence of it;

but I do not know that anything else gave us so vivid

a sense of the old age of Heilbronn as those footworn

grooves in the paving-stones.

CHAPTER XIII

[My Long Crawl in the Dark]

When we got back to the hotel I wound and set the

pedometer and put it in my pocket, for I was to carry

it next day and keep record of the miles we made.

The work which we had given the instrument to do during

the day which had just closed had not fatigued it perceptibly.

We were in bed by ten, for we wanted to be up and away on

our tramp homeward with the dawn. I hung fire, but Harris

went to sleep at once. I hate a man who goes to sleep

at once; there is a sort of indefinable something about it

which is not exactly an insult, and yet is an insolence;

and one which is hard to bear, too. I lay there fretting

over this injury, and trying to go to sleep; but the harder

I tried, the wider awake I grew. I got to feeling very lonely

in the dark, with no company but an undigested dinner.

My mind got a start by and by, and began to consider the

beginning of every subject which has ever been thought of;

but it never went further than the beginning; it was touch

and go; it fled from topic to topic with a frantic speed.

At the end of an hour my head was in a perfect whirl and I

was dead tired, fagged out.

The fatigue was so great that it presently began to make some

head against the nervous excitement; while imagining myself

wide awake, I would really doze into momentary unconsciousness,

and come suddenly out of it with a physical jerk which nearly

wrenched my joints apart--the delusion of the instant

being that I was tumbling backward over a precipice.

After I had fallen over eight or nine precipices and thus

found out that one half of my brain had been asleep eight

or nine times without the wide-awake, hard-working other

half suspecting it, the periodical unconsciousnesses

began to extend their spell gradually over more of my

brain-territory, and at last I sank into a drowse which

grew deeper and deeper and was doubtless just on the very

point of being a solid, blessed dreamless stupor, when--what was

that?

My dulled faculties dragged themselves partly back to life

and took a receptive attitude. Now out of an immense,

a limitless distance, came a something which grew and grew,

and approached, and presently was recognizable as a sound

--it had rather seemed to be a feeling, before. This sound

was a mile away, now--perhaps it was the murmur of a storm;

and now it was nearer--not a quarter of a mile away;

was it the muffled rasping and grinding of distant

machinery? No, it came still nearer; was it the measured

tramp of a marching troop? But it came nearer still,

and still nearer--and at last it was right in the room: it

was merely a mouse gnawing the woodwork. So I had held my

breath all that time for such a trifle.

Well, what was done could not be helped; I would go

to sleep at once and make up the lost time. That was

a thoughtless thought. Without intending it--hardly

knowing it--I fell to listening intently to that sound,

and even unconsciously counting the strokes of the mouse's

nutmeg-grater. Presently I was deriving exquisite suffering

from this employment, yet maybe I could have endured

it if the mouse had attended steadily to his work;

but he did not do that; he stopped every now and then,

and I suffered more while waiting and listening for

him to begin again than I did while he was gnawing.

Along at first I was mentally offering a reward

of five--six--seven--ten--dollars for that mouse;

but toward the last I was offering rewards which were

entirely beyond my means. I close-reefed my ears

--that is to say, I bent the flaps of them down and furled

them into five or six folds, and pressed them against

the hearing-orifice--but it did no good: the faculty

was so sharpened by nervous excitement that it was become

a microphone and could hear through the overlays without trouble.

My anger grew to a frenzy. I finally did what all persons

before me have done, clear back to Adam,--resolved to

throw something. I reached down and got my walking-shoes,

then sat up in bed and listened, in order to exactly locate

the noise. But I couldn't do it; it was as unlocatable

as a cricket's noise; and where one thinks that that is,

is always the very place where it isn't. So I presently

hurled a shoe at random, and with a vicious vigor.

It struck the wall over Harris's head and fell down on him;

I had not imagined I could throw so far. It woke Harris,

and I was glad of it until I found he was not angry;

then I was sorry. He soon went to sleep again,

which pleased me; but straightway the mouse began again,

which roused my temper once more. I did not want to wake

Harris a second time, but the gnawing continued until I

was compelled to throw the other shoe. This time I broke

a mirror--there were two in the room--I got the largest one,

of course. Harris woke again, but did not complain,

and I was sorrier than ever. I resolved that I would

suffer all possible torture before I would disturb him a

third time.

The mouse eventually retired, and by and by I was sinking

to sleep, when a clock began to strike; I counted till

it was done, and was about to drowse again when another

clock began; I counted; then the two great RATHHAUS clock

angels began to send forth soft, rich, melodious blasts

from their long trumpets. I had never heard anything

that was so lovely, or weird, or mysterious--but when they

got to blowing the quarter-hours, they seemed to me to be

overdoing the thing. Every time I dropped off for the moment,

a new noise woke me. Each time I woke I missed my coverlet,

and had to reach down to the floor and get it again.

At last all sleepiness forsook me. I recognized the fact

that I was hopelessly and permanently wide awake.

Wide awake, and feverish and thirsty. When I had lain

tossing there as long as I could endure it, it occurred

to me that it would be a good idea to dress and go out in

the great square and take a refreshing wash in the fountain,

and smoke and reflect there until the remnant of the night

was gone.

I believed I could dress in the dark without waking Harris.

I had banished my shoes after the mouse, but my slippers

would do for a summer night. So I rose softly, and gradually

got on everything--down to one sock. I couldn't seem

to get on the track of that sock, any way I could fix it.

But I had to have it; so I went down on my hands and knees,

with one slipper on and the other in my hand, and began to

paw gently around and rake the floor, but with no success.

I enlarged my circle, and went on pawing and raking.

With every pressure of my knee, how the floor creaked!

and every time I chanced to rake against any article,

it seemed to give out thirty-five or thirty-six times

more noise than it would have done in the daytime.

In those cases I always stopped and held my breath till I

was sure Harris had not awakened--then I crept along again.

I moved on and on, but I could not find the sock;

I could not seem to find anything but furniture.

I could not remember that there was much furniture

in the room when I went to bed, but the place was alive

with it now --especially chairs--chairs everywhere

--had a couple of families moved in, in the mean time? And

I never could seem to GLANCE on one of those chairs,

but always struck it full and square with my head.

My temper rose, by steady and sure degrees, and as I

pawed on and on, I fell to making vicious comments under

my breath.

Finally, with a venomous access of irritation, I said I

would leave without the sock; so I rose up and made straight

for the door--as I supposed--and suddenly confronted my

dim spectral image in the unbroken mirror. It startled

the breath out of me, for an instant; it also showed me

that I was lost, and had no sort of idea where I was.

When I realized this, I was so angry that I had to sit

down on the floor and take hold of something to keep

from lifting the roof off with an explosion of opinion.

If there had been only one mirror, it might possibly have

helped to locate me; but there were two, and two were as

bad as a thousand; besides, these were on opposite sides

of the room. I could see the dim blur of the windows,

but in my turned-around condition they were exactly

where they ought not to be, and so they only confused me

instead of helping me.

I started to get up, and knocked down an umbrella;

it made a noise like a pistol-shot when it struck

that hard, slick, carpetless floor; I grated my teeth

and held my breath--Harris did not stir. I set the

umbrella slowly and carefully on end against the wall,

but as soon as I took my hand away, its heel slipped

from under it, and down it came again with another bang.

I shrunk together and listened a moment in silent fury

--no harm done, everything quiet. With the most painstaking

care and nicety, I stood the umbrella up once more,

took my hand away, and down it came again.

I have been strictly reared, but if it had not been

so dark and solemn and awful there in that lonely,

vast room, I do believe I should have said something

then which could not be put into a Sunday-school book

without injuring the sale of it. If my reasoning powers

had not been already sapped dry by my harassments,

I would have known better than to try to set an umbrella

on end on one of those glassy German floors in the dark;

it can't be done in the daytime without four failures

to one success. I had one comfort, though--Harris was

yet still and silent--he had not stirred.

The umbrella could not locate me--there were four

standing around the room, and all alike. I thought I

would feel along the wall and find the door in that way.

I rose up and began this operation, but raked down

a picture. It was not a large one, but it made noise

enough for a panorama. Harris gave out no sound, but I

felt that if I experimented any further with the pictures

I should be sure to wake him. Better give up trying to

get out. Yes, I would find King Arthur's Round Table once

more--I had already found it several times--and use it

for a base of departure on an exploring tour for my bed;

if I could find my bed I could then find my water pitcher;

I would quench my raging thirst and turn in. So I started

on my hands and knees, because I could go faster that way,

and with more confidence, too, and not knock down things.

By and by I found the table--with my head--rubbed the

bruise a little, then rose up and started, with hands

abroad and fingers spread, to balance myself. I found

a chair; then a wall; then another chair; then a sofa;

then an alpenstock, then another sofa; this confounded me,

for I had thought there was only one sofa. I hunted

up the table again and took a fresh start; found some

more chairs.

It occurred to me, now, as it ought to have done before,

that as the table was round, it was therefore of no

value as a base to aim from; so I moved off once more,

and at random among the wilderness of chairs and sofas

--wandering off into unfamiliar regions, and presently knocked

a candlestick and knocked off a lamp, grabbed at the lamp

and knocked off a water pitcher with a rattling crash,

and thought to myself, "I've found you at last--I

judged I was close upon you." Harris shouted "murder,"

and "thieves," and finished with "I'm absolutely drowned."

The crash had roused the house. Mr. X pranced in,

in his long night-garment, with a candle, young Z after him

with another candle; a procession swept in at another door,

with candles and lanterns--landlord and two German guests

in their nightgowns and a chambermaid in hers.

I looked around; I was at Harris's bed, a Sabbath-day's

journey from my own. There was only one sofa; it was against

the wall; there was only one chair where a body could get

at it--I had been revolving around it like a planet,

and colliding with it like a comet half the night.

I explained how I had been employing myself, and why.

Then the landlord's party left, and the rest of us set

about our preparations for breakfast, for the dawn was

ready to break. I glanced furtively at my pedometer,

and found I had made 47 miles. But I did not care, for I

had come out for a pedestrian tour anyway.

CHAPTER XIV

[Rafting Down the Neckar]

When the landlord learned that I and my agents were artists,

our party rose perceptibly in his esteem; we rose still

higher when he learned that we were making a pedestrian

tour of Europe.

He told us all about the Heidelberg road, and which

were the best places to avoid and which the best ones

to tarry at; he charged me less than cost for the things

I broke in the night; he put up a fine luncheon for us

and added to it a quantity of great light-green plums,

the pleasantest fruit in Germany; he was so anxious to do us

honor that he would not allow us to walk out of Heilbronn,

but called up Goetz von Berlichingen's horse and cab

and made us ride.

I made a sketch of the turnout. It is not a Work, it is only

what artists call a "study"--a thing to make a finished

picture from. This sketch has several blemishes in it;

for instance, the wagon is not traveling as fast as the

horse is. This is wrong. Again, the person trying to get

out of the way is too small; he is out of perspective,

as we say. The two upper lines are not the horse's back,

they are the reigns; there seems to be a wheel missing

--this would be corrected in a finished Work, of course.

This thing flying out behind is not a flag, it is a curtain.

That other thing up there is the sun, but I didn't get

enough distance on it. I do not remember, now, what that

thing is that is in front of the man who is running,

but I think it is a haystack or a woman. This study

was exhibited in the Paris Salon of 1879, but did not

take any medal; they do not give medals for studies.

[Figure 3]

We discharged the carriage at the bridge. The river was

full of logs--long, slender, barkless pine logs--and we

leaned on the rails of the bridge, and watched the men put

them together into rafts. These rafts were of a shape

and construction to suit the crookedness and extreme

narrowness of the Neckar. They were from fifty to one

hundred yards long, and they gradually tapered from a

nine-log breadth at their sterns, to a three-log breadth

at their bow-ends. The main part of the steering is done

at the bow, with a pole; the three-log breadth there

furnishes room for only the steersman, for these little logs

are not larger around than an average young lady's waist.

The connections of the several sections of the raft are

slack and pliant, so that the raft may be readily bent

into any sort of curve required by the shape of the river.

The Neckar is in many places so narrow that a person

can throw a dog across it, if he has one; when it is

also sharply curved in such places, the raftsman has

to do some pretty nice snug piloting to make the turns.

The river is not always allowed to spread over its whole

bed--which is as much as thirty, and sometimes forty yards

wide--but is split into three equal bodies of water,

by stone dikes which throw the main volume, depth, and current

into the central one. In low water these neat narrow-edged

dikes project four or five inches above the surface,

like the comb of a submerged roof, but in high water

they are overflowed. A hatful of rain makes high water

in the Neckar, and a basketful produces an overflow.

There are dikes abreast the Schloss Hotel, and the current

is violently swift at that point. I used to sit for hours

in my glass cage, watching the long, narrow rafts slip

along through the central channel, grazing the right-bank

dike and aiming carefully for the middle arch of the stone

bridge below; I watched them in this way, and lost all this

time hoping to see one of them hit the bridge-pier and wreck

itself sometime or other, but was always disappointed.

One was smashed there one morning, but I had just stepped

into my room a moment to light a pipe, so I lost it.

While I was looking down upon the rafts that morning

in Heilbronn, the daredevil spirit of adventure came

suddenly upon me, and I said to my comrades:

"_I_ am going to Heidelberg on a raft. Will you venture

with me?"

Their faces paled a little, but they assented with as

good a grace as they could. Harris wanted to cable his

mother--thought it his duty to do that, as he was all

she had in this world--so, while he attended to this,

I went down to the longest and finest raft and hailed

the captain with a hearty "Ahoy, shipmate!" which put us

upon pleasant terms at once, and we entered upon business.

I said we were on a pedestrian tour to Heidelberg,

and would like to take passage with him. I said this

partly through young Z, who spoke German very well,

and partly through Mr. X, who spoke it peculiarly. I can

UNDERSTAND German as well as the maniac that invented it,

but I TALK it best through an interpreter.

The captain hitched up his trousers, then shifted

his quid thoughtfully. Presently he said just what I

was expecting he would say--that he had no license

to carry passengers, and therefore was afraid the law

would be after him in case the matter got noised about

or any accident happened. So I CHARTERED the raft

and the crew and took all the responsibilities on myself.

With a rattling song the starboard watch bent to their

work and hove the cable short, then got the anchor home,

and our bark moved off with a stately stride, and soon

was bowling along at about two knots an hour.

Our party were grouped amidships. At first the talk was

a little gloomy, and ran mainly upon the shortness of life,

the uncertainty of it, the perils which beset it, and the

need and wisdom of being always prepared for the worst;

this shaded off into low-voiced references to the dangers

of the deep, and kindred matters; but as the gray east

began to redden and the mysterious solemnity and silence

of the dawn to give place to the joy-songs of the birds,

the talk took a cheerier tone, and our spirits began to

rise steadily.

Germany, in the summer, is the perfection of the beautiful,

but nobody has understood, and realized, and enjoyed

the utmost possibilities of this soft and peaceful

beauty unless he has voyaged down the Neckar on a raft.

The motion of a raft is the needful motion; it is gentle,

and gliding, and smooth, and noiseless; it calms down

all feverish activities, it soothes to sleep all nervous

hurry and impatience; under its restful influence all the

troubles and vexations and sorrows that harass the mind

vanish away, and existence becomes a dream, a charm,

a deep and tranquil ecstasy. How it contrasts with hot

and perspiring pedestrianism, and dusty and deafening

railroad rush, and tedious jolting behind tired horses

over blinding white roads!

We went slipping silently along, between the green and

fragrant banks, with a sense of pleasure and contentment

that grew, and grew, all the time. Sometimes the banks

were overhung with thick masses of willows that wholly

hid the ground behind; sometimes we had noble hills on

one hand, clothed densely with foliage to their tops,

and on the other hand open levels blazing with poppies,

or clothed in the rich blue of the corn-flower;

sometimes we drifted in the shadow of forests, and sometimes

along the margin of long stretches of velvety grass,

fresh and green and bright, a tireless charm to the eye.

And the birds!--they were everywhere; they swept back

and forth across the river constantly, and their jubilant

music was never stilled.

It was a deep and satisfying pleasure to see the sun

create the new morning, and gradually, patiently,

lovingly, clothe it on with splendor after splendor,

and glory after glory, till the miracle was complete.

How different is this marvel observed from a raft,

from what it is when one observes it through the dingy

windows of a railway-station in some wretched village

while he munches a petrified sandwich and waits for the train.

CHAPTER XV

Down the River

[Charming Waterside Pictures]

Men and women and cattle were at work in the dewy fields

by this time. The people often stepped aboard the raft,

as we glided along the grassy shores, and gossiped with us

and with the crew for a hundred yards or so, then stepped

ashore again, refreshed by the ride.

Only the men did this; the women were too busy.

The women do all kinds of work on the continent. They dig,

they hoe, they reap, they sow, they bear monstrous burdens

on their backs, they shove similar ones long distances

on wheelbarrows, they drag the cart when there is no dog

or lean cow to drag it--and when there is, they assist

the dog or cow. Age is no matter--the older the woman

the stronger she is, apparently. On the farm a woman's

duties are not defined--she does a little of everything;

but in the towns it is different, there she only does

certain things, the men do the rest. For instance,

a hotel chambermaid has nothing to do but make beds and

fires in fifty or sixty rooms, bring towels and candles,

and fetch several tons of water up several flights of stairs,

a hundred pounds at a time, in prodigious metal pitchers.

She does not have to work more than eighteen or twenty hours

a day, and she can always get down on her knees and scrub

the floors of halls and closets when she is tired and needs

a rest.

As the morning advanced and the weather grew hot, we took

off our outside clothing and sat in a row along the edge

of the raft and enjoyed the scenery, with our sun-umbrellas

over our heads and our legs dangling in the water.

Every now and then we plunged in and had a swim.

Every projecting grassy cape had its joyous group

of naked children, the boys to themselves and the girls

to themselves, the latter usually in care of some motherly

dame who sat in the shade of a tree with her knitting.

The little boys swam out to us, sometimes, but the little

maids stood knee-deep in the water and stopped their splashing

and frolicking to inspect the raft with their innocent

eyes as it drifted by. Once we turned a corner suddenly

and surprised a slender girl of twelve years or upward,

just stepping into the water. She had not time to run,

but she did what answered just as well; she promptly

drew a lithe young willow bough athwart her white body

with one hand, and then contemplated us with a simple and

untroubled interest. Thus she stood while we glided by.

She was a pretty creature, and she and her willow bough

made a very pretty picture, and one which could not

offend the modesty of the most fastidious spectator.

Her white skin had a low bank of fresh green willows for

background and effective contrast--for she stood against

them--and above and out of them projected the eager faces

and white shoulders of two smaller girls.

Toward noon we heard the inspiring cry:

"Sail ho!"

"Where away?" shouted the captain.

"Three points off the weather bow!"

We ran forward to see the vessel. It proved to be

a steamboat--for they had begun to run a steamer up

the Neckar, for the first time in May. She was a tug,

and one of a very peculiar build and aspect. I had

often watched her from the hotel, and wondered how she

propelled herself, for apparently she had no propeller

or paddles. She came churning along, now, making a deal

of noise of one kind or another, and aggravating it every

now and then by blowing a hoarse whistle. She had nine

keel-boats hitched on behind and following after her

in a long, slender rank. We met her in a narrow place,

between dikes, and there was hardly room for us both in the

cramped passage. As she went grinding and groaning by,

we perceived the secret of her moving impulse. She did

not drive herself up the river with paddles or propeller,

she pulled herself by hauling on a great chain.

This chain is laid in the bed of the river and is only

fastened at the two ends. It is seventy miles long.

It comes in over the boat's bow, passes around a drum,

and is payed out astern. She pulls on that chain,

and so drags herself up the river or down it. She has

neither bow or stern, strictly speaking, for she has a

long-bladed rudder on each end and she never turns around.

She uses both rudders all the time, and they are powerful

enough to enable her to turn to the right or the left

and steer around curves, in spite of the strong resistance

of the chain. I would not have believed that that impossible

thing could be done; but I saw it done, and therefore I

know that there is one impossible thing which CAN be done.

What miracle will man attempt next?

We met many big keel-boats on their way up, using sails,

mule power, and profanity--a tedious and laborious business.

A wire rope led from the foretopmast to the file of mules

on the tow-path a hundred yards ahead, and by dint

of much banging and swearing and urging, the detachment

of drivers managed to get a speed of two or three miles

an hour out of the mules against the stiff current.

The Neckar has always been used as a canal, and thus

has given employment to a great many men and animals;

but now that this steamboat is able, with a small crew

and a bushel or so of coal, to take nine keel-boats farther

up the river in one hour than thirty men and thirty mules

can do it in two, it is believed that the old-fashioned

towing industry is on its death-bed. A second steamboat

began work in the Neckar three months after the first one

was put in service. [Figure 4]

At noon we stepped ashore and bought some bottled beer

and got some chickens cooked, while the raft waited;

then we immediately put to sea again, and had our

dinner while the beer was cold and the chickens hot.

There is no pleasanter place for such a meal than a raft

that is gliding down the winding Neckar past green meadows

and wooded hills, and slumbering villages, and craggy

heights graced with crumbling towers and battlements.

In one place we saw a nicely dressed German gentleman

without any spectacles. Before I could come to anchor

he had got underway. It was a great pity. I so wanted

to make a sketch of him. The captain comforted me

for my loss, however, by saying that the man was without

any doubt a fraud who had spectacles, but kept them

in his pocket in order to make himself conspicuous.

Below Hassmersheim we passed Hornberg, Goetz von Berlichingen's

old castle. It stands on a bold elevation two hundred feet

above the surface of the river; it has high vine-clad walls

enclosing trees, and a peaked tower about seventy-five

feet high. The steep hillside, from the castle clear

down to the water's edge, is terraced, and clothed thick

with grape vines. This is like farming a mansard roof.

All the steeps along that part of the river which furnish

the proper exposure, are given up to the grape. That region

is a great producer of Rhine wines. The Germans are

exceedingly fond of Rhine wines; they are put up in tall,

slender bottles, and are considered a pleasant beverage.

One tells them from vinegar by the label.

The Hornberg hill is to be tunneled, and the new railway

will pass under the castle.

THE CAVE OF THE SPECTER

Two miles below Hornberg castle is a cave in a low cliff,

which the captain of the raft said had once been occupied

by a beautiful heiress of Hornberg--the Lady Gertrude

--in the old times. It was seven hundred years ago.

She had a number of rich and noble lovers and one poor

and obscure one, Sir Wendel Lobenfeld. With the native

chuckleheadedness of the heroine of romance, she preferred

the poor and obscure lover. With the native sound judgment

of the father of a heroine of romance, the von Berlichingen

of that day shut his daughter up in his donjon keep,

or his oubliette, or his culverin, or some such place,

and resolved that she should stay there until she selected

a husband from among her rich and noble lovers. The latter

visited her and persecuted her with their supplications,

but without effect, for her heart was true to her poor

despised Crusader, who was fighting in the Holy Land.

Finally, she resolved that she would endure the attentions

of the rich lovers no longer; so one stormy night she escaped

and went down the river and hid herself in the cave on

the other side. Her father ransacked the country for her,

but found not a trace of her. As the days went by,

and still no tidings of her came, his conscience began

to torture him, and he caused proclamation to be made

that if she were yet living and would return, he would

oppose her no longer, she might marry whom she would.

The months dragged on, all hope forsook the old man,

he ceased from his customary pursuits and pleasures,

he devoted himself to pious works, and longed for the

deliverance of death.

Now just at midnight, every night, the lost heiress stood

in the mouth of her cave, arrayed in white robes, and sang

a little love ballad which her Crusader had made for her.

She judged that if he came home alive the superstitious

peasants would tell him about the ghost that sang in the cave,

and that as soon as they described the ballad he would know

that none but he and she knew that song, therefore he would

suspect that she was alive, and would come and find her.

As time went on, the people of the region became sorely

distressed about the Specter of the Haunted Cave.

It was said that ill luck of one kind or another always

overtook any one who had the misfortune to hear that song.

Eventually, every calamity that happened thereabouts was

laid at the door of that music. Consequently, no boatmen

would consent to pass the cave at night; the peasants

shunned the place, even in the daytime.

But the faithful girl sang on, night after night,

month after month, and patiently waited; her reward

must come at last. Five years dragged by, and still,

every night at midnight, the plaintive tones floated out

over the silent land, while the distant boatmen and peasants

thrust their fingers into their ears and shuddered out a prayer.

And now came the Crusader home, bronzed and battle-scarred,

but bringing a great and splendid fame to lay at the feet

of his bride. The old lord of Hornberg received him as

his son, and wanted him to stay by him and be the comfort

and blessing of his age; but the tale of that young

girl's devotion to him and its pathetic consequences

made a changed man of the knight. He could not enjoy

his well-earned rest. He said his heart was broken,

he would give the remnant of his life to high deeds

in the cause of humanity, and so find a worthy death

and a blessed reunion with the brave true heart whose

love had more honored him than all his victories in war.

When the people heard this resolve of his, they came and told

him there was a pitiless dragon in human disguise in the

Haunted Cave, a dread creature which no knight had yet been

bold enough to face, and begged him to rid the land of its

desolating presence. He said he would do it. They told

him about the song, and when he asked what song it was,

they said the memory of it was gone, for nobody had been

hardy enough to listen to it for the past four years and more.

Toward midnight the Crusader came floating down the river

in a boat, with his trusty cross-bow in his hands.

He drifted silently through the dim reflections of the

crags and trees, with his intent eyes fixed upon the low

cliff which he was approaching. As he drew nearer,

he discerned the black mouth of the cave. Now--is that

a white figure? Yes. The plaintive song begins to well

forth and float away over meadow and river--the cross-bow

is slowly raised to position, a steady aim is taken,

the bolt flies straight to the mark--the figure sinks down,

still singing, the knight takes the wool out of his ears,

and recognizes the old ballad--too late! Ah, if he had

only not put the wool in his ears!

The Crusader went away to the wars again, and presently

fell in battle, fighting for the Cross. Tradition says

that during several centuries the spirit of the unfortunate

girl sang nightly from the cave at midnight, but the music

carried no curse with it; and although many listened

for the mysterious sounds, few were favored, since only

those could hear them who had never failed in a trust.

It is believed that the singing still continues, but it is

known that nobody has heard it during the present century.

CHAPTER XVI

An Ancient Legend of the Rhine

[The Lorelei]

The last legend reminds one of the "Lorelei"--a legend

of the Rhine. There is a song called "The Lorelei."

Germany is rich in folk-songs, and the words and airs of

several of them are peculiarly beautiful--but "The Lorelei"

is the people's favorite. I could not endure it at first,

but by and by it began to take hold of me, and now there

is no tune which I like so well.

It is not possible that it is much known in America, else I

should have heard it there. The fact that I never heard

it there, is evidence that there are others in my country

who have fared likewise; therefore, for the sake of these,

I mean to print the words and music in this chapter.

And I will refresh the reader's memory by printing the legend

of the Lorelei, too. I have it by me in the LEGENDS OF

THE RHINE, done into English by the wildly gifted Garnham,

Bachelor of Arts. I print the legend partly to refresh

my own memory, too, for I have never read it before.

THE LEGEND

Lore (two syllables) was a water nymph who used to sit

on a high rock called the Ley or Lei (pronounced like our

word LIE) in the Rhine, and lure boatmen to destruction

in a furious rapid which marred the channel at that spot.

She so bewitched them with her plaintive songs and her

wonderful beauty that they forgot everything else to gaze

up at her, and so they presently drifted among the broken

reefs and were lost.

In those old, old times, the Count Bruno lived in a great

castle near there with his son, the Count Hermann, a youth

of twenty. Hermann had heard a great deal about the

beautiful Lore, and had finally fallen very deeply in love

with her without having seen her. So he used to wander

to the neighborhood of the Lei, evenings, with his Zither

and "Express his Longing in low Singing," as Garnham says.

On one of these occasions, "suddenly there hovered around

the top of the rock a brightness of unequaled clearness

and color, which, in increasingly smaller circles thickened,

was the enchanting figure of the beautiful Lore.

"An unintentional cry of Joy escaped the Youth, he let

his Zither fall, and with extended arms he called out

the name of the enigmatical Being, who seemed to stoop

lovingly to him and beckon to him in a friendly manner;

indeed, if his ear did not deceive him, she called his

name with unutterable sweet Whispers, proper to love.

Beside himself with delight the youth lost his Senses

and sank senseless to the earth."

After that he was a changed person. He went dreaming about,

thinking only of his fairy and caring for naught else

in the world. "The old count saw with affliction this

changement in his son," whose cause he could not divine,

and tried to divert his mind into cheerful channels,

but to no purpose. Then the old count used authority.

He commanded the youth to betake himself to the camp.

Obedience was promised. Garnham says:

"It was on the evening before his departure, as he

wished still once to visit the Lei and offer to the

Nymph of the Rhine his Sighs, the tones of his Zither,

and his Songs. He went, in his boat, this time accompanied

by a faithful squire, down the stream. The moon shed

her silvery light over the whole country; the steep

bank mountains appeared in the most fantastical shapes,

and the high oaks on either side bowed their Branches

on Hermann's passing. As soon as he approached the Lei,

and was aware of the surf-waves, his attendant was seized

with an inexpressible Anxiety and he begged permission

to land; but the Knight swept the strings of his Guitar

and sang:

"Once I saw thee in dark night, In supernatural Beauty bright;

Of Light-rays, was the Figure wove, To share its light,

locked-hair strove.

"Thy Garment color wave-dove By thy hand the sign of love,

Thy eyes sweet enchantment, Raying to me, oh! enchantment.

"O, wert thou but my sweetheart, How willingly thy love

to part! With delight I should be bound To thy rocky

house in deep ground."

That Hermann should have gone to that place at all,

was not wise; that he should have gone with such a song

as that in his mouth was a most serious mistake. The Lorelei

did not "call his name in unutterable sweet Whispers"

this time. No, that song naturally worked an instant

and thorough "changement" in her; and not only that,

but it stirred the bowels of the whole afflicted region

around about there--for--

"Scarcely had these tones sounded, everywhere there

began tumult and sound, as if voices above and below

the water. On the Lei rose flames, the Fairy stood above,

at that time, and beckoned with her right hand clearly

and urgently to the infatuated Knight, while with a staff

in her left hand she called the waves to her service.

They began to mount heavenward; the boat was upset,

mocking every exertion; the waves rose to the gunwale,

and splitting on the hard stones, the Boat broke into Pieces.

The youth sank into the depths, but the squire was thrown on

shore by a powerful wave."

The bitterest things have been said about the Lorelei

during many centuries, but surely her conduct upon this

occasion entitles her to our respect. One feels drawn

tenderly toward her and is moved to forget her many crimes

and remember only the good deed that crowned and closed

her career.

"The Fairy was never more seen; but her enchanting tones have

often been heard. In the beautiful, refreshing, still nights

of spring, when the moon pours her silver light over the Country,

the listening shipper hears from the rushing of the waves,

the echoing Clang of a wonderfully charming voice,

which sings a song from the crystal castle, and with sorrow

and fear he thinks on the young Count Hermann, seduced by the

Nymph."

Here is the music, and the German words by Heinrich Heine.

This song has been a favorite in Germany for forty years,

and will remain a favorite always, maybe. [Figure 5]

I have a prejudice against people who print things

in a foreign language and add no translation.

When I am the reader, and the author considers me

able to do the translating myself, he pays me quite

a nice compliment--but if he would do the translating

for me I would try to get along without the compliment.

If I were at home, no doubt I could get a translation of

this poem, but I am abroad and can't; therefore I will make

a translation myself. It may not be a good one, for poetry

is out of my line, but it will serve my purpose--which is,

to give the unGerman young girl a jingle of words to hang

the tune on until she can get hold of a good version,

made by some one who is a poet and knows how to convey

a poetical thought from one language to another.

THE LORELEI

I cannot divine what it meaneth,

This haunting nameless pain:

A tale of the bygone ages

Keeps brooding through my brain:

The faint air cools in the glooming,

And peaceful flows the Rhine,

The thirsty summits are drinking

The sunset's flooding wine;

The loveliest maiden is sitting

High-throned in yon blue air,

Her golden jewels are shining,

She combs her golden hair;

She combs with a comb that is golden,

And sings a weird refrain

That steeps in a deadly enchantment

The list'ner's ravished brain:

The doomed in his drifting shallop,

Is tranced with the sad sweet tone,

He sees not the yawning breakers,

He sees but the maid alone:

The pitiless billows engulf him!--

So perish sailor and bark;

And this, with her baleful singing,

Is the Lorelei's gruesome work.

I have a translation by Garnham, Bachelor of Arts,

in the LEGENDS OF THE RHINE, but it would not answer

the purpose I mentioned above, because the measure is too

nobly irregular; it don't fit the tune snugly enough;

in places it hangs over at the ends too far, and in other

places one runs out of words before he gets to the end

of a bar. Still, Garnham's translation has high merits,

and I am not dreaming of leaving it out of my book.

I believe this poet is wholly unknown in America and England;

I take peculiar pleasure in bringing him forward because I

consider that I discovered him:

THE LORELEI

Translated by L. W. Garnham, B.A.

I do not know what it signifies.

That I am so sorrowful?

A fable of old Times so terrifies,

Leaves my heart so thoughtful.

The air is cool and it darkens,

And calmly flows the Rhine;

The summit of the mountain hearkens

In evening sunshine line.

The most beautiful Maiden entrances

Above wonderfully there,

Her beautiful golden attire glances,

She combs her golden hair.

With golden comb so lustrous,

And thereby a song sings,

It has a tone so wondrous,

That powerful melody rings.

The shipper in the little ship

It effects with woe sad might;

He does not see the rocky slip,

He only regards dreaded height.

I believe the turbulent waves

Swallow the last shipper and boat;

She with her singing craves

All to visit her magic moat.

No translation could be closer. He has got in all

the facts; and in their regular order, too. There is not

a statistic wanting. It is as succinct as an invoice.

That is what a translation ought to be; it should exactly

reflect the thought of the original. You can't SING "Above

wonderfully there," because it simply won't go to the tune,

without damaging the singer; but it is a most clingingly exact

translation of DORT OBEN WUNDERBAR--fits it like a blister.

Mr. Garnham's reproduction has other merits--a hundred

of them--but it is not necessary to point them out.

They will be detected.

No one with a specialty can hope to have a monopoly of it.

Even Garnham has a rival. Mr. X had a small pamphlet

with him which he had bought while on a visit to Munich.

It was entitled A CATALOGUE OF PICTURES IN THE OLD PINACOTEK,

and was written in a peculiar kind of English. Here are

a few extracts:

"It is not permitted to make use of the work

in question to a publication of the same contents

as well as to the pirated edition of it."

"An evening landscape. In the foreground near a pond

and a group of white beeches is leading a footpath

animated by travelers."

"A learned man in a cynical and torn dress holding an open

book in his hand."

"St. Bartholomew and the Executioner with the knife

to fulfil the martyr."

"Portrait of a young man. A long while this picture

was thought to be Bindi Altoviti's portrait; now somebody

will again have it to be the self-portrait of Raphael."

"Susan bathing, surprised by the two old man.

In the background the lapidation of the condemned."

("Lapidation" is good; it is much more elegant than

"stoning.")

"St. Rochus sitting in a landscape with an angel who looks

at his plague-sore, whilst the dog the bread in his mouth

attents him."

"Spring. The Goddess Flora, sitting. Behind her a fertile

valley perfused by a river."

"A beautiful bouquet animated by May-bugs, etc."

"A warrior in armor with a gypseous pipe in his hand leans

against a table and blows the smoke far away of himself."

"A Dutch landscape along a navigable river which perfuses

it till to the background."

"Some peasants singing in a cottage. A woman lets drink

a child out of a cup."

"St. John's head as a boy--painted in fresco on a brick."

(Meaning a tile.)

"A young man of the Riccio family, his hair cut off

right at the end, dressed in black with the same cap.

Attributed to Raphael, but the signation is false."

"The Virgin holding the Infant. It is very painted

in the manner of Sassoferrato."

"A Larder with greens and dead game animated by a cook-maid

and two kitchen-boys."

However, the English of this catalogue is at least

as happy as that which distinguishes an inscription

upon a certain picture in Rome--to wit:

"Revelations-View. St. John in Patterson's Island."

But meanwhile the raft is moving on.

CHAPTER XVII

[Why Germans Wear Spectacles]

A mile or two above Eberbach we saw a peculiar ruin projecting

above the foliage which clothed the peak of a high and

very steep hill. This ruin consisted of merely a couple

of crumbling masses of masonry which bore a rude resemblance

to human faces; they leaned forward and touched foreheads,

and had the look of being absorbed in conversation. This ruin

had nothing very imposing or picturesque about it, and there

was no great deal of it, yet it was called the "Spectacular

Ruin."

LEGEND OF THE "SPECTACULAR RUIN"

The captain of the raft, who was as full of history as he

could stick, said that in the Middle Ages a most prodigious

fire-breathing dragon used to live in that region,

and made more trouble than a tax-collector. He was as long

as a railway-train, and had the customary impenetrable

green scales all over him. His breath bred pestilence

and conflagration, and his appetite bred famine. He ate

men and cattle impartially, and was exceedingly unpopular.

The German emperor of that day made the usual offer:

he would grant to the destroyer of the dragon, any one

solitary thing he might ask for; for he had a surplusage

of daughters, and it was customary for dragon-killers

to take a daughter for pay.

So the most renowned knights came from the four corners

of the earth and retired down the dragon's throat one after

the other. A panic arose and spread. Heroes grew cautious.

The procession ceased. The dragon became more destructive

than ever. The people lost all hope of succor, and fled

to the mountains for refuge.

At last Sir Wissenschaft, a poor and obscure knight,

out of a far country, arrived to do battle with the monster.

A pitiable object he was, with his armor hanging in rags

about him, and his strange-shaped knapsack strapped

upon his back. Everybody turned up their noses at him,

and some openly jeered him. But he was calm. He simply

inquired if the emperor's offer was still in force.

The emperor said it was--but charitably advised him to go

and hunt hares and not endanger so precious a life as his

in an attempt which had brought death to so many of the

world's most illustrious heroes.

But this tramp only asked--"Were any of these heroes

men of science?" This raised a laugh, of course,

for science was despised in those days. But the tramp

was not in the least ruffled. He said he might be a

little in advance of his age, but no matter--science

would come to be honored, some time or other. He said

he would march against the dragon in the morning.

Out of compassion, then, a decent spear was offered him,

but he declined, and said, "spears were useless to men

of science." They allowed him to sup in the servants'

hall, and gave him a bed in the stables.

When he started forth in the morning, thousands were

gathered to see. The emperor said:

"Do not be rash, take a spear, and leave off your knapsack."

But the tramp said:

"It is not a knapsack," and moved straight on.

The dragon was waiting and ready. He was breathing forth

vast volumes of sulphurous smoke and lurid blasts of flame.

The ragged knight stole warily to a good position,

then he unslung his cylindrical knapsack--which was simply

the common fire-extinguisher known to modern times

--and the first chance he got he turned on his hose and shot

the dragon square in the center of his cavernous mouth.

Out went the fires in an instant, and the dragon curled up

and died.

This man had brought brains to his aid. He had reared

dragons from the egg, in his laboratory, he had watched

over them like a mother, and patiently studied them

and experimented upon them while they grew. Thus he had

found out that fire was the life principle of a dragon;

put out the dragon's fires and it could make steam

no longer, and must die. He could not put out a fire

with a spear, therefore he invented the extinguisher.

The dragon being dead, the emperor fell on the hero's neck

and said:

"Deliverer, name your request," at the same time beckoning

out behind with his heel for a detachment of his daughters

to form and advance. But the tramp gave them no observance.

He simply said:

"My request is, that upon me be conferred the monopoly

of the manufacture and sale of spectacles in Germany."

The emperor sprang aside and exclaimed:

"This transcends all the impudence I ever heard! A

modest demand, by my halidome! Why didn't you ask

for the imperial revenues at once, and be done with it?"

But the monarch had given his word, and he kept it.

To everybody's surprise, the unselfish monopolist immediately

reduced the price of spectacles to such a degree that a

great and crushing burden was removed from the nation.

The emperor, to commemorate this generous act, and to

testify his appreciation of it, issued a decree commanding

everybody to buy this benefactor's spectacles and wear them,

whether they needed them or not.

So originated the wide-spread custom of wearing

spectacles in Germany; and as a custom once established

in these old lands is imperishable, this one remains

universal in the empire to this day. Such is the legend

of the monopolist's once stately and sumptuous castle,

now called the "Spectacular Ruin."

On the right bank, two or three miles below the Spectacular

Ruin, we passed by a noble pile of castellated buildings

overlooking the water from the crest of a lofty elevation.

A stretch of two hundred yards of the high front wall

was heavily draped with ivy, and out of the mass of

buildings within rose three picturesque old towers.

The place was in fine order, and was inhabited by a

family of princely rank. This castle had its legend,

too, but I should not feel justified in repeating

it because I doubted the truth of some of its minor details.

Along in this region a multitude of Italian laborers

were blasting away the frontage of the hills to make

room for the new railway. They were fifty or a hundred

feet above the river. As we turned a sharp corner they

began to wave signals and shout warnings to us to look

out for the explosions. It was all very well to warn us,

but what could WE do? You can't back a raft upstream,

you can't hurry it downstream, you can't scatter out

to one side when you haven't any room to speak of,

you won't take to the perpendicular cliffs on the other

shore when they appear to be blasting there, too.

Your resources are limited, you see. There is simply

nothing for it but to watch and pray.

For some hours we had been making three and a half or four

miles an hour and we were still making that. We had been

dancing right along until those men began to shout;

then for the next ten minutes it seemed to me that I had

never seen a raft go so slowly. When the first blast went

off we raised our sun-umbrellas and waited for the result.

No harm done; none of the stones fell in the water.

Another blast followed, and another and another.

Some of the rubbish fell in the water just astern

of us.

We ran that whole battery of nine blasts in a row, and it

was certainly one of the most exciting and uncomfortable

weeks I ever spent, either aship or ashore. Of course

we frequently manned the poles and shoved earnestly

for a second or so, but every time one of those spurts

of dust and debris shot aloft every man dropped his pole

and looked up to get the bearings of his share of it.

It was very busy times along there for a while.

It appeared certain that we must perish, but even that was

not the bitterest thought; no, the abjectly unheroic nature

of the death--that was the sting--that and the bizarre

wording of the resulting obituary: "SHOT WITH A ROCK,

ON A RAFT." There would be no poetry written about it.

None COULD be written about it. Example:

NOT by war's shock, or war's shaft,--SHOT, with a rock,

on a raft.

No poet who valued his reputation would touch such a

theme as that. I should be distinguished as the only

"distinguished dead" who went down to the grave unsonneted,

in 1878.

But we escaped, and I have never regretted it.

The last blast was peculiarly strong one, and after

the small rubbish was done raining around us and we

were just going to shake hands over our deliverance,

a later and larger stone came down amongst our little

group of pedestrians and wrecked an umbrella. It did

no other harm, but we took to the water just the same.

It seems that the heavy work in the quarries and the

new railway gradings is done mainly by Italians.

That was a revelation. We have the notion in our country

that Italians never do heavy work at all, but confine

themselves to the lighter arts, like organ-grinding,

operatic singing, and assassination. We have blundered,

that is plain.

All along the river, near every village, we saw little

station-houses for the future railway. They were

finished and waiting for the rails and business.

They were as trim and snug and pretty as they could be.

They were always of brick or stone; they were of graceful

shape, they had vines and flowers about them already,

and around them the grass was bright and green,

and showed that it was carefully looked after. They were

a decoration to the beautiful landscape, not an offense.

Wherever one saw a pile of gravel or a pile of broken stone,

it was always heaped as trimly and exactly as a new grave

or a stack of cannon-balls; nothing about those stations

or along the railroad or the wagon-road was allowed

to look shabby or be unornamental. The keeping a country

in such beautiful order as Germany exhibits, has a wise

practical side to it, too, for it keeps thousands of people

in work and bread who would otherwise be idle and mischievous.

As the night shut down, the captain wanted to tie up,

but I thought maybe we might make Hirschhorn, so we went on.

Presently the sky became overcast, and the captain came

aft looking uneasy. He cast his eye aloft, then shook

his head, and said it was coming on to blow. My party

wanted to land at once--therefore I wanted to go on.

The captain said we ought to shorten sail anyway,

out of common prudence. Consequently, the larboard watch

was ordered to lay in his pole. It grew quite dark,

now, and the wind began to rise. It wailed through

the swaying branches of the trees, and swept our decks

in fitful gusts. Things were taking on an ugly look.

The captain shouted to the steersman on the forward

log:

"How's she landing?"

The answer came faint and hoarse from far forward:

"Nor'-east-and-by-nor'--east-by-east, half-east, sir."

"Let her go off a point!"

"Aye-aye, sir!"

"What water have you got?"

"Shoal, sir. Two foot large, on the stabboard,

two and a half scant on the labboard!"

"Let her go off another point!"

"Aye-aye, sir!"

"Forward, men, all of you! Lively, now! Stand by to crowd

her round the weather corner!"

"Aye-aye, sir!"

Then followed a wild running and trampling and hoarse shouting,

but the forms of the men were lost in the darkness and

the sounds were distorted and confused by the roaring

of the wind through the shingle-bundles. By this time

the sea was running inches high, and threatening every

moment to engulf the frail bark. Now came the mate,

hurrying aft, and said, close to the captain's ear,

in a low, agitated voice:

"Prepare for the worst, sir--we have sprung a leak!"

"Heavens! where?"

"Right aft the second row of logs."

"Nothing but a miracle can save us! Don't let the men know,

or there will be a panic and mutiny! Lay her in shore

and stand by to jump with the stern-line the moment

she touches. Gentlemen, I must look to you to second

my endeavors in this hour of peril. You have hats--go

forward and bail for your lives!"

Down swept another mighty blast of wind, clothed in

spray and thick darkness. At such a moment as this,

came from away forward that most appalling of all cries

that are ever heard at sea:

"MAN OVERBOARD!"

The captain shouted:

"Hard a-port! Never mind the man! Let him climb aboard

or wade ashore!"

Another cry came down the wind:

"Breakers ahead!"

"Where away?"

"Not a log's length off her port fore-foot!"

We had groped our slippery way forward, and were now

bailing with the frenzy of despair, when we heard

the mate's terrified cry, from far aft:

"Stop that dashed bailing, or we shall be aground!"

But this was immediately followed by the glad shout:

"Land aboard the starboard transom!"

"Saved!" cried the captain. "Jump ashore and take a turn

around a tree and pass the bight aboard!"