Just before they left Paris a letter had come for Lewis--a big, official
envelop, unstamped. He tore it open, full of curiosity and wonder. Out
fell a fat inclosure. Lewis picked it up and stared. It is always a
shock to see your own handwriting months after you have sent it off on a
long journey. Here was his own handwriting on a very soiled envelop,
plastered over with postmarks. How quaint was the superscription, how
eloquent the distant dates of the postmarks! "For Natalie. At the Ranch
of Dom Francisco, on the Road to Oeiras, in the Province of Ceara,
Brazil."
The envelop had been cut open. Lewis took out the many sheets and
searched them for a sign. None was there. He looked again at the
envelop. Across it was stamped a notice of non-delivery on account of
deficient address. Then his eyes fell on faint writing in pencil under a
postmark. He recognized the halting handwriting of Dom Francisco's
eldest girl. "She is gone," she had written. Nothing more.
"Gone?" questioned Lewis. "Gone where? Where could Natalie go?" He read
parts of his letter over, and blushed at his enthusiasms of almost a
year ago. Almost a year! Leighton called him. He tore up the letter and
threw it away. It was time to start. Then had come the good-by to
Cellette, and after that the wonders of the road had held his mind in a
constantly renewing grip. They still held it.
Leighton was beyond being a guide. He was a companion. When he could, he
avoided big cities and monuments. He loved to stop for the night at
wayside inns where the accommodations were meager, but ample opportunity
was given for a friendly chat with the hostess cook. And if the inn was
one of those homely evening meeting-places for old folks, he would say:
"Lew, no country wears its heart on its sleeve, but 'way inside. Let us
live here a little while and feel the pulse of France."
When they crossed the border, he sat down under the first shade tree and
made Lewis sit facing him.
"This," he said gravely, "is an eventful moment. You have just entered a
strange country where cooks have been known to fry a steak and live.
There are people that eat the steaks and live. It is a wonderful
country. Their cooks are also generally ignorant of the axiomatic
mission of a dripping-pan, as soggy fowls will prove to you. But what we
lose in pleasing alimentation, we make up in scenery and food for
thought. Collectively, this is the greatest people on earth;
individually, the smallest. Their national life is the most communal,
the best regulated, the nearest socialistic of any in the world,
and--they live it by the inch."
One afternoon, after a long climb through an odorous forest of
red-stemmed pines, with green-black tops stretching for miles and miles
in an unbroken canopy, they came out upon a broad view that entranced
with its sense of illusion. Cities, like bunched cattle, dotted the vast
plain. Space and the wide, unhindered sweep of the eye reduced their
greatness to the dimensions of toy-land.
Leighton and Lewis stood long in silence, then they started down the
road that clung to the steep incline. On the left it was overhung by the
forest; on the right, earth fell suddenly away in a wooded precipice. As
the highway clung to the mountain-side, so did quaint villages cling to
the highway. They came to an old _Gasthaus_, the hinder end of which was
buttressed over the brink of the valley.
Here they stopped. Their big, square room, the only guest-chamber of the
little inn, hung in air high above the jumbled roofs of Dürkheim. To the
right, the valley split to form a niche for a beetling, ruined castle.
Far out on the plain the lights of Darmstadt and Mannheim began to
blink. Beyond and above them Heidelberg signaled faintly from the
opposing hills.
The room shared its aery with a broad, square veranda, trellised and
vine-covered. Here were tables and chairs, and here Leighton and Lewis
dined. Before they had finished their meal, two groups had formed about
separate tables. One was of old men, white-haired, white-bearded, each
with his pipe and a long mug of beer. The other was of women. They, too,
were old, white-haired. Their faces were not hard, like the men's, but
filled with a withered motherliness. The men eyed the two foreigners
distrustfully as though they hung like a cloud over the accustomed peace
of that informal village gathering.
"All old, eh?" said Leighton to Lewis with a nod. "And sour. Want to see
them wake up?"
"Yes," said Lewis.
The woman who served them was young by comparison with the rest.
Leighton had discovered that she was an Alsatian, and had profited
thereby in the ordering of his dinner. She was the daughter-in-law of
the old couple that owned the inn. He turned to her and said in French,
so that Lewis could understand:
"Smile but once, dear lady. You serve us as though we were Britishers."
The woman turned quickly.
"And are you not Britishers?"
"No," said Leighton; "Americans."
"So!" cried the woman, her face brightening. She turned to the two
listening groups. "They are not English, after all," she called gaily.
"They are Americans--Americans of New York!"
There was an instant change of the social atmosphere, a buzz of eager
talk. The old men and the old women drew near. Then came shy, but eager,
questions. Hans, Fritz, Anna were in New York. Could Leighton give any
news of them? Each had his little pathetically confident cry for news of
son or daughter, and Leighton's personal acquaintance, as an American,
was taken to range from Toronto to Buenos Aires.
Leighton treated them like children; laughed at them, and then described
gravely in simple words the distances of the New World, the size and the
turmoil of its cities.
"Your children are young and strong," he added, noting their wistful
eyes; "they can stand it. But you--you old folks--are much better off
here."
"And yet," said an old woman, with longing in her pale eyes, "I have
stood many things."
Leighton turned to Lewis.
"All old, eh?" he repeated. "Young ones all gone. Do you remember what I
said about this being the best-regulated state on earth?"
Lewis nodded.
"Well," continued Leighton, "a perfectly regulated state is a fine
thing, a great thing for humanity. It has only one fault: nobody wants
to live in it."
Two days later they reached Heidelberg and, on the day following,
climbed the mountain to the Königstuhl. They stood on the top of the
tower and gazed on such a sight as Lewis had never seen. Here were no
endless sands and thorn-trees, no lonely reaches, no tropic glare. All
was river and wooded glade, harvest and harvesters, spires above knotted
groups of houses, castle, and hovel. Here and there and everywhere,
still spirals of smoke hung above the abodes of men. It was like a
vision of peace and plenty from the Bible.
Lewis was surprised to find that his father was not looking at the
scene. Leighton was bending over such a dial as no other spot on earth
could boast. Its radiating spokes of varying lengths pointed to a
hundred places, almost within the range of sight--names famous in song
and story, in peace and in war. Leighton read them out, name after name.
He glanced at Lewis's puzzled face.
"They mean nothing to you?" he asked.
Lewis shook his head.
"So you're not quite educated, after all," said Leighton.
They descended almost at a run to the gardens behind the Schloss. As
they reached them a long string of carriages drove up from the town.
They were full of tourists, many of whom wore the enameled flag of the
United States in their buttonholes. Some of the women carried little
red, white, and blue silk flags.
Lewis saw his father wince.
"Dad," he asked, "are they Americans?"
"Yes, boy," said Leighton. "Do you remember what I told you about the
evanescent spirit in art?"
Lewis nodded.
"Well," said Leighton, "a beloved flag has an evanescent spirit, too.
One shouldn't finger carelessly the image one would adore. That's why I
winced just now. Collectively, we Americans have never lowered the Stars
and Stripes, but individually we do it pretty often." Then he threw up
his head and smiled. "After all, there's a bright side even to blatant
patriotism. A nation can put up with every form of devotion so long as
it gets it from all."
"But, Dad," said Lewis, "I thought all American women were beautiful."
"So they are," said Leighton, with a laugh. "When you stop believing
that, you stop being an American. All American women are beautiful--some
outside, and the rest inside."
"Why don't you take me to the States?" asked Lewis.
Leighton turned around.
"How old are you?"
"Twenty," said Lewis.
"I'll take you," said Leighton, "when you are old enough to see the
States. It takes a certain amount of philosophy nowadays to understand
your country--and mine. Of all the nations in the world, we Americans
see ourselves least as others see us. We have a national vanity that
keeps us from studying a looking-glass. That's a paradox," said
Leighton, smiling at Lewis's puzzled look. "A paradox," he continued,
"is a verity the unpleasant truth of which is veiled."
"Anyway, I should like to go to the States," said Lewis.
"Just now," said Leighton, "our country is traveling the universal road
of commercialism, but it's traveling fast. When it gets to the end of
the road, it will be an interesting country."