with it, and the leaves of the slender young beeches sparkled with it,
and the bracken bending over the path on either side left its wetness on
my dress as I passed. Nowhere was there a single bit of gloom where you
could sit down and be wretched. The very jays would have laughed you out
of countenance if you had sat there looking sorrowful. Sometimes the
path was narrow, and the trees shut out the sky; sometimes it led me
into the hot sunshine of an open, forest-fringed space; once it took me
along the side of a meadow sloping up on its distant side to more
forest, with only a single row of great beeches between me and the heat
and light dancing over the grass; and all the way I had squirrels for
company, chattering and enjoying themselves as sensible squirrels living
only in the present do; and larks over my head singing in careless
ecstasy just because they had no idea they were probably bad larks with
pasts; and lizards, down at my feet, motionless in the hot sun, quite
unaware of how wicked it becomes to lie in the sun doing nothing
directly you wear clothes and have consciences. As for the scent of the
forest, he who has been in it early after a dewy night knows that, and
the effect it has on the spirits of him who smells it; so I need not
explain how happy I was and how invigorated as I climbed up a long hill
where the wood was thick and cool, and coming out at the top found I had
reached a place of turf and sunshine, with tables in the shade at the
farther side, and in the middle, coffee-pot in hand, a waiter.
This waiter came as a shock. My thoughts had wandered quite into the
opposite channel to the one that ends in waiters. There he stood,
however, solitary and suggestive, in the middle of the sunny green, a
crumpled waiter in regard to shirt-front, and not a waiter, I should
say, of more than bi-weekly washings; but his eye was persuasive, steam
came out of the spout of his coffee-pot, and out of his mouth as I
walked towards him issued appropriate words about the weather. I had
meant to go back to breakfast with Charlotte, and there was no reason at
all why I should cross the green and walk straight up to the waiter; but
there was that in his eye which made me feel that if I did not drink his
coffee not only had I no business on the top of the hill but I was
unspeakably base besides. So I sat down at one of the tables beneath the
beeches--there were at least twelve tables, and only one other visitor,
a man in spectacles--and the waiter produced a tablecloth that made me
shiver, and poured me out a cup of coffee and brought me a roll of
immense resistance--one of yesterday's, I imagined, the roll cart from
Binz not having had time yet to get up the hill. He fetched this roll
from a pretty house with latticed windows standing on the side of the
green, and he fixed me with his hungry eye and told me the house was an
inn, and that it was not only ready but anxious to take me as a lodger
for any period I might choose. I excused myself on the plea of its
distance from the water. He said that precisely this distance was its
charm. 'The lady,' he continued, with a wave of his coffee-pot that
immediately caused a thin streak of steam to rise from the grass--'the
lady can see for herself how idyllic is the situation.'
The lady murmured assent; and in order to avoid his hungry eye busied
herself dividing her roll among some expectant fowls who, plainly used
to the business, were crowding round her; so that the roll's staleness,
perhaps intentional, ended by being entirely to the good of the inn.
By the time the fowls were ready for more the waiter, who had nothing
pressing on hand, had become a nuisance too great to be borne. I would
have liked to sit there and rest in the shade, watching the clouds
slowly appear above the tree-tops opposite and sail over my head and out
of sight, but I could not because of the waiter. So I paid him, got up,
once more firmly declined either to take or look at rooms at the inn,
and wished him a good morning instinct with dignity and chill.
'The lady will now of course visit the Jagdschloss,' said the waiter,
whipping out a bundle of tickets of admission.
'The Jagdschloss?' I repeated; and following the direction of his eyes I
saw a building through the trees just behind where I had been sitting,
on the top of a sharp ascent.
So that was where my walk had led me to. The guide-book devotes several
animated pages to this Jagdschloss, or shooting lodge. It belongs to
Prince Putbus. Its round tower, rising out of a green sea of wood, was a
landmark with which I had soon grown familiar. Whenever you climb up a
hill in Rügen to see the view, you see the Jagdschloss. Whichever way
you drive, it is always the central feature of the landscape. If it
isn't anywhere else it is sure to be on the horizon. Only in some
northern parts of the island does one get away from it, and even there
probably a telescope used with skill would produce it at once. And here
I was beneath its walls. Well, I had not intended going over it, and all
I wanted at that moment was to get rid of the waiter and go on with my
walk. But it was easier to take a ticket than to refuse and hear him
exclaim and protest; so I paid fifty _pfennings_, was given a slip of
paper, and started climbing the extremely steep ascent.
The site was obviously chosen without the least reference to the legs or
lungs of tourists. They arrive at the top warm and speechless, and
sinking down on the steps between two wolves made of copper the first
thing they do is to spend several minutes gasping. Then they ring a
bell, give up their tickets and umbrellas, and are taken round in
batches by an elderly person who manifestly thinks them poor things.
When I got to the top I found the other visitor, the man in spectacles,
sitting on the steps getting his gasping done. Having finished mine
before him, he being a man of bulk, I rang the bell. The elderly
official, who had a singular talent for making one feel by a mere look
what a worm one really is, appeared. 'I cannot take each of you round
separately,' he said, pointing at the man still fighting for air on the
bottom step, 'or does your husband not intend to see the Schloss?'
'My husband?' I echoed, astonished.
'Now, sir,' he continued impatiently, addressing the back below, 'are
you coming or not?'
The man in spectacles made a great effort, caught hold of the convenient
leg of one of the copper wolves, pulled himself on to his feet with its
aid, and climbed slowly up the steps.
'The public is requested not to touch the objects of art,' snapped the
custodian, glancing at the wolf's leg to see if it had suffered.
The man in spectacles looked properly ashamed of his conduct; I felt
ashamed of myself too, but only on the more general grounds of being
such a worm; and together we silently followed the guide into the house,
together gave up our tickets, and together laid our stick and sunshade
side by side on a table.
A number was given to the man in spectacles.
'And my number?' I inquired politely.
'Surely one suffices?' said the guide, eyeing me with disapproval; for
taking me for the wife of the man in spectacles he regarded my desire to
have a number all to myself as only one more instance of the lengths to
which the modern woman in her struggle for emancipation will go.
The stick and sunshade were accordingly tied together.
'Do you wish to ascend the tower?' he asked my companion, showing us the
open-work iron staircase winding round and round inside the tower up to
the top.
'Gott Du Allmächtiger, nein,' was the hasty reply after a glance and a
shudder.
Taking for granted that without my husband I would not want to go up
towers he did not ask me, but at once led the way through a very
charming hall decorated with what are known as trophies of the chase, to
a locked door, before which stood a row of enormous grey felt slippers.
'The public is not allowed to enter the princely apartments unless it
has previously drawn these slippers over its boots,' said the guide as
though he were quoting.
'All of them?' I asked, faintly facetious.
Again he eyed me, but this time in silence.
The man in spectacles thrust his feet into the nearest pair. They were
generously roomy even for him, and he was a big man with boots to match.
I looked down the row hoping to see something smaller, and perhaps
newer, but they were all the same size, and all had been worn repeatedly
by other tourists.
'The next time I come to the Jagdschloss,' I observed thoughtfully, as I
saw my feet disappear into the gaping mouths of two of these woolly
monsters, 'I shall bring my own slippers. This arrangement may be
useful, but no one could call it select.'
Neither of my companions took the least notice of me. The guide looked
disgusted. Judging from his face, though he still thought me a worm he
now suspected me of belonging to that highly objectionable class known
as turned.
Having seen us safely into our slippers he was about to unlock the door
when the bell rang. He left us standing mute before the shut door, and
leaning over the balustrade--for, Reader, as Charlotte Brontë would say,
he had come upstairs--he called down to the Fräulein who had taken our
stick and sunshade to let in the visitors. She did so; and as she flung
open the door I saw, through the pillars of the balustrade, Brosy on the
threshold, and at the bottom of the steps, leaning against one of the
copper wolves, her arm, indeed, flung over its valuable shoulder, the
bishop's wife gasping.
At this sight the custodian rushed downstairs. The man in spectacles and
myself, mute, meek, and motionless in our felt slippers, held our
breaths.
'The public is requested not to touch the objects of art!' shouted the
custodian as he rushed.
'Is he speaking to me, dear?' asked Mrs. Harvey-Browne, looking up at
her son.
'I think he is, mother,' said Ambrose. 'I don't think you may lean on
that wolf.'
'Wolf?' said his mother in surprise, standing upright and examining the
animal through her eyeglasses with interest. 'So it is. I thought they
were Prussian eagles.'
'Anyhow you mustn't touch it, mother,' said Ambrose, a slight impatience
in his voice. 'He says the public are not to touch things.'
'Does he really call me the public? Do you think he is a rude person,
dear?'
'Does the lady intend to see the Schloss or not?' interrupted the
custodian. 'I have another party inside waiting.'
'Come on, mother--you want to, don't you?'
'Yes--but not if he's a rude man, dear,' said Mrs. Harvey-Browne, slowly
ascending the steps. 'Perhaps you had better tell him who father is.'
'I don't think it would impress him much,' said Brosy, smiling. 'Parsons
come here too often for that.'
'Parsons! Yes; but not bishops,' said his mother, coming into the
echoing hall, through whose emptiness her last words rang like a
trumpet.
'He wouldn't know what a bishop is. They don't have them.'
'No bishops?' exclaimed his mother, stopping short and staring at her
son with a face of concern.
'_Bitte um die Eintrittskarten_,' interrupted the custodian, slamming
the door; and he pulled the tickets out of Brosy's hand.
'No bishops?' continued Mrs. Harvey-Browne, 'and no Early Fathers, as
that smashed-looking person, that cousin of Frau Nieberlein's, told us
last night? My dear Brosy, what a very strange state of things.'
'I don't think she quite said that, did she? They have Early Fathers
right enough. She didn't understand what you meant.'
'Stick and umbrella, please,' interrupted the custodian, snatching them
out of their passive hands. 'Take the number, please. Now this way,
please.'
He hurried, or tried to hurry, them under the tower, but the bishop's
wife had not hurried for years, and would not have dreamed of doing so;
and when he had got them under it he asked if they wished to make the
ascent. They looked up, shuddered, and declined.
'Then we will at once join the other party,' said the custodian,
bustling on.
'The other party?' exclaimed Mrs. Harvey-Browne in German. 'Oh, I hope
no objectionable tourists? I quite thought coming so early we would
avoid them.'
'Only two,' said the custodian: 'a respectable gentleman and his wife.'
The man in spectacles and I, up to then mute, meek, and motionless in
our grey slippers, started simultaneously. I looked at him cautiously
out of the corners of my eyes, and found to my confusion that he was
looking at me cautiously out of the corners of his. In another moment
the Harvey-Brownes stood before us.
After one slight look of faintest surprise at my companion the pleasant
Ambrose greeted me as though I were an old friend; and then bowing with
a politeness acquired during his long stay in the Fatherland to the
person he supposed was my husband, introduced himself in German fashion
by mentioning his name, and observed that he was exceedingly pleased to
make his acquaintance. _'Es freut mich sehr Ihre Bekanntschaft zu
machen,'_ said the pleasant Ambrose.
_'Gleichfalls, gleichfalls,'_ murmured the man in spectacles, bowing
repeatedly, and obviously astonished. To the bishop's wife he also made
rapid and bewildered bows until he saw she was gazing over his head, and
then he stopped. She had recognised my presence by the merest shadow of
a nod, which I returned with an indifference that was icy; but, oddly
enough, what offended me more than her nod was the glance she had
bestowed on the man in spectacles before she began to gaze over his
head. He certainly did not belong to me, and yet I was offended. This
seemed to me so subtle that it set me off pondering.
'The public is not allowed to enter the princely apartments unless it
has previously drawn these slippers over its boots,' said the custodian.
Mrs. Harvey-Browne looked at him critically. 'He has a very crude way of
expressing himself, hasn't he, dear?' she remarked to Ambrose.
'He is only quoting official regulations. He must, you know, mother. And
we are undoubtedly the public.'
Ambrose looked at my feet, then at the feet of my companion, and then
without more ado got into a pair of slippers. He wore knickerbockers and
stockings, and his legs had a classic refinement that erred, if at all,
on the side of over-slenderness. The effect of the enormous grey
slippers at the end of these Attic legs made me, for one awful moment,
feel as though I were going to shriek with laughter. An immense effort
strangled the shriek and left me unnaturally solemn.
Mrs. Harvey-Browne had now caught sight of the row of slippers. She put
up her eyeglasses and examined them carefully. 'How very German,' she
remarked.
'Put them on, mother,' said Ambrose; 'we are all waiting for you.'
'Are they new, Brosy?' she asked, hesitating.
'The lady must put on the slippers, or she cannot enter the princely
apartments,' said the custodian severely.
'Must I really, Brosy?' she inquired, looking extremely unhappy. 'I am
so terribly afraid of infection, or--or other things. Do they think we
shall spoil their carpets?'
'The floors are polished, I imagine,' said Ambrose, 'and the owner is
probably afraid the visitors might slip and hurt themselves.'
'Really quite nice and considerate of him--if only they were new.'
Ambrose shuffled to the end of the row in his and took up two.' Look
here, mother,' he said, bringing them to her, 'here's quite a new pair.
Never been worn before. Put them on--they can't possibly do any harm.'
They were not new, but Mrs. Harvey-Browne thought they were and
consented to put them on. The instant they were on her feet, stretching
out in all their hugeness far beyond the frills of her skirt and
obliging her to slide instead of walk, she became gracious. The smile
with which she slid past me was amiable as well as deprecatory. They had
apparently reduced her at once to the level of other sinful mortals.
This effect seemed to me so subtle that again I fell a-pondering.
'Frau Nieberlein is not with you this morning?' she asked pleasantly, as
we shuffled side by side into the princely apartments.
'She is resting. She had rather a bad night.'
'Nerves, of course.'
'No, ghosts.'
'Ghosts?'
'It's the same thing,' said Ambrose. 'Is it not, sir?' he asked amiably
of the man in spectacles.
'Perhaps,' said the man in spectacles cautiously.
'But not a real ghost?' asked Mrs. Harvey-Browne, interested.
'I believe the great point about a ghost is that it never is real.'
'The bishop doesn't believe in them either. But I--I really hardly know.
One hears such strange tales. The wife of one of the clergy of our
diocese believes quite firmly in them. She is a vegetarian, and of
course she eats a great many vegetables, and then she sees ghosts.'
'The chimney-piece,' said the guide, 'is constructed entirely of Roman
marble.'
'Really?' said Mrs. Harvey-Browne, examining it abstractedly through her
eyeglasses. 'She declares their vicarage is haunted; and what in the
world do you think by? The strangest thing. It is haunted by the ghost
of a cat.'
'The statue on the right is by Thorwaldsen,' said the guide.
'By the ghost of a cat,' repeated Mrs. Harvey-Browne impressively.
She seemed to expect me to say something, so I said Indeed.
'That on the left is by Rauch,' said the guide.
'And this cat does not do anything. I mean, it is not prophetic of
impending family disaster. It simply walks across a certain room--the
drawing-room, I believe--quite like a real cat, and nothing happens.'
'But perhaps it is a real cat?'
'Oh no, it is supernatural. No one sees it but herself. It walks quite
slowly with its tail up in the air, and once when she went up to it to
try to pull its tail so as to convince herself of its existence, she
only clutched empty air.'
'The frescoes with which this apartment is adorned are by Kolbe and
Eybel,' said the guide.
'You mean it ran away?'
'No, it walked on quite deliberately. But the tail not being made of
human flesh and blood there was naturally nothing to pull.'
'Beginning from left to right, we have in the first a representation of
the entry of King Waldemar I. into Rügen,' said the guide.
'But the most extraordinary thing about it happened one day when she put
a saucer of cream on the floor for it. She had thought it all over in
the night, and had come to the conclusion that as no ghost would lap
cream and no real cat be able to help lapping it this would provide her
with a decisive proof one way or the other. The cat came, saw the cream,
and immediately lapped it up. My friend was so pleased, because of
course one likes real cats best----'
'The second represents the introduction of Christianity into the
island,' said the guide.
'--and when it had done, and the saucer was empty, she went over to
it----'
'The third represents the laying of the foundation stone of the church
at Vilmnitz,' said the guide.
'--and what do you think happened? _She walked straight through it_.'
'Through what?' I asked, profoundly interested. 'The cream, or the cat?'
'Ah, that was what was so marvellous. She walked right through the body
of the cat. Now what had become of the cream?'
I confess this story impressed me more than any ghost story I have ever
heard; the disappearance of the cream was so extraordinary.
'And there was nothing--nothing at all left on her dress?' I asked
eagerly. 'I mean, after walking through the cat? One would have thought
that some, at least, of the cream----'
'Not a vestige.'
I stood gazing at the bishop's wife absorbed in reflection. 'How truly
strange,' I murmured at length, after having vainly endeavoured to
account for the missing cream.
'_Wasn't_ it?' said Mrs. Harvey-Browne, much pleased with the effect of
her story. Indeed the amiability awakened in her bosom by the grey felt
slippers had increased rapidly, and the unaccountable conduct of the
cream seemed about to cement our friendship when, at this point, she
having remarked that there are more things in heaven and earth than are
dreamt of in our philosophy, and I, in order to show my acquaintance
with the classics of other countries, having added 'As Chaucer justly
observes,' to which she said, 'Ah, yes--so beautiful, isn't he?' a voice
behind us made us both jump; and turning round we beheld, at our elbows,
the man in spectacles. Ambrose, aided by the guide, was on the other
side of the room studying the works of Kolbe and Eybel, The man in
spectacles had evidently heard the whole story of the cat, for this is
what he said:--
'The apparition, madam, if it has any meaning at all, which I doubt,
being myself inclined to locate its origin in the faulty digestion of
the lady, seems to point to a life beyond the grave for the spirits of
cats. Considered as a proof of such a life for the human soul, which is
the one claim to our interest phenomena of the kind can possess, it is,
of course, valueless.'
Mrs. Harvey-Browne stared at him a moment through her eyeglasses.
'Christians,' she then said distantly, 'need no further proof of that.'
'May I ask, madam, what, precisely, you mean by Christians?' inquired
the man in spectacles briskly. 'Define them, if you please.'
Now the bishop's wife was not used to being asked to define things, and
disliked it as much as anybody else. Besides, though rays of intelligent
interest darted through his spectacles, the wearer of them also wore
clothes that were not only old but peculiar, and his whole appearance
cried aloud of much work and small reward. She therefore looked not only
helpless but indignant. 'Sir,' she said icily, 'this is not the moment
to define Christians.'
'I hear the name repeatedly,' said the man in spectacles, bowing but
undaunted; 'and looking round me I ask myself where are they?'
'Sir,' said Mrs. Harvey-Browne, 'they are in every Christian country.'
'And which, pray, madam, would you call the Christian countries? I look
around me, and I see nations armed to the teeth, ready and sometimes
even anxious to fly at each other's throats. Their attitude may be
patriotic, virile, perhaps necessary, conceivably estimable; but, madam,
would you call it Christian?'
'Sir----' said Mrs. Harvey-Browne.
'Having noticed by your accent, madam, that the excellent German you
speak was not originally acquired in our Fatherland, but must be the
result of a commendable diligence practised in the schoolrooms of your
youth and native land, and having further observed, from certain
unmistakable signs, that the native land in question must be England, it
would have a peculiar interest for me to be favoured with the exact
meaning the inhabitants of that enlightened country attach to the term.
My income having hitherto not been sufficient to enable me to visit its
hospitable shores, I hail this opportunity with pleasure of discussing
questions that are of importance to us all with one of its, no doubt,
most distinguished daughters.'
'Sir----' said Mrs. Harvey-Browne.
'At first sight,' went on the man in spectacles, 'one would be disposed
to say that a Christian is a person who believes in the tenets of the
Christian faith. But belief, if it is genuine, must necessarily find its
practical expression in works. How then, madam, would you account for
the fact that when I look round me in the provincial town in which I
pursue the honourable calling of a pedagogue, I see numerous Christians
but no works?'
'Sir, I do not account for it,' said Mrs. Harvey-Browne angrily.
'For consider, madam, the lively faith inspired by other creeds. Place
against this inertia the activity of other believers. Observe the
dervish, how he dances; observe the fakir, hanging from his hook----'
'I will not, sir,' said Mrs. Harvey-Browne, roused now beyond endurance;
'and I do not know why you should choose this place and time to thrust
your opinions on sacred subjects on a stranger and a lady.'
With which she turned her back on him, and shuffled away with all the
dignity the felt slippers allowed.
The man in spectacles stood confounded.
'The lady,' I said, desirous of applying balm, 'is the wife of a
clergyman'--(Heavens, if she had heard me!)--'and is therefore afraid of
talking about things that must lead her on to sacred ground. I think you
will find the son very intelligent and ready to talk.'
But I regret to say the man in spectacles seemed extremely shy of me;
whether it was because the custodian had taken me for his wife, or
because I was an apparently unattached female wandering about and
drinking coffee by myself contrary to all decent custom, I do not know.
Anyhow he met my well-meant attempt to explain Mrs. Harvey-Browne to him
with suspicion, and murmuring something about the English being indeed
very strangely mannered, he edged cautiously away.
We now straggled through the rooms separately,--Ambrose in front with
the guide, his mother by herself, I by myself, and a good way behind us,
the mortified man in spectacles. He made no effort to take my advice and
talk to Ambrose, but kept carefully as far away from the rest of us as
possible; and when we presently found ourselves once more outside the
princely apartments, on the opposite side to the door by which we had
gone into them, he slid forward, shook off his felt slippers with the
finality of one who shakes off dust from his feet, made three rapid
bows, one to each of us, and hurried down the stairs. Arrived at the
bottom we saw him take his stick from the Fräulein, shake his head with
indignant vigour when she tried to make him take my sunshade too, pull
open the heavy door, and almost run through it. He slammed it with an
energy that made the Jagdschloss tremble.
The Fräulein looked first at the slammed door, then at the sunshade, and
then up at me. 'Quarrelled,' said the Fräulein's look as plainly as
speech.