This last summer, when I was on my way back to Vienna from the Appetite-
Cure in the mountains, I fell over a cliff in the twilight, and broke
some arms and legs and one thing or another, and by good luck was found
by some peasants who had lost an ass, and they carried me to the nearest
habitation, which was one of those large, low, thatch-roofed farm-houses,
with apartments in the garret for the family, and a cunning little porch
under the deep gable decorated with boxes of bright colored flowers and
cats; on the ground floor a large and light sitting-room, separated from
the milch-cattle apartment by a partition; and in the front yard rose
stately and fine the wealth and pride of the house, the manure-pile.
That sentence is Germanic, and shows that I am acquiring that sort of
mastery of the art and spirit of the language which enables a man to
travel all day in one sentence without changing cars.
"I do not understand it. I believe she has not diagnosed the case with
sufficient care. Did she look like a person who was theorizing, or did
she look like one who has fallen off precipices herself and brings to the
aid of abstract science the confirmations of personal experience?"--
"Bitte?" --It was too large a contract for the Stubenmadchen's
vocabulary; she couldn't call the hand. I allowed the subject to rest
there, and asked for something to eat and smoke, and something hot to
drink, and a basket to pile my legs in; but I could not have any of these
things.
Does she seem to be in full and functionable possession of her
intellectual plant, such as it is?"--"Bitte?"--"Do they let her run at
large, or do they tie her up?"