[I Paint a "Turner"]
The summer days passed pleasantly in Heidelberg. We had a skilled
trainer, and under his instructions we were getting our legs in the
right condition for the contemplated pedestrian tours; we were well
satisfied with the progress which we had made in the German language,
[1. See Appendix D for information concerning this fearful tongue.] and
more than satisfied with what we had accomplished in art. We had had the
best instructors in drawing and painting in Germany--Haemmerling, Vogel,
Mueller, Dietz, and Schumann. Haemmerling taught us landscape-painting.
Vogel taught us figure-drawing, Mueller taught us to do still-life,
and Dietz and Schumann gave us a finishing course in two
specialties--battle-pieces and shipwrecks. Whatever I am in Art I owe to
these men. I have something of the manner of each and all of them;
but they all said that I had also a manner of my own, and that it
was conspicuous. They said there was a marked individuality about my
style--insomuch that if I ever painted the commonest type of a dog, I
should be sure to throw a something into the aspect of that dog which
would keep him from being mistaken for the creation of any other artist.
Secretly I wanted to believe all these kind sayings, but I could not; I
was afraid that my masters' partiality for me, and pride in me, biased
their judgment. So I resolved to make a test. Privately, and unknown to
any one, I painted my great picture, "Heidelberg Castle Illuminated"--my
first really important work in oils--and had it hung up in the midst
of a wilderness of oil-pictures in the Art Exhibition, with no name
attached to it. To my great gratification it was instantly recognized
as mine. All the town flocked to see it, and people even came from
neighboring localities to visit it. It made more stir than any other
work in the Exhibition. But the most gratifying thing of all was, that
chance strangers, passing through, who had not heard of my picture, were
not only drawn to it, as by a lodestone, the moment they entered the
gallery, but always took it for a "Turner."
Apparently nobody had ever done that. There were ruined castles on the
overhanging cliffs and crags all the way; these were said to have their
legends, like those on the Rhine, and what was better still, they had
never been in print. There was nothing in the books about that lovely
region; it had been neglected by the tourist, it was virgin soil for the
literary pioneer.
Meantime the knapsacks, the rough walking-suits and the stout
walking-shoes which we had ordered, were finished and brought to us.
A Mr. X and a young Mr. Z had agreed to go with us. We went around one
evening and bade good-by to our friends, and afterward had a little
farewell banquet at the hotel. We got to bed early, for we wanted to
make an early start, so as to take advantage of the cool of the morning.
We were out of bed at break of day, feeling fresh and vigorous, and took
a hearty breakfast, then plunged down through the leafy arcades of the
Castle grounds, toward the town. What a glorious summer morning it was,
and how the flowers did pour out their fragrance, and how the birds did
sing! It was just the time for a tramp through the woods and mountains.
We were all dressed alike: broad slouch hats, to keep the sun off; gray
knapsacks; blue army shirts; blue overalls; leathern gaiters buttoned
tight from knee down to ankle; high-quarter coarse shoes snugly laced.
Each man had an opera-glass, a canteen, and a guide-book case slung over
his shoulder, and carried an alpenstock in one hand and a sun-umbrella
in the other. Around our hats were wound many folds of soft white
muslin, with the ends hanging and flapping down our backs--an idea
brought from the Orient and used by tourists all over Europe. Harris
carried the little watch-like machine called a "pedometer," whose
office is to keep count of a man's steps and tell how far he has walked.
Everybody stopped to admire our costumes and give us a hearty "Pleasant
march to you!"
When we got downtown I found that we could go by rail to within five
miles of Heilbronn. The train was just starting, so we jumped aboard and
went tearing away in splendid spirits. It was agreed all around that we
had done wisely, because it would be just as enjoyable to walk DOWN the
Neckar as up it, and it could not be needful to walk both ways. There
were some nice German people in our compartment. I got to talking some
pretty private matters presently, and Harris became nervous; so he
nudged me and said:
"Speak in German--these Germans may understand English."
I did so, it was well I did; for it turned out that there was not a
German in that party who did not understand English perfectly. It is
curious how widespread our language is in Germany. After a while some of
those folks got out and a German gentleman and his two young daughters
got in. I spoke in German of one of the latter several times, but
without result. Finally she said:
"ICH VERSTEHE NUR DEUTCH UND ENGLISHE,"--or words to that effect. That
is, "I don't understand any language but German and English."
And sure enough, not only she but her father and sister spoke English.
So after that we had all the talk we wanted; and we wanted a good deal,
for they were agreeable people. They were greatly interested in our
customs; especially the alpenstocks, for they had not seen any before.
They said that the Neckar road was perfectly level, so we must be going
to Switzerland or some other rugged country; and asked us if we did not
find the walking pretty fatiguing in such warm weather. But we said no.
We reached Wimpfen--I think it was Wimpfen--in about three hours, and
got out, not the least tired; found a good hotel and ordered beer and
dinner--then took a stroll through the venerable old village. It was
very picturesque and tumble-down, and dirty and interesting. It had
queer houses five hundred years old in it, and a military tower 115 feet
high, which had stood there more than ten centuries. I made a little
sketch of it. I kept a copy, but gave the original to the Burgomaster.
I think the original was better than the copy, because it had more
windows in it and the grass stood up better and had a brisker look.
There was none around the tower, though; I composed the grass myself,
from studies I made in a field by Heidelberg in Haemmerling's time. The
man on top, looking at the view, is apparently too large, but I found
he could not be made smaller, conveniently. I wanted him there, and I
wanted him visible, so I thought out a way to manage it; I composed the
picture from two points of view; the spectator is to observe the man
from bout where that flag is, and he must observe the tower itself from
the ground. This harmonizes the seeming discrepancy. [Figure 2]
Near an old cathedral, under a shed, were three crosses of stone--moldy
and damaged things, bearing life-size stone figures. The two thieves
were dressed in the fanciful court costumes of the middle of the
sixteenth century, while the Saviour was nude, with the exception of a
cloth around the loins.
We had dinner under the green trees in a garden belonging to the hotel
and overlooking the Neckar; then, after a smoke, we went to bed. We had
a refreshing nap, then got up about three in the afternoon and put
on our panoply. As we tramped gaily out at the gate of the town, we
overtook a peasant's cart, partly laden with odds and ends of cabbages
and similar vegetable rubbish, and drawn by a small cow and a smaller
donkey yoked together. It was a pretty slow concern, but it got us into
Heilbronn before dark--five miles, or possibly it was seven.
We stopped at the very same inn which the famous old robber-knight
and rough fighter Goetz von Berlichingen, abode in after he got out of
captivity in the Square Tower of Heilbronn between three hundred and
fifty and four hundred years ago. Harris and I occupied the same room
which he had occupied and the same paper had not quite peeled off the
walls yet. The furniture was quaint old carved stuff, full four hundred
years old, and some of the smells were over a thousand. There was a hook
in the wall, which the landlord said the terrific old Goetz used to hang
his iron hand on when he took it off to go to bed. This room was very
large--it might be called immense--and it was on the first floor; which
means it was in the second story, for in Europe the houses are so
high that they do not count the first story, else they would get tired
climbing before they got to the top. The wallpaper was a fiery red, with
huge gold figures in it, well smirched by time, and it covered all the
doors. These doors fitted so snugly and continued the figures of the
paper so unbrokenly, that when they were closed one had to go feeling
and searching along the wall to find them. There was a stove in the
corner--one of those tall, square, stately white porcelain things that
looks like a monument and keeps you thinking of death when you ought to
be enjoying your travels. The windows looked out on a little alley, and
over that into a stable and some poultry and pig yards in the rear of
some tenement-houses. There were the customary two beds in the room,
one in one end, the other in the other, about an old-fashioned
brass-mounted, single-barreled pistol-shot apart. They were fully
as narrow as the usual German bed, too, and had the German bed's
ineradicable habit of spilling the blankets on the floor every time you
forgot yourself and went to sleep.
A round table as large as King Arthur's stood in the center of the room;
while the waiters were getting ready to serve our dinner on it we
all went out to see the renowned clock on the front of the municipal
buildings.