Exactly in the middle of the railway bridge by which the Salzach is
spanned Bavarian territory ceases and Austria begins. I knew that; but
I was much less impressed by this probably interesting fact (for, why
on earth would one have taken so much care to inform me, if it were
not interesting?) than by the singular beauty of the spot. I had just
a glimpse of the two isolated hills between which the river flows, of
the lovely valley thus formed, and of the lofty fortress that rises
above the towers and spires of the city. In the next minute the train
stopped and cries of "Salzburg, all change!" or its German equivalent,
resounded.
At once my neighbour, an irascible Frenchman, who from Munich had
shared the carriage with me, flew up in a rage, gesticulating, full of
noise.
"It is not true," he cried, "I don't have to change!"
I muttered something like "Custom Regulations," but he went on
vociferating:
"It is not true! I was told in Paris that the handbags and the other
small things would be examined in the carriage, and the heavy luggage
in Vienna. I refuse to get out."
He was right. I had been told the same thing in Munich, but, as an
Englishman, I was wont to hold my peace. So I alighted.
In the same minute an official approached our carriage and invited
the Frenchman to do as he was bid. The official was not very polite,
it must be said in justice to the Parisian, but the latter clamoured
at once, shaking his fists: "It was disgusting, and he was going to
do as it pleased him!" Whereupon the man with the red cap introduced
himself in a gruff voice as an Imperial and Royal Official and menaced
his antagonist with immediate arrest. I tried to dissuade both from
quarrelling, but the Frenchman was deaf to all reason.
When at last a police officer came, the nervous little man left the
carriage with an explosion of wrath and stormed to the door leading
into the station building. What further happened to him, I do not
know, nor will the reader ever learn it. For this Frenchman had
evidently been created only to set free a certain corner seat in my
railway carriage.
For various reasons, a few of which will appear in this story, I will
probably never return to Austria. But, gentle reader, _you_ may visit
this beautiful country. Well, if you chance to travel in a first-class
corridor carriage numbered P.3.33, and in the section marked C, greet
the corner seats next to the window from me. Not because I sat in one
of these corner seats when my story opened, nor because the other was
occupied by the irascible little Frenchman, who has already stepped out
of my story, but for the sake of the traveller who succeeded him and
who was no less a person than the heroine of this book.
And now I will try and tell you all about it, or better, about her,
supposing that the noise of the shells does not disturb me too much.
For you must know that I am writing in the trenches. After all, I am
used to the continuous concert, and I am not fifty yards distant from a
man who is working on a chemistry treatise.