RECUPERATION
She was in the act of giving him a potion for a raging fever. Once
he realized that Herr Bucher sat silently poring over a book by the
bed, chucking him back into it when he tossed out. The Bucher
children occasionally appeared on errands for his comfort. The
family nursed him more diligently than if he had been their own.
Gard came back to his senses rather rapidly. He had found himself in
his room. He was in his own bed--that German bed. Summertide was
steadily flooding in through the grateful leaves of his linden, and
brightening his confining walls. His narrow-gage American digestive
apparatus had, it appeared, finally rebelled over the broad German
fare. All his eating and drinking during the months had proven
disastrous. When he had begun to feel bad that last day, it only
needed a little champagne to bring to a head the inevitable revolt.
And so, toward the end of his year, he was physically not far from
where he had been on coming to Deutschland for the sake of its
inspiring virilities.
He had plenty of time to wonder how he had got back to Loschwitz
from the Waitress Dance. He never inquired, never learned. But
Fritzi alone knew his address. He had no recollection of anything.
He went through his pockets. His valuables were intact. His money
was all there as nearly as he could figure out, except a reasonable
amount evidently used to pay the supper bill and convey him home.
Truly those considerate servants had not acted like amateurs.
He finally remembered about Fritzi's hose. They were gone. At length
Frau Bucher said she had forgotten to tell him that a pretty young
woman came to reclaim them. He was ashamed enough. To be carried to
his room in the odor of champagne and with a girl's silk stockings
in his pocket! _He_--Gard Kirtley! Was this the low estate to which
German life had brought him?
But he soon observed that the Buchers cared nothing about all this.
Young men, as we have seen, were expected to go on larks. No one
spoke of the distressing occurrence. There was no disagreeable
testimony that he had made great trouble. No looks of reproach
attacked him. His Puritan habits had been, in fact, very curious to
the parents. They felt now that he was a youth whom they could
understand. He was true to the proper type.
It was a relief for him to know that he had not dropped in respect
before any of the household. He believed he had, on the contrary,
grown in their estimation, as had Rudi after his "experience." The
poor Herr Kirtley was considered a much abused victim of an
unfortunate sickness. Once Frau exclaimed:
"Ach Himmel! our sons have such a hard time of it!"
When he began to eat ravenously after his enforced abstinence,
hearty foods and heavy drinks were supplied. It is the German
fashion at such times to build up the strength quickly with lusty
meals. He was started promptly again on the road to gastric ruin.
Often at night a cold sweat would bead over Gard. What would he do
about Frau Bucher and Elsa? He had been thrown helpless into their
hands. Holy Smoke! Would he become a German in spite of himself? He
sometimes wished the Imperial Secret Service might scare him out of
the country as had been the case with the lucky Deming.
The Buchers had likely saved his life. He had been brought by them
faithfully back to health. How was he going to repay? What excuses
could he offer when the time came to face Frau's proposal? How could
he possibly make his escape at all agreeably? Was ever a fellow in
just such a pickle?
And here was the ever-capable Elsa dutifully bringing his viands and
at times reading to him stories from Hoffmann. She was like a real
fairy out of a German story book. The new Heine she had given him
lay there, but neither suggested opening it. It was not a thing to
get well over.
To a sick man, his nurse seems heavenly. And Elsa looked truly
golden as she sat there over the Hoffmann, with the sunlight
streaming about her head. In Gard's phantasmagoria at night there
had often been a blond maiden, dancing and lovely--but mingled at
length into some unpleasant circumstance like that connected with
the phantom princess he had ridden with in Italy.
Ernst, still limping from his beating, came in now and then and read
out of a ponderous volume on the Relation of German Music to the
Reformation. It was full of intricate, plodding, dull detail in the
German style, which the lad found of interest. But Gard, despite
this kindness, could not make much headway with it. Smoking was, of
course, permitted to accompany his man-like return to health, and it
was always a genial hour to have Anderson sitting there in the
wreaths of nicotine before the summery window, talking, talking.
The correspondent came several times, bringing comic papers. Gard
pleased him by saying he was veering round to the journalist's way
of thinking on things German. He related the Der Tag incident at the
ball. The family life of the Teutons, the life of the plain
people--all were substantiating the essential and alarming truth of
the old man's beliefs. At last another American in Germany had been
found who was experiencing an awakening. The result was a mutual
appreciation.
One afternoon they were eating some of the big German cherries, and
the fragrance of Herr Bucher's rose garden below was engaged in
balmy conflict with the odors of cigars.
"Well, what is the solution about the German people?" Gard
propounded. "What's to be done with them? Here they are, industrious
as bees and as fully armed with stings. Will a war cure anything?
Even if defeated, won't they be the same people? Won't they present
the same problem? Won't they present the same menace to what we
consider as the best and most desirable types of civilization?"
Anderson did not interrupt these questions. When they had all come
out, he gravely took another cigar, leisurely lighted it and turned
his chair to face the linden at the window. He spoke very mildly.