A Long Chapter, but happily the Last.--The Pilgrims' Return.--A Deserted
Town.--Heidelberg.--The Common, or Bed, Sheet, Considered as a Towel.--B.
Grapples with a Continental Time Table.--An Untractable Train.--A Quick
Run.--Trains that Start from Nowhere.--Trains that Arrive at
Nowhere.--Trains that Don't Do Anything.--B. Goes Mad.--Railway
Travelling in Germany.--B. is Taken Prisoner.--His Fortitude.--Advantages
of Ignorance.--First Impressions of Germany and of the Germans.
We are at Ostend. Our pilgrimage has ended. We sail for Dover in three
hours' time. The wind seems rather fresh, but they say that it will drop
towards the evening. I hope they are not deceiving us.
We are disappointed with Ostend. We thought that Ostend would be gay and
crowded. We thought that there would be bands and theatres and concerts,
and busy table-d'hotes, and lively sands, and thronged parades, and
pretty girls at Ostend.
I bought a stick and a new pair of boots at Brussels on purpose for
Ostend.
There does not seem to be a living visitor in the place besides
ourselves--nor a dead one either, that we can find. The shops are shut
up, the houses are deserted, the casino is closed. Notice-boards are
exhibited outside the hotels to the effect that the police have strict
orders to take into custody anybody found trespassing upon or damaging
the premises.
We found one restaurant which looked a little less like a morgue than did
the other restaurants in the town, and rang the bell. After we had
waited for about a quarter of an hour, an old woman answered the door,
and asked us what we wanted. We said a steak and chipped potatoes for
two, and a couple of lagers. She said would we call again in about a
fortnight's time, when the family would be at home? She did not herself
know where the things were kept.
We went down on to the sands this morning. We had not been walking up
and down for more than half an hour before we came across the distinct
imprint of a human foot. Someone must have been there this very day! We
were a good deal alarmed. We could not imagine how he came there. The
weather is too fine for shipwrecks, and it was not a part of the coast
where any passing trader would be likely to land. Besides, if anyone has
landed, where is he? We have been able to find no trace of him whatever.
To this hour, we have never discovered who our strange visitant was.
It is a very mysterious affair, and I am glad we are going away.
We have been travelling about a good deal since we left Munich. We went
first to Heidelberg. We arrived early in the morning at Heidelberg,
after an all-night journey, and the first thing that the proprietor of
the Royal suggested, on seeing us, was that we should have a bath. We
consented to the operation, and were each shown into a little marble
bath-room, in which I felt like a bit out of a picture by Alma Tadema.
The bath was very refreshing; but I should have enjoyed the whole thing
much better if they had provided me with something more suitable to wipe
upon than a thin linen sheet. The Germans hold very curious notions as
to the needs and requirements of a wet man. I wish they would
occasionally wash and bath themselves, and then they would, perhaps,
obtain more practical ideas upon the subject. I have wiped upon a sheet
in cases of emergency, and so I have upon a pair of socks; but there is
no doubt that the proper thing is a towel. To dry oneself upon a sheet
needs special training and unusual agility. A Nautch Girl or a Dancing
Dervish would, no doubt, get through the performance with credit. They
would twirl the sheet gracefully round their head, draw it lightly across
their back, twist it in waving folds round their legs, wrap themselves
for a moment in its whirling maze, and then lightly skip away from it,
dry and smiling.
But that is not the manner in which the dripping, untaught Briton
attempts to wipe himself upon a sheet. The method he adopts is, to
clutch the sheet with both hands, lean up against the wall, and rub
himself with it. In trying to get the thing round to the back of him, he
drops half of it into the water, and from that moment the bathroom is not
big enough to enable him to get away for an instant from that wet half.
When he is wiping the front of himself with the dry half, the wet half
climbs round behind, and, in a spirit of offensive familiarity, slaps him
on the back. While he is stooping down rubbing his feet, it throws
itself with delirious joy around his head, and he is black in the face
before he can struggle away from its embrace. When he is least expecting
anything of the kind, it flies round and gives him a playful flick upon
some particularly tender part of his body that sends him springing with a
yell ten feet up into the air. The great delight of the sheet, as a
whole, is to trip him up whenever he attempts to move, so as to hear what
he says when he sits down suddenly on the stone floor; and if it can
throw him into the bath again just as he has finished wiping himself, it
feels that life is worth living after all.
We spent two days at Heidelberg, climbing the wooded mountains that
surround that pleasant little town, and that afford, from their
restaurant or ruin-crowned summits, enchanting, far-stretching views,
through which, with many a turn and twist, the distant Rhine and nearer
Neckar wind; or strolling among the crumbling walls and arches of the
grand, history-logged wreck that was once the noblest castle in all
Germany.
We stood in awed admiration before the "Great Tun," which is the chief
object of interest in Heidelberg. What there is of interest in the sight
of a big beer-barrel it is difficult, in one's calmer moments, to
understand; but the guide book says that it is a thing to be seen, and so
all we tourists go and stand in a row and gape at it. We are a
sheep-headed lot. If, by a printer's error, no mention were made in the
guide book of the Colosseum, we should spend a month in Rome, and not
think it worth going across the road to look at. If the guide book says
we must by no means omit to pay a visit to some famous pincushion that
contains eleven million pins, we travel five hundred miles on purpose to
see it!
From Heidelberg we went to Darmstadt. We spent half-an-hour at
Darmstadt. Why we ever thought of stopping longer there, I do not know.
It is a pleasant enough town to live in, I should say; but utterly
uninteresting to the stranger. After one walk round it, we made
inquiries as to the next train out of it, and being informed that one was
then on the point of starting, we tumbled into it and went to Bonn.
From Bonn (whence we made one or two Rhine excursions, and where we
ascended twenty-eight "blessed steps" on our knees--the chapel people
called them "blessed steps;" _we_ didn't, after the first fourteen) we
returned to Cologne. From Cologne we went to Brussels; from Brussels to
Ghent (where we saw more famous pictures, and heard the mighty "Roland"
ring "o'er lagoon and lake of sand"). From Ghent we went to Bruges
(where I had the satisfaction of throwing a stone at the statue of Simon
Stevin, who added to the miseries of my school-days, by inventing
decimals), and from Bruges we came on here.
Finding out and arranging our trains has been a fearful work. I have
left the whole business with B., and he has lost two stone over it. I
used to think at one time that my own dear native Bradshaw was a
sufficiently hard nut for the human intellect to crack; or, to transpose
the simile, that Bradshaw was sufficient to crack an ordinary human nut.
But dear old Bradshaw is an axiom in Euclid for stone-wall obviousness,
compared with a through Continental time-table. Every morning B. has sat
down with the book before him, and, grasping his head between his hands,
has tried to understand it without going mad.
"Here we are," he has said. "This is the train that will do for us.
Leaves Munich at 1.45; gets to Heidelberg at 4--just in time for a cup of
tea."
"Gets to Heidelberg at 4?" I exclaim. "Does the whole distance in two
and a quarter hours? Why, we were all night coming down!"
"Well, there you are," he says, pointing to the time-table. "Munich,
depart 1.45; Heidelberg, arrive 4."
"Yes," I say, looking over his shoulder; "but don't you see the 4 is in
thick type? That means 4 in the morning."
"Oh, ah, yes," he replies. "I never noticed that. Yes, of course. No!
it can't be that either. Why, that would make the journey fourteen
hours. It can't take fourteen hours. No, of course not. That's not
meant for thick type, that 4. That's thin type got a little thick,
that's all."
"Well, it can't be 4 this afternoon," I argue. "It must be 4 to-morrow
afternoon! That's just what a German express train would like to
do--take a whole day over a six hours' job!"
He puzzles for a while, and then breaks out with:
"Oh! I see it now. How stupid of me! That train that gets to
Heidelberg at 4 comes from Berlin."
He seemed quite delighted with this discovery.
"What's the good of it to us, then?" I ask.
That depresses him.
"No, it is not much good, I'm afraid," he agrees. "It seems to go
straight from Berlin to Heidelberg without stopping at Munich at all.
Well then, where does the 1.45 go to? It must go somewhere."
Five minutes more elapse, and then he exclaims:
"Drat this 1.45! It doesn't seem to go anywhere. Munich depart 1.45,
and that's all. It must go somewhere!"
Apparently, however, it does not. It seems to be a train that starts out
from Munich at 1.45, and goes off on the loose. Possibly, it is a young,
romantic train, fond of mystery. It won't say where it's going to. It
probably does not even know itself. It goes off in search of adventure.
"I shall start off," it says to itself, "at 1.45 punctually, and just go
on anyhow, without thinking about it, and see where I get to."
Or maybe it is a conceited, headstrong young train. It will not be
guided or advised. The traffic superintendent wants it to go to St.
Petersburg or to Paris. The old grey-headed station-master argues with
it, and tries to persuade it to go to Constantinople, or even to
Jerusalem if it likes that better--urges it to, at all events, make up
its mind where it _is_ going--warns it of the danger to young trains of
having no fixed aim or object in life. Other people, asked to use their
influence with it, have talked to it like a father, and have begged it,
for their sakes, to go to Kamskatka, or Timbuctoo, or Jericho, according
as they have thought best for it; and then, finding that it takes no
notice of them, have got wild with it, and have told it to go to still
more distant places.
But to all counsel and entreaty it has turned a deaf ear.
"You leave me alone," it has replied; "I know where I'm going to. Don't
you worry yourself about me. You mind your own business, all of you. I
don't want a lot of old fools telling me what to do. I know what I'm
about."
What can be expected from such a train? The chances are that it comes to
a bad end. I expect it is recognised afterwards, a broken-down, unloved,
friendless, old train, wandering aimless and despised in some far-off
country, musing with bitter regret upon the day when, full of foolish
pride and ambition, it started from Munich, with its boiler nicely oiled,
at 1.45.
B. abandons this 1.45 as hopeless and incorrigible, and continues his
search.
"Hulloa! what's this?" he exclaims. "How will this do us? Leaves Munich
at 4, gets to Heidelberg 4.15. That's quick work. Something wrong
there. That won't do. You can't get from Munich to Heidelberg in a
quarter of an hour. Oh! I see it. That 4 o'clock goes to Brussels, and
then on to Heidelberg afterwards. Gets in there at 4.15 to-morrow, I
suppose. I wonder why it goes round by Brussels, though? Then it seems
to stop at Prague for ever so long. Oh, damn this timetable!"
Then he finds another train that starts at 2.15, and seems to be an ideal
train. He gets quite enthusiastic over this train.
"This is the train for us, old man," he says. "This is a splendid train,
really. It doesn't stop anywhere."
"Does it _get_ anywhere?" I ask.
"Of course it gets somewhere," he replies indignantly. "It's an express!
Munich," he murmurs, tracing its course through the timetable, "depart
2.15. First and second class only. Nuremberg? No; it doesn't stop at
Nuremberg. Wurtzburg? No. Frankfort for Strasburg? No. Cologne,
Antwerp, Calais? Well, where does it stop? Confound it! it must stop
somewhere. Berlin, Paris, Brussels, Copenhagen? No. Upon my soul, this
is another train that does not go anywhere! It starts from Munich at
2.15, and that's all. It doesn't do anything else."
It seems to be a habit of Munich trains to start off in this purposeless
way. Apparently, their sole object is to get away from the town. They
don't care where they go to; they don't care what becomes of them, so
long as they escape from Munich.
"For heaven's sake," they say to themselves, "let us get away from this
place. Don't let us bother about where we shall go; we can decide that
when we are once fairly outside. Let's get out of Munich; that's the
great thing."
B. begins to grow quite frightened. He says:
"We shall never be able to leave this city. There are no trains out of
Munich at all. It's a plot to keep us here, that's what it is. We shall
never be able to get away. We shall never see dear old England again!"
I try to cheer him up by suggesting that perhaps it is the custom in
Bavaria to leave the destination of the train to the taste and fancy of
the passengers. The railway authorities provide a train, and start it
off at 2.15. It is immaterial to them where it goes to. That is a
question for the passengers to decide among themselves. The passengers
hire the train and take it away, and there is an end of the matter, so
far as the railway people are concerned. If there is any difference of
opinion between the passengers, owing to some of them wishing to go to
Spain, while others want to get home to Russia, they, no doubt, settle
the matter by tossing up.
B., however, refuses to entertain this theory, and says he wishes I would
not talk so much when I see how harassed he is. That's all the thanks I
get for trying to help him.
He worries along for another five minutes, and then he discovers a train
that gets to Heidelberg all right, and appears to be in most respects a
model train, the only thing that can be urged against it being that it
does not start from anywhere.
It seems to drop into Heidelberg casually and then to stop there. One
expects its sudden advent alarms the people at Heidelberg station. They
do not know what to make of it. The porter goes up to the
station-master, and says:
"Beg pardon, sir, but there's a strange train in the station."
"Oh!" answers the station-master, surprised, "where did it come from?"
"Don't know," replies the man; "it doesn't seem to know itself."
"Dear me," says the station-master, "how very extraordinary! What does
it want?"
"Doesn't seem to want anything particular," replies the other. "It's a
curious sort of train. Seems to be a bit dotty, if you ask me."
"Um," muses the station-master, "it's a rum go. Well, I suppose we must
let it stop here a bit now. We can hardly turn it out a night like this.
Oh, let it make itself comfortable in the wood-shed till the morning, and
then we will see if we can find its friends."
At last B. makes the discovery that to get to Heidelberg we must go to
Darmstadt and take another train from there. This knowledge gives him
renewed hope and strength, and he sets to work afresh--this time, to find
trains from Munich to Darmstadt, and from Darmstadt to Heidelberg.
"Here we are," he cries, after a few minutes' hunting. "I've got it!"
(He is of a buoyant disposition.) "This will be it. Leaves Munich 10,
gets to Darmstadt 5.25. Leaves Darmstadt for Heidelberg 5.20, gets to--"
"That doesn't allow us much time for changing, does it?" I remark.
"No," he replies, growing thoughtful again. "No, that's awkward. If it
were only the other way round, it would be all right, or it would do if
our train got there five minutes before its time, and the other one was a
little late in starting."
"Hardly safe to reckon on that," I suggest; and he agrees with me, and
proceeds to look for some more fitable trains.
It would appear, however, that all the trains from Darmstadt to
Heidelberg start just a few minutes before the trains from Munich arrive.
It looks quite pointed, as though they tried to avoid us.
B.'s intellect generally gives way about this point, and he becomes
simply drivelling. He discovers trains that run from Munich to
Heidelberg in fourteen minutes, by way of Venice and Geneva, with
half-an-hour's interval for breakfast at Rome. He rushes up and down the
book in pursuit of demon expresses that arrive at their destinations
forty-seven minutes before they start, and leave again before they get
there. He finds out, all by himself, that the only way to get from South
Germany to Paris is to go to Calais, and then take the boat to Moscow.
Before he has done with the timetable, he doesn't know whether he is in
Europe, Asia, Africa, or America, nor where he wants to get to, nor why
he wants to go there.
Then I quietly, but firmly, take the book away from him, and dress him
for going out; and we take our bags and walk to the station, and tell a
porter that, "Please, we want to go to Heidelberg." And the porter takes
us one by each hand, and leads us to a seat and tells us to sit there and
be good, and that, when it is time, he will come and fetch us and put us
in the train; and this he does.
That is my method of finding out how to get from one place to another.
It is not as dignified, perhaps, as B.'s, but it is simpler and more
efficacious.
It is slow work travelling in Germany. The German train does not hurry
or excite itself over its work, and when it stops it likes to take a
rest. When a German train draws up at a station, everybody gets out and
has a walk. The engine-driver and the stoker cross over and knock at the
station-master's door. The station-master comes out and greets them
effusively, and then runs back into the house to tell his wife that they
have come, and she bustles out and also welcomes them effusively, and the
four stand chatting about old times and friends and the state of the
crops. After a while, the engine-driver, during a pause in the
conversation, looks at his watch, and says he is afraid he must be going,
but the station-master's wife won't hear of it.
"Oh, you must stop and see the children," she says. "They will be home
from school soon, and they'll be so disappointed if they hear you have
been here and gone away again. Lizzie will never forgive you."
The engine-driver and the stoker laugh, and say that under those
circumstances they suppose they must stop; and they do so.
Meanwhile the booking-clerk has introduced the guard to his sister, and
such a very promising flirtation has been taking place behind the
ticket-office door that it would not be surprising if wedding-bells were
heard in the neighbourhood before long.
The second guard has gone down into the town to try and sell a dog, and
the passengers stroll about the platform and smoke, or partake of a light
meal in the refreshment-room--the poorer classes regaling themselves upon
hot sausage, and the more dainty upon soup. When everybody appears to be
sufficiently rested, a move onward is suggested by the engine-driver or
the guard, and if all are agreeable to the proposal the train starts.
Tremendous excitement was caused during our journey between Heidelberg
and Darmstadt by the discovery that we were travelling in an express
train (they called it an "express:" it jogged along at the rate of twenty
miles an hour when it could be got to move at all; most of its time it
seemed to be half asleep) with slow-train tickets. The train was stopped
at the next station and B. was marched off between two stern-looking
gold-laced officials to explain the matter to a stern-looking gold-laced
station-master, surrounded by three stern-looking gold-laced followers.
The scene suggested a drum-head court-martial, and I could see that B.
was nervous, though outwardly calm and brave. He shouted back a
light-hearted adieu to me as he passed down the platform, and asked me,
if the worst happened, to break it gently to his mother.
However, no harm came of it, and he returned to the carriage without a
stain upon his character, he having made it clear to the satisfaction of
the court--firstly, That he did not know that our tickets were only
slow-train tickets; secondly, That he was not aware that we were not
travelling by a slow train; and thirdly, That he was ready to pay the
difference in the fares.
He blamed himself for having done this last, however, afterwards. He
seemed to think that he could have avoided this expense by assuming
ignorance of the German language. He said that two years ago, when he
was travelling in Germany with three other men, the authorities came down
upon them in much the same way for travelling first-class with
second-class tickets.
Why they were doing this B. did not seem able to explain very clearly.
He said that, if he recollected rightly, the guard had told them to get
into a first-class, or else they had not had time to get into a
second-class, or else they did not know they were not in a second-class.
I must confess his explanation appeared to me to be somewhat lame.
Anyhow, there they were in a first-class carriage; and there was the
collector at the door, looking indignantly at their second-class tickets,
and waiting to hear what they had to say for themselves.
One of their party did not know much German, but what little he did know
he was very proud of and liked to air; and this one argued the matter
with the collector, and expressed himself in German so well that the
collector understood and disbelieved every word he said.
He was also, on his part, able, with a little trouble, to understand what
the collector said, which was that he must pay eighteen marks. And he
had to.
As for the other three, two at all events of whom were excellent German
scholars, they did not understand anything, and nobody could make them
understand anything. The collector roared at them for about ten minutes,
and they smiled pleasantly and said they wanted to go to Hanover. He
went and fetched the station-master, and the station-master explained to
them for another ten minutes that, if they did not pay eighteen shillings
each, he should do the German equivalent for summonsing them; and they
smiled and nodded, and told him that they wanted to go to Hanover. Then
a very important-looking personage in a cocked-hat came up, and was very
angry; and he and the station-master and the collector took it in turns
to explain to B. and his two friends the state of the law on the matter.
They stormed and raged, and threatened and pleaded for a quarter of an
hour or so, and then they got sick, and slammed the door, and went off,
leaving the Government to lose the fifty-four marks.
We passed the German frontier on Wednesday, and have been in Belgium
since.
I like the Germans. B. says I ought not to let them know this, because
it will make them conceited; but I have no fear of such a result. I am
sure they possess too much common-sense for their heads to be turned by
praise, no matter from whom.
B. also says that I am displaying more energy than prudence in forming an
opinion of a people merely from a few weeks' travel amongst them. But my
experience is that first impressions are the most reliable.
At all events, in my case they are. I often arrive at quite sensible
ideas and judgments, on the spur of the moment. It is when I stop to
think that I become foolish.
Our first thoughts are the thoughts that are given to us; our second
thoughts are the thoughts that we make for ourselves. I prefer to trust
to the former.
The Germans are a big, square-shouldered, deep-chested race. They do not
talk much, but look as though they thought. Like all big things, they
are easy-going and good-tempered.
Anti-tobacconists, teetotallers, and such-like faddists, would fare badly
in Germany. A German has no anti-nature notions as to its being wicked
for him to enjoy his life, and still more criminal for him to let anybody
else enjoy theirs. He likes his huge pipe, and he likes his mug of beer,
and as these become empty he likes to have them filled again; and he
likes to see other people like _their_ pipe and _their_ mug of beer. If
you were to go dancing round a German, shrieking out entreaties to him to
sign a pledge that he would never drink another drop of beer again as
long as he lived, he would ask you to remember that you were talking to a
man, not to a child or an imbecile, and he would probably impress the
request upon you by boxing your ears for your impertinence. He can
conduct himself sensibly without making an ass of himself. He can be
"temperate" without tying bits of coloured ribbon all about himself to
advertise the fact, and without rushing up and down the street waving a
banner and yelling about it.
The German women are not beautiful, but they are lovable and sweet; and
they are broad-breasted and broad-hipped, like the mothers of big sons
should be. They do not seem to trouble themselves about their "rights,"
but appear to be very contented and happy even without votes. The men
treat them with courtesy and tenderness, but with none of that
exaggerated deference that one sees among more petticoat-ridden nations.
The Germans are women lovers, not women worshippers; and they are not
worried by any doubts as to which sex shall rule the State, and which
stop at home and mind the children. The German women are not politicians
and mayors and county councillors; they are housewives.
All classes of Germans are scrupulously polite to one another; but this
is the result of mutual respect, not of snobbery. The tramcar conductor
expects to be treated with precisely the same courtesy that he tenders.
The Count raises his hat to the shopkeeper, and expects the shopkeeper to
raise his hat to him.
The Germans are hearty eaters; but they are not, like the French, fussy
and finicky over their food. Their stomach is not their God; and the
cook, with his sauces and _pates_ and _ragouts_, is not their High
Priest. So long as the dish is wholesome, and there is sufficient of it,
they are satisfied.
In the mere sensuous arts of painting and sculpture the Germans are poor,
in the ennobling arts of literature and music they are great; and this
fact provides a key to their character.
They are a simple, earnest, homely, genuine people. They do not laugh
much; but when they do, they laugh deep down. They are slow, but so is a
deep river. A placid look generally rests upon their heavy features; but
sometimes they frown, and then they look somewhat grim.
A visit to Germany is a tonic to an Englishman. We English are always
sneering at ourselves, and patriotism in England is regarded as a stamp
of vulgarity. The Germans, on the other hand, believe in themselves, and
respect themselves. The world for them is not played out. Their country
to them is still the "Fatherland." They look straight before them like a
people who see a great future in front of them, and are not afraid to go
forward to fulfil it.