Chapter 4

"Ja Wohl! Frau Rittergutsbesitzer. I have lived in the Herr Professor's house for five-and-thirty years. I have pickled his cabbage and preserved his fruit. I have minced with my own hand the pork for his sausages before they had mincing-machines in Schleswig-Holstein. I have seen personally to the smoking of his hams and fish. I make his Apfelkuchen and Nusskuchen myself, and do not buy them in the shop, like that lazy Hausfrau opposite us at No 2, who comes from that God-forgotten country England, where all the women are so badly brought up. I grant you that what I do is no more than the duty of every God-fearing German _Haushälterin_; none the less, I do not mean all my work to go for nothing, and I will not be ousted by a hussy! In the time of the _vielbedauerten_ mother (Frau Regierungsrat Lenbach) I had no worries about his matrimonial affairs; she looked after those. But _sieh mal_, Frau Riedel, now the care of him is on my shoulders. He has no more idea of taking care of himself than a baby! He is exactly like that learned man--I think it was our great Neander--who was running out of his college one day and ran into a cow; so he pulled off his hat and said, '_Gnädige Frau, ich bitte um Verzeihung_' ('Gracious lady, I beg your pardon'), and went on; and the week after he came tearing round the same corner, thinking, I suppose, of those heathen gods and goddesses whose pictures shame a modest woman to look at, and he ran up against a lady, so he cried out: '_Oh! du dumme Kuh! warum kommst du mir immer in den Weg?_' ('Oh, you stupid cow, why will you always get in my way?') Yes, my Herr Professor is just like that--quite as stupid, though they call him so wise and clever; and what chance has a born innocent like he is against a designing spinster of forty-five who makes him presents of _Weihnachtstollen_ at Christmas, _Oster-Eier_ at Easter, and _Geburtstagstorte_ on his birthday? I ask you what chance of escape a poor _Junggeselle_ has?

"Told him she wanted to marry him! Not I. Why, _liebe Frau_, I have not lived sixty-five and a half years in this world for nothing! If I let him suppose she was in love with him, that would be the very way to make him like her. So as I laid the cloth for the Herr Professor's _Abendtisch_, I remarked casually that Fräulein Bettine Meyer was not at all a bad sort of woman really, and that she had some excellent qualities, if only she did not make herself so ridiculous. 'How ridiculous?' says he, sitting up. 'What does she do ridiculous, I should like to know?' 'Why, wears a false front and curls bought at Frau Kölsch's shop,' says I. 'Poor thing, she can't make herself look young and beautiful, whatever she does, and Frau Rittmeister Bernstorf was laughing at her the other day, and at the high heels and at the stuffing the _Schneiderin_ round the corner puts into her gowns to cover the angular bones! She would look much more respectable,' said I, 'if she would brush her scanty grey locks back, and smooth them with pomatum as I do, and wear a black lace _Mütze_ over them, instead of making herself the laughing-stock of Schleswig.' And away I walked. And the Professor ate no supper that night, and next day he left for his _Ferienausflug_, and never called to say good-bye to Fräulein Meyer; and so I put the extinguisher on that little candle just as its flame was beginning to burn up, and--why! here we are at Mainz."

And this is what I heard, and how I was entertained, in the "elektrische Bahn" on my little expedition from Wiesbaden to Mainz. I reflected, as I saw the Haushälterin get down heavily with all the deliberation of her sixty-five and a half years, that feline amenities are much the same in Germany as in England; and I felt sorry for poor Fräulein Meyer, who might have given up her small vanities and made pancakes and _Apfelkuchen_ for the Professor quite as well in the end as the Haushälterin.

The cathedral of Mainz was, of course, the object of our expedition. It dominates the city from afar, with its wonderful towers and pinnacles, making of Mainz (a commonplace city enough) a thing of beauty. From the shores of the Rhine we crossed a wide street planted with trees and lined on each hand with modern German houses of pinkish stone (covered with heavy sculpture and breaking out into countless balconies and bay windows), and soon found ourselves in the market-place. And here, indeed, one felt oneself in the Germany of bygone days. Instead of pseudo-classic buildings, heavy with meaningless ornamentation, we found beautiful old timber-framed houses, with deep eaves and wood carvings. On one of these I read:

Zum Kurfürstlichen Wappen. Erneuert in Jahr des Heils 1899.

It was evidently a Gasthaus of considerable antiquity, and had been carefully restored. Close by a Brobdingnagian finger lured the unwary to where it pointed--a low doorway above which was inscribed the legend: "_Hier essen Sie gut_." The market-place had been dismantled of its stalls and umbrellas all but one, which was being furled as we arrived on the scene. A couple of men in blue smocks were sweeping up the cabbage leaves, straw and refuse, market carts were driving off, and smart-looking officers in beautiful uniforms strolled across what we English miscall "a square" for want of a better word.

But to get a good view of the exterior of the cathedral was what we wanted, and to this end we dived down strange, evil-smelling alleys, and went round and round a labyrinth of streets, always expecting to see, and never arriving at, the cathedral's façade. At last we realised that the quest was hopeless, since the building is so surrounded and deformed by commonplace, ugly houses that nothing of it but roof and towers can be seen from outside. We entered it at last by a narrow lane between poor, ugly houses, an unfit approach indeed to this beautiful Romanesque cathedral--one of the four famous Romanesque Gothic cathedrals of Germany. The general effect of the interior is that of strength, solidity, and simplicity. The grand structural lines are noble and pure. There is an entire absence of the florid in architecture, and no attempt at all at decoration as one understands it in Spanish cathedrals. The tone of the walls and floor is a pinkish brown, and the whole church has a warm glowing effect from its richly-coloured stone. I could have spared most, if not all, of the overladen rococo monuments to the Electors of Mainz, with their monstrous records of impossible perfections; but my companion (a German lady) thought them beautiful. The whole church struck one as rather ill-kept; perhaps the red stone floor had something to do with it. Dust and mud do not adhere somehow to an opus Alexandrinum pavement. A guide appeared to offer his services, almost obsequiously polite in his attentions to the English lady. Whatever their opinions may be as to our failings and vices, our shortcomings and our iniquities, most Germans are civil to us nowadays.[3] They hate us cordially, envy us sincerely, attack us in the press and out of it, and are insanely jealous of the people they affect to despise. But while the superficial _entente_ lasts, they smile and bow and are outwardly polite. I asked an English lady, the widow of a German official, if her husband, having married an English wife, did not cherish kindlier sentiments towards us than the majority of his countrymen. "He died during the Boer war," she said, "and he died in the sure and certain hope that England was done for."

[Footnote 3: This was written before the war.]

Apart from the Domkirche, there is little to see in Mainz, although the city is of great antiquity, having been founded by Drusus. It is a strongly fortified place, and stood once upon a time a memorable siege. There are pleasant walks by the Rhine, beautiful Anlagen, a picturesque old tower, and the site of Gutenberg's house to see. The Grand Ducal Palace once sheltered Napoleon the First, as did many another palace in Germany. The present Grand Duke prefers his palace in Darmstadt, the Neue Palais (built by Queen Victoria for Princess Alice), and comes little to the ancient city of bygone Electors.

We have fallen into German ways--alarming thought!--and become unquestionably alive to the virtues of cafés and Restaurations as a wind-up to a day's expedition. At Mainz we discovered a café close to the theatre, and sipped coffee and ate _Streuselkuchen_ out of doors in the shadow of the cathedral and Gutenberg's statue. A pleasant-faced Gretchen brought us miniature Mont Blancs of whipped cream on small glass plates, and loitered near us ostensibly rearranging a table, but in reality studying our gowns and hats. Before we paid our Rechnung, the Haushälterin and Frau Rittergutsbesitzer turned up hot and rather cross, having spent their time since we parted in futile attempts to match Schleswig-Holstein ribbons with those of the sunny Rhineland.

SCHLANGENBAD.

GREEN HILLS AND BLUE WATERS.

Schlangenbad, although a charmingly pretty spot, is not one to fascinate a painter. The landscape is unvaryingly green, and that green is too monotonous in tone for effect in a picture. Moreover, it lies shut in by hills, and there is no distant horizon to give the value of foreground and middle distance. But less critical eyes find much to admire in Schlangenbad. The great wide road leading to it from Eltville testifies to its former popularity in the days of family coaches and postilions. Nowadays an ugly steam tram transports the traveller from the Rhine to the "Serpent's Bath," and nearly poisons and chokes him _en route_ with the horrible smoke it emits. Half of the tram is open to the air at the sides, like a char-a-banc; and when we travelled by it a little party of Germans were enjoying an _Ausflug_, each man with one eye cocked on the scenery and the other on the look-out for a _Bier-garten_.

Next to me sat a student, whose face was so slashed and gashed that it reminded one of "Amtshauptmann Weber" (in Reuter's delightful book), whose "face looked as if he had sat down upon it on a cane-bottomed chair." Opposite the student was a middle-aged fat "Assessor," with a small girl in long frilled drawers and short petticoats; and on the other side of the gangway were two homely-looking women in lead-coloured garments. As we passed through Altdorf the child drew her father's attention to a fat goose which waddled away as the tram approached. "_Sieh mal, Vater_," said she, "_die schöne Gans_." ("Look, father, at the beautiful goose.") "O! _die Gans_," said her practical and prosaic parent, "_wird viel schöner sein, mein Kind, wenn sie gebraten ist_." ("The goose will be much more beautiful, my child, when it is roast.") "And has an accompaniment of sage-stuffing and apple-sauce," I added, to which he in all serious conviction bowed an assent.

The valley up which we journeyed was green and pleasant. There were no walls or fences on either side of the road, but trees shaded the wayfarer, and his outlook on gardens, bean-poles, orchards, and vines was agreeable enough. If he chose to look further afield a silvery streak called the Rhine was visible, and beyond that again low blue hills stretched away until their cobalt and that of the sky got mixed on the palette of Nature. From this valley comes the famous Rauen-thaler wine. Most of the hills, indeed, are covered with vines, and the village houses showed grapes hanging from their eaves and peeping in at their windows.

At Neudorf we paused to pick up a _Barmherzige Schwester_; and as our halt was exactly in front of the village shop I amused myself by making a mental inventory of its contents. The window--an ordinary one--had wooden shelves nailed across it; and on these were displayed soap, slates and slate-pencils, bottles of peppermint lozenges, hearthstone, flannel, lemon-drops, gingham, sausages, and gingerbread.

The houses of the village were covered with rough stucco, and white or yellow-wash was swished liberally over them. Under their deep eaves an occasional small image of _Die Mutter Gottes_ was to be seen. Many were covered with grape-vines, and all had clean muslin blinds at their windows, and often pots of geraniums and fuchsias outside. Sunflowers, dahlias, and roses grew in the little patches of garden by the road; and all was charming and primitive, save for the discordant electric fittings which hung midway on the telegraph-posts, and the anomaly of a brand new brick _Brod-fabrik_ just outside the village.

All the way up the "cane-bottomed chair" and the "Assessor" smoked stolidly, while their women-folk cackled like human geese. "_Wie schön!_" "_Colossal!_" "_Entzückend!_" "_Reizend!_" Nothing but incessant and weary adjectives! I turned with relief to the "Barmherzige Schwester," a prim and silent little figure in neat blue cotton gown, black apron, and white kerchief pinned over her shining hair.

The tram stopped at last before the village church, and we all got out. To our left, as we faced the Kurhaus, straggled a long line of houses with deep verandahs and balconies, to our right shady walks and bath-houses and beautiful woods. Here and there amid the hotels and villas was a shop, and we knew that Schlangenbad marched with the times when we saw the word "_Schamponieren_" and a bunch of Empire curls exhibited as a modern trophy. We stopped at a shop and examined its wares, which, indeed, hung chiefly on the shutters. There were Swiss embroidered gowns and blouses to be bought, edelweiss penwipers, wooden paper-cutters, and clocks with chamois climbing wooden rocks. Nothing apparently in that shop had been "made in Germany." When we reached the verandah of the "Nassauer Hof" we were gladdened by bows from the "Assessor" and the student, who with the "cackling geese" were seated at a long table consuming piles of Apfelkuchen, Streuselkuchen, and Napfkuchen to an accompaniment of steaming coffee.

As for dull, useful information Schlangenbad, of course, was known to the Romans, and they bathed in its waters. The Middle Ages seem to have neglected Spas generally, and to have been dead to the joys of a bath. At all events, nothing more was heard about Schlangenbad or its springs until in 1687 a wooden hut was put over what was known as the "Römer Bad." Next the Landgraf of Hesse awoke to the virtues of its waters, and caused the "Oberes Kurhaus" to be built. Five years later, the "Nassauer Hof" was erected, and a time of prosperity and fashion set in for Schlangenbad. The waters have always had a great reputation for beautifying the skin and healing wounds and sores. It is on record that Frederick the First of Sweden ordered four thousand bottles of Schlangenbad water a year as _eau de toilette_, and another and still vainer sovereign three hundred a week. After this who shall dare say that women have the monopoly of vanity?

Besides embellishing, the Schlangenbad waters are good in nervous disorders, rheumatism, and asthma. They are of an exquisite light-blue colour, and when bathing in them one's limbs have the appearance of marble. That the Schlangenbad people think highly of their "cure" is obvious. I bought a map of the district (manufactured in the place) and found the word Schlangenbad printed in huge letters, while the neighbouring town of Wiesbaden was in such small ones that it looked as if scarcely worth mentioning at all.

LIEBENSTEIN.

Here in the Thuringian Forest, aloof from the stir and roar of life, lies a Kur-Ort little known to the English world. Its waters are analogous to those of Schwalbach, its air is as pure, its scenery more beautiful, and its prices half those of the Taunus Wald. Its people still retain their primitive charm, unspoilt as yet by the potentialities of South African or American money-bags. Within easy reach of such interesting towns as Eisenach, Weimar, Erfurt, Gotha, and Coburg, it offers many alluring baits to the sightseer; yet to the coming and going of tourists is it altogether unaccustomed. Liebenstein lies in a green and beautiful valley, and the hills which surround it are covered for the most part with great black forests. Patches of wheat and rye vibrate in the winds which sweep up the valleys, and the fields of potatoes alternate on the low grounds with pasturage and orchards. Under the great limestone rocks, which near Liebenstein rise sheer out of the plain, nestle charming villages, and long avenues of poplars conduct you where you would go along the high roads. By the roadside a wealth of flowers is yours for the picking--wild thyme and asparagus and mallow, periwinkles, and the picturesque dock and crowfoot. The woods are starred with flowers, and the perfume of the pines is a revelation.

The humbler houses of Liebenstein (for the greater part timber-framed and red-tiled) straggle up the immediate hills which surround it. Those of more pretention and inevitable ugliness range themselves decently and in order along two parallel roads. Aloof as this village is from "the madding crowd's ignoble strife," it has yet been touched to its undoing by the ruthless finger of conventionality. The inevitable Kur-Haus and bandstand and Anlagen are here; worst of all, a Trink-Halle! The Trink-Halle stands a mute and awful warning to the vaulting ambition which overleaps itself, since a classic temple in the heart of Liebenstein is surely as much out of place as a tiara would be on the head of the peasant woman who hands you your daily portion of Stahlwasser. Even the spring it originally sheltered has revolted against its sham marble pillars and grotesque entablature, and betaken itself elsewhere! Nowadays the paint and plaster are peeling off the columns, and its door is padlocked. Happily--although a melancholy warning to the educated--it remains a source of pride to the peasant, who loves his shabby temple as the Romans do the marble glories of their Vesta.

Immediately behind the temple are the springs of Georg and Kasimir, at which stand two charming maidens ready to fill your glasses. No conventional and hideous hat or bonnet disfigures the neat outline of their heads. No travesty of Berlin or Paris fashion burlesques their sturdy figures. Theirs the traditional costume of the Thuringian female peasant--a dark skirt, and white, short-sleeved chemisette, a blue apron and the daintiest of white silk kerchiefs, fringed sparsely and brocaded abundantly with red roses. Albeit their arms are red and coarse with the combined effect of iron-water, hot sun, and exposure to the air, their faces make ample amends in their innocent, good-tempered comeliness. They greet you with a kindly "Guten Tag" or "Guten Abend," and, in the case of a lady, seldom omit the pretty "Gnädige Frau," for which our "Ma'am" is but a poor correlative.

Wandering through the streets of Liebenstein, one is struck by the intensely picturesque sights of its older and original part. The little houses are timber-framed and whitewashed, with deep projecting eaves and often many gables. Their windows are made gay outside by boxes filled with geraniums, nasturtiums, and fuchsias. Beneath the windows lie small gardens, in which bloom roses and single dahlias, while scarlet runners send their tendrils climbing over the palings which separate road and garden. Many of the little houses have projecting signs, on which one reads such legends as "_Tabak, Cigarren, Cigaretten_;" "Adolf Schmidt, _Herren kleidermacher_;" "_Weinhandlung Naturreinheit garantirt_;" or the very indispensable "_Bäckerei_." One house bears a tablet announcing to an admiring world that "_Herzoglich. Sachsen-Meiningen Stadtesbeamter_" lives within. Cocks and hens, dogs and children, make common playground of these narrow streets, and one sees in them pretty well every form of animal life represented, except horses. Now a long cart, drawn by oxen and well filled, toils up the hill, and not long after follows one drawn by a big dog. At a pump two tiny girls are busily employed filling stone jars, which by the beauty and purity of their outlines might have been Etruscan. Mothers beat mats at their cottage doors, and shrilly scream at their children to get out of the way of the passing carts; and the world in this remote village goes on pretty much as it does elsewhere.

But the fashionable life of Liebenstein does not concern itself with such mean sights and bucolic sounds as oxen-carts and crowing of cocks. It takes its pleasure up and down the long avenues of beech trees which lie between the Kur-Haus and the Hôtel Bellevue. It rallies round the bandstand, and makes great show of studying the programmes of the daily concert. It chatters glibly over the previous evening's illuminations, and describes them as "_colossal!_" and "_wunderschön_." Beauty is not in vogue at Liebenstein, judging by the middle-class Kur guests who haunt the shade of the beech trees. Indeed, if anywhere in the world an Englishman might be forgiven for thanking God that he is not as other men are, it would be here among the "_Ober-Lieutenants_" and "Herr Professors" and their mates. Figures, both male and female, seem to be of the switchback order--faces rudimentary in their modelling, and uncompromising in their plainness, dressing of the ugliest. Yet, _Gott sei Dank!_ Hans thinks his Gretchen perfection, and it would never enter into innocent Gretchen's head, as it does mine, to bestow upon Hans the carping criticism of Portia upon Monsieur Le Bon: "God made him, and therefore let him pass for a man."

TRÈVES

The dominant glory of the Moselle region is Trèves. No town or city near has the smallest affinity with its peculiar character, and all seem modern and prosaic compared with its well-preserved tale of antiquity. "Nowhere north of the Alps," we are told in weary iteration, "exist such magnificent Roman remains." It is generally on the obvious that the unimaginative English parson takes upon himself to comment. We listen submissively to much school-book lore as to "Claudius" and the "fourth century" and the "residence of Roman Emperors," but when it rains Bishops and Archbishops and Electors we fly before them. For, after all, what signifies the paltry learning of a dry-as-dust dominie compared with the vivid tales these grand old ruins tell if suffered to speak for themselves? In Trèves people need to absorb silently, and then assimilate undisturbed by weary chatter. One looks at the tender turquoise sky, flecked with luminous clouds; at the fine horizontal distance, with its sense of breadth and breathing-space; at the low hills covered with vines; at the cornfields, and orchards, and river--and we wonder what the old Romans thought of it all, and reflect on the strangeness of life that a people so remote from our times should have lived and loved and died, as we live and love and die to-day. Whether Trèves lie on the right or left bank of the Moselle is immaterial except to the tiresomely precise or to those who pin their faith to guide-books and such shallow teachers. There is a more valuable lesson to be learnt of the place than that of its exact situation; and no Baedeker or Murray can help you to appreciate Trèves as quiet communings with your own intelligence will. If it so happens that you have none to commune with, then God help you--and yours!