Part 9

Next to the cathedral clock the most interesting sight to my mind was the washerwomen’s boats in the river. About 500 women were in these canal-shaped boats washing clothes, rinsing them in the river and having a good gossiping time of it. The emperor of Germany has a palace in Strassburg where he spends at least three days every year in the month of May. I did not know this, so when I saw the imperial palace on the city map I told the driver to take us there. I had never met Emperor William and he had never met me. I entered the palace door as directed by the cab-driver and was pleasantly received by a fine, portly gentleman. Of course I knew he wasn’t the emperor, so I spoke in a dignified way as becomes an American citizen toying with the effete monarchies of Europe, and asked the gentleman in my best German if the emperor was at home, at the same time assuring him that if the emperor was busy not to bother him, as I could come again after supper when he would be through his work. The fat gentleman bowed and told me the emperor was here only in May, and asked me if we would like to go over the palace. I spoke up abruptly, as if I were used to running around palaces; that as I had nothing else to do just then, having laid out to put in a short time with Emperor Bill, I wouldn’t mind if I did. He was a very nice man, a court chamberlain, he said, and he took Mrs. Morgan and me all through the palace and the big dining-room and ball-room and the king’s den, and all that sort of thing. Before we went onto the polished floors of the big rooms we had to put felt slippers on over our shoes—a good thing to keep the floors from getting scratched, and I suppose it is a kind of ground rule that Mrs. Emperor has made to protect the varnish from the hobnailed boots of William’s friends. I hope the custom won’t spread to America.

The German emperor has a mighty good house in Strassburg, and it has been furnished regardless of expense. There was a notice up, “Visitors not allowed to sit on the chairs,” but I wasn’t very tired anyway. I looked for a sign not to spit on the floor to go with some of the other wall decoration, but it must have been overlooked. The house looked stiff, and I don’t believe Bill has much fun at home and probably his wife makes him go out on the porch to smoke. I was sorry not to meet the emperor, as we will not get to Berlin, and I had some things to tell him. However, I feel that I have done the proper thing by calling on him and not waiting for him to hunt me up.

There is not so much American-made stuff in Europe as I expected. There is a good deal, but in fact these Germans and French are up to about everything that we are, and sometimes they have us bested. The Singer sewing-machine is everywhere, even in Italy. American shoes are the leaders in their lines in every city. American typewriters are sold ahead of European. Wernicke bookcases and office furniture are advertised and sold almost as at home. But the list of American goods is not very long, or else they are sold under other names and brands. To-day we bought a good picture of a typical German girl to take home with us as our art collection from Europe. Before we had gone a block Mrs. Morgan found the tag which proclaimed, “Made in Springfield, Massachusetts, U. S. A.” We were chagrined that our European purchase had turned out to be an American importation, sold to us at a higher price than it would have been at home, but we were proud that here in Germany they knew the country to send to in order to get good pictures of fetching Dutch maidens. At Zurich I started to buy a little office fixture which I thought I had never seen before and which I intended to take home to surprise the Kansans, when I found out just in time that it was made by the Globe-Wernicke company of Cincinnati, and I knew we had the same thing for sale at The News office in Hutchinson. Hereafter in buying souvenirs of Europe we will look close for the brand.

This is the place where the “pâté de fois gras” originated. I do not know how many people in Kansas know what pâté de fois gras is and whether it is a flower or a dog. I had once seen the words on a bill of fare in a very swell restaurant, but the figures which followed the name were so much larger than those after ham and eggs that I stuck to “ham and.” But when in Rome you must see the Forum, in Venice you must see St. Mark’s, and in Strassburg you must have some pâté de fois gras. The food combination which the four French words stand for is based on goose-liver, and corresponds to about what we would call “goose-liver smothered in roses.” It is very good, and you never forget the delicious taste or the price. Strassburg chefs make the stuff, can it and ship it all over the world to people who like delicate things to eat and who have sufficient credit to get a good stand-off. Pâté de fois gras is sweeter than chocolate, more luscious than peaches and more delicious than lemon pop at a Fourth of July picnic. It is a proof that Strassburgers have French stomachs as well as French hearts.

Speaking of eatables, we had the first loaf of bread in Switzerland that we had seen since we left home. After nearly two months on hard, stale rolls the sight of a reasonably good loaf of bread at Geneva made as strong an impression on my mind as Mont Blanc. Anybody who has traveled in Europe or in Arkansas will appreciate the feelings of a Kansan when he puts a slice of fairly soft bread between his teeth. It is better than pâté de fois gras, and it is almost exclusively an American institution.

IN OLD HEIDELBERG.

HEIDELBERG, GERMANY, July 22, 1905.

This is the old and famous university town of Germany. It is about two miles long and 200 yards wide, lying between the river Neckar and the steep hills which rise 500 feet high and which can only be ascended by terraced roads or a modern tunnel railway. The town is of comparatively recent origin, being really started only 850 years ago, when a Rhenish count who wanted to build a strong and impregnable fortress selected a spot 400 feet straight up the hill from the river and built the old castle of Heidelberg. Being thus the capital of a little German state, the Palatinate of the Rhine, it was an important place during the Middle Ages, and was fought over every few years for several centuries. In the fourteenth century the ruling count, whose title was Elector, developed a literary streak and founded the university, which became the center of learning and scientific study in Germany, and has continued so until the present day, although some of the newer universities like Berlin and Leipsig are now larger. The valley of the Neckar joins the valley of the Rhine here and makes a fertile territory and a prosperous city, but the university and the students are the main features of modern Heidelberg, now that counts, electors and castles are ruins or relics. There are many students in Heidelberg from America and other countries, but it is the rollicking German “yunkers” who make the life of the place.

German universities differ somewhat from American universities in the character and method of work. There are no recitations—only lectures and examinations. A student does not have to attend either. He can attend Heidelberg year in and year out and devote himself exclusively to the beer-garden and the dueling-ground. Or he can work hard, receive the ablest instruction and the highest degrees. The discipline of the common schools in Germany is severe—military in its character. But at the university the young man or young woman (for women now attend lectures at Heidelberg) can do as they please and go to Hades if they desire. The university buildings are plain and ordinary. The picturesque feature is the students, especially the young men who belong to the various “corps.” Less than 10 per cent. of the students are members of these societies, but they color the town, for each corps has a distinctive cap,—red, yellow, white, etc. These organizations are the social life of the university, and at all hours of the day or night they are in evidence, parading with their caps and canes, occupying the beer-gardens and the promenade, jollying the girl waiters and having what is called in America a High Old Time.

Everybody has heard of the duel or sword-fighting. It is as much an institution at Heidelberg as football is at Princeton or K. U. Not many students take part in it, only members of the six corps, but it is the show feature of student life. Each corps has about twenty members. Each member has to fight at least one duel a term with a member of some other corps. This morning we went to the dueling-place just outside of the city and saw the game.

One gets a great deal of misinformation about this student dueling, but as near as I can find out it is done in a genteel and cold-blooded manner. When it is the turn of one of the corps members to fight he makes a face or refuses to salute a member of another corps. That constitutes cause for the duel, and the preliminaries are then arranged by the officers of the respective corps according to the rules and regulations that have come down through generations. The fighting is done in an inner court of a wine-garden. This morning there were ten duels on the program, and when we arrived the third was in progress. A young man of the bright-red-cap corps was trying to slice the face of a member of the dark-red-cap corps. Each was covered with felt armor, which protected all of his body, and also had goggles and nose-pad, a little bit more so than a football player. The seconds, very similarly attired, stood by the side of the principals and struck up the swords at the end of each round or when the blood came. The only unprotected places were the head and face, and the game was to slash the opponent there, not to stick him. Thrusting is evidently against the rules. A surgeon with an apron like a butcher attended to the cuts and the members of both corps stood quietly and calmly by, giving vent to no expression of feeling whatever. The officers of each corps saluted, the word was given, the two swords clashed away for a minute, and each fellow had a nice long cut on his cheek. When the round was over the seconds sponged the cuts. There is no specified number of rounds, but whenever the two seconds are satisfied that one man is cut enough the other is declared the victor and they salute and retire to get court-plastered or sewed up as is necessary. We saw four duels and got tired of the fun. In the last fought one of the men was apparently an experienced swordsman and his opponent apparently a beginner. (I understand that in order to show his courage a new man always challenges an expert.) After four rounds the face of the weaker swordsman was streaming with blood from a half-dozen cuts. I suppose he looked upon his defeat as a real victory because he showed the fellows that he could stand up and take punishment and never wince. Some people have curious ideas of greatness.

They tell me no one is ever killed in these duels, but every member of every corps would be considered disfigured for life in America. Every one of them has long sears on his face and head. The restaurant where we eat is a favorite resort for the corps and we see much of them. It looks like a shame that every one of those bright young men will have to go through life with a face like a war map of Manchuria. But they wouldn’t trade those sears for love nor money. (I am told they are good for love.) They are the badges of bravery and ability, and are as highly prized as the bronze button of the Grand Army man. As I have remarked, some ambitions are very funny, and if the German students want to be hand-carved in this manner there is no use of a football-, prize-fight-loving nation making any kick.

Heidelberg is a “wet” town. I suppose half the places on the main street are beer-gardens and some of the others are wine-rooms. Everybody in Germany drinks beer and wine. There is this difference between France and Germany: In France the men do most of the drinking as they sit in the sidewalk cafés watching the women go by. In Germany the man brings his wife and children and they all sit around the table in the garden or restaurants and drink beer. They do not seem to get intoxicated. I haven’t seen anyone drunk, although they drink by the wholesale. Beer is high in Heidelberg, up to 2½ cents a quart, but out in the suburbs it is cheaper. I think beer-drinking makes the Germans have bad forms, for men and women get round and fat. But in Germany these forms are considered beautiful, so the sylph-like and the slender are looked down upon. It is an illustration of the fact that it is a good thing we don’t all think alike about such things as personal beauty, or some of us would have to always be away back sitting down.

I have been in Germany a week, and I have not seen a half-dozen men smoking pipes. I thought Germans were great pipe-smokers, but they are not in this part. The Heidelberg pipes are mostly made to sell to Americans and English. The Germans smoke a little the worst cigars I have ever met. They are cheap in price and the Germans consume them in large quantities. The kind the high-class Germans use closely resembles a brand known in our country as “The Pride of the Sewer,” and sells at about two for 5 cents. An American who is accustomed at home to buying “a good nickel cigar” can’t find anything that good in Germany, unless it may be in the big hotels where they cater to American and English trade. I had always had Germans pictured to me as big fat men with long pipes in their mouths, sitting around tables on which were large steins of beer. The beer is here all right, but the men are as bright and energetic as Americans, and they smoke cigars and not pipes.

Another dream gone up in smoke.

It is a great country for castles and “legends.” I think the average yield of legends per acre is larger in Germany than in any other country on earth, especially in the Black Forest and on the Rhine. That is one thing our country is short of—legends. Aside from a few old Indian stories, a tale of woe about the grasshoppers and reminiscences of the Populists, we haven’t anything that approaches the legends which hang on almost every tree in the Black Forest and stick out of every castle-window. And yet Kansas could raise legends as well as Germany, for a legend is nothing but a lie told so often that nobody knows where it started; and Kansas has her share of liars. Here is a sample “legend” from the old castle of Heidelberg which we visited to-day:

A HEIDELBERG LEGEND.

The count of Heidelberg had a beautiful daughter. (They all do—in legends.) Her reputation for beauty went all over Germany and reached the shores of Great Britain. The king of England saw the photograph of the fair lady dressed in her bicycle suit, and instantly fell in love with her. But he did not want the German beauty to marry him for his money and title, so he disguised himself as a cook, got a job in Heidelberg castle and made eyes at the princess. It was a case of two-hearts-that-beat-as-one, and the princess soon began to make dates and meet the supposed cook back of the castle and down on the Neckar. He revealed his real identity to her, but made her promise not to tell. He then went to the old man and asked him for the hand of his daughter. The count laughed at the cook, which made the latter mad and so he blurted out that the maiden loved him. Then the cook skipped out and the count sent for his daughter. She confessed to being in love with the cook, but on account of her promise did not tell his right name. The old count got into an awful rage and ordered his daughter whipped, and the lash was applied so well that the princess died. Before she passed away she told her father who the cook really was, and the count of Heidelberg was truly sorry; but that did no good. A few days later the king of England with an imposing suite arrived to ask the hand of the princess, and when he found out what had happened he took the old man out behind the barn and sliced him up in fine pieces.

There is a song which tells all about this affair, and the music is about as good as the legend.

WORMS AND OTHER THINGS.

WORMS, GERMANY, July 23, 1905.

People do not laugh in Germany when you pronounce the name of this town properly. Say the word as if it were spelled Vorms and give the o the long sound, and you will admit that it is better than the way you used to say it. For many years I have heard of Luther and the Diet of Worms, and being at Heidelberg, only a few miles away, we came here to see Worms, the “Diet,” and to spend Sunday. Four hundred years ago this was quite a town, one of the free cities of the Rhine owing allegiance only to the emperor. It was here that in 1524 Charles V., emperor of Germany, summoned Luther to appear before a congress of princes and imperial electors, and wanted him to fix up a compromise. The emperor of Germany was in a ticklish position. About half of his subjects were loyal to the pope and about half had bolted with Luther. The princes and dukes were divided, and were fighting each other to prove that they were right. The German empire was demoralized with internal dissension and feuds. So Charles thought it would be a smooth thing to get Luther before the august assemblage, induce him to concede some and get the Catholics to concede some, and have a sort of “Missouri compromise.” Luther went to Worms, although he was warned not to do so. As a matter of fact, Luther did not want to separate from the Catholic Church, and his claim was that he wanted to reform it. But after the controversy had continued a few years he kept getting further away, and Charles had made his move too late. Luther laid down certain doctrines which he knew the loyal Catholics could not agree to, and then announced that he took his stand upon them and would not move. The result of the emperor’s effort at peace-making was that each side was a little more infuriated than before, and the war went on.

A hundred years ago Worms had gone down to be a town of only 5,000 inhabitants, but now it has about 40,000 and is a thriving little city. But in spite of the growth and progress in the last century there is still a general air of quaintness and age which makes it very interesting because it is so different. A magnificent monument to Luther is the show feature of the place. On a massive platform ten feet high is the figure of the great reformer, over nine feet high, surrounded by statues of Huss, Savonarola, Wyckliffe and Waldus, and of princes who befriended Luther. A number of German cities are represented by allegorical figures or coats of arms, and the entire group makes an impressive monument and memorial. The palace where Luther met the emperor and princes has been destroyed, but another takes its place and with a right good imagination the tourist can stand where Luther stood, any day between the hours of 11 and 5 o’clock. Strange to say, the town to which Catholics and Protestants came is now controlled by the Jews, who dominate the business interests of Worms as they do those of many other German cities. Worms is on the Rhine river, and the valley of the Rhine is the garden-spot of Germany. Coming over the fertile fields of the Rhine valley is a good deal like riding in the Arkansas valley between Nickerson and Haven, with its rich farms, great orchards and prosperous communities. But in the hundred miles I have traveled along the Rhine I have not seen a reaper or a mower, a sulky rake or any other kind of machinery except a hand-sickle and a hand-rake. I think there are more women at work in the fields than there are men. Perhaps the men are off in the army. Perhaps they are in town drinking beer and talking politics.

Coming from Heidelberg to Worms we had to change trains twice in an hour’s time. Changing trains is no easy job in a foreign country. At Manheim, where the station is as large and as busy as the Union Depot in Kansas City, our incoming train was late and when we arrived our outgoing train was due to leave. With the assistance of a porter I was handling a half-dozen grips and bundles when Mrs. Morgan discovered our train at the other side of the depot. She promptly started across the tracks just as she would at home. I thought there was a revolution or a fire, as a dozen train porters, as many policemen, the station-master and a lot of assistants set up a yell that fairly made the air tremble. The station-master rushed after her, caught up and brought her back, with at least ten men talking vociferously and gesticulating in German. The fact was she had broken the law of the empire. It is not merely violating a railroad rule to cross the track, but it is against the criminal law and punishable by a jail sentence. Of course they didn’t do anything to Americans, but if a German should cross the tracks where it was forbidden they wouldn’t do a thing to him! They actually held that train five minutes after time while we made a circuit of the station to the other side, when we could have sensibly and reasonably have been allowed to cross the track in a half-minute.

Speaking of railroads and the management makes me think of the conductors. I have ridden first-class, second-class and third-class in Germany. When the conductor enters the first-class carriage to see the tickets, he takes off his cap and says in German: “If you please, will you me your tickets show?” When he comes into the second-class carriage he says: “Tickets, if you please,” and when you hand them over he gives them back with a military salute, but keeps his cap on. When he comes into the third-class carriage he simply says: “Tickets!”

When the train starts out of the station the station-master (dressed in a gorgeous uniform) stands on the platform at a salute until the last car passes him. This is a very pretty custom, and I think the station agents at Hutchinson ought to be required to put on their uniforms and salute the trains.

The almost universal custom in Germany is to eat out-of-doors in the summer-time. The hotels have spacious porches or gardens, and there we eat breakfast, dinner, and supper. (They have dinner at noon and supper in the evening in Germany.) There are no flies, and there seems to be but little wind, so you can eat comfortably in the open air and not swallow too much that is not on the bill of fare. It is a sensible and delightful custom. After the evening meal at the hotels or restaurants everybody stays at the table for an hour or so, and there is music by the orchestra or band. The only good feature I can see to the German army is that it provides nearly every city with a fine band which gives concerts frequently. The cities and towns usually support bands, and most of them own theatres and opera-houses. I think we have attended a band concert every evening since we entered Germany, and we could go in the afternoon if we had time.