NOT WELCOME IN THE FATHERLAND
One afternoon, while in my favorite coffee-house, I heard some one say
that a cargo-boat was to leave for a town in Germany on the Rhine, and
that passengers could go along for a song. It was to leave at four. I
thrust a lunch into a pocket, and hurried down to the boat. She was a
big canal-boat, as black as a coal-barge, but not so clean. Her
uncovered deck was piled high with boxes, barrels, and crates, holding
everything from beer mugs to noisy chickens. I scrambled over the cargo,
and found a seat on a barrel of oil.
I left the cargo-boat at the German town of Arnheim, and walked along
the Rhine, stopping at the towns along the way. Partly on foot and
partly by steamer, I made my way to the city of Mainz. From there I
turned eastward and tramped along the highway to Frankfurt.
It was late at night when I reached Frankfurt. The highway ended among
the great buildings of the business blocks. After hunting for some time
I found, on a dingy side street, a building on which there was a sign
offering lodging at one mark. Truly it was a high price to pay for a
bed; but the hour was late, the night stormy, and I was tired. I entered
the drinking-room. The bartender was busy quieting the shouts of “Glas
Bier” that rose above the rest of the noise. As soon as I could get his
attention, I told him that I wanted lodging.
“Beds?” cried the _Kellner_, too busy with his glasses to look up at me.
“To be sure—we have always plenty of beds. One mark.”
But mein Herr, the proprietor, was staring at me from the back of the
hall. Slowly he shuffled forward, cocked his head on one side, and
studied me closely from out his bleary eyes.
“What does he want?” he demanded, turning to the bartender.
I told him that I wanted a night’s lodging.
“Where do you come from?”
Knowing that he would ask other questions, I explained fully why I was
there, and told him that I was an American sailor on a sight-seeing trip
in the Fatherland. The drinkers clustered about us and listened. I could
see that they did not believe me. While I was talking, they began
exchanging glances and nudging one another with looks of disbelief on
their faces. Perhaps they distrusted me because I talked like a
foreigner and wore the dress of a wanderer.
The proprietor blinked his pudgy eyes, glanced once more into the faces
of those about him to see what they thought about it. It may be that he
wanted to let me stay; but what would the police inspector say in the
morning when he saw the name of a foreigner on the register? He
scratched his grizzly head as if to bring out an idea with his stubby
fingers. Then he glanced once more at the tipplers, and said, with a
blink:
“It gives me pain, young man—I am sorry, but we have not a bed left in
the house.”
I wandered out into the night, and told my story to five other
inn-keepers. None of them would take me in. One proprietor told me the
best way for me to preserve my good health was to make a quick escape
into the street. As he was a creature of immense size, I lost no time in
following his advice. It was midnight when I finally induced a policeman
to tell me where to stay. He pointed out an inn where wanderers were not
so much of a curiosity, and I was soon asleep.
The next morning I set out to find the birthplace of the German poet
Goethe. When I reached a part of the city where I thought he had lived,
I asked a policeman to show me the house.
“Goethe?” he said. Why, yes, he believed he had heard that name
somewhere. He was not sure, but he fancied the fellow lived in the
eastern part of the city, and he told me how to get there. The route led
through narrow, winding streets. Now and then I lost my way, and was set
right by other keepers of the law. At last, after tramping most of the
morning and wearing out considerable shoe-leather, I found the place
directly across the street from the inn at which I had slept.
The next morning I made up my mind to go by rail to Weimar. The train
was to start at nine o’clock. I reached the station at eight-forty,
bought a fourth-class ticket, and stepped out upon the platform just in
time to hear a guard bellow the German words for “All aboard!” The
Weimar train stood close at hand. As I stepped toward it, four
policemen, strutting about the platform, whooped and sprang after me.
“Where are you going?” shrieked the first to reach me.
“I go to Weimar.”
“But the train to Weimar is gone!” shouted the second officer.
As I had a hand on the car door, I became so bold as to contradict him.
“But yes, it has gone!” gasped a third sergeant, who stood behind the
others. “It is gone! The guard has already said ‘All aboard.’”
The train stood at the edge of the platform long enough to have emptied
and filled again; but, as it was gone ten minutes before it started, I
was obliged to wait for the next one at ten-thirty.
I managed to board the next one. It was a box car with wooden benches
around the sides and a door at each end. Almost before we were well
started, the most uncombed couple aboard stood up and began to yell. I
was alarmed at first, for I did not know what was the matter with them.
But after a time I realized that they thought they were singing. Many of
the passengers seemed to think so too, for before the pair left at the
first station they had gathered a handful of pennies from the listeners.
We stopped at a station at least every four miles during that day’s
journey. At the first village beyond Frankfurt the car filled with
peasants and laborers in heavy boots and rough smocks, who carried farm
tools of all kinds, from pitchforks to young plows. Sunburned women, on
whose backs were strapped huge baskets stuffed with every product of the
country-side, from cabbages to babies, packed into the center of the
car, turned their backs on those of us who sat on the benches and
peacefully leaned themselves and their loads against us. The car filled
until there was not room for one more.
A guard outside closed the heavy door with a bang, then gave a mighty
shout of “Vorsicht!” (“Look out.”) The station-master on the platform
raised a hunting-horn to his lips, and blew such a blast as echoed
through the ravines of all the country round. The head guard drew his
whistle and shrilly repeated the signal. The engineer whistled back. The
guard whistled again; the driver gave forth another wild shriek to show
that he was ready to start; the man on the platform whistled once more
to cheer him on; a heroic squeal came from the cab in answer; and, with
a jerk that sent peasants, baskets, farm tools, lime-pails, and cabbages
all in a struggling heap at the back of the car, we were off. To
celebrate the start the engineer shrieked again and gave a second yank,
lest some sure-footed person among us had by any chance kept his
balance.
[Illustration: Boundary line between France and Germany. It runs through
wheat fields on either side. The nearest sign post bears the German
eagles and the further one reads “Frontière.”]
There were times during the journey when the villages seemed to be too
far apart to suit the engineer. For, having given all the toots, he
would bring the car to a sudden stop in the open country. But, as German
railway laws forbid passengers to step out, crawl out, or peep out of
the car at such times, there was no way of learning whether the engineer
had lost his courage or had merely caught sight of a wild flower that
took his fancy.
I arrived at Weimar late at night. Next day I set out on foot toward
Paris, on the old national road. It wound its way over rolling hills and
among the ravines and valleys where was fought a great battle between
Germany and France in the Franco-Prussian War. For miles along the way,
dotting the hillsides, standing alone or in clusters along lazy brooks
or half hidden among the green of summer, were countless simple white
crosses marking the graves of fallen soldiers and bearing only the
simple inscription, “Here rests Krieger——1870.” At one place I came upon
a gigantic statue of a soldier pointing away across a deep wooded glen
to the vast graveyard of his fallen comrades.
[Illustration: Plodding early and late, I reached Paris a few days after
crossing the boundary.]
A mile farther on, in the open country, two iron posts marked the
boundary between the two countries. A farmer, with his mattock, stood in
Germany, grubbing at a weed that grew in France.
I expected to be stopped when I tried to pass into France, for I knew
that the two countries were not on the most friendly terms. The customs
house was a mere cottage, the first building of a straggling village
some miles beyond the boundary. When I came within sight of it, a
friendly-looking Frenchman, in a uniform worn shiny across the shoulders
and the seat of the trousers, wandered out into the highway to meet me.
Behind him strolled a second officer. But they did not try to delay me.
They cried out in surprise when I told them I was an American walking to
Paris. They merely glanced into my bundle, and as I went on they called
out after me, “Bon voyage!”
I had to wait for some time whenever I came to a railway crossing. Ten
minutes before a train was due, the gate-woman would close both gates
and return to the shades of her cottage close by. If the train happened
to be an hour late, that made no difference. That was the time that
Madame was hired to lock the gates, and locked they must remain until
the train had passed. It was useless to try to climb over them, for
Madame’s tongue was sharp and the long arm of the law was on her side.
Plodding early and late, I reached Paris a few days after crossing the
boundary.
A month of tramping had made me an awful sight. Moreover, it was August,
and my woolen garments had been purchased with the winds of the Scottish
Highlands in mind. For fifteen francs I bought an outfit more suited to
the climate. Then I rented a garret, and roamed through the city for
three weeks.