Part 14

After the line of carriages drove off, the cavalcade formed again, led this time by the crown prince and the Grand Duke of Baden; and they galloped over the course and out of the west gate in a very spirited way, to the great delight of the people, who shouted and cheered most frantically. Is anybody weary of hearing about these distinguished riders? We are a little tired of them ourselves, it must be confessed, goodly sights though they be. But now they are quite gone, and the last remembrance we have of them is the fall of their horses' hoofs, the glittering of metal, and the waving of plumes as they swept through the pretty arched gateway, stately and effective to the last.

The rollicking spirit of the Volksfest at evening, stimulated by unlimited beer, was a wonderful thing to observe. We stayed to see it by lantern-light, in order to be intimately acquainted with its merriest phases, and the noise of it rings in our ears yet, though now the _Fest_ is quite over, the _Volks_ are gone to their homes, the hurly-burly's done.

IN A VINEYARD.

Our milkwoman is a person of importance in her village. This we did not know till recently, though we were quite aware of our good fortune in getting excellent milk and rich cream daily; and we had had occasion to admire her rosy cheeks and broad, solid row of white teeth,--in fact, had already laid a foundation of respect for her, upon which a recent event has induced us to build largely. A very comely, honest woman we always thought her; but when she came smilingly one morning, and invited us, one and all, out to her vineyards, to eat as many grapes as we could, to help gather them if we wished, to see her _Mann_ and all her family, and to investigate the subject of wine-making, we were unanimously convinced her equal was not to be found in any village in Wuertemberg, and the invitation was accepted with enthusiastic acclamations.

We were much edified to learn that the condition of things demanded a certain etiquette. We were to visit people of inferior station, we were told, and, in return for their hospitality, must take unto them gifts. The idea struck us, of course, as highly commendable, and we declared ourselves ready to do the correct thing. But we were quite aghast to learn that a large sausage should be offered to our hostess,--in fact, that this object would be expected by her; that it actually was lurking behind the pretty invitation to come to see her under her own vine and fig-tree. A sudden silence fell upon our little party at the breakfast-table. It really did seem as if something else might more fitly express our grateful appreciation and kind wishes.

One little lady spoke:--

"A horrid sausage! Why can't we take something nice,--cold tongue, and chocolate-cakes with cream in them, for instance?"

"O, yes, _do_," says our German friend, with a sardonic expression. "By all means give our Suabian peasants chocolate-cakes; but then what will they have to _eat_?" she demands, grimly.

"Why, chocolate-cakes, to be sure," says Miss Innocence. With a withering air of half-concealed contempt, the very clever German girl endeavors to present to the mind of the little lady from New York--who lives chiefly on sweets--the reasons why chocolate-cake and the Suabian peasant are, so to speak, incompatible. Among other things, she remarked that he could devour a dozen cakes and be quite unaware that he had eaten anything; that his hard-working day must be sustained by something solid; that the sausage was a support, a solace, a true and tried friend; and, last and strongest argument, he _liked_ sausage better than anything else in the world.

We felt disturbed. There was a great disappointing discrepancy somewhere. Going out to the vineyards, even in anticipation, had a ring of poetry in it, while sausage--is sausage the world over. Nevertheless, to the sausage we succumbed, and a hideous one, as long as your arm and as big, was a carefully guarded member of our party to the vineyard the next day. Fireworks, too, we carried,--why, you will see later; and so, _dona ferentes_, we went out to Untertuerkheim by rail, a ride of fifteen minutes from Stuttgart.

The smile, teeth, and cheeks of our hostess were visible from afar as we drew near the station. She beamed on us warmly, and led us in triumph through the village, which was everywhere a busy, pretty scene; long yellow strings of ears of corn hanging out to dry on nearly every house, and the narrow streets full of the unwonted bustle incident to the vintage-time.

Great vats of grape-juice; wine-presses in active operation, some of which were sensible, improved, modern-looking things, some primitive as can be imagined; the well-to-do people using the modern improvements, while their humbler neighbors employed small boys, who danced a perpetual jig in broad, low tubs placed above the large vats that received the juice. We ascended the little ladders at the side of the vats, to satisfy ourselves as to the kind of feet with which the grapes were being pressed, "the bare white feet of laughing girls" being, of course, the picture before our mind's eye. What we actually saw was, in some cases, a special kind of wooden shoe, and in others ordinary, well-worn leather boots! These solemn small boys in tubs, their heads and shoulders bobbing up and down before our eyes as they energetically stamped and jumped and crushed the yielding mass, filled us with such utter amazement at the time that we forgot to laugh, but they are now an irresistibly comical remembrance. Their intense gravity was remarkable. It would seem as if the ordinary small boy, who can legitimately jump upon _anything_ until all the life is crushed out of it, ought to be happy. Perhaps these were, with a happiness too deep for smiles. And perhaps--which is more likely--it was hard work, and they realized it meant business for their papas, and they must spring and jump with zeal, and there was no play in the matter. One child of ten or so had such a dignified, important air, as he stood at the side of his tub, into which his father was pouring grapes! He looked like an artist conscious of power waiting for his time, knowing that immense results would depend upon his antics. Let me mention with pride that our milkwoman's _Mann_ owns the largest press in the place, and her stalwart, pinky brother works it. So pink a mortal never was seen. He exhibited the mechanism of the press with tolerable clearness, though seriously incommoded by blushes. We thought he would vanish in a flame before our eyes. But, observing he grew pinker each time we addressed him, we wickedly prolonged the interview as long as possible.

Then up the hill we went, through narrow, steep paths, with vineyards on every side of us, in which men, women, and children were working busily. We met constantly long files of young men and maidens, carrying great baskets of grapes down to the village, all of whom gave us a cheery Gruess Gott.

We found the whole family in the vineyard working away busily, filling the huge, long, narrow baskets, which the men carry on their backs by a strap over the shoulders. They welcomed us cordially, and bade us eat as many grapes as we could, which we all with one accord, with great earnestness and simplicity, _did_. If you have never eaten grapes in a vineyard, perhaps you don't know how fastidious and dainty you become, how you take one grape here, one there, select the finest from a cluster, then toss the remainder into the basket. Deliciously cool and fresh, with a wonderful bloom on them, were they, and, together with the crisp autumn air, the busy bare-headed peasants working in all the vineyards as far as we could see, Untertuerkheim lying under the hill, and the little bridge across the narrow Neckar, they filled us with an innocent sort of intoxication. The brilliant Malagas with a touch of flame on them in the sunlight, white ones beyond, and rich black-purple clusters, lured us on. If the amount consumed by the foreign invaders during the first half-hour could be computed, it would seem a fabulous quantity to mention. We would indeed prefer to let it remain in uncertainty, one of those interesting unsolved historical problems about which great minds differ. But it was not in the least matter-of-fact eating; on the contrary, a most refined and elevated feasting upon fruits fit for the gods.

And then we worked, with an energy that won for us the goodman's wondering admiration, until every grape was gathered. Never before had the vines been cleared so fast, said our grateful host. From above and below and everywhere around came the sound of pistols and fireworks, each demonstration indicating that some one had gathered all his grapes. Now was the fitting moment for the presentation of the sausage, which was gracefully transferred from the nook where it was blushing unseen to the hands of our host, and was graciously, even tenderly, received. After which we devoted ourselves to pyrotechnic pursuits, and, this being a novel experience, we all burned our fingers, and nearly destroyed our friend the pinky man by directing, unwittingly, a fiery serpent quite in his face.

Then down, down over the hill through the thread-like paths between the vineyards, through the village in the twilight, where every one is still busy and the small boys still dancing away for dear life, suggesting--like Ichabod Crane, was it not?--"that blessed patron of the dance, St. Vitus," and past the great fountain, with the statue of the Turk grimly rising above half a dozen girls, slowly filling their buckets (you will never know what wise remarks on the "situation" that Turk occasioned), we sauntered along to the station, and presently the train whisked us away from the village and the gloaming and the pretty autumn scene, so real, so merry, so innocent, so healthy, and picturesque. Night and the city lights succeeded the twilight in the village. Our hearts bore pleasant memories and our hands baskets of grapes, given us at the last moment by that excellent and most sagacious person, our milkwoman.

We hope we were not straying from the true fold, but certainly our views on the temperance, or rather the total-abstinence, question were quite lax as we returned to Stuttgart that evening. The water in Germany is often so unpleasant and impure one learns to regard it as an undesirable, not to say noxious and immoral beverage, while the light native wines in contrast seem as innocent as water ought to be. And what is the strictest teetotaler to do when positively ordered by the best physicians not to drink the water here, under penalty of serious consequences in the shape of a variety of disorders? American school-girls, who persist in taking water because the home habit is too strong to be at once broken off, have an amusing way of examining their pretty throats from time to time to see if they are beginning to enlarge, for the _goitre_ is hinted at (whether with reason or not I do not know) as one of the possible evil effects of continued water-drinking in South Germany. It would seem that even the Crusaders would here yield to the stern facts, and at least color the water with the juice of the grapes that grow in their beauty on the hillsides everywhere around. And certainly _we_ may be pardoned for taking an extraordinary interest in this year's vintage; for have we not toiled with our own hands in the vineyards on the Neckar's banks, did we not see with our own eyes _those boots_, and is it not now the fitting time for the spirit of '76 to make our hearts glad?

AMONG FREILIGRATH'S BOOKS.

A poet's study, when he has lain in his grave but one short year, and the character and peculiarities which his presence gave to his surroundings are yet undisturbed, is a sacred spot. In light mood, ready to be agreeably entertained, we went out to pleasant Cannstadt to see Freiligrath's books, and even in crossing the threshold of his library the careless words died on our lips, so strong a personality has the room, so heavy was the atmosphere with associations and memories of a man who had lived and loved and toiled and suffered.

How much rooms have to say for themselves, indeed! How they catch tricks and ways from their occupants! How faultily faultless and repellent are some, how strangely some charm us and appeal to us! This room of Freiligrath's speaks in touching little ways of the man who lived there and loved it, as plainly as a young girl's room tells a sweet, innocent story while the breeze moves its snowy curtains, beneath which in his golden cage a canary trills, and the sunshine steals in on the low chair, the bit of unfinished work, the handful of violets in a glass, the book opened at a favorite poem. The girl is gone, but the room is as warm from her presence as the glove that has just been drawn from her hand. Freiligrath sleeps in the Cannstadt _Friedhof_, where for a thousand years the sturdy little church, with its red roof and square tower, has watched by the silent ones; but his chair is drawn up by the great study-table, the familiar things he loved are as he left them, and his presence is missed even by them who knew him not. It is, perhaps, this air of having been touched by a _loving_ hand, that impresses one especially in the arrangements here,--a corner room, looking north and east, having two windows, through which air and sunshine freely come, and from which the poet used to gaze upon a landscape lovely as a dream; far extended, tranquil, idyllic, in the distance, the Suabian Alps, rising against the horizon beyond long, soft slopes of fertile lands crowned by vineyards, and broad, sunny meadows intersected by lines of the martial poplar; a glimpse of the lovely, wooded heights of the park of the "Wilhelma," that "stately pleasure dome," which King Wilhelm of Wuertemberg decreed, and the Neckar close by, rushing over its dam, and sweeping beneath the picturesque stone bridge with its fine arches, and flowing on past the old mill and quaint gables of Cannstadt to meet the distant Rhine. How Freiligrath must have loved the sound of the water that sang to him ever, night and day, not loud but continuously, soothing him as a cradle-song soothes a weary child, in these latter years at quiet Cannstadt after his life-struggles, and fever, and pain! They say he loved it well, and that he would often rise from his work and stand long by the window, looking out on the singing water and the peaceful landscape, watching it as we watch a loved face that has for us a new, tender grace with every moment.

The room does not look like the abode of a solitary man. The easy-chairs seem accustomed to be drawn near one another for a cosy chat between friends, and the expression of all things is genial, _gemuethlich_. Not a bookworm, not simply a great intellect lost in his own pursuits, forgetting the world outside, but a strong, warm heart throbbing for humanity, must have been the genius of a room like this.

Under his table lies a deerskin rug, a trophy of his son Wolfgang's prowess in the chase. On the walls are pictures of different sizes, irregularly hung in irregular places, and each one seems to say, "I was selected from all others of my kind because Freiligrath loved me." They are mostly heads of his favorite authors and poets, small pictures as a rule,--the one of Schiller sitting by the open vine-clad window,--Goethe, Heine, Uhland, and many more of the chief poets of Germany; Byron, several of Longfellow and the Howitts (dear friends of Freiligrath), Burns, Burns's sons and the Burns Cottage, Goldsmith, Carlyle, Jean Paul; a small colored picture of Walter Scott bending his gentle face over his writing in front of a great stained-glass window in the armory at Abbotsford; a cast of the Shakespeare mask; a few scenes from Soest, a picturesque old town, where Freiligrath was, when a boy, apprenticed to a merchant; a lock of Schiller's hair,--quite red,--with an autograph letter; a lock of Goethe's hair, which is dusky brown, with letters, and an unpublished verse written for a lottery at a fair in Weimar:--

"Manches herrliche der Welt Ist in Krieg and Streit zerronnen; Wer beschuetzet and erhaelt Hat das schoenste Loos gewonnen."

--_Goethe._

_Weimar_, d. 3 Sept. 1826.

Madame Freiligrath was Ida Melos, daughter of Professor Melos of Weimar, and when a child was an especial pet of Goethe. She and her sister tell many pleasant anecdotes of their life there, and of their playfellows, Goethe's grandchildren, with whom they have always been on terms of close intimacy; and of Goethe as a beautiful old man, smiling and throwing bonbons from his window to the group of children at play in the garden below. Mrs. Freiligrath told us she was a tall, mature girl, with a wise, grave look far beyond her years, and they always made her enact Mignon in the _tableaux vivants_. She was so young she did not know what it was all about, but she "remembers she liked wearing the wings." Two gentlewomen, speaking with a tender sadness of their long, eventful lives, telling us of associations with some of the leading spirits of the age, charming in their stories of the past, appreciative of all that is best in the latest literature, they harmonize well with the quiet old house where they graciously dispense their hospitality.

Gently and gravely they showed us the treasures of the library, which probably during the spring will come under the auctioneer's hammer, and be scattered through the world. Seeing it in its completeness,--seven or eight thousand volumes amassed through the skill and patience of a true book-lover, who allowed himself in his frugal life the one luxury of a rich binding now and then, and who had a perfect genius for discovering rare old books hidden away in dusty odd corners in London bookshops, being, in this respect, as his friend Wallesrode says, in a recent article in "Ueber Land and Meer," a real "Sunday child,"--one must regret it cannot be preserved intact, and given as a Freiligrath memorial to some college.

There are first editions here, which on account of their rareness could command from connoisseurs their weight in gold: Schiller's "Robbers," Frankfort and Leipsic, 1781, first edition; the second edition, 1782, and many other early editions of Schiller's works, small, rough, curious-looking, precious books: also, first edition Goethe's "Gotz von Berlichingen," 1773; "Werther," Leipsic, 1774. The German and English classics stand in noble, stately rows, with much of value in Italian, French, and Spanish. The English collection is especially rich, however. There is a "Hudibras," first edition, 1662; "Rasselas," first edition; a "Don Quixote" with Thackeray's autograph on the fly-leaf, written in Trinity College; and there are "Elzevirs" of 1640-47. The ballads, legends, Eastern fairy-tales, and imaginative lore are very attractive. There is a fine selection of works on German, French, English, Scotch, and Irish dialects, in all of which Freiligrath was extremely proficient. How many "Miltons" there are I do not dare say, and the number is not important, since this does not pretend to be an inventory; but there was a whole shelf of them, from the first edition on.

On the library-table lay superb volumes, bound in richest calf,--Beaumont and Fletcher, London, 1679, in folio; Ben Jonson, 1631, folio; Spenser, 1611; Shakespeare, the rare folio of 1685, and many other valuable Shakespeares. If only some one who knows how to love them will buy these books! It seems like sacrilege to imagine them in the hands of the unworthy or careless.

One could spend days, years, in that quiet room, with its subtle influences and suggestions, surrounded by old friends on the shelves, and by books that look as if they would deign to open their hearts to us and become our friends also. And there must one ponder long upon the varied life of the poet and patriot,--how Fate was always putting fetters on his Pegasus, binding him as an apprentice as a boy in Soest, later making him a clerk in a banking-house in Amsterdam, and forcing him again to write at a clerk's desk in London; and how, nevertheless, he sang himself, as some one says of him, into the hearts of the German people. They say he was so loved, and his face so well known through his photographs, that often, upon going through a town where he personally was unknown, the school-children in the streets would recognize him, and instantly begin to sing poems of his that were set to music and sung everywhere throughout Germany, particularly the well-known

_O, lieb, so lang du lieben kannst!_ "O, love, while love is left to thee!"

It is said, too, that once on a steamer, during the Franco-Prussian war, a woman came up to him and suddenly put her arms round his neck and kissed him. "That's for Wolfgang in the field," said she, having a son herself at the front.

And after his struggles for freedom, the persecution he endured because of his political principles and his immense influence upon the people, after his flight into England and long exile, he came back finally, honored and revered, to his native land, and spent his last years in this peaceful abode. He breathed his last, like Goethe, sitting in his chair. The Neckar still sang on, outside the vine-clad window. Within, the poet's voice was hushed forever.

THREE FUNERALS.

Three funeral processions which have lately moved through Stuttgart streets have awakened, on account of peculiar associations connected with each, more attention and interest, more feeling I might perhaps say, than we selfish beings usually accord to these mournful black trains that mean _other_ people's sorrows.

Of these three, the first was the train that bore the Herzog Eugen of Wuertemberg to his last resting-place. Young, popular, after Prinz Wilhelm presumptive heir to the throne; the husband of the Princess Vera,--who is the niece and adopted daughter of the queen, and according to report a very lovable person,--he had apparently enough to make life sweet at the moment he was called from it. Recently he went to Duesseldorf to take command of a regiment there. The Princess Vera remained at the Residenz in Stuttgart, but was intending to join him immediately. A slight cold neglected,--a rich banquet followed by night-air,--and suddenly all was over. He died after an illness of a day or two, while the princess, summoned by a telegram, was on the train half-way between Stuttgart and Duesseldorf.

The air is full of fables, and the common people "make great eyes" when they speak of the poor duke, and dark hints of foul play, poison, enemies, cabals, perfidy, delight all good souls with a taste for the sensational. They, however, who have the slightest ground for _knowing_ anything about the matter, and, indeed, all rational people, declare it was simply a cold, inflammation, congestion, such as makes havoc among frail mortal flesh, and never draws any distinction in favor of blood royal.