AN AMERICAN VICTORY
Deming's campaign against the terrible German language was unable to
advance perceptibly beyond the stage of preparations. These were
somewhat elaborate, especially from the standpoint of expense. He
had a multiplicity of instructors and grammars. If they had been
placed side by side they might have reached from the Green Vault to
the Zwinger.
He blamed these agencies of instruction. His "professors" he
generally picked up at the Stadt Gotha where he played billiards.
While these parties were fair with the ivories, they could not seem
to knock any caroms of German around the cushions of Jim's brain.
His daily routine was like this: At ten, his lesson in Dutch.
Teacher would come. Great show of hospitality. There must be
something to drink. The preceptor must try one of the fancy pipes,
of which Deming had collected a large array in Germany. He would be
feeling knocked in this morning, having been up late consuming
numerous bocks in amicable emulation of the local prowess. He had
not got around to his lesson and had concluded he did not think much
of his present grammar. Herr Preceptor would suggest procuring
another which would strew roses no doubt along the thorny path.
Capital idea. Of course they must then wait for the new grammar.
Adjournment at eleven to the café for billiards. Deming was a good
wielder of the cue. He said the Germans were too be-spectacled and
blear-eyed to play well and by three o'clock he had usually won
quite a number of marks. This was making "easy money." It went
toward paying for his evening's entertainment and was good economy.
His pleasure account would not look so large to his governor. At
three, to his hotel for afternoon dress. Evenings it was some other
form of diversion. Home at all hours.
This was his day of study, of which his hopeful parents learned the
promising side. Someone advised him that if he did not try so hard
to master German, it would come easier. But he experimented with
this plan for a week and told Gard:
"When you don't bone over the blamed language, it's surprising how
much you don't know about it. It still takes me an hour and a half
to hold a five minutes' conversation."
In two months he was thumbing page ten of the grammar, but he had
seized upon a good many slang phrases, supercharged ejaculations.
Though the undercurrent of his discouragement about his progress was
considerable, it interfered little with his acquainting him
proficiently with the restaurant world of Dresden. He saw and heard
what was going on in those quarters, and through him Kirtley learned
of that phase of German character and habits.
In view of everything, there had finally been no decent, reasonable
way for Gard but to let Deming, professedly zealous of knowing
German and seeing Teuton home life, into the Bucher circle. Aware
that Jim was quite innocent enough morally, Gard avoided introducing
him to Von Tielitz and Messer whose depravities might prove
harmful. But Deming at last met the former at Loschwitz and the two
became friends just before Friedrich left in quest of another
Kapellmeistership. The friction or explosion Gard rather expected
between them over Fräulein did not occur. While he had dreaded such
a happening for Jim's sake, it might have cleared the atmosphere
pleasantly for his own. But Friedrich was delighted that Herr Deming
showed his old neighbors, the Buchers, such munificent courtesies,
and Jim thought Von Tielitz the most brilliant chap he had ever
known.
Kirtley waited with fear, with trembling and also with some hopeful
interest, for the fireworks resulting from Deming's induction to
Villa Elsa. And they promptly began to soar, for Jim had, in his
way, all the American speed, and proceeded to overwhelm the
household with his attentions. It was a case of swift enthusiasm
about the whole family. Unlike Kirtley he did not care how many of
the members accompanied the Fräulein and him. All were welcome.
Though he openly displayed his fascination about the Fräulein, it
had none of that tender sentiment which Gard was dissembling before
his friend. Nevertheless it appeared to be a violent case of love at
first sight, and before the first sight.
Kirtley dropped out of the running. He excused himself by the
necessity of burying himself deeper in his books on Teuton origins
and traits. In a brief week the Buchers had forgotten him. All was
Herr Deming--the wonderful Herr Deming--the fortunate youth who was
bringing the witchery of good luck into the drab home. It was Herr
Deming morning, noon and night.
There were theater parties, suppers on Brühl Terrace, plans for the
next dance. Jim spread it on thick, and the dutiful, docile Elsa was
swept along with the rest, although with a reserve in evocation as
became the modesty of a maiden who was manifestly the pivotal center
of all this vertiginous attraction and activity. The Buchers
suddenly evinced a great and favorable curiosity about America.
Their attitude toward it was revolutionized. They plied Gard with
questions. What was living like there? It must be most desirable.
Gard came across convenient hand books of knowledge, inconvenient
encyclopedias and atlases, lying here and there in the house, with
pages opened freely at the United States. Frau Bucher became
vociferous in praise of the advantages of the Yankee fashion of
courtship over the slow, economical, dull, German process of
match-making.
The household was overturned. Its affairs got dreadfully behind.
Mother was mightily absorbed in getting out and fixing up imposing
old dresses, laces, wraps, that were heirlooms or dated from her
bridal days of a quarter of a century before. Elsa's lessons in
etching and her methodical hours for perfecting her manifold
talents, became badly confused.
The great thing was driving at the fashionable hour in the Grosse
Garten. This was what the Buchers had never dreamed of. In the
winter only the royal and very aristocratic families drove there.
The common people, who might extravagantly expend a few marks to
indulge in this pastime of nobility in summer, were frozen out of it
in winter. Hot drinks in beer halls were then more to their taste.
But many an afternoon at four Deming, with his two ladies
overdressed for the occasion in the dowdy German manner, occupying
a handsome, heated limousine decorated with a conspicuous mirror and
with Parma violets gently disengaging a delicate perfume, fell in
right behind the king's household if possible, and toured the park
in stately measure, being numbered, no doubt, by the open-mouthed
beholder on the sidewalk, among the social elect in Saxony.
Elsa was as good as engaged, as good as married. In her mother's
eyes, bloodshot with all this glory of excitement, her daughter was
already dwelling in a palace in that amazing city of Erie, in that
splendid commonwealth of Pennsylvania, of whose double fame she had
never before heard. For, of course, Deming sang constantly of the
wonders of his native haunts, where wealth flowed out of the ground
and the trolley system was the best in the world.
Thus the Americanization of Villa Elsa was accomplished in the
twinkling of an eye. No more did Gard hear of the Yankee pigs. No
more did he hear of the disgusting Yankee billions. Germany and
America in union would form the blessed state which would command
the globe, and the two excelling peoples, by intermarrying, would
produce a race too far ahead and above Frau Bucher's hoarse
vocabulary to admit of much more than her Ach Himmels and Ach
Gotts.