Jacques, the Forsaken
In Germany the last fresh air was used during the Thirty Years' War,
and there has since been no demand for any. Austria has no fresh air at
all--never did have any, and therefore has never felt the need of having
any. Italy--the northern part of it anyhow--is also reasonably shy of
this commodity.
In the German-speaking countries all street cars and all railway trains
sail with battened hatches. In their palmiest days the Jimmy Hope gang
could not have opened a window in a German sleeping car--not without
blasting; and trying to open a window in the ordinary first or second
class carriage provides healthful exercise for an American tourist,
while affording a cheap and simple form of amusement for his fellow
passengers. If, by superhuman efforts and at the cost of a fingernail
or two, he should get one open, somebody else in the compartment as
a matter of principle, immediately objects; and the retired
brigadier-general, who is always in charge of a German train, comes
and seals it up again, for that is the rule and the law; and then the
natives are satisfied and sit in sweet content together, breathing a
line of second-handed air that would choke a salamander.
Once, a good many years ago--in the century before the last I think it
was--a member of the Teutonic racial stock was accidentally caught out
in the fresh air and some of it got into his lungs. And, being a strange
and a foreign influence to which the lungs were unused, it sickened
him; in fact I am not sure but that it killed him on the spot. So the
emperors of Germany and Austria got together and issued a joint ukase on
the subject and, so far as the traveling public was concerned, forever
abolished those dangerous experiments. Over there they think a draft is
deadly, and I presume it is if you have never tampered with one. They
have a saying: A little window is a dangerous thing.
As with fresh air on the Continent, so also with baths--except perhaps
more so. In deference to the strange and unaccountable desires of
their English-speaking guests the larger hotels in Paris are abundantly
equipped with bathrooms now, but the Parisian boulevardiers continue to
look with darkling suspicion on a party who will deliberately immerse
his person in cold water; their beings seem to recoil in horror from the
bare prospect of such a thing. It is plainly to be seen they think his
intelligence has been attainted by cold water externally applied; they
fear that through a complete undermining of his reason he may next be
committing these acts of violence on innocent bystanders rather than on
himself, as in the present distressing stages of his mania. Especially,
I would say, is this the attitude of the habitue of Montmartre.
I can offer no visual proof to back my word; but by other testimony I
venture the assertion that when a boulevardier feels the need of a bath
he hangs a musk bag round his neck--and then, as the saying is, the
warmer the sweeter. His companion of the gentler sex apparently has the
same idea of performing daily ablutions that a tabby cat has. You recall
the tabby-cat system, do you not?--two swipes over the brow with the
moistened paw, one forward swipe over each ear, a kind of circular
rubbing effect across the face--and call it a day! Drowning must be the
most frightful death that a Parisian sidewalk favorite can die. It is
not so much the death itself--it is the attendant circumstances.
Across the river, in the older quarters of Paris, there is excitement
when anybody on the block takes a bath--not so much excitement as for a
fire, perhaps, but more than for a funeral. On the eve of the fatal day
the news spreads through the district that to-morrow poor Jacques is
going to take a bath! A further reprieve has been denied him. He cannot
put it off for another month, or even for another two weeks. His doom is
nigh at hand; there is no hope--none!
Kindly old Angeline, the midwife, shakes her head sadly as she goes
about her simple duties.
On the morrow the condemned man rises early and sees his spiritual
adviser. He eats a hearty breakfast, takes an affectionate leave of his
family and says he is prepared for the worst. At the appointed hour the
tumbrel enters the street, driven by the paid executioner--a descendant
of the original Sanson--and bearing the dread instrument of punishment,
a large oblong tin tub.
The rumble of the heavy wheels over the cobbles seems to wake an
agonized chord in every bosom. To-day this dread visitation descends on
Jacques; but who can tell--so the neighbors say to themselves--when the
same fate may strike some other household now happily unconscious! All
along the narrow way sorrow-drooped heads protrude in rows; from every
casement dangle whiskers, lank and stringy with sympathy--for in this
section every true Frenchman has whiskers, and if by chance he has not
his wife has; so that there are whiskers for all.
From the window of the doomed wretch's apartments a derrick protrudes--a
crossarm with a pulley and a rope attached. It bears a grimly
significant resemblance to a gallows tree. Under the direction of the
presiding functionary the tub is made fast to the tackle and hoisted
upward as pianos and safes are hoisted in American cities. It halts at
the open casement. It vanishes within. The whole place resounds with low
murmurs of horror and commiseration.
Ah, the poor Jacques--how he must suffer! Hark to that low, sickening
thud! 'Tis the accursed soap dropping from his nerveless grasp. Hist to
that sound--like unto a death rattle! It is the water gurgling in the
tub. And what means that low, poignant, smothered gasp? It is the last
convulsive cry of Jacques descending into the depths. All is over! Let
us pray!
The tub, emptied but stained, is lowered to the waiting cart. The
executioner kisses the citizen who has held his horse for him during his
absence and departs; the whole district still hums with ill-suppressed
excitement. Questions fly from tongue to tongue. Was the victim brave
at the last? Was he resigned when the dread moment came? And how is the
family bearing up? It is hours before the place settles down again to
that calm which will endure for another month, until somebody else takes
a bath on a physician's prescription.
Even in the sanctity of a Paris hotel a bath is more or less a public
function unless you lock your door. All sorts of domestic servitors
drift in, filled with a morbid curiosity to see how a foreigner deports
himself when engaged in this strange, barbaric rite. On the occasion of
my first bath on French soil, after several of the hired help had
thus called on me informally, causing me to cower low in my porcelain
retreat, I took advantage of a moment of comparative quiet to rise
drippingly and draw the latch. I judged the proprietor would be along
next, and I was not dressed for him. The Lady Susanna of whom mention
has previously been made must have stopped at a French hotel at some
time of her life. This helps us to understand why she remained so calm
when the elders happened in.
Even as now practiced, bathing still remains a comparative novelty
in the best French circles, I imagine. I base this presumption on
observations made during a visit to Versailles. I went to Versailles;
I trod with reverent step those historic precincts adorned with art
treasures uncountable, with curios magnificent, with relics invaluable.
I visited the little palace and the big; I ventured deep into that
splendid forest where, in the company of ladies regarding whom there has
been a good deal of talk subsequently, France's Grandest and Merriest
Monarch disported himself. And I found out what made the Merriest
Monarch merry--so far as I could see, there was not a bathroom on the
place. He was a true Frenchman--was Louis the Fourteenth.
In Berlin, at the Imperial Palace, our experience was somewhat similar.
Led by a guide we walked through acres of state drawing rooms and state
dining rooms and state reception rooms and state picture rooms; and
we were told that most of them--or, at least, many of them--were the
handiwork of the late Andreas Schluter. The deceased Schluter was an
architect, a painter, a sculptor, a woodcarver, a decorator, all rolled
into one. He was the George M. Cohan of his time; and I think he also
played the clarinet, being a German.
We traversed miles of these Schluter masterpieces. Eventually we heard
sounds of martial music without, and we went to a window overlooking a
paved courtyard; and from that point we presently beheld a fine sight.
For the moment the courtyard was empty, except that in the center stood
a great mass of bronze--by Schluter, I think--a heroic equestrian statue
of Saint George in the act of destroying the first adulterated German
sausage. But in a minute the garrison turned out; and then in through
an arched gateway filed the relief guard headed by a splendid band,
with bell-hung standards jingling at the head of the column and young
officers stalking along as stiff as ramrods, and soldiers marching with
the goosestep.
In the German army the private who raises his knee the highest and
sticks his shank out ahead of him the straightest, and slams his foot
down the hardest and jars his brain the painfulest, is promoted to be
a corporal and given a much heavier pair of shoes, so that he may make
more noise and in time utterly destroy his reason. The goosestep would
be a great thing for destroying grasshoppers or cutworms in a plague
year in a Kansas wheatfield.
At the Kaiser's palace we witnessed all these sights, but we did not run
across any bathrooms or any bathtubs. However, we were in the public end
of the establishment and I regard it as probable that in the other wing,
where the Kaiser lives when at home, there are plenty of bathrooms. I
did not investigate personally. The Kaiser was out at Potsdam and I did
not care to call in his absence.
Bathrooms are plentiful at the hotel where we stopped at Berlin. I had
rather hoped to find the bedroom equipped with an old-fashioned German
feather bed. I had heard that one scaled the side of a German bed on
a stepladder and then fell headlong into its smothering folds like
a gallant fireman invading a burning rag warehouse; but this hotel
happened to be the best hotel that I ever saw outside the United States.
It had been built and it was managed on American lines, plus German
domestic service--which made an incomparable combination--and it was
furnished with modern beds and provided with modern bathrooms.
Probably as a delicate compliment to the Kaiser, the bathtowels were
starched until the fringes at the ends bristled up stiffly a-curl,
like the ends of His Imperial Majesty's equally imperial mustache. Just
once--and once only--I made the mistake of rubbing myself with one
of those towels just as it was. I should have softened it first by a
hackling process, as we used to hackle the hemp in Kentucky; but I did
not. For two days I felt like an etching. I looked something like one
too.
In Vienna we could not get a bedroom with a bathroom attached--they did
not seem to have any--but we were told there was a bathroom just across
the hall which we might use with the utmost freedom. This bathroom was
a large, long, loftly, marble-walled vault. It was as cold as a tomb
and as gloomy as one, and very smelly. Indeed it greatly resembled the
pictures I have seen of the sepulcher of an Egyptian king--only I would
have said that this particular king had been skimpily embalmed by the
royal undertakers in the first place, and then imperfectly packed. The
bathtub was long and marked with scars, and it looked exactly like
a rifled mummy case with the lid missing, which added greatly to the
prevalent illusion.
We used this bathroom ad lib.: but when I went to pay the bill I found
an official had been keeping tabs on us, and that all baths taken had
been charged up at the rate of sixty cents apiece. I had provided my own
soap too! For that matter the traveler provides his own soap everywhere
in Europe, outside of England. In some parts soap is regarded as an
edible and in some as a vice common to foreigners; but everywhere except
in the northern countries it is a curio.
So in Vienna they made us furnish our own soap and then charged us more
for a bath than they did for a meal. Still, by their standards, I dare
say they were right. A meal is a necessity, but a bath is an exotic
luxury; and, since they have no extensive tariff laws in Austria, it is
but fair that the foreigner should pay the tax. I know I paid mine, one
way or another.
Speaking of bathing reminds me of washing; and speaking of washing
reminds me of an adventure I had in Vienna in connection with a white
waistcoat--or, as we would call it down where I was raised, a dress
vest. This vest had become soiled through travel and wear across
Europe. At Vienna I intrusted it to the laundry along with certain other
garments. When the bundle came back my vest was among the missing.
The maid did not seem to be able to comprehend the brand of German I use
in casual conversation; so, through an interpreter, I explained to her
that I was shy one white vest. For two days she brought all sorts of
vests and submitted them to me on approval--thin ones and thick ones;
old ones and new ones; slick ones and woolly ones; fringed ones and
frayed ones. I think the woman had a private vest mine somewhere, and
went and tapped a fresh vein on my account every few minutes; but it
never was the right vest she brought me.
Finally I told her in my best German, meantime accompanying myself with
appropriate yet graceful gestures, that she need not concern herself
further with the affair; she could just let the matter drop and I would
interview the manager and put in a claim for the value of the lost
garment. She looked at me dazedly a moment while I repeated the
injunction more painstakingly than before; and, at that, understanding
seemed to break down the barriers of her reason and she said, "Ja! Ja!"
Then she nodded emphatically several times, smiled and hurried away and
in twenty minutes was back, bringing with her a begging friar of some
monastic order or other.
I would take it as a personal favor if some student of the various
Teutonic tongues and jargons would inform me whether there is any word
in Viennese for white vest that sounds like Catholic priest! However, we
prayed together--that brown brother and I. I do not know what he prayed
for, but I prayed for my vest.
I never got it though. I doubt whether my prayer ever reached heaven--it
had such a long way to go. It is farther from Vienna to heaven than from
any other place in the world, I guess--unless it is Paris. That vest is
still wandering about the damp-filled corridors of that hotel, mooing in
a plaintive manner for its mate--which is myself. It will never find
a suitable adopted parent. It was especially coopered to my form by an
expert clothing contractor, and it will not fit anyone else. No; it will
wander on and on, the starchy bulge of its bosom dimly phosphorescent in
the gloaming, its white pearl buttons glimmering spectrally; and after a
while the hotel will get the reputation of being haunted by the ghost
of a flour barrel, and will have a bad name and lose custom. I hope so
anyway. It looks to be my one chance of getting even with the owner for
penalizing me in the matter of baths.
From Vienna we went southward into the Tyrolese Alps. It was a wonderful
ride--that ride through the Semmering and on down to Northern Italy. Our
absurdly short little locomotive, drawing our absurdly long train, went
boring in and out of a wrinkly shoulder-seam of the Tyrols like a stubby
needle going through a tuck. I think in thirty miles we threaded thirty
tunnels; after that I was practically asphyxiated and lost count.
If I ever take that journey again I shall wear a smoke helmet and be
comfortable. But always between tunnels there were views to be seen
that would have revived one of the Seven Sleepers. Now, on the
great-granddaddy-longlegs of all the spidery trestles that ever were
built, we would go roaring across a mighty gorge, its sides clothed
with perpendicular gardens and vineyards, and with little gray towns
clustering under the ledges on its sheer walls like mud-daubers' nests
beneath an eave. Now, perched on a ridgy outcrop of rock like a single
tooth in a snaggled reptilian jaw, would be a deserted tower, making a
fellow think of the good old feudal days when the robber barons robbed
the traveler instead of as at present, when the job is so completely
attended to by the pirates who weigh and register baggage in these
parts.
Then--whish, roar, eclipse, darkness and sulphureted hydrogen!--we
would dive into another tunnel and out again--gasping--on a breathtaking
panorama of mountains. Some of them would be standing up against the sky
like the jagged top of a half-finished cutout puzzle, and some would
be buried so deeply in clouds that only their peaked blue noses showed
sharp above the featherbed mattresses of mist in which they were
snuggled, as befitted mountains of Teutonic extraction. And nearly every
eminence was crowned with a ruined castle or a hotel. It was easy to
tell a hotel from a ruin--it had a sign over the door.
At one of those hotels I met up with a homesick American. He was
marooned there in the rain, waiting for the skies to clear, so he could
do some mountain climbing; and he was beginning to get moldy from
the prevalent damp. By now the study of bathing habits had become an
obsession with me; I asked him whether he had encountered any bathtubs
about the place. He said a bathtub in those altitudes was as rare as a
chamois, and the chamois was entirely extinct; so I might make my own
calculations. But he said he could show me something that was even a
greater curiosity than a bathtub, and he led me to where a moonfaced
barometer hung alongside the front entrance of the hotel.
He said he had been there a week now and had about lost hope; but every
time he threatened to move on, the proprietor would take him out there
and prove that they were bound to have clearing weather within a few
hours, because the barometer registered fair. At that moment streams of
chilly rain-water were coursing down across the dial of the barometer,
but it registered fair even then. He said--the American did--that it
was the most stationary barometer he had ever seen, and the most
reliable--not vacillating and given to moods, like most barometers, but
fixed and unchangeable in its habits.
I matched it, though, with a thermometer I saw in the early spring of
1913 at a coast resort in southern California. An Eastern tourist would
venture out on the windswept and drippy veranda, of a morning after
breakfast. He would think he was cold. He would have many of the outward
indications of being cold. His teeth would be chattering like a Morse
sounder, and inside his white-duck pants his knees would be knocking
together with a low, muffled sound. He would be so prickled with
gooseflesh that he felt like Saint Sebastian; but he would take a look
at the thermometer--sixty-one in the shade! And such was the power of
mercury and mind combined over matter that he would immediately chirk up
and feel warm.
Not a hundred yards away, at a drug store, was one of those
fickle-minded, variable thermometers, showing a temperature that ranged
from fifty-five on downward to forty; but the hotel thermometer stood
firm at sixty-one, no matter what happened. In a season of trying
climatic conditions it was a great comfort--a boon really--not only to
its owner but to his guests. Speaking personally, however, I have no
need to consult the barometer's face to see what the weather is going to
do, or the thermometer's tube to see what it has done. No person needs
to do so who is favored naturally as I am. I have one of the most
dependable soft corns in the business.
Rome is full of baths--vast ruined ones erected by various emperors and
still bearing their names--such as Caracalla's Baths and Titus' Baths,
and so on. Evidently the ancient Romans were very fond of taking baths.
Other striking dissimilarities between the ancient Romans and the modern
Romans are perceptible at a glance.