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diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6833f05 --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,3 @@ +* text=auto +*.txt text +*.md text diff --git a/3373.txt b/3373.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..2ca8635 --- /dev/null +++ b/3373.txt @@ -0,0 +1,7175 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of Their Silver Wedding Journey, Part III. +by William Dean Howells + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: Their Silver Wedding Journey, Part III. + +Author: William Dean Howells + +Release Date: October 23, 2004 [EBook #3373] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THEIR SILVER WEDDING *** + + + + +Produced by David Widger + + + + + +THEIR SILVER WEDDING JOURNEY + + +By William Dean Howells + + + +PART III. + + +XLVIII. + +At the first station where the train stopped, a young German bowed +himself into the compartment with the Marches, and so visibly resisted an +impulse to smoke that March begged him to light his cigarette. In the +talk which this friendly overture led to between them he explained that +he was a railway architect, employed by the government on that line of +road, and was travelling officially. March spoke of Nuremberg; he owned +the sort of surfeit he had suffered from its excessive mediaevalism, and +the young man said it was part of the new imperial patriotism to cherish +the Gothic throughout Germany; no other sort of architecture was +permitted in Nuremberg. But they would find enough classicism at Ansbach, +he promised them, and he entered with sympathetic intelligence into their +wish to see this former capital when March told him they were going to +stop there, in hopes of something typical of the old disjointed Germany +of the petty principalities, the little paternal despotisms now extinct. + +As they talked on, partly in German and partly in English, their purpose +in visiting Ansbach appeared to the Marches more meditated than it was. +In fact it was somewhat accidental; Ansbach was near Nuremberg; it was +not much out of the way to Holland. They took more and more credit to +themselves for a reasoned and definite motive, in the light of their +companion's enthusiasm for the place, and its charm began for them with +the drive from the station through streets whose sentiment was both +Italian and French, and where there was a yellowish cast in the gray of +the architecture which was almost Mantuan. They rested their +sensibilities, so bruised and fretted by Gothic angles and points, +against the smooth surfaces of the prevailing classicistic facades of the +houses as they passed, and when they arrived at their hotel, an old +mansion of Versailles type, fronting on a long irregular square planted +with pollard sycamores, they said that it might as well have been Lucca. + +The archway and stairway of the hotel were draped with the Bavarian +colors, and they were obscurely flattered to learn that Prince Leopold, +the brother of the Prince-Regent of the kingdom, had taken rooms there, +on his way to the manoeuvres at Nuremberg, and was momently expected with +his suite. They realized that they were not of the princely party, +however, when they were told that he had sole possession of the +dining-room, and they went out to another hotel, and had their supper in +keeping delightfully native. People seemed to come there to write their +letters and make up their accounts, as well as to eat their suppers; they +called for stationery like characters in old comedy, and the clatter of +crockery and the scratching of pens went on together; and fortune offered +the Marches a delicate reparation for their exclusion from their own +hotel in the cold popular reception of the prince which they got back +just in time to witness. A very small group of people, mostly women and +boys, had gathered to see him arrive, but there was no cheering or any +sign of public interest. Perhaps he personally merited none; he looked a +dull, sad man, with his plain, stubbed features; and after he had mounted +to his apartment, the officers of his staff stood quite across the +landing, and barred the passage of the Americans, ignoring even Mrs. +March's presence, as they talked together. + +"Well, my dear," said her husband, "here you have it at last. This is +what you've been living for, ever since we came to Germany. It's a great +moment." + +"Yes. What are you going to do?" + +"Who? I? Oh, nothing! This is your affair; it's for you to act." + +If she had been young, she might have withered them with a glance; she +doubted now if her dim eyes would have any such power; but she advanced +steadily upon them, and then the officers seemed aware of her, and stood +aside. + +March always insisted that they stood aside apologetically, but she held +as firmly that they stood aside impertinently, or at least indifferently, +and that the insult to her American womanhood was perfectly ideal. It is +true that nothing of the kind happened again during their stay at the +hotel; the prince's officers were afterwards about in the corridors and +on the stairs, but they offered no shadow of obstruction to her going and +coming, and the landlord himself was not so preoccupied with his +highhotes but he had time to express his grief that she had been obliged +to go out for supper. + +They satisfied the passion for the little obsolete capital which had been +growing upon them by strolling past the old Resident at an hour so +favorable for a first impression. It loomed in the gathering dusk even +vaster than it was, and it was really vast enough for the pride of a King +of France, much more a Margrave of Ansbach. Time had blackened and +blotched its coarse limestone walls to one complexion with the statues +swelling and strutting in the figure of Roman legionaries before it, and +standing out against the evening sky along its balustraded roof, and had +softened to the right tint the stretch of half a dozen houses with +mansard roofs and renaissance facades obsequiously in keeping with the +Versailles ideal of a Resident. In the rear, and elsewhere at fit +distance from its courts, a native architecture prevailed; and at no +great remove the Marches found themselves in a simple German town again. +There they stumbled upon a little bookseller's shop blinking in a quiet +corner, and bought three or four guides and small histories of Ansbach, +which they carried home, and studied between drowsing and waking. The +wonderful German syntax seems at its most enigmatical in this sort of +literature, and sometimes they lost themselves in its labyrinths +completely, and only made their way perilously out with the help of +cumulative declensions, past articles and adjectives blindly seeking +their nouns, to long-procrastinated verbs dancing like swamp-fires in the +distance. They emerged a little less ignorant than they went in, and +better qualified than they would otherwise have been for their second +visit to the Schloss, which they paid early the next morning. + +They were so early, indeed, that when they mounted from the great inner +court, much too big for Ansbach, if not for the building, and rung the +custodian's bell, a smiling maid who let them into an ante-room, where +she kept on picking over vegetables for her dinner, said the custodian +was busy, and could not be seen till ten o'clock. She seemed, in her nook +of the pretentious pile, as innocently unconscious of its history as any +hen-sparrow who had built her nest in some coign of its architecture; and +her friendly, peaceful domesticity remained a wholesome human background +to the tragedies and comedies of the past, and held them in a picturesque +relief in which they were alike tolerable and even charming. + +The history of Ansbach strikes its roots in the soil of fable, and above +ground is a gnarled and twisted growth of good and bad from the time of +the Great Charles to the time of the Great Frederick. Between these times +she had her various rulers, ecclesiastical and secular, in various forms +of vassalage to the empire; but for nearly four centuries her sovereignty +was in the hands of the margraves, who reigned in a constantly increasing +splendor till the last sold her outright to the King of Prussia in 1791, +and went to live in England on the proceeds. She had taken her part in +the miseries and glories of the wars that desolated Germany, but after +the Reformation, when she turned from the ancient faith to which she owed +her cloistered origin under St. Gumpertus, her people had peace except +when their last prince sold them to fight the battles of others. It is in +this last transaction that her history, almost in the moment when she +ceased to have a history of her own, links to that of the modern world, +and that it came home to the Marches in their national character; for two +thousand of those poor Ansbach mercenaries were bought up by England and +sent to put down a rebellion in her American colonies. + +Humanly, they were more concerned for the Last Margrave, because of +certain qualities which made him the Best Margrave, in spite of the +defects of his qualities. He was the son of the Wild Margrave, equally +known in the Ansbach annals, who may not have been the Worst Margrave, +but who had certainly a bad trick of putting his subjects to death +without trial, and in cases where there was special haste, with his own +hand. He sent his son to the university at Utrecht because he believed +that the republican influences in Holland would be wholesome for him, and +then he sent him to travel in Italy; but when the boy came home looking +frail and sick, the Wild Margrave charged his official travelling +companion with neglect, and had the unhappy Hofrath Meyer hanged without +process for this crime. One of the gentlemen of his realm, for a +pasquinade on the Margrave, was brought to the scaffold; he had, at +various times, twenty-two of his soldiers shot with arrows and bullets or +hanged for desertion, besides many whose penalties his clemency commuted +to the loss of an ear or a nose; a Hungarian who killed his hunting-dog, +he had broken alive on the wheel. A soldier's wife was hanged for +complicity in a case of desertion; a young soldier who eloped with the +girl he loved was brought to Ansbach from a neighboring town, and hanged +with her on the same gallows. A sentry at the door of one of the +Margrave's castles amiably complied with the Margrave's request to let +him take his gun for a moment, on the pretence of wishing to look at it. +For this breach of discipline the prince covered him with abuse and gave +him over to his hussars, who bound him to a horse's tail and dragged him +through the streets; he died of his injuries. The kennel-master who had +charge of the Margrave's dogs was accused of neglecting them: without +further inquiry the Margrave rode to the man's house and shot him down on +his own threshold. A shepherd who met the Margrave on a shying horse did +not get his flock out of the way quickly enough; the Margrave demanded +the pistols of a gentleman in his company, but he answered that they were +not loaded, and the shepherd's life was saved. As they returned home the +gentleman fired them off. "What does that mean?" cried the Margrave, +furiously. "It means, gracious lord, that you will sleep sweeter tonight, +for not having heard my pistols an hour sooner." + +From this it appears that the gracious lord had his moments of regret; +but perhaps it is not altogether strange that when he died, the whole +population "stormed through the streets to meet his funeral train, not in +awe-stricken silence to meditate on the fall of human grandeur, but to +unite in an eager tumult of rejoicing, as if some cruel brigand who had +long held the city in terror were delivered over to them bound and in +chains." For nearly thirty years this blood-stained miscreant had reigned +over his hapless people in a sovereign plenitude of power, which by the +theory of German imperialism in our day is still a divine right. + +They called him the Wild Margrave, in their instinctive revolt from the +belief that any man not untamably savage could be guilty of his +atrocities; and they called his son the Last Margrave, with a touch of +the poetry which perhaps records a regret for their extinction as a +state. He did not harry them as his father had done; his mild rule was +the effect partly of the indifference and distaste for his country bred, +by his long sojourns abroad; but doubtless also it was the effect of a +kindly nature. Even in the matter of selling a few thousands of them to +fight the battles of a bad cause on the other side of the world, he had +the best of motives, and faithfully applied the proceeds to the payment +of the state debt and the embellishment of the capital. + +His mother was a younger sister of Frederick the Great, and was so +constantly at war with her husband that probably she had nothing to do +with the marriage which the Wild Margrave forced upon their son. Love +certainly had nothing to do with it, and the Last Margrave early escaped +from it to the society of Mlle. Clairon, the great French tragedienne, +whom he met in Paris, and whom he persuaded to come and make her home +with him in Ansbach. She lived there seventeen years, and though always +an alien, she bore herself with kindness to all classes, and is still +remembered there by the roll of butter which calls itself a Klarungswecke +in its imperfect French. + +No roll of butter records in faltering accents the name of the brilliant +and disdainful English lady who replaced this poor tragic muse in the +Margrave's heart, though the lady herself lived to be the last Margravine +of Ansbach, where everybody seems to have hated her with a passion which +she doubtless knew how to return. She was the daughter of the Earl of +Berkeley, and the wife of Lord Craven, a sufficiently unfaithful and +unworthy nobleman by her account, from whom she was living apart when the +Margrave asked her to his capital. There she set herself to oust Mlle. +Clairon with sneers and jests for the theatrical style which the actress +could not outlive. Lady Craven said she was sure Clairon's nightcap must +be a crown of gilt paper; and when Clairon threatened to kill herself, +and the Margrave was alarmed, "You forget," said Lady Craven, "that +actresses only stab themselves under their sleeves." + +She drove Clairon from Ansbach, and the great tragedienne returned to +Paris, where she remained true to her false friend, and from time to time +wrote him letters full of magnanimous counsel and generous tenderness. +But she could not have been so good company as Lady Craven, who was a +very gifted person, and knew how to compose songs and sing them, and +write comedies and play them, and who could keep the Margrave amused in +many ways. When his loveless and childless wife died he married the +English woman, but he grew more and more weary of his dull little court +and his dull little country, and after a while, considering the uncertain +tenure sovereigns had of their heads since the French King had lost his, +and the fact that he had no heirs to follow him in his principality, he +resolved to cede it for a certain sum to Prussia. To this end his new +wife's urgence was perhaps not wanting. They went to England, where she +outlived him ten years, and wrote her memoirs. + +The custodian of the Schloss came at last, and the Marches saw instantly +that he was worth waiting for. He was as vainglorious of the palace as +any grand-monarching margrave of them all. He could not have been more +personally superb in showing their different effigies if they had been +his own family portraits, and he would not spare the strangers a single +splendor of the twenty vast, handsome, tiresome, Versailles-like rooms he +led them through. The rooms were fatiguing physically, but so poignantly +interesting that Mrs. March would not have missed, though she perished of +her pleasure, one of the things she saw. She had for once a surfeit of +highhoting in the pictures, the porcelains, the thrones and canopies, the +tapestries, the historical associations with the margraves and their +marriages, with the Great Frederick and the Great Napoleon. The Great +Napoleon's man Bernadotte made the Schloss his headquarters when he +occupied Ansbach after Austerlitz, and here he completed his arrangements +for taking her bargain from Prussia and handing it over to Bavaria, with +whom it still remains. Twice the Great Frederick had sojourned in the +palace; visiting his sister Louise, the wife of the Wild Margrave, and +more than once it had welcomed her next neighbor and sister Wilhelmina, +the Margravine of Baireuth, whose autobiographic voice, piercingly +plaintive and reproachful, seemed to quiver in the air. Here, oddly +enough, the spell of the Wild Margrave weakened in the presence of his +portrait, which signally failed to justify his fame of furious tyrant. +That seems, indeed, to have been rather the popular and historical +conception of him than the impression he made upon his exalted +contemporaries. The Margravine of Baireuth at any rate could so far +excuse her poor blood-stained brother-in-law as to say: "The Margrave of +Ansbach . . . was a young prince who had been very badly educated. He +continually ill-treated my sister; they led the life of cat and dog. My +sister, it is true, was sometimes in fault . . . . Her education had been +very bad. . . She was married at fourteen." + +At parting, the custodian told the Marches that he would easily have +known them for Americans by the handsome fee they gave him; they came +away flown with his praise; and their national vanity was again flattered +when they got out into the principal square of Ansbach. There, in a +bookseller's window, they found among the pamphlets teaching different +languages without a master, one devoted to the Amerikanische Sprache as +distinguished from the Englische Sprache. That there could be no mistake, +the cover was printed with colors in a German ideal of the star-spangled +banner; and March said he always knew that we had a language of our own, +and that now he was going in to buy that pamphlet and find out what it +was like. He asked the young shop-woman how it differed from English, +which she spoke fairly well from having lived eight years in Chicago. She +said that it differed from the English mainly in emphasis and +pronunciation. "For instance, the English say 'HALF past', and the +Americans 'Half PAST'; the English say 'laht' and the Americans say +'late'." + +The weather had now been clear quite long enough, and it was raining +again, a fine, bitter, piercing drizzle. They asked the girl if it always +rained in Ansbach; and she owned that it nearly always did. She said that +sometimes she longed for a little American summer; that it was never +quite warm in Ansbach; and when they had got out into the rain, March +said: "It was very nice to stumble on Chicago in an Ansbach book-store. +You ought to have told her you had a married daughter in Chicago. Don't +miss another such chance." + +"We shall need another bag if we keep on buying books at this rate," said +his wife with tranquil irrelevance; and not to give him time for protest; +she pushed him into a shop where the valises in the window perhaps +suggested her thought. March made haste to forestall her there by saying +they were Americans, but the mistress of the shop seemed to have her +misgivings, and "Born Americans, perhaps?" she ventured. She had probably +never met any but the naturalized sort, and supposed these were the only +sort. March re-assured her, and then she said she had a son living in +Jersey City, and she made March take his address that he might tell him +he had seen his mother; she had apparently no conception what a great way +Jersey City is from New York. + +Mrs. March would not take his arm when they came out. "Now, that is what +I never can get used to in you, Basil, and I've tried to palliate it for +twenty-seven years. You know you won't look up that poor woman's son! Why +did you let her think you would?" + +"How could I tell her I wouldn't? Perhaps I shall." + +"No, no! You never will. I know you're good and kind, and that's why I +can't understand your being so cruel. When we get back, how will you ever +find time to go over to Jersey City?" + +He could not tell, but at last he said: "I'll tell you what! You must +keep me up to it. You know how much you enjoy making me do my duty, and +this will be such a pleasure!" + +She laughed forlornly, but after a moment she took his arm; and he began, +from the example of this good mother, to philosophize the continuous +simplicity and sanity of the people of Ansbach under all their civic +changes. Saints and soldiers, knights and barons, margraves, princes, +kings, emperors, had come and gone, and left their single-hearted, +friendly subjectfolk pretty much what they found them. The people had +suffered and survived through a thousand wars, and apparently prospered +on under all governments and misgovernments. When the court was most +French, most artificial, most vicious, the citizen life must have +remained immutably German, dull, and kind. After all, he said, humanity +seemed everywhere to be pretty safe, and pretty much the same. + +"Yes, that is all very well," she returned, "and you can theorize +interestingly enough; but I'm afraid that poor mother, there, had no more +reality for you than those people in the past. You appreciate her as a +type, and you don't care for her as a human being. You're nothing but a +dreamer, after all. I don't blame you," she went on. "It's your +temperament, and you can't change, now." + +"I may change for the worse," he threatened. "I think I have, already. I +don't believe I could stand up to Dryfoos, now, as I did for poor old +Lindau, when I risked your bread and butter for his. I look back in +wonder and admiration at myself. I've steadily lost touch with life since +then. I'm a trifler, a dilettante, and an amateur of the right and the +good as I used to be when I was young. Oh, I have the grace to be +troubled at times, now, and once I never was. It never occurred to me +then that the world wasn't made to interest me, or at the best to +instruct me, but it does, now, at times." + +She always came to his defence when he accused himself; it was the best +ground he could take with her. "I think you behaved very well with +Burnamy. You did your duty then." + +"Did I? I'm not so sure. At any rate, it's the last time I shall do it. +I've served my term. I think I should tell him that he was all right in +that business with Stoller, if I were to meet him, now." + +"Isn't it strange," she said, provisionally, "that we don't come upon a +trace of him anywhere in Ansbach?" + +"Ah, you've been hoping he would turn up!" + +"Yes. I don't deny it. I feel very unhappy about him." + +"I don't. He's too much like me. He would have been quite capable of +promising that poor woman to look up her son in Jersey City. When I think +of that, I have no patience with Burnamy." + +"I am going to ask the landlord about him, now he's got rid of his +highhotes," said Mrs. March. + + + + +XLIX. + +They went home to their hotel for their midday dinner, and to the comfort +of having it nearly all to themselves. Prince Leopold had risen early, +like all the hard-working potentates of the continent, and got away to +the manoeuvres somewhere at six o'clock; the decorations had been +removed, and the court-yard where the hired coach and pair of the prince +had rolled in the evening before had only a few majestic ducks waddling +about in it and quacking together, indifferent to the presence of a +yellow mail-wagon, on which the driver had been apparently dozing till +the hour of noon should sound. He sat there immovable, but at the last +stroke of the clock he woke up and drove vigorously away to the station. + +The dining-room which they had been kept out of by the prince the night +before was not such as to embitter the sense of their wrong by its +splendor. After all, the tastes of royalty must be simple, if the prince +might have gone to the Schloss and had chosen rather to stay at this +modest hotel; but perhaps the Schloss was reserved for more immediate +royalty than the brothers of prince-regents; and in that case he could +not have done better than dine at the Golden Star. If he paid no more +than two marks, he dined as cheaply as a prince could wish, and as +abundantly. The wine at Ansbach was rather thin and sour, but the bread, +March declared, was the best bread in the whole world, not excepting the +bread of Carlsbad. + +After dinner the Marches had some of the local pastry, not so +incomparable as the bread, with their coffee, which they had served them +in a pavilion of the beautiful garden remaining to the hotel from the +time when it was a patrician mansion. The garden had roses in it and +several sorts of late summer flowers, as well as ripe cherries, currants, +grapes, and a Virginia-creeper red with autumn, all harmoniously +contemporaneous, as they might easily be in a climate where no one of the +seasons can very well know itself from the others. It had not been +raining for half an hour, and the sun was scalding hot, so that the +shelter of their roof was very grateful, and the puddles of the paths +were drying up with the haste which puddles have to make in Germany, +between rains, if they are ever going to dry up at all. + +The landlord came out to see if they were well served, and he was +sincerely obliging in the English he had learned as a waiter in London. +Mrs. March made haste to ask him if a young American of the name of +Burnamy had been staying with him a few weeks before; and she described +Burnamy's beauty and amiability so vividly that the landlord, if he had +been a woman, could not have failed to remember him. But he failed, with +a real grief, apparently, and certainly a real politeness, to recall +either his name or his person. The landlord was an intelligent, +good-looking young fellow; he told them that he was lately married, and +they liked him so much that they were sorry to see him afterwards +privately boxing the ears of the piccolo, the waiter's little understudy. +Perhaps the piccolo deserved it, but they would rather not have witnessed +his punishment; his being in a dress-coat seemed to make it also an +indignity. + +In the late afternoon they went to the cafe in the old Orangery of the +Schloss for a cup of tea, and found themselves in the company of several +Ansbach ladies who had brought their work, in the evident habit of coming +there every afternoon for their coffee and for a dish of gossip. They +were kind, uncomely, motherly-looking bodies; one of them combed her hair +at the table; and they all sat outside of the cafe with their feet on the +borders of the puddles which had not dried up there in the shade of the +building. + +A deep lawn, darkened at its farther edge by the long shadows of trees, +stretched before them with the sunset light on it, and it was all very +quiet and friendly. The tea brought to the Marches was brewed from some +herb apparently of native growth, with bits of what looked like willow +leaves in it, but it was flavored with a clove in each cup, and they sat +contentedly over it and tried to make out what the Ansbach ladies were, +talking about. These had recognized the strangers for Americans, and one +of them explained that Americans spoke the same language as the English +and yet were not quite the same people. + +"She differs from the girl in the book-store," said March, translating to +his wife. "Let us get away before she says that we are not so nice as the +English," and they made off toward the avenue of trees beyond the lawn. + +There were a few people walking up and down in the alley, making the most +of the moment of dry weather. They saluted one another like +acquaintances, and three clean-shaven, walnut-faced old peasants bowed in +response to March's stare, with a self-respectful civility. They were +yeomen of the region of Ansbach, where the country round about is dotted +with their cottages, and not held in vast homeless tracts by the nobles +as in North Germany. + +The Bavarian who had imparted this fact to March at breakfast, not +without a certain tacit pride in it to the disadvantage of the Prussians, +was at the supper table, and was disposed to more talk, which he managed +in a stout, slow English of his own. He said he had never really spoken +English with an English-speaking person before, or at all since he +studied it in school at Munich. + +"I should be afraid to put my school-boy German against your English," +March said, and, when he had understood, the other laughed for pleasure, +and reported the compliment to his wife in their own parlance. "You +Germans certainly beat us in languages." + +"Oh, well," he retaliated, "the Americans beat us in some other things," +and Mrs. March felt that this was but just; she would have liked to +mention a few, but not ungraciously; she and the German lady kept smiling +across the table, and trying detached vocables of their respective +tongues upon each other. + +The Bavarian said he lived in Munich still, but was in Ansbach on an +affair of business; he asked March if he were not going to see the +manoeuvres somewhere. Till now the manoeuvres had merely been the +interesting background of their travel; but now, hearing that the Emperor +of Germany, the King of Saxony, the Regent of Bavaria, and the King of +Wurtemberg, the Grand-Dukes of Weimar and Baden, with visiting potentates +of all sorts, and innumerable lesser highhotes, foreign and domestic, +were to be present, Mrs. March resolved that they must go to at least one +of the reviews. + +"If you go to Frankfort, you can see the King of Italy too," said the +Bavarian, but he owned that they probably could not get into a hotel +there, and he asked why they should not go to Wurzburg, where they could +see all the sovereigns except the King of Italy. + +"Wurzburg? Wurzburg?" March queried of his wife. "Where did we hear of +that place?" + +"Isn't it where Burnamy said Mr. Stoller had left his daughters at +school?" + +"So it is! And is that on the way to the Rhine?" he asked the Bavarian. + +"No, no! Wurzburg is on the Main, about five hours from Ansbach. And it +is a very interesting place. It is where the good wine comes from." + +"Oh, yes," said March, and in their rooms his wife got out all their +guides and maps and began to inform herself and to inform him about +Wurzburg. But first she said it was very cold and he must order some fire +made in the tall German stove in their parlor. The maid who came said +"Gleich," but she did not come back, and about the time they were getting +furious at her neglect, they began getting warm. He put his hand on the +stove and found it hot; then he looked down for a door in the stove where +he might shut a damper; there was no door. + +"Good heavens!" he shouted. "It's like something in a dream," and he ran +to pull the bell for help. + +"No, no! Don't ring! It will make us ridiculous. They'll think Americans +don't know anything. There must be some way of dampening the stove; and +if there isn't, I'd rather suffocate than give myself away." Mrs. March +ran and opened the window, while her husband carefully examined the stove +at every point, and explored the pipe for the damper in vain. "Can't you +find it?" The night wind came in raw and damp, and threatened to blow +their lamp out, and she was obliged to shut the window. + +"Not a sign of it. I will go down and ask the landlord in strict +confidence how they dampen their stoves in Ansbach." + +"Well, if you must. It's getting hotter every moment." She followed him +timorously into the corridor, lit by a hanging lamp, turned low for the +night. + +He looked at his watch; it was eleven o'clock. "I'm afraid they're all in +bed." + +"Yes; you mustn't go! We must try to find out for ourselves. What can +that door be for?" + +It was a low iron door, half the height of a man, in the wall near their +room, and it yielded to his pull. "Get a candle," he whispered, and when +she brought it, he stooped to enter the doorway. + +"Oh, do you think you'd better?" she hesitated. + +"You can come, too, if you're afraid. You've always said you wanted to +die with me." + +"Well. But you go first." + +He disappeared within, and then came back to the doorway. "Just come in +here, a moment." She found herself in a sort of antechamber, half the +height of her own room, and following his gesture she looked down where +in one corner some crouching monster seemed showing its fiery teeth in a +grin of derision. This grin was the damper of their stove, and this was +where the maid had kindled the fire which had been roasting them alive, +and was still joyously chuckling to itself. "I think that Munich man was +wrong. I don't believe we beat the Germans in anything. There isn't a +hotel in the United States where the stoves have no front doors, and +every one of them has the space of a good-sized flat given up to the +convenience of kindling a fire in it." + + + + +L. + +After a red sunset of shameless duplicity March was awakened to a rainy +morning by the clinking of cavalry hoofs on the pavement of the +long-irregular square before the hotel, and he hurried out to see the +passing of the soldiers on their way to the manoeuvres. They were troops +of all arms, but mainly infantry, and as they stumped heavily through the +groups of apathetic citizens in their mud-splashed boots, they took the +steady downpour on their dripping helmets. Some of them were smoking, but +none smiling, except one gay fellow who made a joke to a serving-maid on +the sidewalk. An old officer halted his staff to scold a citizen who had +given him a mistaken direction. The shame of the erring man was great, +and the pride of a fellow-citizen who corrected him was not less, though +the arrogant brute before whom they both cringed used them with equal +scorn; the younger officers listened indifferently round on horseback +behind the glitter of their eyeglasses, and one of them amused himself by +turning the silver bangles on his wrist. + +Then the files of soldier slaves passed on, and March crossed the bridge +spanning the gardens in what had been the city moat, and found his way to +the market-place, under the walls of the old Gothic church of St. +Gumpertus. The market, which spread pretty well over the square, seemed +to be also a fair, with peasants' clothes and local pottery for sale, as +well as fruits and vegetables, and large baskets of flowers, with old +women squatting before them. It was all as picturesque as the markets +used to be in Montreal and Quebec, and in a cloudy memory of his wedding +journey long before, he bought so lavishly of the flowers to carry back +to his wife that a little girl, who saw his arm-load from her window as +he returned, laughed at him, and then drew shyly back. Her laugh reminded +him how many happy children he had seen in Germany, and how freely they +seemed to play everywhere, with no one to make them afraid. When they +grow up the women laugh as little as the men, whose rude toil the +soldiering leaves them to. + +He got home with his flowers, and his wife took them absently, and made +him join her in watching the sight which had fascinated her in the street +under their windows. A slender girl, with a waist as slim as a corseted +officer's, from time to time came out of the house across the way to the +firewood which had been thrown from a wagon upon the sidewalk there. Each +time she embraced several of the heavy four-foot logs and disappeared +with them in-doors. Once she paused from her work to joke with a +well-dressed man who came by; and seemed to find nothing odd in her work; +some gentlemen lounging at the window over head watched her with no +apparent sense of anomaly. + +"What do you think of that?" asked Mrs. March. "I think it's good +exercise for the girl, and I should like to recommend it to those fat +fellows at the window. I suppose she'll saw the wood in the cellar, and +then lug it up stairs, and pile it up in the stoves' dressing-rooms." + +"Don't laugh! It's too disgraceful." + +"Well, I don't know! If you like, I'll offer these gentlemen across the +way your opinion of it in the language of Goethe and Schiller." + +"I wish you'd offer my opinion of them. They've been staring in here with +an opera-glass." + +"Ah, that's a different affair. There isn't much going on in Ansbach, and +they have to make the most of it." + +The lower casements of the houses were furnished with mirrors set at +right angles with them, and nothing which went on in the streets was +lost. Some of the streets were long and straight, and at rare moments +they lay full of sun. At such times the Marches were puzzled by the sight +of citizens carrying open umbrellas, and they wondered if they had +forgotten to put them down, or thought it not worth while in the brief +respites from the rain, or were profiting by such rare occasions to dry +them; and some other sights remained baffling to the last. Once a man +with his hands pinioned before him, and a gendarme marching stolidly +after him with his musket on his shoulder, passed under their windows; +but who he was, or what he, had done, or was to suffer, they never knew. +Another time a pair went by on the way to the railway station: a young +man carrying an umbrella under his arm, and a very decent-looking old +woman lugging a heavy carpet bag, who left them to the lasting question +whether she was the young man's servant in her best clothes, or merely +his mother. + +Women do not do everything in Ansbach, however, the sacristans being men, +as the Marches found when they went to complete their impression of the +courtly past of the city by visiting the funeral chapel of the margraves +in the crypt of St. Johannis Church. In the little ex-margravely capital +there was something of the neighborly interest in the curiosity of +strangers which endears Italian witness. The white-haired street-sweeper +of Ansbach, who willingly left his broom to guide them to the house of +the sacristan, might have been a street-sweeper in Vicenza; and the old +sacristan, when he put his velvet skull-cap out of an upper window and +professed his willingness to show them the chapel, disappointed them by +saying "Gleich!" instead of "Subito!" The architecture of the houses was +a party to the illusion. St. Johannis, like the older church of St. +Gumpertus, is Gothic, with the two unequal towers which seem distinctive +of Ansbach; at the St. Gumpertus end of the place where they both stand +the dwellings are Gothic too, and might be in Hamburg; but at the St. +Johannis end they seem to have felt the exotic spirit of the court, and +are of a sort of Teutonized renaissance. + +The rococo margraves and margravines used of course to worship in St. +Johannis Church. Now they all, such as did not marry abroad, lie in the +crypt of the church, in caskets of bronze and copper and marble, with +draperies of black samite, more and more funereally vainglorious to the +last. Their courtly coffins are ranged in a kind of hemicycle, with the +little coffins of the children that died before they came to the +knowledge of their greatness. On one of these a kneeling figurine in +bronze holds up the effigy of the child within; on another the epitaph +plays tenderly with the fate of a little princess, who died in her first +year. + + In the Rose-month was this sweet Rose taken. + For the Rose-kind hath she earth forsaken. + The Princess is the Rose, that here no longer blows. + From the stem by death's hand rudely shaken. + Then rest in the Rose-house. + Little Princess-Rosebud dear! + There life's Rose shall bloom again + In Heaven's sunshine clear. + +While March struggled to get this into English words, two German ladies, +who had made themselves of his party, passed reverently away and left him +to pay the sacristan alone. + +"That is all right," he said, when he came out. "I think we got the most +value; and they didn't look as if they could afford it so well; though +you never can tell, here. These ladies may be the highest kind of +highhotes practising a praiseworthy economy. I hope the lesson won't be +lost on us. They have saved enough by us for their coffee at the +Orangery. Let us go and have a little willow-leaf tea!" + +The Orangery perpetually lured them by what it had kept of the days when +an Orangery was essential to the self-respect of every sovereign prince, +and of so many private gentlemen. On their way they always passed the +statue of Count Platen, the dull poet whom Heine's hate would have +delivered so cruelly over to an immortality of contempt, but who stands +there near the Schloss in a grass-plot prettily planted with flowers, and +ignores his brilliant enemy in the comfortable durability of bronze; and +there always awaited them in the old pleasaunce the pathos of Kaspar +Hauser's fate; which his murder affixes to it with a red stain. + +After their cups of willow leaves at the cafe they went up into that nook +of the plantation where the simple shaft of church-warden's Gothic +commemorates the assassination on the spot where it befell. Here the +hapless youth, whose mystery will never be fathomed on earth, used to +come for a little respite from his harsh guardian in Ansbach, homesick +for the kindness of his Nuremberg friends; and here his murderer found +him and dealt him the mortal blow. + +March lingered upon the last sad circumstance of the tragedy in which the +wounded boy dragged himself home, to suffer the suspicion and neglect of +his guardian till death attested his good faith beyond cavil. He said +this was the hardest thing to bear in all his story, and that he would +like to have a look into the soul of the dull, unkind wretch who had so +misread his charge. He was going on with an inquiry that pleased him +much, when his wife pulled him abruptly away. + +"Now, I see, you are yielding to the fascination of it, and you are +wanting to take the material from Burnamy!" + +"Oh, well, let him have the material; he will spoil it. And I can always +reject it, if he offers it to 'Every Other Week'." + +"I could believe, after your behavior to that poor woman about her son in +Jersey City, you're really capable of it." + +"What comprehensive inculpation! I had forgotten about that poor woman." + + + + +LI. + +The letters which March had asked his Nuremberg banker to send them came +just as they were leaving Ansbach. The landlord sent them down to the +station, and Mrs. March opened them in the train, and read them first so +that she could prepare him if there were anything annoying in them, as +well as indulge her livelier curiosity. + +"They're from both the children," she said, without waiting for him to +ask. "You can look at them later. There's a very nice letter from Mrs. +Adding to me, and one from dear little Rose for you." Then she hesitated, +with her hand on a letter faced down in her lap. "And there's one from +Agatha Triscoe, which I wonder what you'll think of." She delayed again, +and then flashed it open before him, and waited with a sort of +impassioned patience while he read it. + +He read it, and gave it back to her. "There doesn't seem to be very much +in it." + +"That's it! Don't you think I had a right to there being something in it, +after all I did for her?" + +"I always hoped you hadn't done anything for her, but if you have, why +should she give herself away on paper? It's a very proper letter." + +"It's a little too proper, and it's the last I shall have to do with her. +She knew that I should be on pins and needles till I heard how her father +had taken Burnamy's being there, that night, and she doesn't say a word +about it." + +"The general may have had a tantrum that she couldn't describe. Perhaps +she hasn't told him, yet." + +"She would tell him instantly!" cried Mrs. March who began to find reason +in the supposition, as well as comfort for the hurt which the girl's +reticence had given her. "Or if she wouldn't, it would be because she was +waiting for the best chance." + +"That would be like the wise daughter of a difficult father. She may be +waiting for the best chance to say how he took it. No, I'm all for Miss +Triscoe, and I hope that now, if she's taken herself off our hands, +she'll keep off." + +"It's altogether likely that he's made her promise not to tell me +anything about it," Mrs. March mused aloud. + +"That would be unjust to a person who had behaved so discreetly as you +have," said her husband. + +They were on their way to Wurzburg, and at the first station, which was a +junction, a lady mounted to their compartment just before the train began +to move. She was stout and middle-aged, and had never been pretty, but +she bore herself with a kind of authority in spite of her thread gloves, +her dowdy gray travelling-dress, and a hat of lower middle-class English +tastelessness. She took the only seat vacant, a backward-riding place +beside a sleeping passenger who looked like a commercial traveller, but +she seemed ill at ease in it, and March offered her his seat. She +accepted it very promptly, and thanked him for it in the English of a +German, and Mrs. March now classed her as a governess who had been +teaching in England and had acquired the national feeling for dress. But +in this character she found her interesting, and even a little pathetic, +and she made her some overtures of talk which the other met eagerly +enough. They were now running among low hills, not so picturesque as +those between Eger and Nuremberg, but of much the same toylike quaintness +in the villages dropped here and there in their valleys. One small town, +completely walled, with its gray houses and red roofs, showed through the +green of its trees and gardens so like a colored print in a child's +story-book that Mrs. March cried out for joy in it, and then accounted +for her rapture by explaining to the stranger that they were Americans +and had never been in Germany before. The lady was not visibly affected +by the fact, she said casually that she had often been in that little +town, which she named; her uncle had a castle in the country back of it, +and she came with her husband for the shooting in the autumn. By a +natural transition she spoke of her children, for whom she had an English +governess; she said she had never been in England, but had learnt the +language from a governess in her own childhood; and through it all Mrs. +March perceived that she was trying to impress them with her consequence. +To humor her pose, she said they had been looking up the scene of Kaspar +Hauser's death at Ansbach; and at this the stranger launched into such +intimate particulars concerning him, and was so familiar at first hands +with the facts of his life, that Mrs. March let her run on, too much +amused with her pretensions to betray any doubt of her. She wondered if +March were enjoying it all as much, and from time to time she tried to +catch his eye, while the lady talked constantly and rather loudly, +helping herself out with words from them both when her English failed +her. In the safety of her perfect understanding of the case, Mrs. March +now submitted farther, and even suffered some patronage from her, which +in another mood she would have met with a decided snub. + +As they drew in among the broad vine-webbed slopes of the Wurzburg, +hills, the stranger said she was going to change there, and take a train +on to Berlin. Mrs. March wondered whether she would be able to keep up +the comedy to the last; and she had to own that she carried it off very +easily when the friends whom she was expecting did not meet her on the +arrival of their train. She refused March's offers of help, and remained +quietly seated while he got out their wraps and bags. She returned with a +hardy smile the cold leave Mrs. March took of her; and when a porter came +to the door, and forced his way by the Marches, to ask with anxious +servility if she, were the Baroness von-----, she bade the man get them. +a 'traeger', and then come back for her. She waved them a complacent +adieu before they mixed with the crowd and lost sight of her. + +"Well, my dear," said March, addressing the snobbishness in his wife +which he knew to be so wholly impersonal, "you've mingled with one +highhote, anyway. I must say she didn't look it, any more than the Duke +and Duchess of Orleans, and yet she's only a baroness. Think of our being +three hours in the same compartment, and she doing all she could to +impress us and our getting no good of it! I hoped you were feeling her +quality, so that we should have it in the family, anyway, and always know +what it was like. But so far, the highhotes have all been terribly +disappointing." + +He teased on as they followed the traeger with their baggage out of the +station; and in the omnibus on the way to their hotel, he recurred to the +loss they had suffered in the baroness's failure to dramatize her +nobility effectually. "After all, perhaps she was as much disappointed in +us. I don't suppose we looked any more like democrats than she looked +like an aristocrat." + +"But there's a great difference," Mrs. March returned at last. "It isn't +at all a parallel case. We were not real democrats, and she was a real +aristocrat." + +"To be sure. There is that way of looking at it. That's rather novel; I +wish I had thought of that myself. She was certainly more to blame than +we were." + + + + +LII. + +The square in front of the station was planted with flag-poles wreathed +in evergreens; a triumphal arch was nearly finished, and a colossal +allegory in imitation bronze was well on the way to completion, in honor +of the majesties who were coming for the manoeuvres. The streets which +the omnibus passed through to the Swan Inn were draped with the imperial +German and the royal Bavarian colors; and the standards of the visiting +nationalities decked the fronts of the houses where their military +attaches were lodged; but the Marches failed to see our own banner, and +were spared for the moment the ignominy of finding it over an apothecary +shop in a retired avenue. The sun had come out, the sky overhead was of a +smiling blue; and they felt the gala-day glow and thrill in the depths of +their inextinguishable youth. + +The Swan Inn sits on one of the long quays bordering the Main, and its +windows look down upon the bridges and shipping of the river; but the +traveller reaches it by a door in the rear, through an archway into a +back street, where an odor dating back to the foundation of the city is +waiting to welcome him. + +The landlord was there, too, and he greeted the Marches so cordially that +they fully partook his grief in being able to offer them rooms on the +front of the house for two nights only. They reconciled themselves to the +necessity of then turning out for the staff of the King of Saxony, the +more readily because they knew that there was no hope of better things at +any other hotel. + +The rooms which they could have for the time were charming, and they came +down to supper in a glazed gallery looking out on the river picturesque +with craft of all fashions: with row-boats, sail-boats, and little +steamers, but mainly with long black barges built up into houses in the +middle, and defended each by a little nervous German dog. Long rafts of +logs weltered in the sunset red which painted the swift current, and +mantled the immeasurable vineyards of the hills around like the color of +their ripening grapes. Directly in face rose a castled steep, which kept +the ranging walls and the bastions and battlements of the time when such +a stronghold could have defended the city from foes without or from +tumult within. The arches of a stately bridge spanned the river +sunsetward, and lifted a succession of colossal figures against the +crimson sky. + +"I guess we have been wasting our time, my dear," said March, as they, +turned from this beauty to the question of supper. "I wish we had always +been here!" + +Their waiter had put them at a table in a division of the gallery beyond +that which they entered, where some groups of officers were noisily +supping. There was no one in their room but a man whose face was +indistinguishable against the light, and two young girls who glanced at +them with looks at once quelled and defiant, and then after a stare at +the officers in the gallery beyond, whispered together with suppressed +giggling. The man fed on without noticing them, except now and then to +utter a growl that silenced the whispering and giggling for a moment. The +Marches, from no positive evidence of any sense, decided that they were +Americans. + +"I don't know that I feel responsible for them as their +fellow-countryman; I should, once," he said. + +"It isn't that. It's the worry of trying to make out why they are just +what they are," his wife returned. + +The girls drew the man's attention to them and he looked at them for the +first time; then after a sort of hesitation he went on with his supper. +They had only begun theirs when he rose with the two girls, whom Mrs. +March now saw to be of the same size and dressed alike, and came heavily +toward them. + +"I thought you was in Carlsbad," he said bluntly to March, with a nod at +Mrs. March. He added, with a twist of his head toward the two girls, "My +daughters," and then left them to her, while he talked on with her +husband. "Come to see this foolery, I suppose. I'm on my way to the woods +for my after-cure; but I thought I might as well stop and give the girls +a chance; they got a week's vacation, anyway." Stoller glanced at them +with a sort of troubled tenderness in his strong dull face. + +"Oh, yes. I understood they were at school here," said March, and he +heard one of them saying, in a sweet, high pipe to his wife: + +"Ain't it just splendid? I ha'n't seen anything equal to it since the +Worrld's Fairr." She spoke with a strong contortion of the Western r, and +her sister hastened to put in: + +"I don't think it's to be compared with the Worrld's Fairr. But these +German girls, here, just think it's great. It just does me good to laff +at 'em, about it. I like to tell 'em about the electric fountain and the +Courrt of Iionorr when they get to talkin' about the illuminations +they're goun' to have. You goun' out to the parade? You better engage +your carriage right away if you arre. The carrs'll be a perfect jam. +Father's engaged ourrs; he had to pay sixty marrks forr it." + +They chattered on without shyness and on as easy terms with a woman of +three times their years as if she had been a girl of their own age; they +willingly took the whole talk to themselves, and had left her quite +outside of it before Stoller turned to her. + +"I been telling Mr. March here that you better both come to the parade +with us. I guess my twospanner will hold five; or if it won't, we'll make +it. I don't believe there's a carriage left in Wurzburg; and if you go in +the cars, you'll have to walk three or four miles before you get to the +parade-ground. You think it over," he said to March. "Nobody else is +going to have the places, anyway, and you can say yes at the last minute +just as well as now." + +He moved off with his girls, who looked over their shoulders at the +officers as they passed on through the adjoining room. + +"My dear!" cried Mrs. March. "Didn't you suppose he classed us with +Burnamy in that business? Why should he be polite to us?" + +"Perhaps he wants you to chaperon his daughters. He's probably heard of +your performance at the Kurhaus ball. But he knows that I thought Burnamy +in the wrong. This may be Stoller's way of wiping out an obligation. +Wouldn't you like to go with him?" + +"The mere thought of his being in the same town is prostrating. I'd far +rather he hated us; then he would avoid us." + +"Well, he doesn't own the town, and if it comes to the worst, perhaps we +can avoid him. Let us go out, anyway, and see if we can't." + +"No, no; I'm too tired; but you go. And get all the maps and guides you +can; there's so very little in Baedeker, and almost nothing in that great +hulking Bradshaw of yours; and I'm sure there must be the most +interesting history of Wurzburg. Isn't it strange that we haven't the +slightest association with the name?" + +"I've been rummaging in my mind, and I've got hold of an association at +last," said March. "It's beer; a sign in a Sixth Avenue saloon window +Wurzburger Hof-Brau." + +"No matter if it is beer. Find some sketch of the history, and we'll try +to get away from the Stollers in it. I pitied those wild girls, too. What +crazy images of the world must fill their empty minds! How their ignorant +thoughts must go whirling out into the unknown! I don't envy their +father. Do hurry back! I shall be thinking about them every instant till +you come." + +She said this, but in their own rooms it was so soothing to sit looking +through the long twilight at the lovely landscape that the sort of bruise +given by their encounter with the Stollers had left her consciousness +before March returned. She made him admire first the convent church on a +hill further up the river which exactly balanced the fortress in front of +them, and then she seized upon the little books he had brought, and set +him to exploring the labyrinths of their German, with a mounting +exultation in his discoveries. There was a general guide to the city, and +a special guide, with plans and personal details of the approaching +manoeuvres and the princes who were to figure in them; and there was a +sketch of the local history: a kind of thing that the Germans know how to +write particularly, well, with little gleams of pleasant humor blinking +through it. For the study of this, Mrs. March realized, more and more +passionately, that they were in the very most central and convenient +point, for the history of Wurzburg might be said to have begun with her +prince-bishops, whose rule had begun in the twelfth century, and who had +built, on a forgotten Roman work, the fortress of the Marienburg on that +vineyarded hill over against the Swan Inn. There had of course been +history before that, but 'nothing so clear, nothing so peculiarly swell, +nothing that so united the glory of this world and the next as that of +the prince-bishops. They had made the Marienburg their home, and kept it +against foreign and domestic foes for five hundred years. Shut within its +well-armed walls they had awed the often-turbulent city across the Main; +they had held it against the embattled farmers in the Peasants' War, and +had splendidly lost it to Gustavus Adolphus, and then got it back again +and held it till Napoleon took it from them. He gave it with their flock +to the Bavarians, who in turn briefly yielded it to the Prussians in +1866, and were now in apparently final possession of it. + +Before the prince-bishops, Charlemagne and Barbarossa had come and gone, +and since the prince-bishops there had been visiting thrones and kingdoms +enough in the ancient city, which was soon to be illustrated by the +presence of imperial Germany, royal, Wirtemberg and Saxony, grand-ducal +Baden and Weimar, and a surfeit of all the minor potentates among those +who speak the beautiful language of the Ja. + +But none of these could dislodge the prince-bishops from that supreme +place which they had at once taken in Mrs. March's fancy. The potentates +were all going to be housed in the vast palace which the prince-bishops +had built themselves in Wurzburg as soon as they found it safe to come +down from their stronghold of Marienburg, and begin to adorn their city, +and to confirm it in its intense fidelity to the Church. Tiepolo had come +up out of Italy to fresco their palace, where he wrought year after year, +in that worldly taste which has somehow come to express the most +sovereign moment of ecclesiasticism. It prevailed so universally in +Wurzburg that it left her with the name of the Rococo City, intrenched in +a period of time equally remote from early Christianity and modern +Protestantism. Out of her sixty thousand souls, only ten thousand are now +of the reformed religion, and these bear about the same relation to the +Catholic spirit of the place that the Gothic architecture bears to the +baroque. + +As long as the prince-bishops lasted the Wurzburgers got on very well +with but one newspaper, and perhaps the smallest amount of merrymaking +known outside of the colony of Massachusetts Bay at the same epoch. The +prince-bishops had their finger in everybody's pie, and they portioned +out the cakes and ale, which were made according to formulas of their +own. The distractions were all of a religious character; churches, +convents, monasteries, abounded; ecclesiastical processions and +solemnities were the spectacles that edified if they did not amuse the +devout population. + +It seemed to March an ironical outcome of all this spiritual severity +that one of the greatest modern scientific discoveries should have been +made in Wurzburg, and that the Roentgen rays should now be giving her +name a splendor destined to eclipse the glories of her past. + +Mrs. March could not allow that they would do so; or at least that the +name of Roentgen would ever lend more lustre to his city than that of +Longfellow's Walther von der Vogelweide. She was no less surprised than +pleased to realize that this friend of the birds was a Wurzburger, and +she said that their first pilgrimage in the morning should be to the +church where he lies buried. + + + + +LIII. + +March went down to breakfast not quite so early as his wife had planned, +and left her to have her coffee in her room. He got a pleasant table in +the gallery overlooking the river, and he decided that the landscape, +though it now seemed to be rather too much studied from a drop-certain, +had certainly lost nothing of its charm in the clear morning light. The +waiter brought his breakfast, and after a little delay came back with a +card which he insisted was for March. It was not till he put on his +glasses and read the name of Mr. R. M. Kenby that he was able at all to +agree with the waiter, who stood passive at his elbow. + +"Well," he said, "why wasn't this card sent up last night?" + +The waiter explained that the gentleman had just, given him his card, +after asking March's nationality, and was then breakfasting in the next +room. March caught up his napkin and ran round the partition wall, and +Kenby rose with his napkin and hurried to meet him. + +"I thought it must be you," he called out, joyfully, as they struck their +extended hands together, "but so many people look alike, nowadays, that I +don't trust my eyes any more." + +Kenby said he had spent the time since they last met partly in Leipsic +and partly in Gotha, where he had amused himself in rubbing up his rusty +German. As soon as he realized that Wurzburg was so near he had slipped +down from Gotha for a glimpse of the manoeuvres. He added that he +supposed March was there to see them, and he asked with a quite +unembarrassed smile if they had met Mr. Adding in Carlsbad, and without +heeding March's answer, he laughed and added: "Of course, I know she must +have told Mrs. March all about it." + +March could not deny this; he laughed, too; though in his wife's absence +he felt bound to forbid himself anything more explicit. + +"I don't give it up, you know," Kenby went on, with perfect ease. "I'm +not a young fellow, if you call thirty-nine old." + +"At my age I don't," March put in, and they roared together, in men's +security from the encroachments of time. + +"But she happens to be the only woman I've ever really wanted to marry, +for more than a few days at a stretch. You know how it is with us." + +"Oh, yes, I know," said March, and they shouted again. + +"We're in love, and we're out of love, twenty times. But this isn't a +mere fancy; it's a conviction. And there's no reason why she shouldn't +marry me." + +March smiled gravely, and his smile was not lost upon Kenby. "You mean +the boy," he said. "Well, I like Rose," and now March really felt swept +from his feet. "She doesn't deny that she likes me, but she seems to +think that her marrying again will take her from him; the fact is, it +will only give me to him. As for devoting her whole life to him, she +couldn't do a worse thing for him. What the boy needs is a man's care, +and a man's will--Good heavens! You don't think I could ever be unkind to +the little soul?" Kenby threw himself forward over the table. + +"My dear fellow!" March protested. + +"I'd rather cut off my right hand!" Kenby pursued, excitedly, and then he +said, with a humorous drop: "The fact is, I don't believe I should want +her so much if I couldn't have Rose too. I want to have them both. So +far, I've only got no for an answer; but I'm not going to keep it. I had +a letter from Rose at Carlsbad, the other day; and--" + +The waiter came forward with a folded scrap of paper on his salver, which +March knew must be from his wife. "What is keeping you so?" she wrote. "I +am all ready." "It's from Mrs. March," he explained to Kenby. "I am going +out with her on some errands. I'm awfully glad to see you again. We must +talk it all over, and you must--you mustn't--Mrs. March will want to see +you later--I--Are you in the hotel?" + +"Oh yes. I'll see you at the one-o'clock table d'hote, I suppose." + +March went away with his head whirling in the question whether he should +tell his wife at once of Kenby's presence, or leave her free for the +pleasures of Wurzburg, till he could shape the fact into some safe and +acceptable form. She met him at the door with her guide-books, wraps and +umbrellas, and would hardly give him time to get on his hat and coat. + +"Now, I want you to avoid the Stollers as far as you can see them. This +is to be a real wedding-journey day, with no extraneous acquaintance to +bother; the more strangers the better. Wurzburg is richer than anything I +imagined. I've looked it all up; I've got the plan of the city, so that +we can easily find the way. We'll walk first, and take carriages whenever +we get tired. We'll go to the cathedral at once; I want a good gulp of +rococo to begin with; there wasn't half enough of it at Ansbach. Isn't it +strange how we've come round to it?" + +She referred to that passion for the Gothic which they had obediently +imbibed from Ruskin in the days of their early Italian travel and +courtship, when all the English-speaking world bowed down to him in +devout aversion from the renaissance, and pious abhorrence of the rococo. + +"What biddable little things we were!" she went on, while March was +struggling to keep Kenby in the background of his consciousness. "The +rococo must have always had a sneaking charm for us, when we were pinning +our faith to pointed arches; and yet I suppose we were perfectly sincere. +Oh, look at that divinely ridiculous Madonna!" They were now making their +way out of the crooked footway behind their hotel toward the street +leading to the cathedral, and she pointed to the Blessed Virgin over the +door of some religious house, her drapery billowing about her feet; her +body twisting to show the sculptor's mastery of anatomy, and the halo +held on her tossing head with the help of stout gilt rays. In fact, the +Virgin's whole figure was gilded, and so was that of the child in her +arms. "Isn't she delightful?" + +"I see what you mean," said March, with a dubious glance at the statue, +"but I'm not sure, now, that I wouldn't like something quieter in my +Madonnas." + +The thoroughfare which they emerged upon, with the cathedral ending the +prospective, was full of the holiday so near at hand. The narrow +sidewalks were thronged with people, both soldiers and civilians, and up +the middle of the street detachments of military came and went, halting +the little horse-cars and the huge beer-wagons which otherwise seemed to +have the sole right to the streets of Wurzburg; they came jingling or +thundering out of the aide streets and hurled themselves round the +corners reckless of the passers, who escaped alive by flattening +themselves like posters against the house walls. There were peasants, men +and women, in the costume which the unbroken course of their country life +had kept as quaint as it was a hundred years before; there were citizens +in the misfits of the latest German fashions; there were soldiers of all +arms in their vivid uniforms, and from time to time there were pretty +young girls in white dresses with low necks, and bare arms gloved to the +elbows, who were following a holiday custom of the place in going about +the streets in ball costume. The shop windows were filled with portraits +of the Emperor and the Empress, and the Prince-Regent and the ladies of +his family; the German and Bavarian colors draped the facades of the +houses and festooned the fantastic Madonnas posing above so many portals. +The modern patriotism included the ancient piety without disturbing it; +the rococo city remained ecclesiastical through its new imperialism, and +kept the stamp given it by the long rule of the prince-bishops under the +sovereignty of its King and the suzerainty of its Kaiser. + +The Marches escaped from the present, when they entered the cathedral, as +wholly as if they had taken hold of the horns of the altar, though they +were far from literally doing this in an interior so grandiose. There +area few rococo churches in Italy, and perhaps more in Spain, which +approach the perfection achieved by the Wurzburg cathedral in the baroque +style. For once one sees what that style can do in architecture and +sculpture, and whatever one may say of the details, one cannot deny that +there is a prodigiously effective keeping in it all. This interior came +together, as the decorators say, with a harmony that the travellers had +felt nowhere in their earlier experience of the rococo. It was, +unimpeachably perfect in its way, "Just," March murmured to his wife, "as +the social and political and scientific scheme of the eighteenth century +was perfected in certain times and places. But the odd thing is to find +the apotheosis of the rococo away up here in Germany. I wonder how much +the prince-bishops really liked it. But they had become rococo, too! Look +at that row of their statues on both sides of the nave! What magnificent +swell! How they abash this poor plain Christ, here; he would like to get +behind the pillar; he knows that he could never lend himself to the +baroque style. It expresses the eighteenth century, though. But how you +long for some little hint of the thirteenth, or even the nineteenth." + +"I don't," she whispered back. "I'm perfectly wild with Wurzburg. I like +to have a thing go as far as it can. At Nuremberg I wanted all the Gothic +I could get, and in Wurzburg I want all the baroque I can get. I am +consistent." + +She kept on praising herself to his disadvantage, as women do, all the +way to the Neumunster Church, where they were going to revere the tomb of +Walther von der Vogelweide, not so much for his own sake as for +Longfellow's. The older poet lies buried within, but his monument is +outside the church, perhaps for the greater convenience of the sparrows, +which now represent the birds he loved. The cenotaph is surmounted by a +broad vase, and around this are thickly perched the effigies of the +Meistersinger's feathered friends, from whom the canons of the church, as +Mrs. March read aloud from her Baedeker, long ago directed his bequest to +themselves. In revenge for their lawless greed the defrauded +beneficiaries choose to burlesque the affair by looking like the +four-and-twenty blackbirds when the pie was opened. + +She consented to go for a moment to the Gothic Marienkapelle with her +husband in the revival of his mediaeval taste, and she was rewarded +amidst its thirteenth-century sincerity by his recantation. "You are +right! Baroque is the thing for Wurzburg; one can't enjoy Gothic here any +more than one could enjoy baroque in Nuremberg." + +Reconciled in the rococo, they now called a carriage, and went to visit +the palace of the prince-bishops who had so well known how to make the +heavenly take the image and superscription of the worldly; and they were +jointly indignant to find it shut against the public in preparation for +the imperialities and royalties coming to occupy it. They were in time +for the noon guard-mounting, however, and Mrs. March said that the way +the retiring squad kicked their legs out in the high martial step of the +German soldiers was a perfect expression of the insolent militarism of +their empire, and was of itself enough to make one thank Heaven that one +was an American and a republican. She softened a little toward their +system when it proved that the garden of the palace was still open, and +yet more when she sank down upon a bench between two marble groups +representing the Rape of Proserpine and the Rape of Europa. They stood +each in a gravelled plot, thickly overrun by a growth of ivy, and the +vine climbed the white naked limbs of the nymphs, who were present on a +pretence of gathering flowers, but really to pose at the spectators, and +clad them to the waist and shoulders with an effect of modesty never +meant by the sculptor, but not displeasing. There was an old fountain +near, its stone rim and centre of rock-work green with immemorial mould, +and its basin quivering between its water-plants under the soft fall of +spray. At a waft of fitful breeze some leaves of early autumn fell from +the trees overhead upon the elderly pair where they sat, and a little +company of sparrows came and hopped about their feet. Though the square +without was so all astir with festive expectation, there were few people +in the garden; three or four peasant women in densely fluted white skirts +and red aprons and shawls wandered by and stared at the Europa and at the +Proserpine. + +It was a precious moment in which the charm of the city's past seemed to +culminate, and they were loath to break it by speech. + +"Why didn't we have something like all this on our first wedding +journey?" she sighed at last. "To think of our battening from Boston to +Niagara and back! And how hard we tried to make something of Rochester +and Buffalo, of Montreal and Quebec!" + +"Niagara wasn't so bad," he said, "and I will never go back on Quebec." + +"Ah, but if we could have had Hamburg and Leipsic, and Carlsbad and +Nuremberg, and Ansbach and Wurzburg! Perhaps this is meant as a +compensation for our lost youth. But I can't enjoy it as I could when I +was young. It's wasted on my sere and yellow leaf. I wish Burnamy and +Miss Triscoe were here; I should like to try this garden on them." + +"They wouldn't care for it," he replied, and upon a daring impulse he +added, "Kenby and Mrs. Adding might." If she took this suggestion in good +part, he could tell her that Kenby was in Wurzburg. + +"Don't speak of them! They're in just that besotted early middle-age when +life has settled into a self-satisfied present, with no past and no +future; the most philistine, the most bourgeois, moment of existence. +Better be elderly at once, as far as appreciation of all this goes." She +rose and put her hand on his arm, and pushed him away in the impulsive +fashion of her youth, across alleys of old trees toward a balustraded +terrace in the background which had tempted her. + +"It isn't so bad, being elderly," he said. "By that time we have +accumulated enough past to sit down and really enjoy its associations. We +have got all sorts of perspectives and points of view. We know where we +are at." + +"I don't mind being elderly. The world's just as amusing as ever, and +lots of disagreeable things have dropped out. It's the getting more than +elderly; it's the getting old; and then--" + +They shrank a little closer together, and walked on in silence till he +said, "Perhaps there's something else, something better--somewhere." + +They had reached the balustraded terrace, and were pausing for pleasure +in the garden tops below, with the flowery spaces, and the statued +fountains all coming together. She put her hand on one of the fat little +urchin-groups on the stone coping. "I don't want cherubs, when I can have +these putti. And those old prince-bishops didn't, either!" + +"I don't suppose they kept a New England conscience," he said, with a +vague smile. "It would be difficult in the presence of the rococo." + +They left the garden through the beautiful gate which the old court +ironsmith Oegg hammered out in lovely forms of leaves and flowers, and +shaped laterally upward, as lightly as if with a waft of his hand, in +gracious Louis Quinze curves; and they looked back at it in the kind of +despair which any perfection inspires. They said how feminine it was, how +exotic, how expressive of a luxurious ideal of life which art had +purified and left eternally charming. They remembered their Ruskinian +youth, and the confidence with which they would once have condemned it; +and they had a sense of recreance in now admiring it; but they certainly +admired it, and it remained for them the supreme expression of that +time-soul, mundane, courtly, aristocratic, flattering, which once +influenced the art of the whole world, and which had here so curiously +found its apotheosis in a city remote from its native place and under a +rule sacerdotally vowed to austerity. The vast superb palace of the +prince bishops, which was now to house a whole troop of sovereigns, +imperial, royal, grand ducal and ducal, swelled aloft in superb +amplitude; but it did not realize their historic pride so effectively as +this exquisite work of the court ironsmith. It related itself in its +aerial beauty to that of the Tiepolo frescoes which the travellers knew +were swimming and soaring on the ceilings within, and from which it +seemed to accent their exclusion with a delicate irony, March said. "Or +iron-mongery," he corrected himself upon reflection. + + + + +LIV. + +He had forgotten Kenby in these aesthetic interests, but he remembered +him again when he called a carriage, and ordered it driven to their +hotel. It was the hour of the German mid-day table d'hote, and they would +be sure to meet him there. The question now was how March should own his +presence in time to prevent his wife from showing her ignorance of it to +Kenby himself, and he was still turning the question hopelessly over in +his mind when the sight of the hotel seemed to remind her of a fact which +she announced. + +"Now, my dear, I am tired to death, and I am not going to sit through a +long table d'hote. I want you to send me up a simple beefsteak and a cup +of tea to our rooms; and I don't want you to come near for hours; because +I intend to take a whole afternoon nap. You can keep all the maps and +plans, and guides, and you had better go and see what the Volksfest is +like; it will give you some notion of the part the people are really +taking in all this official celebration, and you know I don't care. Don't +come up after dinner to see how I am getting along; I shall get along; +and if you should happen to wake me after I had dropped off--" + +Kenby had seen them arrive from where he sat at the reading-room window, +waiting for the dinner hour, and had meant to rush out and greet Mrs. +March as they passed up the corridor. But she looked so tired that he had +decided to spare her till she came down to dinner; and as he sat with +March at their soup, he asked if she were not well. + +March explained, and he provisionally invented some regrets from her that +she should not see Kenby till supper. + +Kenby ordered a bottle of one of the famous Wurzburg wines for their +mutual consolation in her absence, and in the friendliness which its +promoted they agreed to spend the afternoon together. No man is so +inveterate a husband as not to take kindly an occasional release to +bachelor companionship, and before the dinner was over they agreed that +they would go to the Volksfest, and get some notion of the popular life +and amusements of Wurzburg, which was one of the few places where Kenby +had never been before; and they agreed that they would walk. + +Their way was partly up the quay of the Main, past a barrack full of +soldiers. They met detachments of soldiers everywhere, infantry, +artillery, cavalry. + +"This is going to be a great show," Kenby said, meaning the manoeuvres, +and he added, as if now he had kept away from the subject long enough and +had a right to recur to it, at least indirectly, "I should like to have +Rose see it, and get his impressions." + +"I've an idea he wouldn't approve of it. His mother says his mind is +turning more and more to philanthropy." + +Kenby could not forego such a chance to speak of Mrs. Adding. "It's one +of the prettiest things to see how she understands Rose. It's charming to +see them together. She wouldn't have half the attraction without him." + +"Oh, yes," March assented. He had often wondered how a man wishing to +marry a widow managed with the idea of her children by another marriage; +but if Kenby was honest; it was much simpler than he had supposed. He +could not say this to him, however, and in a certain embarrassment he had +with the conjecture in his presence he attempted a diversion. "We're +promised something at the Volksfest which will be a great novelty to us +as Americans. Our driver told us this morning that one of the houses +there was built entirely of wood." + +When they reached the grounds of the Volksfest, this civil feature of the +great military event at hand, which the Marches had found largely set +forth in the programme of the parade, did not fully keep the glowing +promises made for it; in fact it could not easily have done so. It was in +a pleasant neighborhood of new villas such as form the modern quarter of +every German city, and the Volksfest was even more unfinished than its +environment. It was not yet enclosed by the fence which was to hide its +wonders from the non-paying public, but March and Kenby went in through +an archway where the gate-money was as effectually collected from them as +if they were barred every other entrance. + +The wooden building was easily distinguishable from the other edifices +because these were tents and booths still less substantial. They did not +make out its function, but of the others four sheltered merry-go-rounds, +four were beer-gardens, four were restaurants, and the rest were devoted +to amusements of the usual country-fair type. Apparently they had little +attraction for country people. The Americans met few peasants in the +grounds, and neither at the Edison kinematograph, where they refreshed +their patriotism with some scenes of their native life, nor at the little +theatre where they saw the sports of the arena revived, in the wrestle of +a woman with a bear, did any of the people except tradesmen and artisans +seem to be taking part in the festival expression of the popular +pleasure. + +The woman, who finally threw the bear, whether by slight, or by main +strength, or by a previous understanding with him, was a slender +creature, pathetically small and not altogether plain; and March as they +walked away lapsed into a pensive muse upon her strange employ. He +wondered how she came to take it up, and whether she began with the bear +when they were both very young, and she could easily throw him. + +"Well, women have a great deal more strength than we suppose," Kenby +began with a philosophical air that gave March the hope of some rational +conversation. Then his eye glazed with a far-off look, and a doting smile +came into his face. "When we went through the Dresden gallery together, +Rose and I were perfectly used up at the end of an hour, but his mother +kept on as long as there was anything to see, and came away as fresh as a +peach." + +Then March saw that it was useless to expect anything different from him, +and he let him talk on about Mrs. Adding all the rest of the way back to +the hotel. Kenby seemed only to have begun when they reached the door, +and wanted to continue the subject in the reading-room. + +March pleaded his wish to find how his wife had got through the +afternoon, and he escaped to her. He would have told her now that Kenby +was in the house, but he was really so sick of the fact himself that he +could not speak of it at once, and he let her go on celebrating all she +had seen from the window since she had waked from her long nap. She said +she could never be glad enough that they had come just at that time. +Soldiers had been going by the whole afternoon, and that made it so +feudal. + +"Yes," he assented. "But aren't you coming up to the station with me to +see the Prince-Regent arrive? He's due at seven, you know." + +"I declare I had forgotten all about it. No, I'm not equal to it. You +must go; you can tell me everything; be sure to notice how the Princess +Maria looks; the last of the Stuarts, you know; and some people consider +her the rightful Queen of England; and I'll have the supper ordered, and +we can go down as soon as you've got back." + + + + +LV. + +March felt rather shabby stealing away without Kenby; but he had really +had as much of Mrs. Adding as he could stand, for one day, and he was +even beginning to get sick of Rose. Besides, he had not sent back a line +for 'Every Other Week' yet, and he had made up his mind to write a sketch +of the manoeuvres. To this end he wished to receive an impression of the +Prince-Regent's arrival which should not be blurred or clouded by other +interests. His wife knew the kind of thing he liked to see, and would +have helped him out with his observations, but Kenby would have got in +the way, and would have clogged the movement of his fancy in assigning +the facts to the parts he would like them to play in the sketch. + +At least he made some such excuses to himself as he hurried along toward +the Kaiserstrasse. The draught of universal interest in that direction +had left the other streets almost deserted, but as he approached the +thoroughfare he found all the ways blocked, and the horse-cars, +ordinarily so furiously headlong, arrested by the multiple ranks of +spectators on the sidewalks. The avenue leading from the railway station +to the palace was decorated with flags and garlands, and planted with the +stems of young firs and birches. The doorways were crowded, and the +windows dense with eager faces peering out of the draped bunting. The +carriageway was kept clear by mild policemen who now and then allowed one +of the crowd to cross it. + +The crowd was made up mostly of women and boys, and when March joined +them, they had already been waiting an hour for the sight of the princes +who were to bless them with a vision of the faery race which kings always +are to common men. He thought the people looked dull, and therefore able +to bear the strain of expectation with patience better than a livelier +race. They relieved it by no attempt at joking; here and there a dim +smile dawned on a weary face, but it seemed an effect of amiability +rather than humor. There was so little of this, or else it was so well +bridled by the solemnity of the occasion, that not a man, woman, or child +laughed when a bareheaded maid-servant broke through the lines and ran +down between them with a life-size plaster bust of the Emperor William in +her arms: she carried it like an overgrown infant, and in alarm at her +conspicuous part she cast frightened looks from side to side without +arousing any sort of notice. Undeterred by her failure, a young dog, +parted from his owner, and seeking him in the crowd, pursued his search +in a wild flight down the guarded roadway with an air of anxiety that in +America would have won him thunders of applause, and all sorts of kindly +encouragements to greater speed. But this German crowd witnessed his +progress apparently without interest, and without a sign of pleasure. +They were there to see the Prince-Regent arrive, and they did not suffer +themselves to be distracted by any preliminary excitement. Suddenly the +indefinable emotion which expresses the fulfilment of expectation in a +waiting crowd passed through the multitude, and before he realized it +March was looking into the friendly gray-bearded face of the +Prince-Regent, for the moment that his carriage allowed in passing. This +came first preceded by four outriders, and followed by other simple +equipages of Bavarian blue, full of highnesses of all grades. Beside the +Regent sat his daughter-in-law, the Princess Maria, her silvered hair +framing a face as plain and good as the Regent's, if not so intelligent. + +He, in virtue of having been born in Wurzburg, is officially supposed to +be specially beloved by his fellow townsmen; and they now testified their +affection as he whirled through their ranks, bowing right and left, by +what passes in Germany for a cheer. It is the word Hoch, groaned forth +from abdominal depths, and dismally prolonged in a hollow roar like that +which the mob makes behind the scenes at the theatre before bursting in +visible tumult on the stage. Then the crowd dispersed, and March came +away wondering why such a kindly-looking Prince-Regent should not have +given them a little longer sight of himself; after they had waited so +patiently for hours to see him. But doubtless in those countries, he +concluded, the art of keeping the sovereign precious by suffering him to +be rarely and briefly seen is wisely studied. + +On his way home he resolved to confess Kenby's presence; and he did so as +soon as he sat down to supper with his wife. "I ought to have told you +the first thing after breakfast. But when I found you in that mood of +having the place all to ourselves, I put it off." + +"You took terrible chances, my dear," she said, gravely. + +"And I have been terribly punished. You've no idea how much Kenby has +talked to me about Mrs. Adding!" + +She broke out laughing. "Well, perhaps you've suffered enough. But you +can see now, can't you, that it would have been awful if I had met him, +and let out that I didn't know he was here?" + +"Terrible. But if I had told, it would have spoiled the whole morning for +you; you couldn't have thought of anything else." + +"Oh, I don't know," she said, airily. "What should you think if I told +you I had known he was here ever since last night?" She went on in +delight at the start he gave. "I saw him come into the hotel while you +were gone for the guide-books, and I determined to keep it from you as +long as I could; I knew it would worry you. We've both been very nice; +and I forgive you," she hurried on, "because I've really got something to +tell you." + +"Don't tell me that Burnamy is here!" + +"Don't jump to conclusions! No, Burnamy isn't here, poor fellow! And +don't suppose that I'm guilty of concealment because I haven't told you +before. I was just thinking whether I wouldn't spare you till morning, +but now I shall let you take the brunt of it. Mrs. Adding and Rose are +here." She gave the fact time to sink in, and then she added, "And Miss +Triscoe and her father are here." + +"What is the matter with Major Eltwin and his wife being here, too? Are +they in our hotel?" + +"No, they are not. They came to look for rooms while you were off waiting +for the Prince-Regent, and I saw them. They intended to go to Frankfort +for the manoeuvres, but they heard that there was not even standing-room +there, and so the general telegraphed to the Spanischer Hof, and they all +came here. As it is, he will have to room with Rose, and Agatha and Mrs. +Adding will room together. I didn't think Agatha was looking very well; +she looked unhappy; I don't believe she's heard, from Burnamy yet; I +hadn't a chance to ask her. And there's something else that I'm afraid +will fairly make you sick." + +"Oh, no; go on. I don't think anything can do that, after an afternoon of +Kenby's confidences." + +"It's worse than Kenby," she said with a sigh. "You know I told you at +Carlsbad I thought that ridiculous old thing was making up to Mrs. +Adding." + +"Kenby? Why of co--" + +"Don't be stupid, my dear! No, not Kenby: General Triscoe. I wish you +could have been here to see him paying her all sort; of silly attentions, +and hear him making her compliments." + +"Thank you. I think I'm just as well without it. Did she pay him silly +attentions and compliments, too?" + +"That's the only thing that can make me forgive her for his wanting her. +She was keeping him at arm's-length the whole time, and she was doing it +so as not to make him contemptible before his daughter." + +"It must have been hard. And Rose?" + +"Rose didn't seem very well. He looks thin and pale; but he's sweeter +than ever. She's certainly commoner clay than Rose. No, I won't say that! +It's really nothing but General Triscoe's being an old goose about her +that makes her seem so, and it isn't fair." + +March went down to his coffee in the morning with the delicate duty of +telling Kenby that Mrs. Adding was in town. Kenby seemed to think it +quite natural she should wish to see the manoeuvres, and not at all +strange that she should come to them with General Triscoe and his +daughter. He asked if March would not go with him to call upon her after +breakfast, and as this was in the line of his own instructions from Mrs. +March, he went. + +They found Mrs. Adding with the Triscoes, and March saw nothing that was +not merely friendly, or at the most fatherly, in the general's behavior +toward her. If Mrs. Adding or Miss Triscoe saw more, they hid it in a +guise of sisterly affection for each other. At the most the general +showed a gayety which one would not have expected of him under any +conditions, and which the fact that he and Rose had kept each other awake +a good deal the night before seemed so little adapted to call out. He +joked with Rose about their room and their beds, and put on a comradery +with him that was not a perfect fit, and that suffered by contrast with +the pleasure of the boy and Kenby in meeting. There was a certain +question in the attitude of Mrs. Adding till March helped Kenby to +account for his presence; then she relaxed in an effect of security so +tacit that words overstate it, and began to make fun of Rose. + +March could not find that Miss Triscoe looked unhappy, as his wife had +said; he thought simply that she had grown plainer; but when he reported +this, she lost her patience with him. In a girl, she said, plainness was +unhappiness; and she wished to know when he would ever learn to look an +inch below the surface: She was sure that Agatha Triscoe had not heard +from Burnamy since the Emperor's birthday; that she was at swords'-points +with her father, and so desperate that she did not care what became of +her. + +He had left Kenby with the others, and now, after his wife had talked +herself tired of them all, he proposed going out again to look about the +city, where there was nothing for the moment to remind them of the +presence of their friends or even of their existence. She answered that +she was worrying about all those people, and trying to work out their +problem for them. He asked why she did not let them work it out +themselves as they would have to do, after all her worry, and she said +that where her sympathy had been excited she could not stop worrying, +whether it did any good or not, and she could not respect any one who +could drop things so completely out of his mind as he could; she had +never been able to respect that in him. + +"I know, my dear," he assented. "But I don't think it's a question of +moral responsibility; it's a question of mental structure, isn't it? Your +consciousness isn't built in thought-tight compartments, and one emotion +goes all through it, and sinks you; but I simply close the doors and shut +the emotion in, and keep on." + +The fancy pleased him so much that he worked it out in all its +implications, and could not, after their long experience of each other, +realize that she was not enjoying the joke too, till she said she saw +that he merely wished to tease. Then, too late, he tried to share her +worry; but she protested that she was not worrying at all; that she cared +nothing about those people: that she was nervous, she was tired; and she +wished he would leave her, and go out alone. + +He found himself in the street again, and he perceived that he must be +walking fast when a voice called him by name, and asked him what his +hurry was. The voice was Stoller's, who got into step with him and +followed the first with a second question. + +"Made up your mind to go to the manoeuvres with me?" + +His bluntness made it easy for March to answer: "I'm afraid my wife +couldn't stand the drive back and forth." + +"Come without her." + +"Thank you. It's very kind of you. I'm not certain that I shall go at +all. If I do, I shall run out by train, and take my chances with the +crowd." + +Stoller insisted no further. He felt no offence at the refusal of his +offer, or chose to show none. He said, with the same uncouth abruptness +as before: "Heard anything of that fellow since he left Carlsbad?" + +"Burnamy?" + +"Mm." + +"No." + +"Know where he is?" + +"I don't in the least." + +Stoller let another silence elapse while they hurried on, before he said, +"I got to thinking what he done afterwards. He wasn't bound to look out +for me; he might suppose I knew what I was about." + +March turned his face and stared in Stoller's, which he was letting hang +forward as he stamped heavily on. Had the disaster proved less than he +had feared, and did he still want Burnamy's help in patching up the +broken pieces; or did he really wish to do Burnamy justice to his friend? + +In any case March's duty was clear. "I think Burnamy was bound to look +out for you; Mr. Stoller, and I am glad to know that he saw it in the +same light." + +"I know he did," said Stoker with a blaze as from a long-smouldering +fury, "and damn him, I'm not going to have it. I'm not going to, plead +the baby act with him, or with any man. You tell him so, when you get the +chance. You tell him I don't hold him accountable for anything I made him +do. That ain't business; I don't want him around me, any more; but if he +wants to go back to the paper he can have his place. You tell him I stand +by what I done; and it's all right between him and me. I hain't done +anything about it, the way I wanted him to help me to; I've let it lay, +and I'm a-going to. I guess it ain't going to do me any harm, after all; +our people hain't got very long memories; but if it is, let it. You tell +him it's all right." + +"I don't know where he is, Mr. Stoller, and I don't know that I care to +be the bearer of your message," said March. + +"Why not?" + +"Why, for one thing, I don't agree with you that it's all right. Your +choosing to stand by the consequences of Burnamy's wrong doesn't undo it. +As I understand, you don't pardon it--" + +Stoller gulped and did not answer at once. Then he said, "I stand by what +I done. I'm not going to let him say I turned him down for doing what I +told him to, because I hadn't the sense to know what I was about." + +"Ah, I don't think it's a thing he'll like to speak of in any case," said +March. + +Stoller left him, at the corner they had reached, as abruptly as he had +joined him, and March hurried back to his wife, and told her what had +just passed between him and Stoller. + +She broke out, "Well, I am surprised at you, my dear! You have always +accused me of suspecting people, and attributing bad motives; and here +you've refused even to give the poor man the benefit of the doubt. He +merely wanted to save his savage pride with you, and that's all he wants +to do with Burnamy. How could it hurt the poor boy to know that Stoller +doesn't blame him? Why should you refuse to give his message to Burnamy? +I don't want you to ridicule me for my conscience any more, Basil; you're +twice as bad as I ever was. Don't you think that a person can ever +expiate an offence? I've often heard you say that if any one owned his +fault, he put it from him, and it was the same as if it hadn't been; and +hasn't Burnamy owned up over and over again? I'm astonished at you, +dearest." + +March was in fact somewhat astonished at himself in the light of her +reasoning; but she went on with some sophistries that restored him to his +self-righteousness. + +"I suppose you think he has interfered with Stoller's political ambition, +and injured him in that way. Well, what if he has? Would it be a good +thing to have a man like that succeed in politics? You're always saying +that the low character of our politicians is the ruin of the country; and +I'm sure," she added, with a prodigious leap over all the sequences, +"that Mr. Stoller is acting nobly; and it's your duty to help him relieve +Burnamy's mind." At the laugh he broke into she hastened to say, "Or if +you won't, I hope you'll not object to my doing so, for I shall, anyway!" + +She rose as if she were going to begin at once, in spite of his laughing; +and in fact she had already a plan for coming to Stoller's assistance by +getting at Burnamy through Miss Triscoe, whom she suspected of knowing +where he was. There had been no chance for them to speak of him either +that morning or the evening before, and after a great deal of controversy +with herself in her husband's presence she decided to wait till they came +naturally together the next morning for the walk to the Capuchin Church +on the hill beyond the river, which they had agreed to take. She could +not keep from writing a note to Miss Triscoe begging her to be sure to +come, and hinting that she had something very important to speak of. + +She was not sure but she had been rather silly to do this, but when they +met the girl confessed that she had thought of giving up the walk, and +might not have come except for Mrs. March's note. She had come with Rose, +and had left him below with March; Mrs. Adding was coming later with +Kenby and General Triscoe. + +Mrs. March lost no time in telling her the great news; and if she had +been in doubt before of the girl's feeling for Burnamy she was now in +none. She had the pleasure of seeing her flush with hope, and then the +pain which was also a pleasure, of seeing her blanch with dismay. + +"I don't know where he is, Mrs. March. I haven't heard a word from him +since that night in Carlsbad. I expected--I didn't know but you--" + +Mrs. March shook her head. She treated the fact skillfully as something +to be regretted simply because it would be such a relief to Burnamy to +know how Mr. Stoller now felt. Of course they could reach him somehow; +you could always get letters to people in Europe, in the end; and, in +fact, it was altogether probable that he was that very instant in +Wurzburg; for if the New York-Paris Chronicle had wanted him to write up +the Wagner operas, it would certainly want him to write up the +manoeuvres. She established his presence in Wurzburg by such an +irrefragable chain of reasoning that, at a knock outside, she was just +able to kelp back a scream, while she ran to open the door. It was not +Burnamy, as in compliance with every nerve it ought to have been, but her +husband, who tried to justify his presence by saying that they were all +waiting for her and Miss Triscoe, and asked when they were coming. + +She frowned him silent, and then shut herself outside with him long +enough to whisper, "Say she's got a headache, or anything you please; but +don't stop talking here with me, or I shall go wild." She then shut +herself in again, with the effect of holding him accountable for the +whole affair. + + + + +LVI. + +General Triscoe could not keep his irritation, at hearing that his +daughter was not coming, out of the excuses he made to Mrs. Adding; he +said again and again that it must seem like a discourtesy to her. She +gayly disclaimed any such notion; she would not hear of putting off their +excursion to another day; it had been raining just long enough to give +them a reasonable hope of a few hours' drought, and they might not have +another dry spell for weeks. She slipped off her jacket after they +started, and gave it to Kenby, but she let General Triscoe hold her +umbrella over her, while he limped beside her. She seemed to March, as he +followed with Rose, to be playing the two men off against each other, +with an ease which he wished his wife could be there to see, and to judge +aright. + +They crossed by the Old Bridge, which is of the earliest years of the +seventh century, between rows of saints whose statues surmount the piers. +Some are bishops as well as saints; one must have been at Rome in his +day, for he wore his long thick beard in the fashion of Michelangelo's +Moses. He stretched out toward the passers two fingers of blessing and +was unaware of the sparrow which had lighted on them and was giving him +the effect of offering it to the public admiration. Squads of soldiers +tramping by turned to look and smile, and the dull faces of citizens +lighted up at the quaint sight. Some children stopped and remained very +quiet, not to scare away the bird; and a cold-faced, spiritual-looking +priest paused among them as if doubting whether to rescue the +absent-minded bishop from a situation derogatory to his dignity; but he +passed on, and then the sparrow suddenly flew off. + +Rose Adding had lingered for the incident with March, but they now pushed +on, and came up with the others at the end of the bridge, where they +found them in question whether they had not better take a carriage and +drive to the foot of the hill before they began their climb. March +thanked them, but said he was keeping up the terms of his cure, and was +getting in all the walking he could. Rose begged his mother not to +include him in the driving party; he protested that he was feeling so +well, and the walk was doing him good. His mother consented, if he would +promise not to get tired, and then she mounted into the two-spanner which +had driven instinctively up to their party when their parley began, and +General Triscoe took the place beside her, while Kenby, with smiling +patience, seated himself in front. + +Rose kept on talking with March about Wurzburg and its history, which it +seemed he had been reading the night before when he could not sleep. He +explained, "We get little histories of the places wherever we go. That's +what Mr. Kenby does, you know." + +"Oh, yes," said March. + +"I don't suppose I shall get a chance to read much here," Rose continued, +"with General Triscoe in the room. He doesn't like the light." + +"Well, well. He's rather old, you know. And you musn't read too much, +Rose. It isn't good for you." + +"I know, but if I don't read, I think, and that keeps me awake worse. Of +course, I respect General Triscoe for being in the war, and getting +wounded," the boy suggested. + +"A good many did it," March was tempted to say. + +The boy did not notice his insinuation. "I suppose there were some things +they did in the army, and then they couldn't get over the habit. But +General Grant says in his 'Life' that he never used a profane expletive." + +"Does General Triscoe?" + +Rose answered reluctantly, "If anything wakes him in the night, or if he +can't make these German beds over to suit him--" + +"I see." March turned his face to hide the smile which he would not have +let the boy detect. He thought best not to let Rose resume his +impressions of the general; and in talk of weightier matters they found +themselves at that point of the climb where the carriage was waiting for +them. From this point they followed an alley through ivied, garden walls, +till they reached the first of the balustraded terraces which ascend to +the crest of the hill where the church stands. Each terrace is planted +with sycamores, and the face of the terrace wall supports a bass-relief +commemorating with the drama of its lifesize figures the stations of the +cross. + +Monks and priests were coming and going, and dropped on the steps leading +from terrace to terrace were women and children on their knees in prayer. +It was all richly reminiscent of pilgrim scenes in other Catholic lands; +but here there was a touch of earnest in the Northern face of the +worshipers which the South had never imparted. Even in the beautiful +rococo interior of the church at the top of the hill there was a sense of +something deeper and truer than mere ecclesiasticism; and March came out +of it in a serious muse while the boy at his side did nothing to +interrupt. A vague regret filled his heart as he gazed silently out over +the prospect of river and city and vineyard, purpling together below the +top where he stood, and mixed with this regret was a vague resentment of +his wife's absence. She ought to have been there to share his pang and +his pleasure; they had so long enjoyed everything together that without +her he felt unable to get out of either emotion all there was in it. + +The forgotten boy stole silently down the terraces after the rest of the +party who had left him behind with March. At the last terrace they +stopped and waited; and after a delay that began to be long to Mrs. +Adding, she wondered aloud what could have become of them. + +Kenby promptly offered to go back and see, and she consented in seeming +to refuse: "It isn't worth while. Rose has probably got Mr. March into +some deep discussion, and they've forgotten all about us. But if you will +go, Mr. Kenby, you might just remind Rose of my existence." She let him +lay her jacket on her shoulders before he left her, and then she sat down +on one of the steps, which General Triscoe kept striking with the point +of her umbrella as he stood before her. + +"I really shall have to take it from you if you do that any more," she +said, laughing up in his face. "I'm serious." + +He stopped. "I wish I could believe you were serious, for a moment." + +"You may, if you think it will do you any good. But I don't see why." + +The general smiled, but with a kind of tremulous eagerness which might +have been pathetic to any one who liked him. "Do you know this is almost +the first time I have spoken alone with you?" + +"Really, I hadn't noticed," said Mrs. Adding. + +General Triscoe laughed in rather a ghastly way. "Well, that's +encouraging, at least, to a man who's had his doubts whether it wasn't +intended." + +"Intended? By whom? What do you mean, General Triscoe? Why in the world +shouldn't you have spoken alone with me before?" + +He was not, with all his eagerness, ready to say, and while she smiled +pleasantly she had the look in her eyes of being brought to bay and being +prepared, if it must come to that, to have the worst over, then and +there. She was not half his age, but he was aware of her having no +respect for his years; compared with her average American past as he +understood it, his social place was much higher, but, she was not in the +least awed by it; in spite of his war record she was making him behave +like a coward. He was in a false position, and if he had any one but +himself to blame he had not her. He read her equal knowledge of these +facts in the clear eyes that made him flush and turn his own away. + +Then he started with a quick "Hello!" and stood staring up at the steps +from the terrace above, where Rose Adding was staying himself weakly by a +clutch of Kenby on one side and March on the other. + +His mother looked round and caught herself up from where she sat and ran +toward him. "Oh, Rose!" + +"It's nothing, mother," he called to her, and as she dropped on her knees +before him he sank limply against her. "It was like what I had in +Carlsbad; that's all. Don't worry about me, please!" + +"I'm not worrying, Rose," she said with courage of the same texture as +his own. "You've been walking too much. You must go back in the carriage +with us. Can't you have it come here?" she asked Kenby. + +"There's no road, Mrs. Adding. But if Rose would let me carry him--" + +"I can walk," the boy protested, trying to lift himself from her neck. + +"No, no! you mustn't." She drew away and let him fall into the arms that +Kenby put round him. He raised the frail burden lightly to his shoulder, +and moved strongly away, followed by the eyes of the spectators who had +gathered about the little group, but who dispersed now, and went back to +their devotions. + +March hurried after Kenby with Mrs. Adding, whom he told he had just +missed Rose and was looking about for him, when Kenby came with her +message for them. They made sure that he was nowhere about the church, +and then started together down the terraces. At the second or third +station below they found the boy clinging to the barrier that protected +the bass-relief from the zeal of the devotees. He looked white and sick, +though he insisted that he was well, and when he turned to come away with +them he reeled and would have fallen if Kenby had not caught him. Kenby +wanted to carry him, but Rose would not let him, and had made his way +down between them. + +"Yea, he has such a spirit," she said, "and I've no doubt he's suffering +now more from Mr. Kenby's kindness than from his own sickness he had one +of these giddy turns in Carlsbad, though, and I shall certainly have a +doctor to see him." + +"I think I should, Mrs. Adding," said March, not too gravely, for it +seemed to him that it was not quite his business to alarm her further, if +she was herself taking the affair with that seriousness. He questioned +whether she was taking it quite seriously enough, when she turned with a +laugh, and called to General Triscoe, who was limping down the steps of +the last terrace behind them: + +"Oh, poor General Triscoe! I thought you had gone on ahead." + +General Triscoe could not enter into the joke of being forgotten, +apparently. He assisted with gravity at the disposition of the party for +the return, when they all reached the carriage. Rose had the place beside +his mother, and Kenby wished March to take his with the general and let +him sit with the driver; but he insisted that he would rather walk home, +and he did walk till they had driven out of eight. Then he called a +passing one-spanner, and drove to his hotel in comfort and silence. + + + + +LVII. + +Kenby did not come to the Swan before supper; then he reported that the +doctor had said Rose was on the verge of a nervous collapse. He had +overworked at school, but the immediate trouble was the high, thin air, +which the doctor said he must be got out of at once, into a quiet place +at the sea-shore somewhere. He had suggested Ostend; or some point on the +French coast; Kenby had thought of Schevleningen, and the doctor had said +that would do admirably. + +"I understood from Mrs. Adding," he concluded, "that you were going. +there for your after-cure, Mr. March, and I didn't know but you might be +going soon." + +At the mention of Schevleningen the Marches had looked at each other with +a guilty alarm, which they both tried to give the cast of affectionate +sympathy but she dismissed her fear that he might be going to let his +compassion prevail with him to his hurt when he said: "Why, we ought to +have been there before this, but I've been taking my life in my hands in +trying to see a little of Germany, and I'm afraid now that Mrs. March has +her mind too firmly fixed on Berlin to let me think of going to +Schevleningen till we've been there." + +"It's too bad!" said Mrs. March, with real regret. "I wish we were +going." But she had not the least notion of gratifying her wish; and they +were all silent till Kenby broke out: + +"Look here! You know how I feel about Mrs Adding! I've been pretty frank +with Mr. March myself, and I've had my suspicions that she's been frank +with you, Mrs. March. There isn't any doubt about my wanting to marry +her, and up to this time there hasn't been any doubt about her not +wanting to marry me. But it isn't a question of her or of me, now. It's a +question of Rose. I love the boy," and Kenby's voice shook, and he +faltered a moment. "Pshaw! You understand." + +"Indeed I do, Mr. Kenby," said Mrs. March. "I perfectly understand you." + +"Well, I don't think Mrs. Adding is fit to make the journey with him +alone, or to place herself in the best way after she gets to +Schevleningen. She's been badly shaken up; she broke down before the +doctor; she said she didn't know what to do; I suppose she's +frightened--" + +Kenby stopped again, and March asked, "When is she going?" + +"To-morrow," said Kenby, and he added, "And now the question is, why +shouldn't I go with her?" + +Mrs. March gave a little start, and looked at her husband, but he said +nothing, and Kenby seemed not to have supposed that he would say +anything. + +"I know it would be very American, and all that, but I happen to be an +American, and it wouldn't be out of character for me. I suppose," he +appealed to Mrs. March, "that it's something I might offer to do if it +were from New York to Florida--and I happened to be going there? And I +did happen to be going to Holland." + +"Why, of course, Mr. Kenby," she responded, with such solemnity that +March gave way in an outrageous laugh. + +Kenby laughed, and Mrs. March laughed too, but with an inner note of +protest. + +"Well," Kenby continued, still addressing her, "what I want you to do is +to stand by me when I propose it." + +Mrs. March gathered strength to say, "No, Mr. Kenby, it's your own +affair, and you must take the responsibility." + +"Do you disapprove?" + +"It isn't the same as it would be at home. You see that yourself." + +"Well," said Kenby, rising, "I have to arrange about their getting away +to-morrow. It won't be easy in this hurly-burly that's coming off." + +"Give Rose our love; and tell Mrs. Adding that I'll come round and see +her to-morrow before she starts." + +"Oh! I'm afraid you can't, Mrs. March. They're to start at six in the +morning." + +"They are! Then we must go and see them tonight. We'll be there almost as +soon as you are." + +March went up to their rooms with, his wife, and she began on the stairs: + +"Well, my dear, I hope you realize that your laughing so gave us +completely away. And what was there to keep grinning about, all through?" + +"Nothing but the disingenuous, hypocritical passion of love. It's always +the most amusing thing in the world; but to see it trying to pass itself +off in poor old Kenby as duty and humanity, and disinterested affection +for Rose, was more than I could stand. I don't apologize for laughing; I +wanted to yell." + +His effrontery and his philosophy both helped to save him; and she said +from the point where he had side-tracked her mind: "I don't call it +disingenuous. He was brutally frank. He's made it impossible to treat the +affair with dignity. I want you to leave the whole thing to me, from this +out. Now, will you?" + +On their way to the Spanischer Hof she arranged in her own mind for Mrs. +Adding to get a maid, and for the doctor to send an assistant with her on +the journey, but she was in such despair with her scheme that she had not +the courage to right herself when Mrs. Adding met her with the appeal: + +"Oh, Mrs. March, I'm so glad you approve of Mr. Kenby's plan. It does +seem the only thing to do. I can't trust myself alone with Rose, and Mr. +Kenby's intending to go to Schevleningen a few days later anyway. Though +it's too bad to let him give up the manoeuvres." + +"I'm sure he won't mind that," Mrs. March's voice said mechanically, +while her thought was busy with the question whether this scandalous +duplicity was altogether Kenby's, and whether Mrs. Adding was as +guiltless of any share in it as she looked. She looked pitifully +distracted; she might not have understood his report; or Kenby might +really have mistaken Mrs. March's sympathy for favor. + +"No, he only lives to do good," Mrs. Adding returned. "He's with Rose; +won't you come in and see them?" + +Rose was lying back on the pillows of a sofa, from which they would not +let him get up. He was full of the trip to Holland, and had already +pushed Kenby, as Kenby owned, beyond the bounds of his very general +knowledge of the Dutch language, which Rose had plans for taking up after +they were settled in Schevleningen. The boy scoffed at the notion that he +was not perfectly well, and he wished to talk with March on the points +where he had found Kenby wanting. + +"Kenby is an encyclopaedia compared with me, Rose," the editor protested, +and he amplified his ignorance for the boy's good to an extent which Rose +saw was a joke. He left Holland to talk about other things which his +mother thought quite as bad for him. He wished to know if March did not +think that the statue of the bishop with the sparrow on its finger was a +subject for a poem; and March said gayly that if Rose would write it he +would print it in 'Every Other Week'. + +The boy flushed with pleasure at his banter. "No, I couldn't do it. But I +wish Mr. Burnamy had seen it. He could. Will you tell him about it?" He +wanted to know if March had heard from Burnamy lately, and in the midst +of his vivid interest he gave a weary sigh. + +His mother said that now he had talked enough, and bade him say good-by +to the Marches, who were coming so soon to Holland, anyway. Mrs. March +put her arms round him to kiss him, and when she let him sink back her +eyes were dim. + +"You see how frail he is?" said Mrs. Adding. "I shall not let him out of +my sight, after this, till he's well again." + +She had a kind of authority in sending Kenby away with them which was not +lost upon the witnesses. He asked them to come into the reading-room a +moment with him, and Mrs. March wondered if he were going to make some +excuse to her for himself; but he said: "I don't know how we're to manage +about the Triscoes. The general will have a room to himself, but if Mrs. +Adding takes Rose in with her, it leaves Miss Triscoe out, and there +isn't a room to be had in this house for love or money. Do you think," he +appealed directly to Mrs. March, "that it would do to offer her my room +at the Swan?" + +"Why, yes," she assented, with a reluctance rather for the complicity in +which he had already involved her, and for which he was still unpunished, +than for what he was now proposing. "Or she could come in with me, and +Mr. March could take it." + +"Whichever you think," said Kenby so submissively that she relented, to +ask: + +"And what will you do?" + +He laughed. "Well, people have been known to sleep in a chair. I shall +manage somehow." + +"You might offer to go in with the general," March suggested, and the men +apparently thought this was a joke. Mrs. March did not laugh in her +feminine worry about ways and means. + +"Where is Miss Triscoe?" she asked. "We haven't seen them." + +"Didn't Mrs. Adding tell you? They went to supper at a restaurant; the +general doesn't like the cooking here. They ought to have been back +before this." + +He looked up at the clock on the wall, and she said, "I suppose you would +like us to wait." + +"It would be very kind of you." + +"Oh, it's quite essential," she returned with an airy freshness which +Kenby did not seem to feel as painfully as he ought. + +They all sat down, and the Triscoes came in after a few minutes, and a +cloud on the general's face lifted at the proposition Kenby left Mrs. +March to make. + +"I thought that child ought to be in his mother's charge," he said. With +his own comfort provided for, he made no objections to Mrs. March's plan; +and Agatha went to take leave of Rose and his mother. "By-the-way," the +general turned to March, "I found Stoller at the restaurant where we +supped. He offered me a place in his carriage for the manoeuvres. How are +you going?" + +"I think I shall go by train. I don't fancy the long drive." + +"Well, I don't know that it's worse than the long walk after you leave +the train," said the general from the offence which any difference of +taste was apt to give him. "Are you going by train, too?" he asked Kenby +with indifference. + +"I'm not going at all," said Kenby. "I'm leaving Wurzburg in the +morning." + +"Oh, indeed," said the general. + +Mrs. March could not make out whether he knew that Kenby was going with +Rose and Mrs. Adding, but she felt that there must be a full and open +recognition of the fact among them. "Yes," she said, "isn't it fortunate +that Mr. Kenby should be going to Holland, too! I should have been so +unhappy about them if Mrs. Adding had been obliged to make that long +journey with poor little Rose alone." + +"Yes, yes; very fortunate, certainly," said the general colorlessly. + +Her husband gave her a glance of intelligent appreciation; but Kenby was +too simply, too densely content with the situation to know the value of +what she had done. She thought he must certainly explain, as he walked +back with her to the Swan, whether he had misrepresented her to Mrs. +Adding, or Mrs. Adding had misunderstood him. Somewhere there had been an +error, or a duplicity which it was now useless to punish; and Kenby was +so apparently unconscious of it that she had not the heart to be cross +with him. She heard Miss Triscoe behind her with March laughing in the +gayety which the escape from her father seemed to inspire in her. She was +promising March to go with him in the morning to see the Emperor and +Empress of Germany arrive at the station, and he was warning her that if +she laughed there, like that, she would subject him to fine and +imprisonment. She pretended that she would like to see him led off +between two gendarmes, but consented to be a little careful when he asked +her how she expected to get back to her hotel without him, if such a +thing happened. + + + + +LVIII. + +After all, Miss Triscoe did not go with March; she preferred to sleep. +The imperial party was to arrive at half past seven, but at six the crowd +was already dense before the station, and all along the street leading to +the Residenz. It was a brilliant day, with the promise of sunshine, +through which a chilly wind blew, for the manoeuvres. The colors of all +the German states flapped in this breeze from the poles wreathed with +evergreen which encircled the square; the workmen putting the last +touches on the bronzed allegory hurried madly to be done, and they had, +scarcely finished their labors when two troops of dragoons rode into the +place and formed before the station, and waited as motionlessly as their +horses would allow. + +These animals were not so conscious as lions at the approach of princes; +they tossed and stamped impatiently in the long interval before the +Regent and his daughter-in-law came to welcome their guests. All the +human beings, both those who were in charge and those who were under +charge, were in a quiver of anxiety to play their parts well, as if there +were some heavy penalty for failure in the least point. The policemen +keeping the people, in line behind the ropes which restrained them +trembled with eagerness; the faces of some of the troopers twitched. An +involuntary sigh went up from the crowd as the Regent's carriage +appeared, heralded by outriders, and followed by other plain carriages of +Bavarian blue with liveries of blue and silver. Then the whistle of the +Kaiser's train sounded; a trumpeter advanced and began to blow his +trumpet as they do in the theatre; and exactly at the appointed moment +the Emperor and Empress came out of the station through the brilliant +human alley leading from it, mounted their carriages, with the stage +trumpeter always blowing, and whirled swiftly round half the square and +flashed into the corner toward the Residenz out of sight. The same hollow +groans of Ho-o-o-ch greeted and followed them from the spectators as had +welcomed the Regent when he first arrived among his fellow-townsmen, with +the same effect of being the conventional cries of a stage mob behind the +scenes. + +The Emperor was like most of his innumerable pictures, with a swarthy +face from which his blue eyes glanced pleasantly; he looked good-humored +if not good-natured; the Empress smiled amiably beneath her deeply +fringed white parasol, and they both bowed right and left in +acknowledgment of those hollow groans; but again it seemed, to March that +sovereignty, gave the popular curiosity, not to call it devotion, a +scantier return than it merited. He had perhaps been insensibly working +toward some such perception as now came to him that the great difference +between Europe and America was that in Europe life is histrionic and +dramatized, and that in America, except when it is trying to be European, +it is direct and sincere. He wondered whether the innate conviction of +equality, the deep, underlying sense of a common humanity transcending +all social and civic pretences, was what gave their theatrical effect to +the shows of deference from low to high, and of condescension from high +to low. If in such encounters of sovereigns and subjects, the prince did +not play his part so well as the people, it might be that he had a harder +part to play, and that to support his dignity at all, to keep from being +found out the sham that he essentially was, he had to hurry across the +stage amidst the distracting thunders of the orchestra. If the star staid +to be scrutinized by the soldiers, citizens, and so forth, even the poor +supernumeraries and scene-shifters might see that he was a tallow candle +like themselves. + +In the censorious mood induced by the reflection that he had waited an +hour and a half for half a minute's glimpse of the imperial party, March +now decided not to go to the manoeuvres, where he might be subjected to +still greater humiliation and disappointment. He had certainly come to +Wurzburg for the manoeuvres, but Wurzburg had been richly repaying in +itself; and why should he stifle half an hour in an overcrowded train, +and struggle for three miles on foot against that harsh wind, to see a +multitude of men give proofs of their fitness to do manifold murder? He +was, in fact, not the least curious for the sight, and the only thing +that really troubled him was the question of how he should justify his +recreance to his wife. This did alloy the pleasure with which he began, +after an excellent breakfast at a neighboring cafe, to stroll about the +streets, though he had them almost to himself, so many citizens had +followed the soldiers to the manoeuvres. + +It was not till the soldiers began returning from the manoeuvres, +dusty-footed, and in white canvas overalls drawn over their trousers to +save them, that he went back to Mrs. March and Miss Triscoe at the Swan. +He had given them time enough to imagine him at the review, and to wonder +whether he had seen General Triscoe and the Stollers there, and they met +him with such confident inquiries that he would not undeceive them at +once. He let them divine from his inventive answers that he had not gone +to the manoeuvres, which put them in the best humor with themselves, and +the girl said it was so cold and rough that she wished her father had not +gone, either. The general appeared just before dinner and frankly avowed +the same wish. He was rasping and wheezing from the dust which filled his +lungs; he looked blown and red, and he was too angry with the company he +had been in to have any comments on the manoeuvres. He referred to the +military chiefly in relation to the Miss Stollers' ineffectual +flirtations, which he declared had been outrageous. Their father had +apparently no control over them whatever, or else was too ignorant to +know that they were misbehaving. They were without respect or reverence +for any one; they had talked to General Triscoe as if he were a boy of +their own age, or a dotard whom nobody need mind; they had not only kept +up their foolish babble before him, they had laughed and giggled, they +had broken into snatches of American song, they had all but whistled and +danced. They made loud comments in Illinois English--on the cuteness of +the officers whom they admired, and they had at one time actually got out +their handkerchiefs. He supposed they meant to wave them at the officers, +but at the look he gave them they merely put their hats together and +snickered in derision of him. They were American girls of the worst type; +they conformed to no standard of behavior; their conduct was personal. +They ought to be taken home. + +Mrs. March said she saw what he meant, and she agreed with him that they +were altogether unformed, and were the effect of their own ignorant +caprices. Probably, however, it was too late to amend them by taking them +away. + +"It would hide them, at any rate," he answered. "They would sink back +into the great mass of our vulgarity, and not be noticed. We behave like +a parcel of peasants with our women. We think that if no harm is meant or +thought, we may risk any sort of appearance, and we do things that are +scandalously improper simply because they are innocent. That may be all +very well at home, but people who prefer that sort of thing had better +stay there, where our peasant manners won't make them conspicuous." + +As their train ran northward out of Wurzburg that afternoon, Mrs. March +recurred to the general's closing words. "That was a slap at Mrs. Adding +for letting Kenby go off with her." + +She took up the history of the past twenty-four hours, from the time +March had left her with Miss Triscoe when he went with her father and the +Addings and Kenby to see that church. She had had no chance to bring up +these arrears until now, and she atoned to herself for the delay by +making the history very full, and going back and adding touches at any +point where she thought she had scanted it. After all, it consisted +mainly of fragmentary intimations from Miss Triscoe and of half-uttered +questions which her own art now built into a coherent statement. + +March could not find that the general had much resented Burnamy's +clandestine visit to Carlsbad when his daughter told him of it, or that +he had done more than make her promise that she would not keep up the +acquaintance upon any terms unknown to him. + +"Probably," Mrs. March said, "as long as he had any hopes of Mrs. Adding, +he was a little too self-conscious to be very up and down about Burnamy." + +"Then you think he was really serious about her?" + +"Now my dear! He was so serious that I suppose he was never so completely +taken aback in his life as when he met Kenby in Wurzburg and saw how she +received him. Of course, that put an end to the fight." + +"The fight?" + +"Yes--that Mrs. Adding and Agatha were keeping up to prevent his offering +himself." + +"Oh! And how do you know that they were keeping up the fight together?" + +"How do I? Didn't you see yourself what friends they were? Did you tell +him what Stoller had, said about Burnamy?" + +"I had no chance. I don't know that I should have done it, anyway. It +wasn't my affair." + +"Well, then, I think you might. It would have been everything for that +poor child; it would have completely justified her in her own eyes." + +"Perhaps your telling her will serve the same purpose." + +"Yes, I did tell her, and I am glad of it. She had a right to know it." + +"Did she think Stoller's willingness to overlook Burnamy's performance +had anything to do with its moral quality?" + +Mrs. March was daunted for the moment, but she said, "I told her you +thought that if a person owned to a fault they disowned it, and put it +away from them just as if it had never been committed; and that if a +person had taken their punishment for a wrong they had done, they had +expiated it so far as anybody else was concerned. And hasn't poor Burnamy +done both?" + +As a moralist March was flattered to be hoist with his own petard, but as +a husband he was not going to come down at once. "I thought probably you +had told her that. You had it pat from having just been over it with me. +When has she heard from him?" + +"Why, that's the strangest thing about it. She hasn't heard at all. She +doesn't know where he is. She thought we must know. She was terribly +broken up." + +"How did she show it?" + +"She didn't show it. Either you want to tease, or you've forgotten how +such things are with young people--or at least girls." + +"Yes, it's all a long time ago with me, and I never was a girl. Besides, +the frank and direct behavior of Kenby and Mrs. Adding has been very +obliterating to my early impressions of love-making." + +"It certainly hasn't been ideal," said Mrs. March with a sigh. + +"Why hasn't it been ideal?" he asked. "Kenby is tremendously in love with +her; and I believe she's had a fancy for him from the beginning. If it +hadn't been for Rose she would have accepted him at once; and now he's +essential to them both in their helplessness. As for Papa Triscoe and his +Europeanized scruples, if they have any reality at all they're the +residuum of his personal resentment, and Kenby and Mrs. Adding have +nothing to do with their unreality. His being in love with her is no +reason why he shouldn't be helpful to her when she needs him, and every +reason why he should. I call it a poem, such as very few people have the +luck to live out together." + +Mrs. March listened with mounting fervor, and when he stopped, she cried +out, "Well, my dear, I do believe you are right! It is ideal, as you say; +it's a perfect poem. And I shall always say--" + +She stopped at the mocking light which she caught in his look, and +perceived that he had been amusing himself with her perennial enthusiasm +for all sorts of love-affairs. But she averred that she did not care; +what he had said was true, and she should always hold him to it. + +They were again in the wedding-journey sentiment in which they had left +Carlsbad, when they found themselves alone together after their escape +from the pressure of others' interests. The tide of travel was towards +Frankfort, where the grand parade was to take place some days later. They +were going to Weimar, which was so few hours out of their way that they +simply must not miss it; and all the way to the old literary capital they +were alone in their compartment, with not even a stranger, much less a +friend to molest them. The flying landscape without was of their own +early autumnal mood, and when the vineyards of Wurzburg ceased to purple +it, the heavy after-math of hay and clover, which men, women, and +children were loading on heavy wains, and driving from the meadows +everywhere, offered a pastoral and pleasing change. It was always the +German landscape; sometimes flat and fertile, sometimes hilly and poor; +often clothed with dense woods, but always charming, with castled tops in +ruin or repair, and with levels where Gothic villages drowsed within +their walls, and dreamed of the mediaeval past, silent, without apparent +life, except for some little goose-girl driving her flock before her as +she sallied out into the nineteenth century in search of fresh pasturage. + +As their train mounted among the Thuringian uplands they were aware of a +finer, cooler air through their open window. The torrents foamed white +out of the black forests of fir and pine, and brawled along the valleys, +where the hamlets roused themselves in momentary curiosity as the train +roared into them from the many tunnels. The afternoon sunshine had the +glister of mountain sunshine everywhere, and the travellers had a +pleasant bewilderment in which their memories of Switzerland and the +White Mountains mixed with long-dormant emotions from Adirondack +sojourns. They chose this place and that in the lovely region where they +lamented that they had not come at once for the after-cure, and they +appointed enough returns to it in future years to consume all the summers +they had left to live. + + + + +LIX. + +It was falling night when they reached Weimar, where they found at the +station a provision of omnibuses far beyond the hotel accommodations. +They drove first to the Crown-Prince, which was in a promising state of +reparation, but which for the present could only welcome them to an +apartment where a canvas curtain cut them off from a freshly plastered +wall. The landlord deplored the fact, and sent hospitably out to try and +place them at the Elephant. But the Elephant was full, and the Russian +Court was full too. Then the landlord of the Crown-Prince bethought +himself of a new hotel, of the second class, indeed, but very nice, where +they might get rooms, and after the delay of an hour, they got a carriage +and drove away from the Crown-Prince, where the landlord continued to the +last as benevolent as if they had been a profit instead of a loss to him. + +The streets of the town at nine o'clock were empty and quiet, and they +instantly felt the academic quality of the place. Through the pale night +they could see that the architecture was of the classic sentiment which +they were destined to feel more and more; at one point they caught a +fleeting glimpse of two figures with clasped hands and half embraced, +which they knew for the statues of Goethe and Schiller; and when they +mounted to their rooms at the Grand-Duke of Saxe-Weimar, they passed +under a fresco representing Goethe and four other world-famous poets, +Shakspere, Milton, Tasso, and Schiller. The poets all looked like +Germans, as was just, and Goethe was naturally chief among them; he +marshalled the immortals on their way, and Schiller brought up the rear +and kept them from going astray in an Elysium where they did not speak +the language. For the rest, the hotel was brand-new, of a quite American +freshness, and was pervaded by a sweet smell as of straw matting, and +provided with steam-radiators. In the sense of its homelikeness the +Marches boasted that they were never going away from it. + +In the morning they discovered that their windows looked out on the +grand-ducal museum, with a gardened space before and below its +classicistic bulk, where, in a whim of the weather, the gay flowers were +full of sun. In a pleasant illusion of taking it unawares, March strolled +up through the town; but Weimar was as much awake at that hour as at any +of the twenty-four, and the tranquillity of its streets, where he +encountered a few passers several blocks apart, was their habitual mood. +He came promptly upon two objects which he would willingly have shunned: +a 'denkmal' of the Franco-German war, not so furiously bad as most German +monuments, but antipathetic and uninteresting, as all patriotic monuments +are; and a woman-and-dog team. In the shock from this he was sensible +that he had not seen any woman-and-dog teams for some time, and he +wondered by what civic or ethnic influences their distribution was so +controlled that they should have abounded in Hamburg, Leipsic, and +Carlsbad, and wholly ceased in Nuremberg, Ansbach, and Wurzburg, to +reappear again in Weimar, though they seemed as characteristic of all +Germany as the ugly denkmals to her victories over France. + +The Goethe and Schiller monument which he had glimpsed the night before +was characteristic too, but less offensively so. German statues at the +best are conscious; and the poet-pair, as the inscription calls them, +have the air of showily confronting posterity with their clasped hands, +and of being only partially rapt from the spectators. But they were more +unconscious than any other German statues that March had seen, and he +quelled a desire to ask Goethe, as he stood with his hand on Schiller's +shoulder, and looked serenely into space far above one of the typical +equipages of his country, what he thought of that sort of thing. But upon +reflection he did not know why Goethe should be held personally +responsible for the existence of the woman-and-dog team. He felt that he +might more reasonably attribute to his taste the prevalence of classic +profiles which he began to note in the Weimar populace. This could be a +sympathetic effect of that passion for the antique which the poet brought +back with him from his sojourn in Italy; though many of the people, +especially the children, were bow-legged. Perhaps the antique had: begun +in their faces, and had not yet got down to their legs; in any case they +were charming children, and as a test of their culture, he had a mind to +ask a little girl if she could tell him where the statue of Herder was, +which he thought he might as well take in on his ramble, and so be done +with as many statues as he could. She answered with a pretty regret in +her tender voice, "That I truly cannot," and he was more satisfied than +if she could, for he thought it better to be a child and honest, than to +know where any German statue was. + +He easily found it for himself in the place which is called the Herder +Platz after it. He went into the Peter and Paul Church there; where +Herder used to preach sermons, sometimes not at all liked by the nobility +and gentry for their revolutionary tendency; the sovereign was shielded +from the worst effects of his doctrine by worshipping apart from other +sinners in a glazed gallery. Herder is buried in the church, and when you +ask where, the sacristan lifts a wooden trap-door in the pavement, and +you think you are going down into the crypt, but you are only to see +Herder's monumental stone, which is kept covered so to save it from +passing feet. Here also is the greatest picture of that great soul Luke +Kranach, who had sincerity enough in his paining to atone for all the +swelling German sculptures in the world. It is a crucifixion, and the +cross is of a white birch log, such as might have been cut out of the +Weimar woods, shaved smooth on the sides, with the bark showing at the +edges. Kranach has put himself among the spectators, and a stream of +blood from the side of the Savior falls in baptism upon the painter's +head. He is in the company of John the Baptist and Martin Luther; Luther +stands with his Bible open, and his finger on the line, "The blood of +Jesus cleanseth us." + +Partly because he felt guilty at doing all these things without his wife, +and partly because he was now very hungry, March turned from them and got +back to his hotel, where she was looking out for him from their open +window. She had the air of being long domesticated there, as she laughed +down at seeing him come; and the continued brilliancy of the weather +added to the illusion of home. + +It was like a day of late spring in Italy or America; the sun in that +gardened hollow before the museum was already hot enough to make him glad +of the shelter of the hotel. The summer seemed to have come back to +oblige them, and when they learned that they were to see Weimar in a +festive mood because this was Sedan Day, their curiosity, if not their +sympathy, accepted the chance gratefully. But they were almost moved to +wish that the war had gone otherwise when they learned that all the +public carriages were engaged, and they must have one from a stable if +they wished to drive after breakfast. Still it was offered them for such +a modest number of marks, and their driver proved so friendly and +conversable, that they assented to the course of history, and were more +and more reconciled as they bowled along through the grand-ducal park +beside the waters of the classic Ilm. + +The waters of the classic Ilm are sluggish and slimy in places, and in +places clear and brooklike, but always a dull dark green in color. They +flow in the shadow of pensive trees, and by the brinks of sunny meadows, +where the after-math wanders in heavy windrows, and the children sport +joyously over the smooth-mown surfaces in all the freedom that there is +in Germany. At last, after immemorial appropriation the owners of the +earth are everywhere expropriated, and the people come into the pleasure +if not the profit of it. At last, the prince, the knight, the noble +finds, as in his turn the plutocrat will find, that his property is not +for him, but for all; and that the nation is to enjoy what he takes from +it and vainly thinks to keep from it. Parks, pleasaunces, gardens, set +apart for kings, are the play-grounds of the landless poor in the Old +World, and perhaps yield the sweetest joy of privilege to some state-sick +ruler, some world-weary princess, some lonely child born to the solitude +of sovereignty, as they each look down from their palace windows upon the +leisure of overwork taking its little holiday amidst beauty vainly +created for the perpetual festival of their empty lives. + +March smiled to think that in this very Weimar, where sovereignty had +graced and ennobled itself as nowhere else in the world by the +companionship of letters and the arts, they still were not hurrying first +to see the palace of a prince, but were involuntarily making it second to +the cottage of a poet. But in fact it is Goethe who is forever the prince +in Weimar. His greatness blots out its history, his name fills the city; +the thought of him is its chiefest imitation and largest hospitality. The +travellers remembered, above all other facts of the grand-ducal park, +that it was there he first met Christiane Vulpius, beautiful and young, +when he too was beautiful and young, and took her home to be his love, to +the just and lasting displeasure of Fran von Stein, who was even less +reconciled when, after eighteen years of due reflection, the love of +Goethe and Christiane became their marriage. They, wondered just where it +was he saw the young girl coming to meet him as the Grand-Duke's minister +with an office-seeking petition from her brother, Goethe's brother +author, long famed and long forgotten for his romantic tale of "Rinaldo +Rinaldini." + +They had indeed no great mind, in their American respectability, for that +rather matter-of-fact and deliberate liaison, and little as their +sympathy was for the passionless intellectual intrigue with the Frau von +Stein, it cast no halo of sentiment about the Goethe cottage to suppose +that there his love-life with Christiane began. Mrs. March even resented +the fact, and when she learned later that it was not the fact at all, she +removed it from her associations with the pretty place almost +indignantly. + +In spite of our facile and multiple divorces we Americans are worshipers +of marriage, and if a great poet, the minister of a prince, is going to +marry a poor girl, we think he had better not wait till their son is +almost of age. Mrs. March would not accept as extenuating circumstances +the Grand-Duke's godfatherhood, or Goethe's open constancy to Christiane, +or the tardy consecration of their union after the French sack of, +Weimar, when the girl's devotion had saved him from the rudeness of the +marauding soldiers. For her New England soul there were no degrees in +such guilt; and, perhaps there are really not so many as people have +tried to think, in their deference to Goethe's greatness. But certainly +the affair was not so simple for a grand-ducal minister of world-wide +renown, and he might well have felt its difficulties, for he could not +have been proof against the censorious public opinion of Weimar, or the +yet more censorious private opinion of Fran von Stein. + +On that lovely Italo-American morning no ghost of these old dead +embarrassments lingered within or without the Goethe garden-house. The +trees which the poet himself planted flung a sun-shot shadow upon it, and +about its feet basked a garden of simple flowers, from which the sweet +lame girl who limped through the rooms and showed them, gathered a +parting nosegay for her visitors. The few small livingrooms were above +the ground-floor, with kitchen and offices below in the Italian fashion; +in one of the little chambers was the camp-bed which Goethe carried with +him on his journeys through Italy; and in the larger room at the front +stood the desk where he wrote, with the chair before it from which he +might just have risen. + +All was much more livingly conscious of the great man gone than the proud +little palace in the town, which so abounds with relics and memorials of +him. His library, his study, his study table, with everything on it just +as he left it when + + "Cadde la stanca mana" + +are there, and there is the death-chair facing the window, from which he +gasped for "more light" at last. The handsome, well-arranged rooms are +full of souvenirs of his travel, and of that passion for Italy which he +did so much to impart to all German hearts, and whose modern waning +leaves its records here of an interest pathetically, almost amusingly, +faded. They intimate the classic temper to which his mind tended more and +more, and amidst the multitude of sculptures, pictures, prints, drawings, +gems, medals, autographs, there is the sense of the many-mindedness, the +universal taste, for which he found room in little Weimar, but not in his +contemporaneous Germany. But it is all less keenly personal, less +intimate than the simple garden-house, or else, with the great troop of +people going through it, and the custodians lecturing in various voices +and languages to the attendant groups, the Marches had it less to +themselves, and so imagined him less in it. + + + + +LX. + +All palaces have a character of tiresome unlivableness which is common to +them everywhere, and very probably if one could meet their proprietors in +them one would as little remember them apart afterwards as the palaces +themselves. It will not do to lift either houses or men far out of the +average; they become spectacles, ceremonies; they cease to have charm, to +have character, which belong to the levels of life, where alone there are +ease and comfort, and human nature may be itself, with all the little +delightful differences repressed in those who represent and typify. + +As they followed the custodian through the grand-ducal Residenz at +Weimar, March felt everywhere the strong wish of the prince who was +Goethe's friend to ally himself with literature, and to be human at least +in the humanities. He came honestly by his passion for poets; his mother +had known it in her time, and Weimar was the home of Wieland and of +Herder before the young Grand-Duke came back from his travels bringing +Goethe with him, and afterwards attracting Schiller. The story of that +great epoch is all there in the Residenz, told as articulately as a +palace can. + +There are certain Poets' Rooms, frescoed with illustrations of Goethe, +Schiller, and Wieland; there is the room where Goethe and the Grand-Duke +used to play chess together; there is the conservatory opening from it +where they liked to sit and chat; everywhere in the pictures and +sculptures, the engraving and intaglios, are the witnesses of the tastes +they shared, the love they both had for Italy, and for beautiful Italian +things. The prince was not so great a prince but that he could very +nearly be a man; the court was perhaps the most human court that ever +was; the Grand-Duke and the grand poet were first boon companions, and +then monarch and minister working together for the good of the country; +they were always friends, and yet, as the American saw in the light of +the New World, which he carried with him, how far from friends! At best +it was make-believe, the make-believe of superiority and inferiority, the +make-believe of master and man, which could only be the more painful and +ghastly for the endeavor of two generous spirits to reach and rescue each +other through the asphyxiating unreality; but they kept up the show of +equality faithfully to the end. Goethe was born citizen of a free +republic, and his youth was nurtured in the traditions of liberty; he was +one of the greatest souls of any time, and he must have known the +impossibility of the thing they pretended; but he died and made no sign, +and the poet's friendship with the prince has passed smoothly into +history as one of the things that might really be. They worked and played +together; they dined and danced, they picnicked and poetized, each on his +own side of the impassable gulf; with an air of its not being there which +probably did not deceive their contemporaries so much as posterity. + +A part of the palace was of course undergoing repair; and in the gallery +beyond the conservatory a company of workmen were sitting at a table +where they had spread their luncheon. They were somewhat subdued by the +consciousness of their august environment; but the sight of them was +charming; they gave a kindly interest to the place which it had wanted +before; and which the Marches felt again in another palace where the +custodian showed them the little tin dishes and saucepans which the +German Empress Augusta and her sisters played with when they were +children. The sight of these was more affecting even than the withered +wreaths which they had left on the death-bed of their mother, and which +are still mouldering there. + +This was in the Belvedere, the country house on the height overlooking +Weimar, where the grand-ducal family spend the month of May, and where +the stranger finds himself amid overwhelming associations of Goethe, +although the place is so full of relics and memorials of the owners. It +seemed in fact to be a storehouse for the wedding-presents of the whole +connection, which were on show in every room; Mrs. March hardly knew +whether they heightened the domestic effect or took from it; but they +enabled her to verify with the custodian's help certain royal +intermarriages which she had been in doubt about before. + +Her zeal for these made such favor with him that he did not spare them a +portrait of all those which March hoped to escape; he passed them over, +scarcely able to stand, to the gardener, who was to show them the +open-air theatre where Goethe used to take part in the plays. + +The Natur-Theater was of a classic ideal, realized in the trained vines +and clipped trees which formed the coulisses. There was a grassy space +for the chorus and the commoner audience, and then a few semicircular +gradines cut in the turf, one alcove another, where the more honored +spectators sat. Behind the seats were plinths bearing the busts of +Goethe, Schiller, Wieland, and Herder. It was all very pretty, and if +ever the weather in Weimar was dry enough to permit a performance, it +must have been charming to see a play in that open day to which the drama +is native, though in the late hours it now keeps in the thick air of +modern theatres it has long forgotten the fact. It would be difficult to +be Greek under a German sky, even when it was not actually raining, but +March held that with Goethe's help it might have been done at Weimar, and +his wife and he proved themselves such enthusiasts for the Natur-Theater +that the walnut-faced old gardener who showed it put together a sheaf of +the flowers that grew nearest it and gave them to Mrs. March for a +souvenir. + +They went for a cup of tea to the cafe which looks, as from another +eyebrow of the hill, out over lovely little Weimar in the plain below. In +a moment of sunshine the prospect was very smiling; but their spirits +sank over their tea when it came; they were at least sorry they had not +asked for coffee. Most of the people about them were taking beer, +including the pretty girls of a young ladies' school, who were there with +their books and needle-work, in the care of one of the teachers, +apparently for the afternoon. + +Mrs. March perceived that they were not so much engaged with their books +or their needle-work but they had eyes for other things, and she followed +the glances of the girls till they rested upon the people at a table +somewhat obliquely to the left. These were apparently a mother and +daughter, and they were listening to a young man who sat with his back to +Mrs. March, and leaned low over the table talking to them. They were both +smiling radiantly, and as the girl smiled she kept turning herself from +the waist up, and slanting her face from this side to that, as if to make +sure that every one saw her smiling. + +Mrs. March felt her husband's gaze following her own, and she had just +time to press her finger firmly on his arm and reduce his cry of +astonishment to the hoarse whisper in which he gasped, "Good gracious! +It's the pivotal girl!" + +At the same moment the girl rose with her mother, and with the young man, +who had risen too, came directly toward the Marches on their way out of +the place without noticing them, though Burnamy passed so near that Mrs. +March could almost have touched him. + +She had just strength to say, "Well, my dear! That was the cut direct." + +She said this in order to have her husband reassure her. "Nonsense! He +never saw us. Why didn't you speak to him?" + +"Speak to him? I never shall speak to him again. No! This is the last of +Mr. Burnamy for me. I shouldn't have minded his not recognizing us, for, +as you say, I don't believe he saw us; but if he could go back to such a +girl as that, and flirt with her, after Miss Triscoe, that's all I wish +to know of him. Don't you try to look him up, Basil! I'm glad-yes, I'm +glad he doesn't know how Stoller has come to feel about him; he deserves +to suffer, and I hope he'll keep on suffering: You were quite right, my +dear--and it shows how true your instinct is in such things (I don't call +it more than instinct)--not to tell him what Stoller said, and I don't +want you ever should." + +She had risen in her excitement, and was making off in such haste that +she would hardly give him time to pay for their tea, as she pulled him +impatiently to their carriage. + +At last he got a chance to say, "I don't think I can quite promise that; +my mind's been veering round in the other direction. I think I shall tell +him." + +"What! After you've seen him flirting with that girl? Very well, then, +you won't, my dear; that's all! He's behaving very basely to Agatha." + +"What's his flirtation with all the girls in the universe to do with my +duty to him? He has a right to know what Stoller thinks. And as to his +behaving badly toward Miss Triscoe, how has he done it? So far as you +know, there is nothing whatever between them. She either refused him +outright, that last night in Carlsbad, or else she made impossible +conditions with him. Burnamy is simply consoling himself, and I don't +blame him." + +"Consoling himself with a pivotal girl!" cried Mrs. March. + +"Yes, with a pivotal girl. Her pivotality may be a nervous idiosyncrasy, +or it may be the effect of tight lacing; perhaps she has to keep turning +and twisting that way to get breath. But attribute the worst motive: say +it is to make people look at her! Well, Burnamy has a right to look with +the rest; and I am not going to renounce him because he takes refuge with +one pretty girl from another. It's what men have been doing from the +beginning of time." + +"Oh, I dare say!" + +"Men," he went on, "are very delicately constituted; very peculiarly. +They have been known to seek the society of girls in general, of any +girl, because some girl has made them happy; and when some girl has made +them unhappy, they are still more susceptible. Burnamy may be merely +amusing himself, or he may be consoling himself; but in either case I +think the pivotal girl has as much right to him as Miss Triscoe. She had +him first; and I'm all for her." + + + + +LXI. + +Burnamy came away from seeing the pivotal girl and her mother off on the +train which they were taking that evening for Frankfort and Hombourg, and +strolled back through the Weimar streets little at ease with himself. +While he was with the girl and near her he had felt the attraction by +which youth impersonally draws youth, the charm which mere maid has for +mere man; but once beyond the range of this he felt sick at heart and +ashamed. He was aware of having used her folly as an anodyne for the pain +which was always gnawing at him, and he had managed to forget it in her +folly, but now it came back, and the sense that he had been reckless of +her rights came with it. He had done his best to make her think him in +love with her, by everything but words; he wondered how he could be such +an ass, such a wicked ass, as to try making her promise to write to him +from Frankfort; he wished never to see her again, and he wished still +less to hear from her. It was some comfort to reflect that she had not +promised, but it was not comfort enough to restore him to such +fragmentary self-respect as he had been enjoying since he parted with +Agatha Triscoe in Carlsbad; he could not even get back to the resentment +with which he had been staying himself somewhat before the pivotal girl +unexpectedly appeared with her mother in Weimar. + +It was Sedan Day, but there was apparently no official observance of the +holiday, perhaps because the Grand-Duke was away at the manoeuvres, with +all the other German princes. Burnamy had hoped for some voluntary +excitement among the people, at least enough to warrant him in making a +paper about Sedan Day in Weimar, which he could sell somewhere; but the +night was falling, and there was still no sign of popular rejoicing over +the French humiliation twenty-eight years before, except in the multitude +of Japanese lanterns which the children were everywhere carrying at the +ends of sticks. Babies had them in their carriages, and the effect of the +floating lights in the winding, up-and-down-hill streets was charming +even to Burnamy's lack-lustre eyes. He went by his hotel and on to a cafe +with a garden, where there was a patriotic, concert promised; he supped +there, and then sat dreamily behind his beer, while the music banged and +brayed round him unheeded. + +Presently he heard a voice of friendly banter saying in English, "May I +sit at your table?" and he saw an ironical face looking down on him. +"There doesn't seem any other place." + +"Why, Mr. March!" Burnamy sprang up and wrung the hand held out to him, +but he choked with his words of recognition; it was so good to see this +faithful friend again, though he saw him now as he had seen him last, +just when he had so little reason to be proud of himself. + +March settled his person in the chair facing Burnamy, and then glanced +round at the joyful jam of people eating and drinking, under a firmament +of lanterns. "This is pretty," he said, "mighty pretty. I shall make Mrs. +March sorry for not coming, when I go back." + +"Is Mrs. March--she is--with you--in Weimar?" Burnamy asked stupidly. + +March forbore to take advantage of him. "Oh, yes. We saw you out at +Belvedere this afternoon. Mrs. March thought for a moment that you meant +not to see us. A woman likes to exercise her imagination in those little +flights." + +"I never dreamed of your being there--I never saw--" Burnamy began. + +"Of course not. Neither did Mrs. Etkins, nor Miss Etkins; she was looking +very pretty. Have you been here some time?" + +"Not long. A week or so. I've been at the parade at Wurzburg." + +"At Wurzburg! Ah, how little the world is, or how large Wurzburg is! We +were there nearly a week, and we pervaded the place. But there was a +great crowd for you to hide in from us. What had I better take?" A waiter +had come up, and was standing at March's elbow. "I suppose I mustn't sit +here without ordering something?" + +"White wine and selters," said Burnamy vaguely. + +"The very thing! Why didn't I think of it? It's a divine drink: it +satisfies without filling. I had it a night or two before we left home, +in the Madison Square Roof Garden. Have you seen 'Every Other Week' +lately?" + +"No," said Burnamy, with more spirit than he had yet shown. + +"We've just got our mail from Nuremberg. The last number has a poem in it +that I rather like." March laughed to see the young fellow's face light +up with joyful consciousness. "Come round to my hotel, after you're tired +here, and I'll let you see it. There's no hurry. Did you notice the +little children with their lanterns, as you came along? It's the gentlest +effect that a warlike memory ever came to. The French themselves couldn't +have minded those innocents carrying those soft lights on the day of +their disaster. You ought to get something out of that, and I've got a +subject in trust for you from Rose Adding. He and his mother were at +Wurzburg; I'm sorry to say the poor little chap didn't seem very well. +They've gone to Holland for the sea air." March had been talking for +quantity in compassion of the embarrassment in which Burnamy seemed +bound; but he questioned how far he ought to bring comfort to the young +fellow merely because he liked him. So far as he could make out, Burnamy +had been doing rather less than nothing to retrieve himself since they +had met; and it was by an impulse that he could not have logically +defended to Mrs. March that he resumed. "We found another friend of yours +in Wurzburg: Mr. Stoller." + +"Mr. Stoller?" Burnamy faintly echoed. + +"Yes; he was there to give his daughters a holiday during the manoeuvres; +and they made the most of it. He wanted us to go to the parade with his +family but we declined. The twins were pretty nearly the death of General +Triscoe." + +Again Burnamy echoed him. "General Triscoe?" + +"Ah, yes: I didn't tell you. General Triscoe and his daughter had come on +with Mrs. Adding and Rose. Kenby--you remember Kenby, On the +Norumbia?--Kenby happened to be there, too; we were quite a family party; +and Stoller got the general to drive out to the manoeuvres with him and +his girls." + +Now that he was launched, March rather enjoyed letting himself go. He did +not know what he should say to Mrs. March when he came to confess having +told Burnamy everything before she got a chance at him; he pushed on +recklessly, upon the principle, which probably will not hold in morals, +that one may as well be hung for a sheep as a lamb. "I have a message for +you from Mr. Stoller." + +"For me?" Burnamy gasped. + +"I've been wondering how I should put it, for I hadn't expected to see +you. But it's simply this: he wants you to know--and he seemed to want me +to know--that he doesn't hold you accountable in the way he did. He's +thought it all over, and he's decided that he had no right to expect you +to save him from his own ignorance where he was making a show of +knowledge. As he said, he doesn't choose to plead the baby act. He says +that you're all right, and your place on the paper is open to you." + +Burnamy had not been very prompt before, but now he seemed braced for +instant response. "I think he's wrong," he said, so harshly that the +people at the next table looked round. "His feeling as he does has +nothing to do with the fact, and it doesn't let me out." + +March would have liked to take him in his arms; he merely said, "I think +you're quite right, as to that. But there's such a thing as forgiveness, +you know. It doesn't change the nature of what you've done; but as far as +the sufferer from it is concerned, it annuls it." + +"Yes, I understand that. But I can't accept his forgiveness if I hate +him." + +"But perhaps you won't always hate him. Some day you may have a chance to +do him a good turn. It's rather banale; but there doesn't seem any other +way. Well, I have given you his message. Are you going with me to get +that poem?" + +When March had given Burnamy the paper at his hotel, and Burnamy had put +it in his pocket, the young man said he thought he would take some +coffee, and he asked March to join him in the dining-room where they had +stood talking. + +"No, thank you," said the elder, "I don't propose sitting up all night, +and you'll excuse me if I go to bed now. It's a little informal to leave +a guest--" + +"You're not leaving a guest! I'm at home here. I'm staying in this hotel +too." + +March said, "Oh!" and then he added abruptly, "Good-night," and went up +stairs under the fresco of the five poets. + +"Whom were you talking with below?" asked Mrs. March through the door +opening into his room from hers. + +"Burnamy," he answered from within. "He's staying in this house. He let +me know just as I was going to turn him out for the night. It's one of +those little uncandors of his that throw suspicion on his honesty in +great things." + +"Oh! Then you've been telling him," she said, with a mental bound high +above and far beyond the point. + +"Everything." + +"About Stoller, too?" + +"About Stoller and his daughters, and Mrs. Adding and Rose and Kenby and +General Triscoe--and Agatha." + +"Very well. That's what I call shabby. Don't ever talk to me again about +the inconsistencies of women. But now there's something perfectly +fearful." + +"What is it?" + +"A letter from Miss Triscoe came after you were gone, asking us to find +rooms in some hotel for her and her father to-morrow. He isn't well, and +they're coming. And I've telegraphed them to come here. Now what do you +say?" + + + + +LXII. + +They could see no way out of the trouble, and Mrs. March could not resign +herself to it till her husband suggested that she should consider it +providential. This touched the lingering superstition in which she had +been ancestrally taught to regard herself as a means, when in a very +tight place, and to leave the responsibility with the moral government of +the universe. As she now perceived, it had been the same as ordered that +they should see Burnamy under such conditions in the afternoon that they +could not speak to him, and hear where he was staying; and in an inferior +degree it had been the same as ordered that March should see him in the +evening and tell him everything, so that she should know just how to act +when she saw him in the morning. If he could plausibly account for the +renewal of his flirtation with Miss Elkins, or if he seemed generally +worthy apart from that, she could forgive him. + +It was so pleasant when he came in at breakfast with his well-remembered +smile, that she did not require from him any explicit defence. While they +talked she was righting herself in an undercurrent of drama with Miss +Triscoe, and explaining to her that they could not possibly wait over for +her and her father in Weimar, but must be off that day for Berlin, as +they had made all their plans. It was not easy, even in drama where one +has everything one's own way, to prove that she could not without impiety +so far interfere with the course of Providence as to prevent Miss +Triscoe's coming with her father to the same hotel where Burnamy was +staying. She contrived, indeed, to persuade her that she had not known he +was staying there when she telegraphed them where to come, and that in +the absence of any open confidence from Miss Triscoe she was not obliged +to suppose that his presence would be embarrassing. + +March proposed leaving her with Burnamy while he went up into the town +and interviewed the house of Schiller, which he had not done yet; and as +soon as he got himself away she came to business, breaking altogether +from the inner drama with Miss Triscoe and devoting herself to Burnamy. +They had already got so far as to have mentioned the meeting with the +Triscoes in Wurzburg, and she said: "Did Mr. March tell you they were +coming here? Or, no! We hadn't heard then. Yes, they are coming +to-morrow. They may be going to stay some time. She talked of Weimar when +we first spoke of Germany on the ship." Burnamy said nothing, and she +suddenly added, with a sharp glance, "They wanted us to get them rooms, +and we advised their coming to this house." He started very +satisfactorily, and "Do you think they would be comfortable, here?" she +pursued. + +"Oh, yes, very. They can have my room; it's southeast; I shall be going +into other quarters." She did not say anything; and "Mrs. March," he +began again, "what is the use of my beating about the bush? You must know +what I went back to Carlsbad for, that night--" + +"No one ever told--" + +"Well, you must have made a pretty good guess. But it was a failure. I +ought to have failed, and I did. She said that unless her father liked +it--And apparently he hasn't liked it." Burnamy smiled ruefully. + +"How do you know? She didn't know where you were!" + +"She could have got word to me if she had had good news for me. They've +forwarded other letters from Pupp's. But it's all right; I had no +business to go back to Carlsbad. Of course you didn't know I was in this +house when you told them to come; and I must clear out. I had better +clear out of Weimar, too." + +"No, I don't think so; I have no right to pry into your affairs, but--" + +"Oh, they're wide enough open!" + +"And you may have changed your mind. I thought you might, when I saw you +yesterday at Belvedere--" + +"I was only trying to make bad worse." + +"Then I think the situation has changed entirely through what Mr. Stoller +said to Mr. March." + +"I can't see how it has. I committed an act of shabby treachery, and I'm +as much to blame as if he still wanted to punish me for it." + +"Did Mr. March say that to you?" + +"No; I said that to Mr. March; and he couldn't answer it, and you can't. +You're very good, and very kind, but you can't answer it." + +"I can answer it very well," she boasted, but she could find nothing +better to say than, "It's your duty to her to see her and let her know." + +"Doesn't she know already?" + +"She has a right to know it from you. I think you are morbid, Mr. +Burnamy. You know very well I didn't like your doing that to Mr. Stoller. +I didn't say so at the time, because you seemed to feel it enough +yourself. But I did like your owning up to it," and here Mrs. March +thought it time to trot out her borrowed battle-horse again. "My husband +always says that if a person owns up to an error, fully and faithfully, +as you've always done, they make it the same in its consequences to them +as if it had never been done." + +"Does Mr. March say that?" asked Burnamy with a relenting smile. + +"Indeed he does!" + +Burnamy hesitated; then he asked, gloomily again: + +"And what about the consequences to the, other fellow?" + +"A woman," said Mrs. March, "has no concern with them. And besides, I +think you've done all you could to save Mr. Stoller from the +consequences." + +"I haven't done anything." + +"No matter. You would if you could. I wonder," she broke off, to prevent +his persistence at a point where her nerves were beginning to give way, +"what can be keeping Mr. March?" + +Nothing much more important, it appeared later, than the pleasure of +sauntering through the streets on the way to the house of Schiller, and +looking at the pretty children going to school, with books under their +arms. It was the day for the schools to open after the long summer +vacation, and there was a freshness of expectation in the shining faces +which, if it could not light up his own graybeard visage, could at least +touch his heart: + +When he reached the Schiller house he found that it was really not the +Schiller house, but the Schiller flat, of three or four rooms, one flight +up, whose windows look out upon the street named after the poet. The +whole place is bare and clean; in one corner of the large room fronting +the street stands Schiller's writing-table, with his chair before it; +with the foot extending toward this there stands, in another corner, the +narrow bed on which he died; some withered wreaths on the pillow frame a +picture of his deathmask, which at first glance is like his dead face +lying there. It is all rather tasteless, and all rather touching, and the +place with its meagre appointments, as compared with the rich Goethe +house, suggests that personal competition with Goethe in which Schiller +is always falling into the second place. Whether it will be finally so +with him in literature it is too early to ask of time, and upon other +points eternity will not be interrogated. "The great, Goethe and the good +Schiller," they remain; and yet, March reasoned, there was something good +in Goethe and something great, in Schiller. + +He was so full of the pathos of their inequality before the world that he +did not heed the warning on the door of the pastry-shop near the Schiller +house, and on opening it he bedaubed his hand with the fresh paint on it. +He was then in such a state, that he could not bring his mind to bear +upon the question of which cakes his wife would probably prefer, and he +stood helplessly holding up his hand till the good woman behind the +counter discovered his plight, and uttered a loud cry of compassion. She +ran and got a wet napkin, which she rubbed with soap, and then she +instructed him by word and gesture to rub his hand upon it, and she did +not leave him till his rescue was complete. He let her choose a variety +of the cakes for him, and came away with a gay paper bag full of them, +and with the feeling that he had been in more intimate relations with the +life of Weimar than travellers are often privileged to be. He argued from +the instant and intelligent sympathy of the pastry woman a high grade of +culture in all classes; and he conceived the notion of pretending to Mrs. +March that he had got these cakes from, a descendant of Schiller. + +His deceit availed with her for the brief moment in which she always, +after so many years' experience of his duplicity, believed anything he +told her. They dined merrily together at their hotel, and then Burnamy +came down to the station with them and was very comfortable to March in +helping him to get their tickets and their baggage registered. The train +which was to take them to Halle, where they were to change for Berlin, +was rather late, and they had but ten minutes after it came in before it +would start again. Mrs. March was watching impatiently at the window of +the waiting-room for the dismounting passengers to clear the platform and +allow the doors to be opened; suddenly she gave a cry, and turned and ran +into the passage by which the new arrivals were pouring out toward the +superabundant omnibuses. March and Burnamy, who had been talking apart, +mechanically rushed after her and found her kissing Miss Triscoe and +shaking hands with the general amidst a tempest of questions and answers, +from which it appeared that the Triscoes had got tired of staying in +Wurzburg, and had simply come on to Weimar a day sooner than they had +intended. + +The, general was rather much bundled up for a day which was mild for a +German summer day, and he coughed out an explanation that he had taken an +abominable cold at that ridiculous parade, and had not shaken it off yet. +He had a notion that change of air would be better for him; it could not +be worse. + +He seemed a little vague as to Burnamy, rather than inimical. While the +ladies were still talking eagerly together in proffer and acceptance of +Mrs. March's lamentations that she should be going away just as Miss +Triscoe was coming, he asked if the omnibus for their hotel was there. He +by no means resented Burnamy's assurance that it was, and he did not +refuse to let him order their baggage, little and large, loaded upon it. +By the time this was done, Mrs. March and Miss Triscoe had so far +detached themselves from each other that they could separate after one +more formal expression of regret and forgiveness. With a lament into +which she poured a world of inarticulate emotions, Mrs. March wrenched +herself from the place, and suffered herself, to be pushed toward her +train. But with the last long look which she cast over her shoulder, +before she vanished into the waiting-room, she saw Miss Triscoe and +Burnamy transacting the elaborate politenesses of amiable strangers with +regard to the very small bag which the girl had in her hand. He succeeded +in relieving her of it; and then he led the way out of the station on the +left of the general, while Miss Triscoe brought up the rear. + + + + +LXIII. + +From the window of the train as it drew out Mrs. March tried for a +glimpse of the omnibus in which her proteges were now rolling away +together. As they were quite out of sight in the omnibus, which was +itself out of sight, she failed, but as she fell back against her seat +she treated the recent incident with a complexity and simultaneity of +which no report can give an idea. At the end one fatal conviction +remained: that in everything she had said she had failed to explain to +Miss Triscoe how Burnamy happened to be in Weimar and how he happened to +be there with them in the station. She required March to say how she had +overlooked the very things which she ought to have mentioned first, and +which she had on the point of her tongue the whole time. She went over +the entire ground again to see if she could discover the reason why she +had made such an unaccountable break, and it appeared that she was led to +it by his rushing after her with Burnamy before she had had a chance to +say a word about him; of course she could not say anything in his +presence. This gave her some comfort, and there was consolation in the +fact that she had left them together without the least intention or +connivance, and now, no matter what happened, she could not accuse +herself, and he could not accuse her of match-making. + +He said that his own sense of guilt was so great that he should not dream +of accusing her of anything except of regret that now she could never +claim the credit of bringing the lovers together under circumstances so +favorable. As soon as they were engaged they could join in renouncing her +with a good conscience, and they would probably make this the basis of +their efforts to propitiate the general. + +She said she did not care, and with the mere removal of the lovers in +space, her interest in them began to abate. They began to be of a minor +importance in the anxieties of the change of trains at Halle, and in the +excitement of settling into the express from Frankfort there were moments +when they were altogether forgotten. The car was of almost American +length, and it ran with almost American smoothness; when the conductor +came and collected an extra fare for their seats, the Marches felt that +if the charge had been two dollars instead of two marks they would have +had every advantage of American travel. + +On the way to Berlin the country was now fertile and flat, and now +sterile and flat; near the capital the level sandy waste spread almost to +its gates. The train ran quickly through the narrow fringe of suburbs, +and then they were in one of those vast Continental stations which put +our outdated depots to shame. The good 'traeger' who took possession of +them and their hand-bags, put their boxes on a baggage-bearing drosky, +and then got them another drosky for their personal transportation. This +was a drosky of the first-class, but they would not have thought it so, +either from the vehicle itself, or from the appearance of the driver and +his horses. The public carriages of Germany are the shabbiest in the +world; at Berlin the horses look like old hair trunks and the drivers +like their moth-eaten contents. + +The Marches got no splendor for the two prices they paid, and their +approach to their hotel on Unter den Linden was as unimpressive as the +ignoble avenue itself. It was a moist, cold evening, and the mean, +tiresome street, slopped and splashed under its two rows of small trees, +to which the thinning leaves clung like wet rags, between long lines of +shops and hotels which had neither the grace of Paris nor the grandiosity +of New York. March quoted in bitter derision: + + "Bees, bees, was it your hydromel, + Under the Lindens?" + +and his wife said that if Commonwealth Avenue in Boston could be imagined +with its trees and without their beauty, flanked by the architecture of +Sixth Avenue, with dashes of the west side of Union Square, that would be +the famous Unter den Linden, where she had so resolutely decided that +they would stay while in Berlin. + +They had agreed upon the hotel, and neither could blame the other because +it proved second-rate in everything but its charges. They ate a poorish +table d'hote dinner in such low spirits that March had no heart to get a +rise from his wife by calling her notice to the mouse which fed upon the +crumbs about their feet while they dined. Their English-speaking waiter +said that it was a very warm evening, and they never knew whether this +was because he was a humorist, or because he was lonely and wished to +talk, or because it really was a warm evening, for Berlin. When they had +finished, they went out and drove about the greater part of the evening +looking for another hotel, whose first requisite should be that it was +not on Unter den Linden. What mainly determined Mrs. March in favor of +the large, handsome, impersonal place they fixed upon was the fact that +it was equipped for steam-heating; what determined March was the fact +that it had a passenger-office where when he wished to leave, he could +buy his railroad tickets and have his baggage checked without the +maddening anxiety, of doing it at the station. But it was precisely in +these points that the hotel which admirably fulfilled its other functions +fell short. The weather made a succession of efforts throughout their +stay to clear up cold; it merely grew colder without clearing up, but +this seemed to offer no suggestion of steam for heating their bleak +apartment and the chilly corridors to the management. With the help of a +large lamp which they kept burning night and day they got the temperature +of their rooms up to sixty; there was neither stove nor fireplace, the +cold electric bulbs diffused a frosty glare; and in the vast, stately +dining-room with its vaulted roof, there was nothing to warm them but +their plates, and the handles of their knives and forks, which, by a +mysterious inspiration, were always hot. When they were ready to go, +March experienced from the apathy of the baggage clerk and the reluctance +of the porters a more piercing distress than any he had known at the +railroad stations; and one luckless valise which he ordered sent after +him by express reached his bankers in Paris a fortnight overdue, with an +accumulation of charges upon it outvaluing the books which it contained. + +But these were minor defects in an establishment which had many merits, +and was mainly of the temperament and intention of the large English +railroad hotels. They looked from their windows down into a gardened +square, peopled with a full share of the superabounding statues of Berlin +and frequented by babies and nurse maids who seemed not to mind the cold +any more than the stone kings and generals. The aspect of this square, +like the excellent cooking of the hotel and the architecture of the +imperial capital, suggested the superior civilization of Paris. Even the +rows of gray houses and private palaces of Berlin are in the French +taste, which is the only taste there is in Berlin. The suggestion of +Paris is constant, but it is of Paris in exile, and without the chic +which the city wears in its native air. The crowd lacks this as much as +the architecture and the sculpture; there is no distinction among the men +except for now and then a military figure, and among the women no style +such as relieves the commonplace rash of the New York streets. The +Berliners are plain and ill dressed, both men and women, and even the +little children are plain. Every one is ill dressed, but no one is +ragged, and among the undersized homely folk of the lower classes there +is no such poverty-stricken shabbiness as shocks and insults the sight in +New York. That which distinctly recalls our metropolis is the lofty +passage of the elevated trains intersecting the prospectives of many +streets; but in Berlin the elevated road is carried on massive brick +archways and not lifted upon gay, crazy iron ladders like ours. + +When you look away from this, and regard Berlin on its aesthetic, side +you are again in that banished Paris, whose captive art-soul is made to +serve, so far as it may be enslaved to such an effect, in the celebration +of the German triumph over France. Berlin has never the presence of a +great capital, however, in spite of its perpetual monumental insistence. +There is no streaming movement in broad vistas; the dull looking +population moves sluggishly; there is no show of fine equipages. The +prevailing tone of the city and the sky is gray; but under the cloudy +heaven there is no responsive Gothic solemnity in the architecture. There +are hints of the older German cities in some of the remote and observe +streets, but otherwise all is as new as Boston, which in fact the actual +Berlin hardly antedates. + +There are easily more statues in Berlin than in any other city in the +world, but they only unite in failing to give Berlin an artistic air. +They stand in long rows on the cornices; they crowd the pediments; they +poise on one leg above domes and arches; they shelter themselves in +niches; they ride about on horseback; they sit or lounge on street +corners or in garden walks; all with a mediocrity in the older sort which +fails of any impression. If they were only furiously baroque they would +be something, and it may be from a sense of this that there is a +self-assertion in the recent sculptures, which are always patriotic, more +noisy and bragging than anything else in perennial brass. This offensive +art is the modern Prussian avatar of the old German romantic spirit, and +bears the same relation to it that modern romanticism in literature bears +to romance. It finds its apotheosis in the monument to Kaiser Wilhelm I., +a vast incoherent group of swelling and swaggering bronze, commemorating +the victory of the first Prussian Emperor in the war with the last French +Emperor, and avenging the vanquished upon the victors by its ugliness. +The ungainly and irrelevant assemblage of men and animals backs away from +the imperial palace, and saves itself too soon from plunging over the +border of a canal behind it, not far from Rauch's great statue of the +great Frederic. To come to it from the simplicity and quiet of that noble +work is like passing from some exquisite masterpiece of naturalistic +acting to the rant and uproar of melodrama; and the Marches stood stunned +and bewildered by its wild explosions. + +When they could escape they found themselves so convenient to the +imperial palace that they judged best to discharge at once the obligation +to visit it which must otherwise weigh upon them. They entered the court +without opposition from the sentinel, and joined other strangers +straggling instinctively toward a waiting-room in one corner of the +building, where after they had increased to some thirty, a custodian took +charge of them, and led them up a series of inclined plains of brick to +the state apartments. In the antechamber they found a provision of +immense felt over-shoes which they were expected to put on for their +passage over the waxed marquetry of the halls. These roomy slippers were +designed for the accommodation of the native boots; and upon the mixed +company of foreigners the effect was in the last degree humiliating. The +women's skirts some what hid their disgrace, but the men were openly put +to shame, and they shuffled forward with their bodies at a convenient +incline like a company of snow-shoers. In the depths of his own abasement +March heard a female voice behind him sighing in American accents, "To +think I should be polishing up these imperial floors with my republican +feet!" + +The protest expressed the rebellion which he felt mounting in his own +heart as they advanced through the heavily splendid rooms, in the +historical order of the family portraits recording the rise of the +Prussian sovereigns from Margraves to Emperors. He began to realize here +the fact which grew open him more and more that imperial Germany is not +the effect of a popular impulse but of a dynastic propensity. There is +nothing original in the imperial palace, nothing national; it embodies +and proclaims a powerful personal will, and in its adaptations of French +art it appeals to no emotion in the German witness nobler than his pride +in the German triumph over the French in war. March found it tiresome +beyond the tiresome wont of palaces, and he gladly shook off the sense of +it with his felt shoes. "Well," he confided to his wife when they were +fairly out-of-doors, "if Prussia rose in the strength of silence, as +Carlyle wants us to believe, she is taking it out in talk now, and tall +talk." + +"Yes, isn't she!" Mrs. March assented, and with a passionate desire for +excess in a bad thing, which we all know at times, she looked eagerly +about her for proofs of that odious militarism of the empire, which ought +to have been conspicuous in the imperial capital; but possibly because +the troops were nearly all away at the manoeuvres, there were hardly more +in the streets than she had sometimes seen in Washington. Again the +German officers signally failed to offer her any rudeness when she met +them on the side-walks. There were scarcely any of them, and perhaps that +might have been the reason why they were not more aggressive; but a whole +company of soldiers marching carelessly up to the palace from the +Brandenburg gate, without music, or so much style as our own militia +often puts on, regarded her with inoffensive eyes so far as they looked +at her. She declared that personally there was nothing against the +Prussians; even when in uniform they were kindly and modest-looking men; +it was when they got up on pedestals, in bronze or marble, that they, +began to bully and to brag. + + + + +LXIV. + +The dinner which the Marches got at a restaurant on Unter den Linden +almost redeemed the avenue from the disgrace it had fallen into with +them. It was, the best meal they had yet eaten in Europe, and as to fact +and form was a sort of compromise between a French dinner and an English +dinner which they did not hesitate to pronounce Prussian. The waiter who +served it was a friendly spirit, very sensible of their intelligent +appreciation of the dinner; and from him they formed a more respectful +opinion of Berlin civilization than they had yet held. After the manner +of strangers everywhere they judged the country they were visiting from +such of its inhabitants as chance brought them in contact with; and it +would really be a good thing for nations that wish to stand well with the +world at large to look carefully to the behavior of its cabmen and car +conductors, its hotel clerks and waiters, its theatre-ticket sellers and +ushers, its policemen and sacristans, its landlords and salesmen; for by +these rather than by its society women and its statesmen and divines, is +it really judged in the books of travellers; some attention also should +be paid to the weather, if the climate is to be praised. In the railroad +cafe at Potsdam there was a waiter so rude to the Marches that if they +had not been people of great strength of character he would have undone +the favorable impression the soldiers and civilians of Berlin generally +had been at such pains to produce in them; and throughout the week of +early September which they passed there, it rained so much and so +bitterly, it was so wet and so cold, that they might have come away +thinking it's the worst climate in the world, if it had not been for a +man whom they saw in one of the public gardens pouring a heavy stream +from his garden hose upon the shrubbery already soaked and shuddering in +the cold. But this convinced them that they were suffering from weather +and not from the climate, which must really be hot and dry; and they went +home to their hotel and sat contentedly down in a temperature of sixty +degrees. The weather, was not always so bad; one day it was dry cold +instead of wet cold, with rough, rusty clouds breaking a blue sky; +another day, up to eleven in the forenoon, it was like Indian summer; +then it changed to a harsh November air; and then it relented and ended +so mildly, that they hired chairs in the place before the imperial palace +for five pfennigs each, and sat watching the life before them. Motherly +women-folk were there knitting; two American girls in chairs near them +chatted together; some fine equipages, the only ones they saw in Berlin, +went by; a dog and a man (the wife who ought to have been in harness was +probably sick, and the poor fellow was forced to take her place) passed +dragging a cart; some schoolboys who had hung their satchels upon the low +railing were playing about the base of the statue of King William III. in +the joyous freedom of German childhood. + +They seemed the gayer for the brief moments of sunshine, but to the +Americans, who were Southern by virtue of their sky, the brightness had a +sense of lurking winter in it, such as they remembered feeling on a sunny +day in Quebec. The blue heaven looked sad; but they agreed that it fitly +roofed the bit of old feudal Berlin which forms the most ancient wing of +the Schloss. This was time-blackened and rude, but at least it did not +try to be French, and it overhung the Spree which winds through the city +and gives it the greatest charm it has. In fact Berlin, which is +otherwise so grandiose without grandeur and so severe without +impressiveness, is sympathetic wherever the Spree opens it to the sky. +The stream is spanned by many bridges, and bridges cannot well be +unpicturesque, especially if they have statues to help them out. The +Spree abounds in bridges, and it has a charming habit of slow hay-laden +barges; at the landings of the little passenger-steamers which ply upon +it there are cafes and summer-gardens, and these even in the inclement +air of September suggested a friendly gayety. + +The Marches saw it best in the tour of the elevated road in Berlin which +they made in an impassioned memory of the elevated road in New York. The +brick viaducts which carry this arch the Spree again and again in their +course through and around the city, but with never quite such spectacular +effects as our spidery tressels, achieve. The stations are pleasant, +sometimes with lunch-counters and news-stands, but have not the +comic-opera-chalet prettiness of ours, and are not so frequent. The road +is not so smooth, the cars not so smooth-running or so swift. On the +other hand they are comfortably cushioned, and they are never +overcrowded. The line is at times above, at times below the houses, and +at times on a level with them, alike in city and in suburbs. The train +whirled out of thickly built districts, past the backs of the old houses, +into outskirts thinly populated, with new houses springing up without +order or continuity among the meadows and vegetable-gardens, and along +the ready-made, elm-planted avenues, where wooden fences divided the +vacant lots. Everywhere the city was growing out over the country, in +blocks and detached edifices of limestone, sandstone, red and yellow +brick, larger or smaller, of no more uniformity than our suburban +dwellings, but never of their ugliness or lawless offensiveness. + +In an effort for the intimate life of the country March went two +successive mornings for his breakfast to the Cafe Bauer, which has some +admirable wall-printings, and is the chief cafe on Unter den Linden; but +on both days there were more people in the paintings than out of them. +The second morning the waiter who took his order recognized him and +asked, "Wie gestern?" and from this he argued an affectionate constancy +in the Berliners, and a hospitable observance of the tastes of strangers. +At his bankers, on the other hand, the cashier scrutinized his signature +and remarked that it did not look like the signature in his letter of +credit, and then he inferred a suspicious mind in the moneyed classes of +Prussia; as he had not been treated with such unkind doubt by Hebrew +bankers anywhere, he made a mental note that the Jews were politer than +the Christians in Germany. In starting for Potsdam he asked a traeger +where the Potsdam train was and the man said, "Dat train dare," and in +coming back he helped a fat old lady out of the car, and she thanked him +in English. From these incidents, both occurring the same day in the same +place, the inference of a widespread knowledge of our language in all +classes of the population was inevitable. + +In this obvious and easy manner he studied contemporary civilization in +the capital. He even carried his researches farther, and went one rainy +afternoon to an exhibition of modern pictures in a pavilion of the +Thiergarten, where from the small attendance he inferred an indifference +to the arts which he would not ascribe to the weather. One evening at a +summer theatre where they gave the pantomime of the 'Puppenfee' and the +operetta of 'Hansel and Gretel', he observed that the greater part of the +audience was composed of nice plain young girls and children, and he +noted that there was no sort of evening dress; from the large number of +Americans present he imagined a numerous colony in Berlin, where they +mast have an instinctive sense of their co-nationality, since one of them +in the stress of getting his hat and overcoat when they all came out, +confidently addressed him in English. But he took stock of his +impressions with his wife, and they seemed to him so few, after all, that +he could not resist a painful sense of isolation in the midst of the +environment. + +They made a Sunday excursion to the Zoological Gardens in the +Thiergarten, with a large crowd of the lower classes, but though they had +a great deal of trouble in getting there by the various kinds of +horsecars and electric cars, they did not feel that they had got near to +the popular life. They endeavored for some sense of Berlin society by +driving home in a drosky, and on the way they passed rows of beautiful +houses, in French and Italian taste, fronting the deep, damp green park +from the Thiergartenstrasse, in which they were confident cultivated and +delightful people lived; but they remained to the last with nothing but +their unsupported conjecture. + + + + +LXV. + +Their excursion to Potsdam was the cream of their sojourn in Berlin. They +chose for it the first fair morning, and they ran out over the flat sandy +plains surrounding the capital, and among the low hills surrounding +Potsdam before it actually began to rain. + +They wished immediately to see Sans Souci for the great Frederick's sake, +and they drove through a lively shower to the palace, where they waited +with a horde of twenty-five other tourists in a gusty colonnade before +they were led through Voltaire's room and Frederick's death chamber. + +The French philosopher comes before the Prussian prince at Sans Souci +even in the palatial villa which expresses the wilful caprice of the +great Frederick as few edifices have embodied the whims or tastes of +their owners. The whole affair is eighteenth-century French, as the +Germans conceived it. The gardened terrace from which the low, one-story +building, thickly crusted with baroque sculptures, looks down into a +many-colored parterre, was luxuriantly French, and sentimentally French +the colonnaded front opening to a perspective of artificial ruins, with +broken pillars lifting a conscious fragment of architrave against the +sky. Within, all again was French in the design, the decoration and the +furnishing. At that time there, was in fact no other taste, and +Frederick, who despised and disused his native tongue, was resolved upon +French taste even in his intimate companionship. The droll story of his +coquetry with the terrible free spirit which he got from France to be his +guest is vividly reanimated at Sans Souci, where one breathes the very +air in which the strangely assorted companions lived, and in which they +parted so soon to pursue each other with brutal annoyance on one side, +and with merciless mockery on the other. Voltaire was long ago revenged +upon his host for all the indignities he suffered from him in their +comedy; he left deeply graven upon Frederick's fame the trace of those +lacerating talons which he could strike to the quick; and it is the +singular effect of this scene of their brief friendship that one feels +there the pre-eminence of the wit in whatever was most important to +mankind. + +The rain had lifted a little and the sun shone out on the bloom of the +lovely parterre where the Marches profited by a smiling moment to wander +among the statues and the roses heavy with the shower. Then they walked +back to their carriage and drove to the New Palace, which expresses in +differing architectural terms the same subjection to an alien ideal of +beauty. It is thronged without by delightfully preposterous rococco +statues, and within it is rich in all those curiosities and memorials of +royalty with which palaces so well know how to fatigue the flesh and +spirit of their visitors. + +The Marches escaped from it all with sighs and groans of relief, and +before they drove off to see the great fountain of the Orangeries, they +dedicated a moment of pathos to the Temple of Friendship which Frederick +built in memory of unhappy Wilhelmina of Beyreuth, the sister he loved in +the common sorrow of their wretched home, and neglected when he came to +his kingdom. It is beautiful in its rococco way, swept up to on its +terrace by most noble staircases, and swaggered over by baroque +allegories of all sorts: Everywhere the statues outnumbered the visitors, +who may have been kept away by the rain; the statues naturally did not +mind it. + +Sometime in the midst of their sight-seeing the Marches had dinner in a +mildewed restaurant, where a compatriotic accent caught their ear in a +voice saying to the waiter, "We are in a hurry." They looked round and +saw that it proceeded from the pretty nose of a young American girl, who +sat with a party of young American girls at a neighboring table. Then +they perceived that all the people in that restaurant were Americans, +mostly young girls, who all looked as if they were in a hurry. But +neither their beauty nor their impatience had the least effect with the +waiter, who prolonged the dinner at his pleasure, and alarmed the Marches +with the misgiving that they should not have time for the final palace on +their list. + +This was the palace where the father of Frederick, the mad old Frederick +William, brought up his children with that severity which Solomon urged +but probably did not practise. It is a vast place, but they had time for +it all, though the custodian made the most of them as the latest comers +of the day, and led them through it with a prolixity as great as their +waiter's. He was a most friendly custodian, and when he found that they +had some little notion of what they wanted to see, he mixed zeal with his +patronage, and in a manner made them his honored guests. They saw +everything but the doorway where the faithful royal father used to lie in +wait for his children and beat them, princes and princesses alike, with +his knobby cane as they came through. They might have seen this doorway +without knowing it; but from the window overlooking the parade-ground +where his family watched the manoeuvres of his gigantic grenadiers, they +made sure of just such puddles as Frederick William forced his family to +sit with their feet in, while they dined alfresco on pork and cabbage; +and they visited the room of the Smoking Parliament where he ruled his +convives with a rod of iron, and made them the victims of his bad jokes. +The measuring-board against which he took the stature of his tall +grenadiers is there, and one room is devoted to those masterpieces which +he used to paint in the agonies of gout. His chef d'oeuvre contains a +figure with two left feet, and there seemed no reason why it might not. +have had three. In another room is a small statue of Carlyle, who did so +much to rehabilitate the house which the daughter of it, Wilhelmina, did +so much to demolish in the regard of men. + +The palace is now mostly kept for guests, and there is a chamber where +Napoleon slept, which is not likely to be occupied soon by any other +self-invited guest of his nation. It is perhaps to keep the princes of +Europe humble that hardly a palace on the Continent is without the +chamber of this adventurer, who, till he stooped to be like them, was +easily their master. Another democracy had here recorded its invasion in +the American stoves which the custodian pointed out in the corridor when +Mrs, March, with as little delay as possible, had proclaimed their +country. The custodian professed an added respect for them from the fact, +and if he did not feel it, no doubt he merited the drink money which they +lavished on him at parting. + +Their driver also was a congenial spirit, and when he let them out of his +carriage at the station, he excused the rainy day to them. He was a merry +fellow beyond the wont of his nation, and he-laughed at the bad weather, +as if it had been a good joke on them. + +His gayety, and the red sunset light, which shone on the stems of the +pines on the way back to Berlin, contributed to the content in which they +reviewed their visit to Potsdam. They agreed that the place was perfectly +charming, and that it was incomparably expressive of kingly will and +pride. These had done there on the grand scale what all the German +princes and princelings had tried to do in imitation and emulation of +French splendor. In Potsdam the grandeur, was not a historical growth as +at Versailles, but was the effect of family genius, in which there was +often the curious fascination of insanity. + +They felt this strongly again amidst the futile monuments of the +Hohenzollern Museum, in Berlin, where all the portraits, effigies, +personal belongings and memorials of that gifted, eccentric race are +gathered and historically disposed. The princes of the mighty line who +stand out from the rest are Frederick the Great and his infuriate. +father; and in the waxen likeness of the son, a small thin figure, +terribly spry, and a face pitilessly alert, appears something of the +madness which showed in the life of the sire. + +They went through many rooms in which the memorials of the kings and +queens, the emperors and empresses were carefully ordered, and felt no +kindness except before the relics relating to the Emperor Frederick and +his mother. In the presence of the greatest of the dynasty they +experienced a kind of terror which March expressed, when they were safely +away, in the confession of his joy that those people were dead. + + + + +LXVI. + +The rough weather which made Berlin almost uninhabitable to Mrs. March +had such an effect with General Triscoe at Weimar that under the orders +of an English-speaking doctor he retreated from it altogether and went to +bed. Here he escaped the bronchitis which had attacked him, and his +convalesence left him so little to complain of that he could not always +keep his temper. In the absence of actual offence, either from his +daughter or from Burnamy, his sense of injury took a retroactive form; it +centred first in Stoller and the twins; then it diverged toward Rose +Adding, his mother and Kenby, and finally involved the Marches in the +same measure of inculpation; for they had each and all had part, directly +or indirectly, in the chances that brought on his cold. + +He owed to Burnamy the comfort of the best room in the hotel, and he was +constantly dependent upon his kindness; but he made it evident that he +did not over-value Burnamy's sacrifice and devotion, and that it was not +an unmixed pleasure, however great a convenience, to have him about. In +giving up his room, Burnamy had proposed going out of the hotel +altogether; but General Triscoe heard of this with almost as great +vexation as he had accepted the room. He besought him not to go, but so +ungraciously that his daughter was ashamed, and tried to atone for his +manner by the kindness of her own. + +Perhaps General Triscoe would not have been without excuse if he were not +eager to have her share with destitute merit the fortune which she had +hitherto shared only with him. He was old, and certain luxuries had +become habits if not necessaries with him. Of course he did not say this +to himself; and still less did he say it to her. But he let her see that +he did not enjoy the chance which had thrown them again in such close +relations with Burnamy, and he did pot hide his belief that the Marches +were somehow to blame for it. This made it impossible for her to write at +once to Mrs. March as she had promised; but she was determined that it +should not make her unjust to Burnamy. She would not avoid him; she would +not let anything that had happened keep her from showing that she felt +his kindness and was glad of his help. + +Of course they knew no one else in Weimar, and his presence merely as a +fellow-countryman would have been precious. He got them a doctor, against +General Triscoe's will; he went for his medicines; he lent him books and +papers; he sat with him and tried to amuse him. But with the girl he +attempted no return to the situation at Carlsbad; there is nothing like +the delicate pride of a young man who resolves to forego unfair advantage +in love. + +The day after their arrival, when her father was making up for the sleep +he had lost by night, she found herself alone in the little reading-room +of the hotel with Burnamy for the first time, and she said: "I suppose +you must have been all over Weimar by this time." + +"Well, I've been here, off and on, almost a month. It's an interesting +place. There's a good deal of the old literary quality left." + +"And you enjoy that! I saw"--she added this with a little unnecessary +flush--"your poem in the paper you lent papa." + +"I suppose I ought to have kept that back. But I couldn't." He laughed, +and she said: + +"You must find a great deal of inspiration in such a literary place." + +"It isn't lying about loose, exactly." Even in the serious and perplexing +situation in which he found himself he could not help being amused with +her unliterary notions of literature, her conventional and commonplace +conceptions of it. They had their value with him as those of a more +fashionable world than his own, which he believed was somehow a greater +world. At the same time he believed that she was now interposing them +between the present and the past, and forbidding with them any return to +the mood of their last meeting in Carlsbad. He looked at her ladylike +composure and unconsciousness, and wondered if she could be the same +person and the same person as they who lost themselves in the crowd that +night and heard and said words palpitant with fate. Perhaps there had +been no such words; perhaps it was all a hallucination. He must leave her +to recognize that it was reality; till she did so, he felt bitterly that +there was nothing for him but submission and patience; if she never did +so, there was nothing for him but acquiescence. + +In this talk and in the talks they had afterwards she seemed willing +enough to speak of what had happened since: of coming on to Wurzburg with +the Addings and of finding the Marches there; of Rose's collapse, and of +his mother's flight seaward with him in the care of Kenby, who was so +fortunately going to Holland, too. He on his side told her of going to +Wurzburg for the manoeuvres, and they agreed that it was very strange +they had not met. + +She did not try to keep their relations from taking the domestic +character which was inevitable, and it seemed to him that this in itself +was significant of a determination on her part that was fatal to his +hopes. With a lover's indefinite power of blinding himself to what is +before his eyes, he believed that if she had been more diffident of him, +more uneasy in his presence, he should have had more courage; but for her +to breakfast unafraid with him, to meet him at lunch and dinner in the +little dining-room where they were often the only guests, and always the +only English-speaking guests, was nothing less than prohibitive. + +In the hotel service there was one of those men who are porters in this +world, but will be angels in the next, unless the perfect goodness of +their looks, the constant kindness of their acts, belies them. The +Marches had known and loved the man in their brief stay, and he had been +the fast friend of Burnamy from the moment they first saw each other at +the station. He had tenderly taken possession of General Triscoe on his +arrival, and had constituted himself the nurse and keeper of the +irascible invalid, in the intervals of going to the trains, with a zeal +that often relieved his daughter and Burnamy. The general in fact +preferred him to either, and a tacit custom grew up by which when August +knocked at his door, and offered himself in his few words of serviceable +English, that one of them who happened to be sitting with the general +gave way, and left him in charge. The retiring watcher was then apt to +encounter the other watcher on the stairs, or in the reading-room, or in +the tiny, white-pebbled door-yard at a little table in the shade of the +wooden-tubbed evergreens. From the habit of doing this they one day +suddenly formed the habit of going across the street to that gardened +hollow before and below the Grand-Ducal Museum. There was here a bench in +the shelter of some late-flowering bush which the few other frequenters +of the place soon recognized as belonging to the young strangers, so that +they would silently rise and leave it to them when they saw them coming. +Apparently they yielded not only to their right, but to a certain +authority which resides in lovers, and which all other men, and +especially all other women, like to acknowledge and respect. + +In the absence of any civic documents bearing upon the affair it is +difficult to establish the fact that this was the character in which +Agatha and Burnamy were commonly regarded by the inhabitants of Weimar. +But whatever their own notion of their relation was, if it was not that +of a Brant and a Brautigam, the people of Weimar would have been puzzled +to say what it was. It was known that the gracious young lady's father, +who would naturally have accompanied them, was sick, and in the fact that +they were Americans much extenuation was found for whatever was +phenomenal in their unencumbered enjoyment of each other's society. + +If their free American association was indistinguishably like the peasant +informality which General Triscoe despised in the relations of Kenby and +Mrs. Adding, it is to be said in his excuse that he could not be fully +cognizant of it, in the circumstances, and so could do nothing to prevent +it. His pessimism extended to his health; from the first he believed +himself worse than the doctor thought him, and he would have had some +other physician if he had not found consolation in their difference of +opinion and the consequent contempt which he was enabled to cherish for +the doctor in view of the man's complete ignorance of the case. In proof +of his own better understanding of it, he remained in bed some time after +the doctor said he might get up. + +Nearly ten days had passed before he left his room, and it was not till +then that he clearly saw how far affairs had gone with his daughter and +Burnamy, though even then his observance seemed to have anticipated +theirs. He found them in a quiet acceptance of the fortune which had +brought them together, so contented that they appeared to ask nothing +more of it. The divine patience and confidence of their youth might +sometimes have had almost the effect of indifference to a witness who had +seen its evolution from the moods of the first few days of their reunion +in Weimar. To General Triscoe, however, it looked like an understanding +which had been made without reference to his wishes, and had not been +directly brought to his knowledge. + +"Agatha," he said, after due note of a gay contest between her and +Burnamy over the pleasure and privilege of ordering his supper sent to +his room when he had gone back to it from his first afternoon in the open +air, "how long is that young man going to stay in Weimar?" + +"Why, I don't know!" she answered, startled from her work of beating the +sofa pillows into shape, and pausing with one of them in her hand. "I +never asked him." She looked down candidly into his face where he sat in +an easy-chair waiting for her arrangement of the sofa. "What makes you +ask?" + +He answered with another question. "Does he know that we had thought of +staying here?" + +"Why, we've always talked of that, haven't we? Yes, he knows it. Didn't +you want him to know it, papa? You ought to have begun on the ship, then. +Of course I've asked him what sort of place it was. I'm sorry if you +didn't want me to." + +"Have I said that? It's perfectly easy to push on to Paris. Unless--" + +"Unless what?" Agatha dropped the pillow, and listened respectfully. But +in spite of her filial attitude she could not keep her youth and strength +and courage from quelling the forces of the elderly man. + +He said querulously, "I don't see why you take that tone with me. You +certainly know what I mean. But if you don't care to deal openly with me, +I won't ask you." He dropped his eyes from her face, and at the same time +a deep blush began to tinge it, growing up from her neck to her forehead. +"You must know--you're not a child," he continued, still with averted +eyes, "that this sort of thing can't go on... It must be something else, +or it mustn't be anything at all. I don't ask you for your confidence, +and you know that I've never sought to control you." + +This was not the least true, but Agatha answered, either absently or +provisionally, "No." + +"And I don't seek to do so now. If you have nothing that you wish to tell +me--" + +He waited, and after what seemed a long time, she asked as if she had not +heard him, "Will you lie down a little before your supper, papa?" + +"I will lie down when I feel like it," he answered. "Send August with the +supper; he can look after me." + +His resentful tone, even more than his words, dismissed her, but she left +him without apparent grievance, saying quietly, "I will send August." + + + + +LXVII. + +Agatha did not come down to supper with Burnamy. She asked August, when +she gave him her father's order, to have a cup of tea sent to her room, +where, when it came, she remained thinking so long that it was rather +tepid by the time she drank it. + +Then she went to her window, and looked out, first above and next below. +Above, the moon was hanging over the gardened hollow before the Museum +with the airy lightness of an American moon. Below was Burnamy behind the +tubbed evergreens, sitting tilted in his chair against the house wall, +with the spark of his cigar fainting and flashing like an American +firefly. Agatha went down to the door, after a little delay, and seemed +surprised to find him there; at least she said, "Oh!" in a tone of +surprise. + +Burnamy stood up, and answered, "Nice night." + +"Beautiful!" she breathed. "I didn't suppose the sky in Germany could +ever be so clear." + +"It seems to be doing its best." + +"The flowers over there look like ghosts in the light," she said +dreamily. + +"They're not. Don't you want to get your hat and wrap, and go over and +expose the fraud?" + +"Oh," she answered, as if it were merely a question of the hat and wrap, +"I have them." + +They sauntered through the garden walks for a while, long enough to have +ascertained that there was not a veridical phantom among the flowers, if +they had been looking, and then when they came to their accustomed seat, +they sat down, and she said, "I don't know that I've seen the moon so +clear since we left Carlsbad." At the last word his heart gave a jump +that seemed to lodge it in his throat and kept him from speaking, so that +she could resume without interruption, "I've got something of yours, that +you left at the Posthof. The girl that broke the dishes found it, and +Lili gave it to Mrs. March for you." This did not account for Agatha's +having the thing, whatever it was; but when she took a handkerchief from +her belt, and put out her hand with it toward him, he seemed to find that +her having it had necessarily followed. He tried to take it from her, but +his own hand trembled so that it clung to hers, and he gasped, "Can't you +say now, what you wouldn't say then?" + +The logical sequence was no more obvious than be fore; but she apparently +felt it in her turn as he had felt it in his. She whispered back, "Yes," +and then she could not get out anything more till she entreated in a +half-stifled voice, "Oh, don't!" + +"No, no!" he panted. "I won't--I oughtn't to have done it--I beg your +pardon--I oughtn't to have spoken,--even--I--" + +She returned in a far less breathless and tremulous fashion, but still +between laughing and crying, "I meant to make you. And now, if you're +ever sorry, or I'm ever too topping about anything, you can be perfectly +free to say that you'd never have spoken if you hadn't seen that I wanted +you to." + +"But I didn't see any such thing," he protested. "I spoke because I +couldn't help it any longer." + +She laughed triumphantly. "Of course you think so! And that shows that +you are only a man after all; in spite of your finessing. But I am going +to have the credit of it. I knew that you were holding back because you +were too proud, or thought you hadn't the right, or something. Weren't +you?" She startled him with the sudden vehemence of her challenge: "If +you pretend, that you weren't I shall never forgive you!" + +"But I was! Of course I was. I was afraid--" + +"Isn't that what I said?" She triumphed over him with another laugh, and +cowered a little closer to him, if that could be. + +They were standing, without knowing how they had got to their feet; and +now without any purpose of the kind, they began to stroll again among the +garden paths, and to ask and to answer questions, which touched every +point of their common history, and yet left it a mine of inexhaustible +knowledge for all future time. Out of the sweet and dear delight of this +encyclopedian reserve two or three facts appeared with a present +distinctness. One of these was that Burnamy had regarded her refusal to +be definite at Carlsbad as definite refusal, and had meant never to see +her again, and certainly never to speak again of love to her. Another +point was that she had not resented his coming back that last night, but +had been proud and happy in it as proof of his love, and had always meant +somehow to let him know that she was torched by his trusting her enough +to come back while he was still under that cloud with Mr. Stoller. With +further logic, purely of the heart, she acquitted him altogether of wrong +in that affair, and alleged in proof, what Mr. Stoller had said of it to +Mr. March. Burnamy owned that he knew what Stoller had said, but even in +his present condition he could not accept fully her reading of that +obscure passage of his life. He preferred to put the question by, and +perhaps neither of them cared anything about it except as it related to +the fact that they were now each other's forever. + +They agreed that they must write to Mr. and Mrs. March at once; or at +least, Agatha said, as soon as she had spoken to her father. At her +mention of her father she was aware of a doubt, a fear, in Burnamy which +expressed itself by scarcely more than a spiritual consciousness from his +arm to the hands which she had clasped within it. "He has always +appreciated you," she said courageously, "and I know he will see it in +the right light." + +She probably meant no more than to affirm her faith in her own ability +finally to bring her father to a just mind concerning it; but Burnamy +accepted her assurance with buoyant hopefulness, and said he would see +General Triscoe the first thing in the morning. + +"No, I will see him," she said, "I wish to see him first; he will expect +it of me. We had better go in, now," she added, but neither made any +motion for the present to do so. On the contrary, they walked in the +other direction, and it was an hour after Agatha declared their duty in +the matter before they tried to fulfil it. + +Then, indeed, after they returned to the hotel, she lost no time in going +to her father beyond that which must be given to a long hand-pressure +under the fresco of the five poets on the stairs landing, where her ways +and Burnamy's parted. She went into her own room, and softly opened the +door into her father's and listened. + +"Well?" he said in a sort of challenging voice. + +"Have you been asleep?" she asked. + +"I've just blown out my light. What has kept you?" + +She did not reply categorically. Standing there in the sheltering dark, +she said, "Papa, I wasn't very candid with you, this afternoon. I am +engaged to Mr. Burnamy." + +"Light the candle," said her father. "Or no," he added before she could +do so. "Is it quite settled?" + +"Quite," she answered in a voice that admitted of no doubt. "That is, as +far as it can be, without you." + +"Don't be a hypocrite, Agatha," said the general. "And let me try to get +to sleep. You know I don't like it, and you know I can't help it." + +"Yes," the girl assented. + +"Then go to bed," said the general concisely. + +Agatha did not obey her father. She thought she ought to kiss him, but +she decided that she had better postpone this; so she merely gave him a +tender goodnight, to which he made no response, and shut herself into her +own room, where she remained sitting and staring out into the moonlight, +with a smile that never left her lips. + +When the moon sank below the horizon, the sky was pale with the coming +day, but before it was fairly dawn, she saw something white, not much +greater than some moths, moving before her window. She pulled the valves +open and found it a bit of paper attached to a thread dangling from +above. She broke it loose and in the morning twilight she read the great +central truth of the universe: + +"I love you. L. J. B." + +She wrote under the tremendous inspiration: + +"So do I. Don't be silly. A. T." + +She fastened the paper to the thread again, and gave it a little twitch. +She waited for the low note of laughter which did not fail to flutter +down from above; then she threw herself upon the bed, and fell asleep. + +It was not so late as she thought when she woke, and it seemed, at +breakfast, that Burnamy had been up still earlier. Of the three involved +in the anxiety of the night before General Triscoe was still respited +from it by sleep, but he woke much more haggard than either of the young +people. They, in fact, were not at all haggard; the worst was over, if +bringing their engagement to his knowledge was the worst; the formality +of asking his consent which Burnamy still had to go through was +unpleasant, but after all it was a formality. Agatha told him everything +that had passed between herself and her father, and if it had not that +cordiality on his part which they could have wished it was certainly not +hopelessly discouraging. + +They agreed at breakfast that Burnamy had better have it over as quickly +as possible, and he waited only till August came down with the general's +tray before going up to his room. The young fellow did not feel more at +his ease than the elder meant he should in taking the chair to which the +general waved him from where he lay in bed; and there was no talk wasted +upon the weather between them. + +"I suppose I know what you have come for, Mr. Burnamy," said General +Triscoe in a tone which was rather judicial than otherwise, "and I +suppose you know why you have come." The words certainly opened the way +for Burnamy, but he hesitated so long to take it that the general had +abundant time to add, "I don't pretend that this event is unexpected, but +I should like to know what reason you have for thinking I should wish you +to marry my daughter. I take it for granted that you are attached to each +other, and we won't waste time on that point. Not to beat about the bush, +on the next point, let me ask at once what your means of supporting her +are. How much did you earn on that newspaper in Chicago?" + +"Fifteen hundred dollars," Burnamy answered, promptly enough. + +"Did you earn anything more, say within the last year?" + +"I got three hundred dollars advance copyright for a book I sold to a +publisher." The glory had not yet faded from the fact in Burnamy's mind. + +"Eighteen hundred. What did you get for your poem in March's book?" + +"That's a very trifling matter: fifteen dollars." + +"And your salary as private secretary to that man Stoller?" + +"Thirty dollars a week, and my expenses. But I wouldn't take that, +General Triscoe," said Burnamy. + +General Triscoe, from his 'lit de justice', passed this point in silence. +"Have you any one dependent on you?" + +"My mother; I take care of my mother," answered Burnamy, proudly. + +"Since you have broken with Stoller, what are your prospects?" + +"I have none." + +"Then you don't expect to support my daughter; you expect to live upon +her means." + +"I expect to do nothing of the kind!" cried Burnamy. "I should be +ashamed--I should feel disgraced--I should--I don't ask you--I don't ask +her till I have the means to support her--" + +"If you were very fortunate," continued the general, unmoved by the young +fellow's pain, and unperturbed by the fact that he had himself lived upon +his wife's means as long as she lived, and then upon his daughter's, "if +you went back to Stoller--" + +"I wouldn't go back to him. I don't say he's knowingly a rascal, but he's +ignorantly a rascal, and he proposed a rascally thing to me. I behaved +badly to him, and I'd give anything to undo the wrong I let him do +himself; but I'll never go back to him." + +"If you went back, on your old salary," the general persisted pitilessly, +"you would be very fortunate if you brought your earnings up to +twenty-five hundred a year." + +"Yes--" + +"And how far do you think that would go in supporting my daughter on the +scale she is used to? I don't speak of your mother, who has the first +claim upon you." + +Burnamy sat dumb; and his head which he had lifted indignantly when the +question was of Stoller, began to sink. + +The general went on. "You ask me to give you my daughter when you haven't +money enough to keep her in gowns; you ask me to give her to a +stranger--" + +"Not quite a stranger, General Triscoe," Burnamy protested. "You have +known me for three months at least, and any one who knows me in Chicago +will tell you--" + +"A stranger, and worse than a stranger," the general continued, so +pleased with the logical perfection of his position that he almost +smiled, and certainly softened toward Burnamy. "It isn't a question of +liking you, Mr. Burnamy, but of knowing you; my daughter likes you; so do +the Marches; so does everybody who has met you. I like you myself. You've +done me personally a thousand kindnesses. But I know very little of you, +in spite of our three months' acquaintance; and that little is--But you +shall judge for yourself! You were in the confidential employ of a man +who trusted you, and you let him betray himself." + +"I did. I don't excuse it. The thought of it burns like fire. But it +wasn't done maliciously; it wasn't done falsely; it was done +inconsiderately; and when it was done, it seemed irrevocable. But it +wasn't; I could have prevented, I could have stooped the mischief; and I +didn't! I can never outlive that." + +"I know," said the general relentlessly, "that you have never attempted +any defence. That has been to your credit with me. It inclined me to +overlook your unwarranted course in writing to my daughter, when you told +her you would never see her again. What did you expect me to think, after +that, of your coming back to see her? Or didn't you expect me to know +it?" + +"I expected you to know it; I knew she would tell you. But I don't excuse +that, either. It was acting a lie to come back. All I can say is that I +had to see her again for one last time." + +"And to make sure that it was to be the last time, you offered yourself +to her." + +"I couldn't help doing that." + +"I don't say you could. I don't judge the facts at all. I leave them +altogether to you; and you shall say what a man in my position ought to +say to such a man as you have shown yourself." + +"No, I will say." The door into the adjoining room was flung open, and +Agatha flashed in from it. + +Her father looked coldly at her impassioned face. "Have you been +listening?" he asked. + +"I have been hearing--" + +"Oh!" As nearly as a man could, in bed, General Triscoe shrugged. + +"I suppose I had, a right to be in my own room. I couldn't help hearing; +and I was perfectly astonished at you, papa, the cruel way you went on, +after all you've said about Mr. Stoller, and his getting no more than he +deserved." + +"That doesn't justify me," Burnamy began, but she cut him short almost as +severely as she--had dealt with her father. + +"Yes, it does! It justifies you perfectly! And his wanting you to falsify +the whole thing afterwards, more than justifies you." + +Neither of the men attempted anything in reply to her casuistry; they +both looked equally posed by it, for different reasons; and Agatha went +on as vehemently as before, addressing herself now to one and now to the +other. + +"And besides, if it didn't justify you, what you have done yourself +would; and your never denying it, or trying to excuse it, makes it the +same as if you hadn't done it, as far as you are concerned; and that is +all I care for." Burnamy started, as if with the sense of having heard +something like this before, and with surprise at hearing it now; and she +flushed a little as she added tremulously, "And I should never, never +blame you for it, after that; it's only trying to wriggle out of things +which I despise, and you've never done that. And he simply had to come +back," she turned to her father, "and tell me himself just how it was. +And you said yourself, papa--or the same as said--that he had no right to +suppose I was interested in his affairs unless he--unless--And I should +never have forgiven him, if he hadn't told me then that he that he had +come back because he--felt the way he did. I consider that that +exonerated him for breaking his word, completely. If he hadn't broken his +word I should have thought he had acted very cruelly and--and strangely. +And ever since then, he has behaved so nobly, so honorably, so +delicately, that I don't believe he would ever have said anything +again--if I hadn't fairly forced him. Yes! Yes, I did!" she cried at a +movement of remonstrance from Burnamy. "And I shall always be proud of +you for it." Her father stared steadfastly at her, and he only lifted his +eyebrows, for change of expression, when she went over to where Burnamy +stood, and put her hand in his with a certain childlike impetuosity. "And +as for the rest," she declared, "everything I have is his; just as +everything of his would be mine if I had nothing. Or if he wishes to take +me without anything, then he can have me so, and I sha'n't be afraid but +we can get along somehow." She added, "I have managed without a maid, +ever since I left home, and poverty has no terrors for me!" + + + + +LXVIII. + +General Triscoe submitted to defeat with the patience which soldiers +learn. He did not submit amiably; that would have been out of character, +and perhaps out of reason; but Burnamy and Agatha were both so amiable +that they supplied good-humor for all. They flaunted their rapture in her +father's face as little as they could, but he may have found their serene +satisfaction, their settled confidence in their fate, as hard to bear as +a more boisterous happiness would have been. + +It was agreed among them all that they were to return soon to America, +and Burnamy was to find some sort of literary or journalistic employment +in New York. She was much surer than he that this could be done with +perfect ease; but they were of an equal mind that General Triscoe was not +to be disturbed in any of his habits, or vexed in the tenor of his +living; and until Burnamy was at least self-supporting there must be no +talk of their being married. + +The talk of their being engaged was quite enough for the time. It +included complete and minute auto-biographies on both sides, reciprocal +analyses of character, a scientifically exhaustive comparison of tastes, +ideas and opinions; a profound study of their respective chins, noses, +eyes, hands, heights, complexions, moles and freckles, with some account +of their several friends. + +In this occupation, which was profitably varied by the confession of what +they had each thought and felt and dreamt concerning the other at every +instant since they met, they passed rapidly the days which the persistent +anxiety of General Triscoe interposed before the date of their leaving +Weimar for Paris, where it was arranged that they should spend a month +before sailing for New York. Burnamy had a notion, which Agatha approved, +of trying for something there on the New York-Paris Chronicle; and if he +got it they might not go home at once. His gains from that paper had eked +out his copyright from his book, and had almost paid his expenses in +getting the material which he had contributed to it. They were not so +great, however, but that his gold reserve was reduced to less than a +hundred dollars, counting the silver coinages which had remained to him +in crossing and recrossing frontiers. He was at times dimly conscious of +his finances, but he buoyantly disregarded the facts, as incompatible +with his status as Agatha's betrothed, if not unworthy of his character +as a lover in the abstract. + +The afternoon before they were to leave Weimar, they spent mostly in the +garden before the Grand-Ducal Museum, in a conference so important that +when it came on to rain, at one moment, they put up Burnamy's umbrella, +and continued to sit under it rather than interrupt the proceedings even +to let Agatha go back to the hotel and look after her father's packing. +Her own had been finished before dinner, so as to leave her the whole +afternoon for their conference, and to allow her father to remain in +undisturbed possession of his room as long as possible. + +What chiefly remained to be put into the general's trunk were his coats +and trousers, hanging in the closet, and August took these down, and +carefully folded and packed them. Then, to make sure that nothing had +been forgotten, Agatha put a chair into the closet when she came in, and +stood on it to examine the shelf which stretched above the hooks. + +There seemed at first to be nothing on it, and then there seemed to be +something in the further corner, which when it was tiptoed for, proved to +be a bouquet of flowers, not so faded as to seem very old; the blue satin +ribbon which they were tied up with, and which hung down half a yard, was +of entire freshness except far the dust of the shelf where it had lain. + +Agatha backed out into the room with her find in her hand, and examined +it near to, and then at arm's length. August stood by with a pair of the +general's trousers lying across his outstretched hands, and as Agatha +absently looked round at him, she caught a light of intelligence in his +eyes which changed her whole psychological relation to the withered +bouquet. Till then it had been a lifeless, meaningless bunch of flowers, +which some one, for no motive, had tossed up on that dusty shelf in the +closet. At August's smile it became something else. Still she asked +lightly enough, "Was ist loss, August?" + +His smile deepened and broadened. "Fur die Andere," he explained. + +Agatha demanded in English, "What do you mean by feardy ondery?" + +"Oddaw lehdy." + +"Other lady?" August nodded, rejoicing in big success, and Agatha closed +the door into her own room, where the general had been put for the time +so as to be spared the annoyance of the packing; then she sat down with +her hands in her lap, and the bouquet in her hands. "Now, August," she +said very calmly, "I want you to tell me-ich wunsche Sie zu mir +sagen--what other lady--wass andere Dame--these flowers belonged +to--diese Blumen gehorte zu. Verstehen Sie?" + +August nodded brightly, and with German carefully adjusted to Agatha's +capacity, and with now and then a word or phrase of English, he conveyed +that before she and her Herr Father had appeared, there had been in +Weimar another American Fraulein with her Frau Mother; they had not +indeed staid in that hotel, but had several times supped there with the +young Herr Bornahmee, who was occupying that room before her Herr Father. +The young Herr had been much about with these American Damen, driving and +walking with them, and sometimes dining or supping with them at their +hotel, The Elephant. August had sometimes carried notes to them from the +young Herr, and he had gone for the bouquet which the gracious Fraulein +was holding, on the morning of the day that the American Damen left by +the train for Hanover. + +August was much helped and encouraged throughout by the friendly +intelligence of the gracious Fraulein, who smiled radiantly in clearing +up one dim point after another, and who now and then supplied the English +analogues which he sought in his effort to render his German more +luminous. + +At the end she returned to the work of packing, in which she directed +him, and sometimes assisted him with her own hands, having put the +bouquet on the mantel to leave herself free. She took it up again and +carried it into her own room, when she went with August to summon her +father back to his. She bade August say to the young Herr, if he saw him, +that she was going to sup with her father, and August gave her message to +Burnamy, whom he met on the stairs coming down as he was going up with +their tray. + +Agatha usually supped with her father, but that evening Burnamy was less +able than usual to bear her absence in the hotel dining-room, and he went +up to a cafe in the town for his supper. He did not stay long, and when +he returned his heart gave a joyful lift at sight of Agatha looking out +from her balcony, as if she were looking for him. He made her a gay +flourishing bow, lifting his hat high, and she came down to meet him at +the hotel door. She had her hat on and jacket over one arm and she joined +him at once for the farewell walk he proposed in what they had agreed to +call their garden. + +She moved a little ahead of him, and when they reached the place where +they always sat, she shifted her jacket to the other arm and uncovered +the hand in which she had been carrying the withered bouquet. "Here is +something I found in your closet, when I was getting papa's things out." + +"Why, what is it?" he asked innocently, as he took it from her. + +"A bouquet, apparently," she answered, as he drew the long ribbons +through his fingers, and looked at the flowers curiously, with his head +aslant. + +"Where did you get it?" + +"On the shelf." + +It seemed a long time before Burnamy said with a long sigh, as of final +recollection, "Oh, yes," and then he said nothing; and they did not sit +down, but stood looking at each other. + +"Was it something you got for me, and forgot to give me?" she asked in a +voice which would not have misled a woman, but which did its work with +the young man. + +He laughed and said, "Well, hardly! The general has been in the room ever +since you came." + +"Oh, yes. Then perhaps somebody left it there before you had the room?" + +Burnamy was silent again, but at last he said, "No, I flung it up there I +had forgotten all about it." + +"And you wish me to forget about it, too?" Agatha asked in a gayety of +tone that still deceived him. + +"It would only be fair. You made me," he rejoined, and there was +something so charming in his words and way, that she would have been glad +to do it. + +But she governed herself against the temptation and said, "Women are not +good at forgetting, at least till they know what." + +"Oh, I'll tell you, if you want to know," he said with a laugh, and at +the words she--sank provisionally in their accustomed seat. He sat down +beside her, but not so near as usual, and he waited so long before he +began that it seemed as if he had forgotten again. "Why, it's nothing. +Miss Etkins and her mother were here before you came, and this is a +bouquet that I meant to give her at the train when she left. But I +decided I wouldn't, and I threw it onto the shelf in the closet." + +"May I ask why you thought of taking a bouquet to her at the train?" + +"Well, she and her mother--I had been with them a good deal, and I +thought it would be civil." + +"And why did you decide not to be civil?" + +"I didn't want it to look like more than civility." + +"Were they here long?" + +"About a week. They left just after the Marches came." + +Agatha seemed not to heed the answer she had exacted. She sat reclined in +the corner of the seat, with her head drooping. After an interval which +was long to Burnamy she began to pull at a ring on the third finger of +her left hand, absently, as if she did not know what she was doing; but +when she had got it off she held it towards Burnamy and said quietly, "I +think you had better have this again," and then she rose and moved slowly +and weakly away. + +He had taken the ring mechanically from her, and he stood a moment +bewildered; then he pressed after her. + +"Agatha, do you--you don't mean--" + +"Yes," she said, without looking round at his face, which she knew was +close to her shoulder. "It's over. It isn't what you've done. It's what +you are. I believed in you, in spite of what you did to that man--and +your coming back when you said you wouldn't--and--But I see now that what +you did was you; it was your nature; and I can't believe in you any +more." + +"Agatha!" he implored. "You're not going to be so unjust! There was +nothing between you and me when that girl was here! I had a right to--" + +"Not if you really cared for me! Do you think I would have flirted with +any one so soon, if I had cared for you as you pretended you did for me +that night in Carlsbad? Oh, I don't say you're false. But you're +fickle--" + +"But I'm not fickle! From the first moment I saw you, I never cared for +any one but you!" + +"You have strange ways of showing your devotion. Well, say you are not +fickle. Say, that I'm fickle. I am. I have changed my mind. I see that it +would never do. I leave you free to follow all the turning and twisting +of your fancy." She spoke rapidly, almost breathlessly, and she gave him +no chance to get out the words that seemed to choke him. She began to +run, but at the door of the hotel she stopped and waited till he came +stupidly up. "I have a favor to ask, Mr. Burnamy. I beg you will not see +me again, if you can help it before we go to-morrow. My father and I are +indebted to you for too many kindnesses, and you mustn't take any more +trouble on our account. August can see us off in the morning." + +She nodded quickly, and was gone in-doors while he was yet struggling +with his doubt of the reality of what had all so swiftly happened. + +General Triscoe was still ignorant of any change in the status to which +he had reconciled himself with so much difficulty, when he came down to +get into the omnibus for the train. Till then he had been too proud to +ask what had become of Burnamy, though he had wondered, but now he looked +about and said impatiently, "I hope that young man isn't going to keep us +waiting." + +Agatha was pale and worn with sleeplessness, but she said firmly, "He +isn't going, papa. I will tell you in the train. August will see to the +tickets and the baggage." + +August conspired with the traeger to get them a first-class compartment +to themselves. But even with the advantages of this seclusion Agatha's +confidences to her father were not full. She told her father that her +engagement was broken for reasons that did not mean anything very wrong +in Mr. Burnamy but that convinced her they could never be happy together. +As she did not give the reasons, he found a natural difficulty in +accepting them, and there was something in the situation which appealed +strongly to his contrary-mindedness. Partly from this, partly from his +sense of injury in being obliged so soon to adjust himself to new +conditions, and partly from his comfortable feeling of security from an +engagement to which his assent had been forced, he said, "I hope you're +not making a mistake." + +"Oh, no," she answered, and she attested her conviction by a burst of +sobbing that lasted well on the way to the first stop of the train. + + + + +LXIX. + +It would have been always twice as easy to go direct from Berlin to the +Hague through Hanover; but the Marches decided to go by Frankfort and the +Rhine, because they wished to revisit the famous river, which they +remembered from their youth, and because they wished to stop at +Dusseldorf, where Heinrich Heine was born. Without this Mrs. March, who +kept her husband up to his early passion for the poet with a feeling that +she was defending him from age in it, said that their silver wedding +journey would not be complete; and he began himself to think that it +would be interesting. + +They took a sleeping-car for Frankfort and they woke early as people do +in sleeping-cars everywhere. March dressed and went out for a cup of the +same coffee of which sleeping-car buffets have the awful secret in Europe +as well as America, and for a glimpse of the twilight landscape. One gray +little town, towered and steepled and red-roofed within its mediaeval +walls, looked as if it would have been warmer in something more. There +was a heavy dew, if not a light frost, over all, and in places a pale fog +began to lift from the low hills. Then the sun rose without dispersing +the cold, which was afterwards so severe in their room at the Russischer +Hof in Frankfort that in spite of the steam-radiators they sat shivering +in all their wraps till breakfast-time. + +There was no steam on in the radiators, of course; when they implored the +portier for at least a lamp to warm their hands by he turned on all the +electric lights without raising the temperature in the slightest degree. +Amidst these modern comforts they were so miserable that they vowed each +other to shun, as long as they were in Germany, or at least while the +summer lasted, all hotels which were steam-heated and electric-lighted. +They heated themselves somewhat with their wrath, and over their +breakfast they relented so far as to suffer themselves a certain interest +in the troops of all arms beginning to pass the hotel. They were +fragments of the great parade, which had ended the day before, and they +were now drifting back to their several quarters of the empire. Many of +them were very picturesque, and they had for the boys and girls running +before and beside them, the charm which armies and circus processions +have for children everywhere. But their passage filled with cruel anxiety +a large old dog whom his master had left harnessed to a milk-cart before +the hotel door; from time to time he lifted up his voice, and called to +the absentee with hoarse, deep barks that almost shook him from his feet. + +The day continued blue and bright and cold, and the Marches gave the +morning to a rapid survey of the city, glad that it was at least not wet. +What afterwards chiefly remained to them was the impression of an old +town as quaint almost and as Gothic as old Hamburg, and a new town, +handsome and regular, and, in the sudden arrest of some streets, +apparently overbuilt. The modern architectural taste was of course +Parisian; there is no other taste for the Germans; but in the prevailing +absence of statues there was a relief from the most oppressive +characteristic of the imperial capital which was a positive delight. Some +sort of monument to the national victory over France there must have +been; but it must have been unusually inoffensive, for it left no record +of itself in the travellers' consciousness. They were aware of gardened +squares and avenues, bordered by stately dwellings, of dignified civic +edifices, and of a vast and splendid railroad station, such as the state +builds even in minor European cities, but such as our paternal +corporations have not yet given us anywhere in America. They went to the +Zoological Garden, where they heard the customary Kalmucks at their +public prayers behind a high board fence; and as pilgrims from the most +plutrocratic country in the world March insisted that they must pay their +devoirs at the shrine of the Rothschilds, whose natal banking-house they +revered from the outside. + +It was a pity, he said, that the Rothschilds were not on his letter of +credit; he would have been willing to pay tribute to the Genius of +Finance in the percentage on at least ten pounds. But he consoled himself +by reflecting that he did not need the money; and he consoled Mrs. March +for their failure to penetrate to the interior of the Rothschilds' +birthplace by taking her to see the house where Goethe was born. The +public is apparently much more expected there, and in the friendly place +they were no doubt much more welcome than they would have been in the +Rothschild house. Under that roof they renewed a happy moment of Weimar, +which after the lapse of a week seemed already so remote. They wondered, +as they mounted the stairs from the basement opening into a clean little +court, how Burnamy was getting on, and whether it had yet come to that +understanding between him and Agatha, which Mrs. March, at least, had +meant to be inevitable. Then they became part of some such sight-seeing +retinue as followed the custodian about in the Goethe horse in Weimar, +and of an emotion indistinguishable from that of their fellow +sight-seers. They could make sure, afterwards, of a personal pleasure in +a certain prescient classicism of the house. It somehow recalled both the +Goethe houses at Weimar, and it somehow recalled Italy. It is a separate +house of two floors above the entrance, which opens to a little court or +yard, and gives access by a decent stairway to the living-rooms. The +chief of these is a sufficiently dignified parlor or salon, and the most +important is the little chamber in the third story where the poet first +opened his eyes to the light which he rejoiced in for so long a life, and +which, dying, he implored to be with him more. It is as large as his +death-chamber in Weimar, where he breathed this prayer, and it looks down +into the Italian-looking court, where probably he noticed the world for +the first time, and thought it a paved enclosure thirty or forty feet +square. In the birth-room they keep his puppet theatre, and the place is +fairly suggestive of his childhood; later, in his youth, he could look +from the parlor windows and see the house where his earliest love dwelt. +So much remains of Goethe in the place where he was born, and as such +things go, it is not a little. The house is that of a prosperous and +well-placed citizen, and speaks of the senatorial quality in his family +which Heine says he was fond of recalling, rather than the sartorial +quality of the ancestor who, again as Heine says, mended the Republic's +breeches. + +From the Goethe house, one drives by the Goethe monument to the Romer, +the famous town-hall of the old free imperial city which Frankfort once +was; and by this route the Marches drove to it, agreeing with their +coachman that he was to keep as much in the sun as possible. It was still +so cold that when they reached the Romer, and he stopped in a broad blaze +of the only means of heating that they have in Frankfort in the summer, +the travellers were loath to leave it for the chill interior, where the +German emperors were elected for so many centuries. As soon as an emperor +was chosen, in the great hall effigied round with the portraits of his +predecessors, he hurried out in the balcony, ostensibly to show himself +to the people, but really, March contended, to warm up a little in the +sun. The balcony was undergoing repairs that day, and the travellers +could not go out on it; but under the spell of the historic interest of +the beautiful old Gothic place, they lingered in the interior till they +were half-torpid with the cold. Then she abandoned to him the joint duty +of viewing the cathedral, and hurried to their carriage where she basked +in the sun till he came to her. He returned shivering, after a +half-hour's absence, and pretended that she had missed the greatest thing +in the world, but as he could never be got to say just what she had lost, +and under the closest cross-examination could not prove that this +cathedral was memorably different from hundreds of other +fourteenth-century cathedrals, she remained in a lasting content with the +easier part she had chosen. His only definite impression at the cathedral +seemed to be confined to a Bostonian of gloomily correct type, whom he +had seen doing it with his Baedeker, and not letting an object of +interest escape; and his account of her fellow-townsman reconciled Mrs. +March more and more to not having gone. + +As it was warmer out-doors than in-doors at Frankfort, and as the breadth +of sunshine increased with the approach of noon they gave the rest of the +morning to driving about and ignorantly enjoying the outside of many +Gothic churches, whose names even they did not trouble themselves to +learn. They liked the river Main whenever they came to it, because it was +so lately from Wurzburg, and because it was so beautiful with its +bridges, old and new, and its boats of many patterns. They liked the +market-place in front of the Romer not only because it was full of +fascinating bargains in curious crockery and wooden-ware, but because +there was scarcely any shade at all in it. They read from their Baedeker +that until the end of the last century no Jew was suffered to enter the +marketplace, and they rejoiced to find from all appearances that the Jews +had been making up for their unjust exclusion ever since. They were +almost as numerous there as the Anglo-Saxons were everywhere else in +Frankfort. These, both of the English and American branches of the race, +prevailed in the hotel diningroom, where the Marches had a mid-day dinner +so good that it almost made amends for the steam-heating and +electric-lighting. + +As soon as possible after dinner they took the train for Mayence, and ran +Rhinewards through a pretty country into what seemed a milder climate. It +grew so much milder, apparently, that a lady in their compartment to whom +March offered his forward-looking seat, ordered the window down when the +guard came, without asking their leave. Then the climate proved much +colder, and Mrs. March cowered under her shawls the rest of the way, and +would not be entreated to look at the pleasant level landscape near, or +the hills far off. He proposed to put up the window as peremptorily as it +had been put down, but she stayed him with a hoarse whisper, "She may be +another Baroness!" At first he did not know what she meant, then he +remembered the lady whose claims to rank her presence had so poorly +enforced on the way to Wurzburg, and he perceived that his wife was +practising a wise forbearance with their fellow-passengers, and giving +her a chance to turn out any sort of highhote she chose. She failed to +profit by the opportunity; she remained simply a selfish, disagreeable +woman, of no more perceptible distinction than their other +fellow-passenger, a little commercial traveller from Vienna (they +resolved from his appearance and the lettering on his valise that he was +no other), who slept with a sort of passionate intensity all the way to +Mayence. + + + + +LXX. + +The Main widened and swam fuller as they approached the Rhine, and +flooded the low-lying fields in-places with a pleasant effect under a wet +sunset. When they reached the station in Mayence they drove interminably +to the hotel they had chosen on the river-shore, through a city handsomer +and cleaner than any American city they could think of, and great part of +the way by a street of dwellings nobler, Mrs. March owned, than even +Commonwealth Avenue in Boston. It was planted, like that, with double +rows of trees, but lacked its green lawns; and at times the sign of +Weinhandlung at a corner, betrayed that there was no such restriction +against shops as keeps the Boston street so sacred. Otherwise they had to +confess once more that any inferior city of Germany is of a more proper +and dignified presence than the most parse-proud metropolis in America. +To be sure, they said, the German towns had generally a thousand years' +start; but all the same the fact galled them. + +It was very bleak, though very beautiful when they stopped before their +hotel on the Rhine, where all their impalpable memories of their visit to +Mayence thirty years earlier precipitated themselves into something +tangible. There were the reaches of the storied and fabled stream with +its boats and bridges and wooded shores and islands; there were the +spires and towers and roofs of the town on either bank crowding to the +river's brink; and there within-doors was the stately portier in gold +braid, and the smiling, bowing, hand-rubbing landlord, alluring them to +his most expensive rooms, which so late in the season he would fain have +had them take. But in a little elevator, that mounted slowly, very +slowly, in the curve of the stairs, they went higher to something lower, +and the landlord retired baked, and left them to the ministrations of the +serving-men who arrived with their large and small baggage. All these +retired in turn when they asked to have a fire lighted in the stove, +without which Mrs. March would never have taken the fine stately rooms, +and sent back a pretty young girl to do it. She came indignant, not +because she had come lugging a heavy hod of coal and a great arm-load of +wood, but because her sense of fitness was outraged by the strange +demand. + +"What!" she cried. "A fire in September!" + +"Yes," March returned, inspired to miraculous aptness in his German by +the exigency, "yes, if September is cold." + +The girl looked at him, and then, either because she thought him mad, or +liked him merry, burst into a loud laugh, and kindled the fire without a +word more. + +He lighted all the reluctant gas-jets in the vast gilt chandelier, and in +less than half an hour the temperature of the place rose to at least +sixty-five Fahrenheit, with every promise of going higher. Mrs. March +made herself comfortable in a deep chair before the stove, and said she +would have her supper there; and she bade him send her just such a supper +of chicken and honey and tea as they had all had in Mayence when they +supped in her aunt's parlor there all those years ago. He wished to +compute the years, but she drove him out with an imploring cry, and he +went down to a very gusty dining-room on the ground-floor, where he found +himself alone with a young English couple and their little boy. They were +friendly, intelligent people, and would have been conversable, +apparently, but for the terrible cold of the husband, which he said he +had contracted at the manoeuvres in Hombourg. March said he was going to +Holland, and the Englishman was doubtful of the warmth which March +expected to find there. He seemed to be suffering from a suspense of +faith as to the warmth anywhere; from time to time the door of the +dining-room self-opened in a silent, ghostly fashion into the court +without, and let in a chilling draught about the legs of all, till the +little English boy got down from his place and shut it. + +He alone continued cheerful, for March's spirits certainly did not rise +when some mumbling Americans came in and muttered over their meat at +another table. He hated to own it, but he had to own that wherever he had +met the two branches of the Anglo-Saxon race together in Europe, the +elder had shown, by a superior chirpiness, to the disadvantage of the +younger. The cast clothes of the old-fashioned British offishness seemed +to have fallen to the American travellers who were trying to be correct +and exemplary; and he would almost rather have had back the old-style +bragging Americans whom he no longer saw. He asked of an agreeable +fellow-countryman whom he found later in the reading-room, what had +become of these; and this compatriot said he had travelled with one only +the day before, who had posed before their whole compartment in his scorn +of the German landscape, the German weather, the German government, the +German railway management, and then turned out an American of German +birth! March found his wife in great bodily comfort when he went back to +her, but in trouble of mind about a clock which she had discovered +standing on the lacquered iron top of the stove. It was a French clock, +of architectural pretensions, in the taste of the first Empire, and it +looked as if it had not been going since Napoleon occupied Mayence early +in the century. But Mrs. March now had it sorely on her conscience where, +in its danger from the heat of the stove, it rested with the weight of +the Pantheon, whose classic form it recalled. She wondered that no one +had noticed it before the fire was kindled, and she required her husband +to remove it at once from the top of the stove to the mantel under the +mirror, which was the natural habitat of such a clock. He said nothing +could be simpler, but when he lifted it, it began to fall all apart, like +a clock in the house of the Hoodoo. Its marble base dropped-off; its +pillars tottered; its pediment swayed to one side. While Mrs. March +lamented her hard fate, and implored him to hurry it together before any +one came, he contrived to reconstruct it in its new place. Then they both +breathed freer, and returned to sit down before the stove. But at the +same moment they both saw, ineffaceably outlined on the lacquered top, +the basal form of the clock. The chambermaid would see it in the morning; +she would notice the removal of the clock, and would make a merit of +reporting its ruin by the heat to the landlord, and in the end they would +be mulcted of its value. Rather than suffer this wrong they agreed to +restore it to its place, and, let it go to destruction upon its own +terms. March painfully rebuilt it where he had found it, and they went to +bed with a bad conscience to worse dreams. + +He remembered, before he slept, the hour of his youth when he was in +Mayence before, and was so care free that he had heard with impersonal +joy two young American voices speaking English in the street under his +window. One of them broke from the common talk with a gay burlesque of +pathos in the line: + + "Oh heavens! she cried, my Heeding country save!" + +and then with a laughing good-night these unseen, unknown spirits of +youth parted and departed. Who were they, and in what different places, +with what cares or ills, had their joyous voices grown old, or fallen +silent for evermore? It was a moonlight night, March remembered, and he +remembered how he wished he were out in it with those merry fellows. + +He nursed the memory and the wonder in his dreaming thought, and he woke +early to other voices under his window. But now the voices, though young, +were many and were German, and the march of feet and the stamp of hooves +kept time with their singing. He drew his curtain and saw the street +filled with broken squads of men, some afoot and some on horseback, some +in uniform and some in civil dress with students' caps, loosely +straggling on and roaring forth that song whose words he could not make +out. At breakfast he asked the waiter what it all meant, and he said that +these were conscripts whose service had expired with the late manoeuvres, +and who were now going home. He promised March a translation of the song, +but he never gave it; and perhaps the sense of their joyful home-going +remained the more poetic with him because its utterance remained +inarticulate. + +March spent the rainy Sunday, on which they had fallen, in wandering +about the little city alone. His wife said she was tired and would sit by +the fire, and hear about Mayence when he came in. He went to the +cathedral, which has its renown for beauty and antiquity, and he there +added to his stock of useful information the fact that the people of +Mayence seemed very Catholic and very devout. They proved it by +preferring to any of the divine old Gothic shrines in the cathedral, an +ugly baroque altar, which was everywhere hung about with votive +offerings. A fashionably dressed young man and young girl sprinkled +themselves with holy water as reverently as if they had been old and +ragged. Some tourists strolled up and down the aisles with their red +guide-books, and studied the objects of interest. A resplendent beadle in +a cocked hat, and with along staff of authority posed before his own +ecclesiastical consciousness in blue and silver. At the high altar a +priest was saying mass, and March wondered whether his consciousness was +as wholly ecclesiastical as the beadle's, or whether somewhere in it he +felt the historical majesty, the long human consecration of the place. + +He wandered at random in the town through streets German and quaint and +old, and streets French and fine and new, and got back to the river, +which he crossed on one of the several handsome bridges. The rough river +looked chill under a sky of windy clouds, and he felt out of season, both +as to the summer travel, and as to the journey he was making. The summer +of life as well as the summer of that year was past. Better return to his +own radiator in his flat on Stuyvesant Square; to the great ugly brutal +town which, if it was not home to him, was as much home to him as to any +one. A longing for New York welled up his heart, which was perhaps really +a wish to be at work again. He said he must keep this from his wife, who +seemed not very well, and whom he must try to cheer up when he returned +to the hotel. + +But they had not a very joyous afternoon, and the evening was no gayer. +They said that if they had not ordered their letters sent to Dusseldorf +they believed they should push on to Holland without stopping; and March +would have liked to ask, Why not push on to America? But he forbore, and +he was afterwards glad that he had done so. + +In the morning their spirits rose with the sun, though the sun got up +behind clouds as usual; and they were further animated by the imposition +which the landlord practised upon them. After a distinct and repeated +agreement as to the price of their rooms he charged them twice as much, +and then made a merit of throwing off two marks out of the twenty he had +plundered them of. + +"Now I see," said Mrs. March, on their way down to the boat, "how +fortunate it was that we baked his clock. You may laugh, but I believe we +were the instruments of justice." + +"Do you suppose that clock was never baked before?" asked her husband. +"The landlord has his own arrangement with justice. When he overcharges +his parting guests he says to his conscience, Well, they baked my clock." + + + + +LXXI. + +The morning was raw, but it was something not to have it rainy; and the +clouds that hung upon the hills and hid their tops were at least as fine +as the long board signs advertising chocolate on the river banks. The +smoke rising from the chimneys of the manufactories of Mayence was not so +bad, either, when one got them in the distance a little; and March liked +the way the river swam to the stems of the trees on the low grassy +shores. It was like the Mississippi between St. Louis and Cairo in that, +and it was yellow and thick, like the Mississippi, though he thought he +remembered it blue and clear. A friendly German, of those who began to +come aboard more and more at all the landings after leaving Mayence, +assured him that he was right, and that the Rhine was unusually turbid +from the unusual rains. March had his own belief that whatever the color +of the Rhine might be the rains were not unusual, but he could not +gainsay the friendly German. + +Most of the passengers at starting were English and American; but they +showed no prescience of the international affinition which has since +realized itself, in their behavior toward one another. They held silently +apart, and mingled only in the effect of one young man who kept the +Marches in perpetual question whether he was a Bostonian or an +Englishman. His look was Bostonian, but his accent was English; and was +he a Bostonian who had been in England long enough to get the accent, or +was he an Englishman who had been in Boston long enough to get the look? +He wore a belated straw hat, and a thin sack-coat; and in the rush of the +boat through the raw air they fancied him very cold, and longed to offer +him one of their superabundant wraps. At times March actually lifted a +shawl from his knees, feeling sure that the stranger was English and that +he might make so bold with him; then at some glacial glint in the young +man's eye, or at some petrific expression of his delicate face, he felt +that he was a Bostonian, and lost courage and let the shawl sink again. +March tried to forget him in the wonder of seeing the Germans begin to +eat and drink, as soon as they came on boards either from the baskets +they had brought with them, or from the boat's provision. But he +prevailed, with his smile that was like a sneer, through all the events +of the voyage; and took March's mind off the scenery with a sudden wrench +when he came unexpectedly into view after a momentary disappearance. At +the table d'hote, which was served when the landscape began to be less +interesting, the guests were expected to hand their plates across the +table to the stewards but to keep their knives and forks throughout the +different courses, and at each of these partial changes March felt the +young man's chilly eyes upon him, inculpating him for the +semi-civilization of the management. At such times he knew that he was a +Bostonian. + +The weather cleared, as they descended the river, and under a sky at last +cloudless, the Marches had moments of swift reversion to their former +Rhine journey, when they were young and the purple light of love mantled +the vineyarded hills along the shore, and flushed the castled steeps. The +scene had lost nothing of the beauty they dimly remembered; there were +certain features of it which seemed even fairer and grander than they +remembered. The town of Bingen, where everybody who knows the poem was +more or less born, was beautiful in spite of its factory chimneys, though +there were no compensating castles near it; and the castles seemed as +good as those of the theatre. Here and there some of them had been +restored and were occupied, probably by robber barons who had gone into +trade. Others were still ruinous, and there was now and then such a mere +gray snag that March, at sight of it, involuntarily put his tongue to the +broken tooth which he was keeping for the skill of the first American +dentist. + +For natural sublimity the Rhine scenery, as they recognized once more, +does not compare with the Hudson scenery; and they recalled one point on +the American river where the Central Road tunnels a jutting cliff, which +might very well pass for the rock of the Loreley, where she dreams + + 'Solo sitting by the shores of old romance' + +and the trains run in and out under her knees unheeded. "Still, still you +know," March argued, "this is the Loreley on the Rhine, and not the +Loreley on the Hudson; and I suppose that makes all the difference. +Besides, the Rhine doesn't set up to be sublime; it only means to be +storied and dreamy and romantic and it does it. And then we have really +got no Mouse Tower; we might build one, to be sure." + +"Well, we have got no denkmal, either," said his wife, meaning the +national monument to the German reconquest of the Rhine, which they had +just passed, "and that is something in our favor." + +"It was too far off for us to see how ugly it was," he returned. + +"The denkmal at Coblenz was so near that the bronze Emperor almost rode +aboard the boat." + +He could not answer such a piece of logic as that. He yielded, and began +to praise the orcharded levels which now replaced the vine-purpled slopes +of the upper river. He said they put him in mind of orchards that he had +known in his boyhood; and they, agreed that the supreme charm of travel, +after all, was not in seeing something new and strange, but in finding +something familiar and dear in the heart of the strangeness. + +At Cologne they found this in the tumult of getting ashore with their +baggage and driving from the steamboat landing to the railroad station, +where they were to get their train for Dusseldorf an hour later. The +station swarmed with travellers eating and drinking and smoking; but they +escaped from it for a precious half of their golden hour, and gave the +time to the great cathedral, which was built, a thousand years ago, just +round the corner from the station, and is therefore very handy to it. +Since they saw the cathedral last it had been finished, and now under a +cloudless evening sky, it soared and swept upward like a pale flame. +Within it was a bit over-clean, a bit bare, but without it was one of the +great memories of the race, the record of a faith which wrought miracles +of beauty, at least, if not piety. + +The train gave the Marches another, and last, view of it as they slowly +drew out of the city, and began to run through a level country walled +with far-off hills; past fields of buckwheat showing their stems like +coral under their black tops; past peasant houses changing their wonted +shape to taller and narrower forms; past sluggish streams from which the +mist rose and hung over the meadows, under a red sunset, glassy clear +till the manifold factory chimneys of Dusseldorf stained it with their +dun smoke. + +This industrial greeting seemed odd from the town where Heinrich Heine +was born; but when they had eaten their supper in the capital little +hotel they found there, and went out for a stroll, they found nothing to +remind them of the factories, and much to make them think of the poet. +The moon, beautiful and perfect as a stage moon, came up over the +shoulder of a church as they passed down a long street which they had all +to themselves. Everybody seemed to have gone to bed, but at a certain +corner a girl opened a window above them, and looked out at the moon. + +When they returned to their hotel they found a highwalled garden facing +it, full of black depths of foliage. In the night March woke and saw the +moon standing over the garden, and silvering its leafy tops. This was +really as it should be in the town where the idolized poet of his youth +was born; the poet whom of all others he had adored, and who had once +seemed like a living friend; who had been witness of his first love, and +had helped him to speak it. His wife used to laugh at him for his +Heine-worship in those days; but she had since come to share it, and she, +even more than he, had insisted upon this pilgrimage. He thought long +thoughts of the past, as he looked into the garden across the way, with +an ache for his perished self and the dead companionship of his youth, +all ghosts together in the silvered shadow. The trees shuddered in the +night breeze, and its chill penetrated to him where he stood. + +His wife called to him from her room, "What are you doing?" + +"Oh, sentimentalizing," he answered boldly. + +"Well, you will be sick," she said, and he crept back into bed again. + +They had sat up late, talking in a glad excitement. But he woke early, as +an elderly man is apt to do after broken slumbers, and left his wife +still sleeping. He was not so eager for the poetic interests of the town +as he had been the night before; he even deferred his curiosity for +Heine's birth-house to the instructive conference which he had with his +waiter at breakfast. After all, was not it more important to know +something of the actual life of a simple common class of men than to +indulge a faded fancy for the memory of a genius, which no amount of +associations could feed again to its former bloom? The waiter said he was +a Nuremberger, and had learned English in London where he had served a +year for nothing. Afterwards, when he could speak three languages he got +a pound a week, which seemed low for so many, though not so low as the +one mark a day which he now received in Dusseldorf; in Berlin he paid the +hotel two marks a day. March confided to him his secret trouble as to +tips, and they tried vainly to enlighten each other as to what a just tip +was. + +He went to his banker's, and when he came back he found his wife with her +breakfast eaten, and so eager for the exploration of Heine's birthplace +that she heard with indifference of his failure to get any letters. It +was too soon to expect them, she said, and then she showed him her plan, +which she had been working out ever since she woke. It contained every +place which Heine had mentioned, and she was determined not one should +escape them. She examined him sharply upon his condition, accusing him of +having taken cold when he got up in the night, and acquitting him with +difficulty. She herself was perfectly well, but a little fagged, and they +must have a carriage. + +They set out in a lordly two-spanner, which took up half the little +Bolkerstrasse where Heine was born, when they stopped across the way from +his birthhouse, so that she might first take it all in from the outside +before they entered it. It is a simple street, and not the cleanest of +the streets in a town where most of them are rather dirty. Below the +houses are shops, and the first story of Heine's house is a butcher shop, +with sides of pork and mutton hanging in the windows; above, where the +Heine family must once have lived, a gold-beater and a frame-maker +displayed their signs. + +But did the Heine family really once live there? The house looked so +fresh and new that in spite of the tablet in its front affirming it the +poet's birthplace, they doubted; and they were not reassured by the +people who half halted as they passed, and stared at the strangers, so +anomalously interested in the place. They dismounted, and crossed to the +butcher shop where the provision man corroborated the tablet, but could +not understand their wish to go up stairs. He did not try to prevent +them, however, and they climbed to the first floor above, where a placard +on the door declared it private and implored them not to knock. Was this +the outcome of the inmate's despair from the intrusion of other pilgrims +who had wised to see the Heine dwelling-rooms? They durst not knock and +ask so much, and they sadly descended to the ground-floor, where they +found a butcher boy of much greater apparent intelligence than the +butcher himself, who told them that the building in front was as new as +it looked, and the house where Heine was really born was the old house in +the rear. He showed them this house, across a little court patched with +mangy grass and lilac-bushes; and when they wished to visit it he led the +way. The place was strewn both underfoot and overhead with feathers; it +had once been all a garden out to the street, the boy said, but from +these feathers, as well as the odor which prevailed, and the anxious +behavior of a few hens left in the high coop at one side, it was plain +that what remained of the garden was now a chicken slaughteryard. There +was one well-grown tree, and the boy said it was of the poet's time; but +when he let them into the house, he became vague as to the room where +Heine was born; it was certain only that it was somewhere upstairs and +that it could not be seen. The room where they stood was the +frame-maker's shop, and they bought of him a small frame for a memorial. +They bought of the butcher's boy, not so commercially, a branch of lilac; +and they came away, thinking how much amused Heine himself would have +been with their visit; how sadly, how merrily he would have mocked at +their effort to revere his birthplace. + +They were too old if not too wise to be daunted by their defeat, and they +drove next to the old court garden beside the Rhine where the poet says +he used to play with the little Veronika, and probably did not. At any +rate, the garden is gone; the Schloss was burned down long ago; and +nothing remains but a detached tower in which the good Elector Jan +Wilhelm, of Heine's time, amused himself with his many mechanical +inventions. The tower seemed to be in process of demolition, but an +intelligent workman who came down out of it, was interested in the +strangers' curiosity, and directed them to a place behind the Historical +Museum where they could find a bit of the old garden. It consisted of two +or three low trees, and under them the statue of the Elector by which +Heine sat with the little Veronika, if he really did. Afresh gale blowing +through the trees stirred the bushes that backed the statue, but not the +laurel wreathing the Elector's head, and meeting in a neat point over his +forehead. The laurel wreath is stone, like the rest of the Elector, who +stands there smirking in marble ermine and armor, and resting his baton +on the nose of a very small lion, who, in the exigencies of +foreshortening, obligingly goes to nothing but a tail under the Elector's +robe. + +This was a prince who loved himself in effigy so much that he raised an +equestrian statue to his own renown in the market-place, though he +modestly refused the credit of it, and ascribed its erection to the +affection of his subjects. You see him therein a full-bottomed wig, +mounted on a rampant charger with a tail as big round as a barrel, and +heavy enough to keep him from coming down on his fore legs as long as he +likes to hold them up. It was to this horse's back that Heine clambered +when a small boy, to see the French take formal possession of Dusseldorf; +and he clung to the waist of the bronze Elector, who had just abdicated, +while the burgomaster made a long speech, from the balcony of the +Rathhaus, and the Electoral arms were taken down from its doorway. + +The Rathhaus is a salad-dressing of German gothic and French rococo as to +its architectural style, and is charming in its way, but the Marches were +in the market-place for the sake of that moment of Heine's boyhood. They +felt that he might have been the boy who stopped as he ran before them, +and smacked the stomach of a large pumpkin lying at the feet of an old +market-woman, and then dashed away before she could frame a protest +against the indignity. From this incident they philosophized that the +boys of Dusseldorf are as mischievous at the end of the century as they +were at the beginning; and they felt the fascination that such a +bounteous, unkempt old marketplace must have for the boys of any period. +There were magnificent vegetables of all sorts in it, and if the fruits +were meagre that was the fault of the rainy summer, perhaps. The +market-place was very dirty, and so was the narrow street leading down +from it to the Rhine, which ran swift as a mountain torrent along a +slatternly quay. A bridge of boats crossing the stream shook in the rapid +current, and a long procession of market carts passed slowly over, while +a cluster of scows waited in picturesque patience for the draw to open. + +They saw what a beautiful town that was for a boy to grow up in, and how +many privileges it offered, how many dangers, how many chances for +hairbreadth escapes. They chose that Heine must often have rushed +shrieking joyfully down that foul alley to the Rhine with other boys; and +they easily found a leaf-strewn stretch of the sluggish Dussel, in the +Public Garden, where his playmate, the little Wilhelm, lost his life and +saved the kitten's. They were not so sure of the avenue through which the +poet saw the Emperor Napoleon come riding on his small white horse when +he took possession of the Elector's dominions. But if it was that where +the statue of the Kaiser Wilhelm I. comes riding on a horse led by two +Victories, both poet and hero are avenged there on the accomplished fact. +Defeated and humiliated France triumphs in the badness of that foolish +denkmal (one of the worst in all denkmal-ridden Germany), and the memory +of the singer whom the Hohenzollern family pride forbids honor in his +native place, is immortal in its presence. + +On the way back to their hotel, March made some reflections upon the open +neglect, throughout Germany, of the greatest German lyrist, by which the +poet might have profited if he had been present. He contended that it was +not altogether an effect of Hohenzollern pride, which could not suffer a +joke or two from the arch-humorist; but that Heine had said things of +Germany herself which Germans might well have found unpardonable. He +concluded that it would not do to be perfectly frank with one's own +country. Though, to be sure, there would always be the question whether +the Jew-born Heine had even a step-fatherland in the Germany he loved so +tenderly and mocked so pitilessly. He had to own that if he were a negro +poet he would not feel bound to measure terms in speaking of America, and +he would not feel that his fame was in her keeping. + +Upon the whole he blamed Heine less than Germany and he accused her of +taking a shabby revenge, in trying to forget him; in the heat of his +resentment that there should be no record of Heine in the city where he +was born, March came near ignoring himself the fact that the poet +Freiligrath was also born there. As for the famous Dusseldorf school of +painting, which once filled the world with the worst art, he rejoiced +that it was now so dead, and he grudged the glance which the beauty of +the new Art Academy extorted from him. It is in the French taste, and is +so far a monument to the continuance in one sort of that French +supremacy, of which in another sort another denkmal celebrates the +overthrow. Dusseldorf is not content with the denkmal of the Kaiser on +horseback, with the two Victories for grooms; there is a second, which +the Marches found when they strolled out again late in the afternoon. It +is in the lovely park which lies in the heart of the city, and they felt +in its presence the only emotion of sympathy which the many patriotic +monuments of Germany awakened in them. It had dignity and repose, which +these never had elsewhere; but it was perhaps not so much for the dying +warrior and the pitying lion of the sculpture that their hearts were +moved as for the gentle and mournful humanity of the inscription, which +dropped into equivalent English verse in March's note-book: + + Fame was enough for the Victors, and glory and verdurous laurel; + Tears by their mothers wept founded this image of stone. + +To this they could forgive the vaunting record, on the reverse, of the +German soldiers who died heroes in the war with France, the war with +Austria, and even the war with poor little Denmark! + +The morning had been bright and warm, and it was just that the afternoon +should be dim and cold, with a pale sun looking through a September mist, +which seemed to deepen the seclusion and silence of the forest reaches; +for the park was really a forest of the German sort, as parks are apt to +be in Germany. But it was beautiful, and they strayed through it, and +sometimes sat down on the benches in its damp shadows, and said how much +seemed to be done in Germany for the people's comfort and pleasure. In +what was their own explicitly, as well as what was tacitly theirs, they +were not so restricted as we were at home, and especially the children +seemed made fondly and lovingly free of all public things. The Marches +met troops of them in the forest, as they strolled slowly back by the +winding Dussel to the gardened avenue leading to the park, and they found +them everywhere gay and joyful. But their elders seemed subdued, and were +silent. The strangers heard no sound of laughter in the streets of +Dusseldorf, and they saw no smiling except on the part of a very old +couple, whose meeting they witnessed and who grinned and cackled at each +other like two children as they shook hands. Perhaps they were indeed +children of that sad second childhood which one would rather not blossom +back into. + +In America, life is yet a joke with us, even when it is grotesque and +shameful, as it so often is; for we think we can make it right when we +choose. But there is no joking in Germany, between the first and second +childhoods, unless behind closed doors. Even there, people do not joke +above their breath about kings and emperors. If they joke about them in +print, they take out their laugh in jail, for the press laws are severely +enforced, and the prisons are full of able editors, serious as well as +comic. Lese-majesty is a crime that searches sinners out in every walk of +life, and it is said that in family jars a husband sometimes has the last +word of his wife by accusing her of blaspheming the sovereign, and so +having her silenced for three months at least behind penitential bars. + +"Think," said March, "how simply I could adjust any differences of +opinion between us in Dusseldorf." + +"Don't!" his wife implored with a burst of feeling which surprised him. +"I want to go home!" + +They had been talking over their day, and planning their journey to +Holland for the morrow, when it came to this outburst from her in the +last half-hour before bed which they sat prolonging beside their stove. + +"What! And not go to Holland? What is to become of my after-cure?" + +"Oh, it's too late for that, now. We've used up the month running about, +and tiring ourselves to death. I should like to rest a week--to get into +my berth on the Norumbia and rest!" + +"I guess the September gales would have something to say about that." + +"I would risk the September gales." + + + + +LXXII. + +In the morning March came home from his bankers gay with the day's +provisional sunshine in his heart, and joyously expectant of his wife's +pleasure in the letters he was bringing. There was one from each of their +children, and there was one from Fulkerson, which March opened and read +on the street, so as to intercept any unpleasant news there might be in +them; there were two letters for Mrs. March which he knew without opening +were from Miss Triscoe and Mrs. Adding respectively; Mrs. Adding's, from +the postmarks, seemed to have been following them about for some time. + +"They're all right at home," he said. "Do see what those people have been +doing." + +"I believe," she said, taking a knife from the breakfast tray beside her +bed to cut the envelopes, "that you've really cared more about them all +along than I have." + +"No, I've only been anxious to be done with them." + +She got the letters open, and holding one of them up in each hand she +read them impartially and simultaneously; then she flung them both down, +and turned her face into her pillow with an impulse of her inalienable +girlishness. "Well, it is too silly." + +March felt authorized to take them up and read them consecutively; when +he had done, so he did not differ from his wife. In one case, Agatha had +written to her dear Mrs. March that she and Burnamy had just that evening +become engaged; Mrs. Adding, on her part owned a farther step, and +announced her marriage to Mr. Kenby. Following immemorial usage in such +matters Kenby had added a postscript affirming his happiness in unsparing +terms, and in Agatha's letter there was an avowal of like effect from +Burnamy. Agatha hinted her belief that her father would soon come to +regard Burnamy as she did; and Mrs. Adding professed a certain +humiliation in having realized that, after all her misgiving about him, +Rose seemed rather relieved than otherwise, as if he were glad to have +her off his hands. + +"Well," said March, "with these troublesome affairs settled, I don't see +what there is to keep us in Europe any longer, unless it's the consensus +of opinion in Tom, Bella, and Fulkerson, that we ought to stay the +winter." + +"Stay the winter!" Mrs. March rose from her pillow, and clutched the home +letters to her from the abeyance in which they had fallen on the coverlet +while she was dealing with the others. "What do you mean?" + +"It seems to have been prompted by a hint you let drop, which Tom has +passed to Bella and Fulkerson." + +"Oh, but that was before we left Carlsbad!" she protested, while she +devoured the letters with her eyes, and continued to denounce the +absurdity of the writers. Her son and daughter both urged that now their +father and mother were over there, they had better stay as long as they +enjoyed it, and that they certainly ought not to come home without going +to Italy, where they had first met, and revisiting the places which they +had seen together when they were young engaged people: without that their +silver wedding journey would not be complete. Her son said that +everything was going well with 'Every Other Week', and both himself and +Mr. Fulkerson thought his father ought to spend the winter in Italy, and +get a thorough rest. "Make a job of it, March," Fulkerson wrote, "and +have a Sabbatical year while you're at it. You may not get another." + +"Well, I can tell them," said Mrs. March indignantly, "we shall not do +anything of the kind." + +"Then you didn't mean it?" + +"Mean it!" She stopped herself with a look at her husband, and asked +gently, "Do you want to stay?" + +"Well, I don't know," he answered vaguely. The fact was, he was sick of +travel and of leisure; he was longing to be at home and at work again. +But if there was to be any self-sacrifice which could be had, as it were, +at a bargain; which could be fairly divided between them, and leave him +the self and her the sacrifice, he was too experienced a husband not to +see the advantage of it, or to refuse the merit. "I thought you wished to +stay." + +"Yes," she sighed, "I did. It has been very, very pleasant, and, if +anything, I have over-enjoyed myself. We have gone romping through it +like two young people, haven't we?" + +"You have," he assented. "I have always felt the weight of my years in +getting the baggage registered; they have made the baggage weigh more +every time." + +"And I've forgotten mine. Yes, I have. But the years haven't forgotten +me, Basil, and now I remember them. I'm tired. It doesn't seem as if I +could ever get up. But I dare say it's only a mood; it may be only a +cold; and if you wish to stay, why--we will think it over." + +"No, we won't, my dear," he said, with a generous shame for his hypocrisy +if not with a pure generosity. "I've got all the good out of it that +there was in it, for me, and I shouldn't go home any better six months +hence than I should now. Italy will keep for another time, and so, for +the matter of that, will Holland." + +"No, no!" she interposed. "We won't give up Holland, whatever we do. I +couldn't go home feeling that I had kept you out of your after-cure; and +when we get there, no doubt the sea air will bring me up so that I shall +want to go to Italy, too, again. Though it seems so far off, now! But go +and see when the afternoon train for the Hague leaves, and I shall be +ready. My mind's quite made up on that point." + +"What a bundle of energy!" said her husband laughing down at her. + +He went and asked about the train to the Hague, but only to satisfy a +superficial conscience; for now he knew that they were both of one mind +about going home. He also looked up the trains for London, and found that +they could get there by way of Ostend in fourteen hours. Then he went +back to the banker's, and with the help of the Paris-New York Chronicle +which he found there, he got the sailings of the first steamers home. +After that he strolled about the streets for a last impression of +Dusseldorf, but it was rather blurred by the constantly recurring pull of +his thoughts toward America, and he ended by turning abruptly at a +certain corner, and going to his hotel. + +He found his wife dressed, but fallen again on her bed, beside which her +breakfast stood still untasted; her smile responded wanly to his +brightness. "I'm not well, my dear," she said. "I don't believe I could +get off to the Hague this afternoon." + +"Could you to Liverpool?" he returned. + +"To Liverpool?" she gasped. "What do you mean?" + +"Merely that the Cupania is sailing on the twentieth, and I've +telegraphed to know if we can get a room. I'm afraid it won't be a good +one, but she's the first boat out, and--" + +"No, indeed, we won't go to Liverpool, and we will never go home till +you've had your after-cure in Holland." She was very firm in this, but +she added, "We will stay another night, here, and go to the Hague +tomorrow. Sit down, and let us talk it over. Where were we?" + +She lay down on the sofa, and he put a shawl over her. "We were just +starting for Liverpool." + +"No, no we weren't! Don't say such things, dearest! I want you to help me +sum it all, up. You think it's been a success, don't you?" + +"As a cure?" + +"No, as a silver wedding journey?" + +"Perfectly howling." + +"I do think we've had a good time. I never expected to enjoy myself so +much again in the world. I didn't suppose I should ever take so much +interest in anything. It shows that when we choose to get out of our rut +we shall always find life as fresh and delightful as ever. There is +nothing to prevent our coming any year, now that Tom's shown himself so +capable, and having another silver wedding journey. I don't like to think +of it's being confined to Germany quite." + +"Oh, I don't know. We can always talk of it as our German-Silver Wedding +Journey." + +"That's true. But nobody would understand nowadays what you meant by +German-silver; it's perfectly gone out. How ugly it was! A sort of greasy +yellowish stuff, always getting worn through; I believe it was made worn +through. Aunt Mary had a castor of it, that I can remember when I was a +child; it went into the kitchen long before I grew up. Would a joke like +that console you for the loss of Italy?" + +"It would go far to do it. And as a German-Silver Wedding Journey, it's +certainly been very complete." + +"What do you mean?" + +"It's given us a representative variety of German cities. First we had +Hamburg, you know, a great modern commercial centre." + +"Yes! Go on!" + +"Then we had Leipsic, the academic." + +"Yes!" + +"Then Carlsbad, the supreme type of a German health resort; then +Nuremberg, the mediaeval; then Anspach, the extinct princely capital; +then Wurzburg, the ecclesiastical rococo; then Weimar, for the literature +of a great epoch; then imperial Berlin; then Frankfort, the memory of the +old free city; then Dusseldorf, the centre of the most poignant personal +interest in the world--I don't see how we could have done better, if we'd +planned it all, and not acted from successive impulses." + +"It's been grand; it's been perfect! As German-Silver Wedding Journey +it's perfect--it seems as if it had been ordered! But I will never let +you give up Holland! No, we will go this afternoon, and when I get to +Schevleningen, I'll go to bed, and stay there, till you've completed your +after-cure." + +"Do you think that will be wildly gay for the convalescent?" + +She suddenly began to cry. "Oh, dearest, what shall we do? I feel +perfectly broken down. I'm afraid I'm going to be sick--and away from +home! How could you ever let me overdo, so?" She put her handkerchief to +her eyes, and turned her face into the sofa pillow. + +This was rather hard upon him, whom her vivid energy and inextinguishable +interest had not permitted a moment's respite from pleasure since they +left Carlsbad. But he had been married, too long not to understand that +her blame of him was only a form of self-reproach for her own +self-forgetfulness. She had not remembered that she was no longer young +till she had come to what he saw was a nervous collapse. The fact had its +pathos and its poetry which no one could have felt more keenly than he. +If it also had its inconvenience and its danger he realized these too. + +"Isabel," he said, "we are going home." + +"Very well, then it will be your doing." + +"Quite. Do you think you could stand it as far as Cologne? We get the +sleeping-car there, and you can lie down the rest of the way to Ostend." + +"This afternoon? Why I'm perfectly strong; it's merely my nerves that are +gone." She sat up, and wiped her eyes. "But Basil! If you're doing this +for me--" + +"I'm doing it for myself," said March, as he went out of the room. + +She stood the journey perfectly well, and in the passage to Dover she +suffered so little from the rough weather that she was an example to many +robust matrons who filled the ladies' cabin with the noise of their +anguish during the night. She would have insisted upon taking the first +train up to London, if March had not represented that this would not +expedite the sailing of the Cupania, and that she might as well stay the +forenoon at the convenient railway hotel, and rest. It was not quite his +ideal of repose that the first people they saw in the coffee-room when +they went to breakfast should be Kenby and Rose Adding, who were having +their tea and toast and eggs together in the greatest apparent +good-fellowship. He saw his wife shrink back involuntarily from the +encounter, but this was only to gather force for it; and the next moment +she was upon them in all the joy of the surprise. Then March allowed +himself to be as glad as the others both seemed, and he shook hands with +Kenby while his wife kissed Rose; and they all talked at once. In the +confusion of tongues it was presently intelligible that Mrs. Kenby was +going to be down in a few minutes; and Kenby took March into his +confidence with a smile which was, almost a wink in explaining that he +knew how it was with the ladies. He said that Rose and he usually got +down to breakfast first, and when he had listened inattentively to Mrs. +March's apology for being on her way home, he told her that she was lucky +not to have gone to Schevleningen, where she and March would have frozen +to death. He said that they were going to spend September at a little +place on the English coast, near by, where he had been the day before +with Rose to look at lodgings, and where you could bathe all through the +month. He was not surprised that the Marches were going home, and said, +Well, that was their original plan, wasn't it? + +Mrs. Kenby, appearing upon this, pretended to know better, after the +outburst of joyful greeting with the Marches; and intelligently reminded +Kenby that he knew the Marches had intended to pass the winter in Paris. +She was looking extremely pretty, but she wished only to make them see +how well Rose was looking, and she put her arm round his shoulders as she +spoke, Schevleningen had done wonders for him, but it was fearfully cold +there, and now they were expecting everything from Westgate, where she +advised March to come, too, for his after-cure: she recollected in time +to say, She forgot they were on their way home. She added that she did +not know when she should return; she was merely a passenger, now; she +left everything to the men of the family. She had, in fact, the air of +having thrown off every responsibility, but in supremacy, not submission. +She was always ordering Kenby about; she sent him for her handkerchief, +and her rings which she had left either in the tray of her trunk, or on +the pin-cushion, or on the wash-stand or somewhere, and forbade him to +come back without them. He asked for her keys, and then with a joyful +scream she owned that she had left the door-key in the door and the whole +bunch of trunk-keys in her trunk; and Kenby treated it all as the +greatest joke; Rose, too, seemed to think that Kenby would make +everything come right, and he had lost that look of anxiety which he used +to have; at the most he showed a friendly sympathy for Kenby, for whose +sake he seemed mortified at her. He was unable to regard his mother as +the delightful joke which she appeared to Kenby, but that was merely +temperamental; and he was never distressed except when she behaved with +unreasonable caprice at Kenby's cost. + +As for Kenby himself he betrayed no dissatisfaction with his fate to +March. He perhaps no longer regarded his wife as that strong character +which he had sometimes wearied March by celebrating; but she was still +the most brilliant intelligence, and her charm seemed only to have grown +with his perception of its wilful limitations. He did not want to talk +about her so much; he wanted rather to talk about Rose, his health, his +education, his nature, and what was best to do for him. The two were on +terms of a confidence and affection which perpetually amused Mrs. Kenby, +but which left the sympathetic witness nothing to desire in their +relation. + +They all came to the train when the Marches started up to London, and +stood waving to them as they pulled out of the station. "Well, I can't +see but that's all right," he said as he sank back in his seat with a +sigh of relief. "I never supposed we should get out of their marriage +half so well, and I don't feel that you quite made the match either, my +dear." + +She was forced to agree with him that the Kenbys seemed happy together, +and that there was nothing to fear for Rose in their happiness. He would +be as tenderly cared for by Kenby as he could have been by his mother, +and far more judiciously. She owned that she had trembled for him till +she had seen them all together; and now she should never tremble again. + +"Well?" March prompted, at a certain inconclusiveness in her tone rather +than her words. + +"Well, you can see that it, isn't ideal." + +"Why isn't it ideal? I suppose you think that the marriage of Burnamy and +Agatha Triscoe will be ideal, with their ignorances and inexperiences and +illusions." + +"Yes! It's the illusions: no marriage can be perfect without them, and at +their age the Kenbys can't have them." + +"Kenby is a solid mass of illusion. And I believe that people can go and +get as many new illusions as they want, whenever they've lost their old +ones." + +"Yes, but the new illusions won't wear so well; and in marriage you want +illusions that will last. No; you needn't talk to me. It's all very well, +but it isn't ideal." + +March laughed. "Ideal! What is ideal?" + +"Going home!" she said with such passion that he had not the heart to +point out that they were merely returning to their old duties, cares and +pains, with the worn-out illusion that these would be altogether +different when they took them up again. + + + + +LXXIII. + +In fulfilment of another ideal Mrs. March took straightway to her berth +when she got on board the Cupania, and to her husband's admiration she +remained there till the day before they reached New York. Her theory was +that the complete rest would do more than anything else to calm her +shaken nerves; and she did not admit into her calculations the chances of +adverse weather which March would not suggest as probable in the last +week in September. The event justified her unconscious faith. The ship's +run was of unparalled swiftness, even for the Cupania, and of unparalled +smoothness. For days the sea was as sleek as oil; the racks were never on +the tables once; the voyage was of the sort which those who make it no +more believe in at the time than those whom they afterwards weary in +boasting of it. + +The ship was very full, but Mrs. March did not show the slightest +curiosity to know who her fellow-passengers were. She said that she +wished to be let perfectly alone, even by her own emotions, and for this +reason she forbade March to bring her a list of the passengers till after +they had left Queenstown lest it should be too exciting. He did not take +the trouble to look it up, therefore; and the first night out he saw no +one whom he knew at dinner; but the next morning at breakfast he found +himself to his great satisfaction at the same table with the Eltwins. +They were so much at ease with him that even Mrs. Eltwin took part in the +talk, and told him how they had spent the time of her husband's rigorous +after-cure in Switzerland, and now he was going home much better than +they had expected. She said they had rather thought of spending the +winter in Europe, but had given it up because they were both a little +homesick. March confessed that this was exactly the case with his wife +and himself; and he had to add that Mrs. March was not very well +otherwise, and he should be glad to be at home on her account. The +recurrence of the word home seemed to deepen Eltwin's habitual gloom, and +Mrs. Eltwin hastened to leave the subject of their return for inquiry +into Mrs. March's condition; her interest did not so far overcome her +shyness that she ventured to propose a visit to her; and March found that +the fact of the Eltwins' presence on board did not agitate his wife. It +seemed rather to comfort her, and she said she hoped he would see all he +could of the poor old things. She asked if he had met any one else he +knew, and he was able to tell her that there seemed to be a good many +swells on board, and this cheered her very much, though he did not know +them; she liked to be near the rose, though it was not a flower that she +really cared for. + +She did not ask who the swells were, and March took no trouble to find +out. He took no trouble to get a passenger-list, and he had the more +trouble when he tried at last; the lists seemed to have all vanished, as +they have a habit of doing, after the first day; the one that he made +interest for with the head steward was a second-hand copy, and had no one +he knew in it but the Eltwins. The social solitude, however, was rather +favorable to certain other impressions. There seemed even more elderly +people than there were on the Norumbia; the human atmosphere was gray and +sober; there was nothing of the gay expansion of the outward voyage; +there was little talking or laughing among those autumnal men who were +going seriously and anxiously home, with faces fiercely set for the +coming grapple; or necks meekly bowed for the yoke. They had eaten their +cake, and it had been good, but there remained a discomfort in the +digestion. They sat about in silence, and March fancied that the flown +summer was as dreamlike to each of them as it now was to him. He hated to +be of their dreary company, but spiritually he knew that he was of it; +and he vainly turned to cheer himself with the younger passengers. Some +matrons who went about clad in furs amused him, for they must have been +unpleasantly warm in their jackets and boas; nothing but the hope of +being able to tell the customs inspector with a good conscience that the +things had been worn, would have sustained one lady draped from head to +foot in Astrakhan. + +They were all getting themselves ready for the fray or the play of the +coming winter; but there seemed nothing joyous in the preparation. There +were many young girls, as there always are everywhere, but there were not +many young men, and such as there were kept to the smoking-room. There +was no sign of flirtation among them; he would have given much for a +moment of the pivotal girl, to see whether she could have brightened +those gloomy surfaces with her impartial lamp. March wished that he could +have brought some report from the outer world to cheer his wife, as he +descended to their state-room. They had taken what they could get at the +eleventh hour, and they had got no such ideal room as they had in the +Norumbia. It was, as Mrs. March graphically said, a basement room. It was +on the north side of the ship, which is a cold exposure, and if there had +been any sun it could not have got into their window, which was half the +time under water. The green waves, laced with foam, hissed as they ran +across the port; and the electric fan in the corridor moaned like the +wind in a gable. + +He felt a sinking of the heart as he pushed the state-room door open, and +looked at his wife lying with her face turned to the wall; and he was +going to withdraw, thinking her asleep, when she said quietly, "Are we +going down?" + +"Not that I know of," he answered with a gayety he did not feel. "But +I'll ask the head steward." + +She put out her hand behind her for him to take, and clutched his fingers +convulsively. "If I'm never any better, you will always remember this +happy, summer, won't you? Oh, it's been such a happy summer! It has been +one long joy, one continued triumph! But it was too late; we were too +old; and it's broken me." + +The time had been when he would have attempted comfort; when he would +have tried mocking; but that time was long past; he could only pray +inwardly for some sort of diversion, but what it was to be in their +barren circumstance he was obliged to leave altogether to Providence. He +ventured, pending an answer to his prayers upon the question, "Don't you +think I'd better see the doctor, and get you some sort of tonic?" + +She suddenly turned and faced him. "The doctor! Why, I'm not sick, Basil! +If you can see the purser and get our rooms changed, or do something to +stop those waves from slapping against that horrible blinking one-eyed +window, you can save my life; but no tonic is going to help me." + +She turned her face from him again, and buried it in the bedclothes, +while he looked desperately at the racing waves, and the port that seemed +to open and shut like a weary eye. + +"Oh, go away!" she implored. "I shall be better presently, but if you +stand there like that--Go and see if you can't get some other room, where +I needn't feel as if I were drowning, all the way over." + +He obeyed, so far as to go away at once, and having once started, he did +not stop short of the purser's office. He made an excuse of getting +greenbacks for some English bank-notes, and then he said casually that he +supposed there would be no chance of having his room on the lower deck +changed for something a little less intimate with the sea. The purser was +not there to take the humorous view, but he conceived that March wanted +something higher up, and he was able to offer him a room of those on the +promenade where he had seen swells going in and out, for six hundred +dollars. March did not blench, but said he would get his wife to look at +it with him, and then he went out somewhat dizzily to take counsel with +himself how he should put the matter to her. She would be sure to ask +what the price of the new room would be, and he debated whether to take +it and tell her some kindly lie about it, or trust to the bracing effect +of the sum named in helping restore the lost balance of her nerves. He +was not so rich that he could throw six hundred dollars away, but there +might be worse things; and he walked up and down thinking. All at once it +flashed upon him that he had better see the doctor, anyway, and find out +whether there were not some last hope in medicine before he took the +desperate step before him. He turned in half his course, and ran into a +lady who had just emerged from the door of the promenade laden with +wraps, and who dropped them all and clutched him to save herself from +falling. + +"Why, Mr. March!" she shrieked. + +"Miss Triscoe!" he returned, in the astonishment which he shared with her +to the extent of letting the shawls he had knocked from her hold lie +between them till she began to pick them up herself. Then he joined her +and in the relief of their common occupation they contrived to possess +each other of the reason of their presence on, the same boat. She had +sorrowed over Mrs. March's sad state, and he had grieved to hear that her +father was going home because he was not at all well, before they found +the general stretched out in his steamer-chair, and waiting with a grim +impatience for his daughter. + +"But how is it you're not in the passenger-list?" he inquired of them +both, and Miss Triscoe explained that they had taken their passage at the +last moment, too late, she supposed, to get into the list. They were in +London, and had run down to Liverpool on the chance of getting berths. +Beyond this she was not definite, and there was an absence of Burnamy not +only from her company but from her conversation which mystified March +through all his selfish preoccupations with his wife. She was a girl who +had her reserves, but for a girl who had so lately and rapturously +written them of her engagement, there was a silence concerning her +betrothed that had almost positive quality. With his longing to try Miss +Triscoe upon Mrs. March's malady as a remedial agent, he had now the +desire to try Mrs. March upon Miss Triscoe's mystery as a solvent. She +stood talking to him, and refusing to sit down and be wrapped up in the +chair next her father. She said that if he were going to ask Mrs. March +to let her come to her, it would not be worth while to sit down; and he +hurried below. + +"Did you get it?" asked his wife, without looking round, but not so +apathetically as before. + +"Oh, yes. That's all right. But now, Isabel, there's something I've got +to tell you. You'd find it out, and you'd better know it at once." + +She turned her face, and asked sternly, "What is it?" + +Then he said, with, an almost equal severity, "Miss Triscoe is on board. +Miss Triscoe-and-her-father. She wishes to come down and see you." + +Mrs. March sat up and began to twist her hair into shape. "And Burnamy?" + +"There is no Burnamy physically, or so far as I can make out, +spiritually. She didn't mention him, and I talked at least five minutes +with her." + +"Hand me my dressing-sack," said Mrs. March, "and poke those things on +the sofa under the berth. Shut up that wash-stand, and pull the curtain +across that hideous window. Stop! Throw those towels into your berth. Put +my shoes, and your slippers into the shoe-bag on the door. Slip the +brushes into that other bag. Beat the dent out of the sofa cushion that +your head has made. Now!" + +"Then--then you will see her?" + +"See her!" + +Her voice was so terrible that he fled before it, and he returned with +Miss Triscoe in a dreamlike simultaneity. He remembered, as he led the +way into his corridor, to apologize for bringing her down into a basement +room. + +"Oh, we're in the basement, too; it was all we could get," she said in +words that ended within the state-room he opened to her. Then he went +back and took her chair and wraps beside her father. + +He let the general himself lead the way up to his health, which he was +not slow in reaching, and was not quick in leaving. He reminded March of +the state he had seen him in at Wurzburg, and he said it had gone from +bad to worse with him. At Weimar he had taken to his bed and merely +escaped from it with his life. Then they had tried Schevleningen for a +week, where, he said in a tone of some injury, they had rather thought +they might find them, the Marches. The air had been poison to him, and +they had come over to England with some notion of Bournemouth; but the +doctor in London had thought not, and urged their going home. "All Europe +is damp, you know, and dark as a pocket in winter," he ended. + +There had been nothing about Burnamy, and March decided that he must wait +to see his wife if he wished to know anything, when the general, who had +been silent, twisted his head towards him, and said without regard to the +context, "It was complicated, at Weimar, by that young man in the most +devilish way. Did my daughter write to Mrs. March about--Well it came to +nothing, after all; and I don't understand how, to this day. I doubt if +they do. It was some sort of quarrel, I suppose. I wasn't consulted in +the matter either way. It appears that parents are not consulted in these +trifling affairs, nowadays." He had married his daughter's mother in open +defiance of her father; but in the glare of his daughter's wilfulness +this fact had whitened into pious obedience. "I dare say I shall be told, +by-and-by, and shall be expected to approve of the result." + +A fancy possessed March that by operation of temperamental laws General +Triscoe was no more satisfied with Burnamy's final rejection than with +his acceptance. If the engagement was ever to be renewed, it might be +another thing; but as it stood, March divined a certain favor for the +young man in the general's attitude. But the affair was altogether too +delicate for comment; the general's aristocratic frankness in dealing +with it might have gone farther if his knowledge had been greater; but in +any case March did not see how he could touch it. He could only say, He +had always liked Burnamy, himself. + +He had his good qualities, the general owned. He did not profess to +understand the young men of our time; but certainly the fellow had the +instincts of a gentleman. He had nothing to say against him, unless in +that business with that man--what was his name? + +"Stoller?" March prompted. "I don't excuse him in that, but I don't blame +him so much, either. If punishment means atonement, he had the +opportunity of making that right very suddenly, and if pardon means +expunction, then I don't see why that offence hasn't been pretty well +wiped out. + +"Those things are not so simple as they used to seem," said the general, +with a seriousness beyond his wont in things that did not immediately +concern his own comfort or advantage. + + + + +LXXVI. + +In the mean time Mrs. March and Miss Triscoe were discussing another +offence of Burnamy's. + +"It wasn't," said the girl, excitedly, after a plunge through all the +minor facts to the heart of the matter, "that he hadn't a perfect right +to do it, if he thought I didn't care for him. I had refused him at +Carlsbad, and I had forbidden him to speak to me about--on the subject. +But that was merely temporary, and he ought to have known it. He ought to +have known that I couldn't accept him, on the spur of the moment, that +way; and when he had come back, after going away in disgrace, before he +had done anything to justify himself. I couldn't have kept my +self-respect; and as it was I had the greatest difficulty; and he ought +to have seen it. Of course he said afterwards that he didn't see it. But +when--when I found out that SHE had been in Weimar, and all that time, +while I had been suffering in Carlsbad and Wurzburg, and longing to see +him--let him know how I was really feeling--he was flirting with +that--that girl, then I saw that he was a false nature, and I determined +to put an end to everything. And that is what I did; and I shall always +think I--did right--and--" + +The rest was lost in Agatha's handkerchief, which she put up to her eyes. +Mrs. March watched her from her pillow keeping the girl's unoccupied hand +in her own, and softly pressing it till the storm was past sufficiently +to allow her to be heard. + +Then she said, "Men are very strange--the best of them. And from the very +fact that he was disappointed, he would be all the more apt to rush into +a flirtation with somebody else." + +Miss Triscoe took down her handkerchief from a face that had certainly +not been beautified by grief. "I didn't blame him for the flirting; or +not so much. It was his keeping it from me afterwards. He ought to have +told me the very first instant we were engaged. But he didn't. He let it +go on, and if I hadn't happened on that bouquet I might never have known +anything about it. That is what I mean by--a false nature. I wouldn't +have minded his deceiving me; but to let me deceive myself--Oh, it was +too much!" + +Agatha hid her face in her handkerchief again. She was perching on the +edge of the berth, and Mrs. March said, with a glance, which she did not +see, toward the sofa, "I'm afraid that's rather a hard seat for you. + +"Oh, no, thank you! I'm perfectly comfortable--I like it--if you don't +mind?" + +Mrs. March pressed her hand for answer, and after another little delay, +sighed and said, "They are not like us, and we cannot help it. They are +more temporizing." + +"How do you mean?" Agatha unmasked again. + +"They can bear to keep things better than we can, and they trust to time +to bring them right, or to come right of themselves." + +"I don't think Mr. March would trust things to come right of themselves!" +said Agatha in indignant accusal of Mrs. March's sincerity. + +"Ah, that's just what he would do, my dear, and has done, all along; and +I don't believe we could have lived through without it: we should have +quarrelled ourselves into the grave!" + +"Mrs. March!" + +"Yes, indeed. I don't mean that he would ever deceive me. But he would +let things go on, and hope that somehow they would come right without any +fuss." + +"Do you mean that he would let anybody deceive themselves?" + +"I'm afraid he would--if he thought it would come right. It used to be a +terrible trial to me; and it is yet, at times when I don't remember that +he means nothing but good and kindness by it. Only the other day in +Ansbach--how long ago it seems!--he let a poor old woman give him her +son's address in Jersey City, and allowed her to believe he would look +him up when we got back and tell him we had seen her. I don't believe, +unless I keep right round after him, as we say in New England, that he'll +ever go near the man." + +Agatha looked daunted, but she said, "That is a very different thing." + +"It isn't a different kind of thing. And it shows what men are,--the +sweetest and best of them, that is. They are terribly apt to +be--easy-going." + +"Then you think I was all wrong?" the girl asked in a tremor. + +"No, indeed! You were right, because you really expected perfection of +him. You expected the ideal. And that's what makes all the trouble, in +married life: we expect too much of each other--we each expect more of +the other than we are willing to give or can give. If I had to begin over +again, I should not expect anything at all, and then I should be sure of +being radiantly happy. But all this talking and all this writing about +love seems to turn our brains; we know that men are not perfect, even at +our craziest, because women are not, but we expect perfection of them; +and they seem to expect it of us, poor things! If we could keep on after +we are in love just as we were before we were in love, and take nice +things as favors and surprises, as we did in the beginning! But we get +more and more greedy and exacting--" + +"Do you think I was too exacting in wanting him to tell me everything +after we were engaged?" + +"No, I don't say that. But suppose he had put it off till you were +married?" Agatha blushed a little, but not painfully, "Would it have been +so bad? Then you might have thought that his flirting up to the last +moment in his desperation was a very good joke. You would have understood +better just how it was, and it might even have made you fonder of him. +You might have seen that he had flirted with some one else because he was +so heart-broken about you." + +"Then you believe that if I could have waited till--till--but when I had +found out, don't you see I couldn't wait? It would have been all very +well if I hadn't known it till then. But as I did know it. Don't you +see?" + +"Yes, that certainly complicated it," Mrs. March admitted. "But I don't +think, if he'd been a false nature, he'd have owned up as he did. You +see, he didn't try to deny it; and that's a great point gained." + +"Yes, that is true," said Agatha, with conviction. "I saw that +afterwards. But you don't think, Mrs. March, that I was unjust or--or +hasty?" + +"No, indeed! You couldn't have done differently under the circumstances. +You may be sure he felt that--he is so unselfish and generous--" Agatha +began to weep into her handkerchief again; Mrs. March caressed her hand. +"And it will certainly come right if you feel as you do." + +"No," the girl protested. "He can never forgive me; it's all over, +everything is over. It would make very little difference to me, what +happened now--if the steamer broke her shaft, or anything. But if I can +only believe I wasn't unjust--" + +Mrs. March assured her once more that she had behaved with absolute +impartiality; and she proved to her by a process of reasoning quite +irrefragable that it was only a question of time, with which place had +nothing to do, when she and Burnamy should come together again, and all +should be made right between them. The fact that she did not know where +he was, any more than Mrs. March herself, had nothing to do with the +result; that was a mere detail, which would settle itself. She clinched +her argument by confessing that her own engagement had been broken off, +and that it had simply renewed itself. All you had to do was to keep +willing it, and waiting. There was something very mysterious in it. + +"And how long was it till--" Agatha faltered. + +"Well, in our ease it was two years." + +"Oh!" said the girl, but Mrs. March hastened to reassure her. + +"But our case was very peculiar. I could see afterwards that it needn't +have been two months, if I had been willing to acknowledge at once that I +was in the wrong. I waited till we met." + +"If I felt that I was in the wrong, I should write," said Agatha. "I +shouldn't care what he thought of my doing it." + +"Yes, the great thing is to make sure that you were wrong." + +They remained talking so long, that March and the general had exhausted +all the topics of common interest, and had even gone through those they +did not care for. At last the general said, "I'm afraid my daughter will +tire Mrs. March." + +"Oh, I don't think she'll tire my wife. But do you want her?" + +"Well, when you're going down." + +"I think I'll take a turn about the deck, and start my circulation," said +March, and he did so before he went below. + +He found his wife up and dressed, and waiting provisionally on the sofa. +"I thought I might as well go to lunch," she said, and then she told him +about Agatha and Burnamy, and the means she had employed to comfort and +encourage the girl. "And now, dearest, I want you to find out where +Burnamy is, and give him a hint. You will, won't you! If you could have +seen how unhappy she was!" + +"I don't think I should have cared, and I'm certainly not going to +meddle. I think Burnamy has got no more than he deserved, and that he's +well rid of her. I can't imagine a broken engagement that would more +completely meet my approval. As the case stands, they have my blessing." + +"Don't say that, dearest! You know you don't mean it." + +"I do; and I advise you to keep your hands off. You've done all and more +than you ought to propitiate Miss Triscoe. You've offered yourself up, +and you've offered me up--" + +"No, no, Basil! I merely used you as an illustration of what men +were--the best of them." + +"And I can't observe," he continued, "that any one else has been +considered in the matter. Is Miss Triscoe the sole sufferer by Burnamy's +flirtation? What is the matter with a little compassion for the pivotal +girl?" + +"Now, you know you're not serious," said his wife; and though he would +not admit this, he could not be seriously sorry for the new interest +which she took in the affair. There was no longer any question of +changing their state-room. Under the tonic influence of the excitement +she did not go back to her berth after lunch, and she was up later after +dinner than he could have advised. She was absorbed in Agatha, but in her +liberation from her hypochondria, she began also to make a comparative +study of the American swells, in the light of her late experience with +the German highhotes. It is true that none of the swells gave her the +opportunity of examining them at close range, as the highhotes had done. +They kept to their, state-rooms mostly, where, after he thought she could +bear it, March told her how near he had come to making her their equal by +an outlay of six hundred dollars. She now shuddered at the thought; but +she contended that in their magnificent exclusiveness they could give +points to European princes; and that this showed again how when Americans +did try to do a thing, they beat the world. Agatha Triscoe knew who they +were, but she did not know them; they belonged to another kind of set; +she spoke of them as "rich people," and she seemed content to keep away +from them with Mrs. March and with the shy, silent old wife of Major +Eltwin, to whom March sometimes found her talking. + +He never found her father talking with Major Eltwin. General Triscoe had +his own friends in the smoking-room, where he held forth in a certain +corner on the chances of the approaching election in New York, and mocked +their incredulity when he prophesied the success of Tammany and the +return of the King. March himself much preferred Major Eltwin to the +general and his friends; he lived back in the talk of the Ohioan into his +own younger years in Indiana, and he was amused and touched to find how +much the mid-Western life seemed still the same as he had known. The +conditions had changed, but not so much as they had changed in the East +and the farther West. The picture that the major drew of them in his own +region was alluring; it made March homesick; though he knew that he +should never go back to his native section. There was the comfort of kind +in the major; and he had a vein of philosophy, spare but sweet, which +March liked; he liked also the meekness which had come through sorrow +upon a spirit which had once been proud. + +They had both the elderly man's habit of early rising, and they usually +found themselves together waiting impatiently for the cup of coffee, +ingenuously bad, which they served on the Cupania not earlier than half +past six, in strict observance of a rule of the line discouraging to +people of their habits. March admired the vileness of the decoction, +which he said could not be got anywhere out of the British Empire, and he +asked Eltwin the first morning if he had noticed how instantly on the +Channel boat they had dropped to it and to the sour, heavy, sodden +British bread, from the spirited and airy Continental tradition of coffee +and rolls. + +The major confessed that he was no great hand to notice such things, and +he said he supposed that if the line had never lost a passenger, and got +you to New York in six days it had a right to feed you as it pleased; he +surmised that if they could get their airing outside before they took +their coffee, it would give the coffee a chance to taste better; and this +was what they afterwards did. They met, well buttoned and well mined up, +on the promenade when it was yet so early that they were not at once sure +of each other in the twilight, and watched the morning planets pale east +and west before the sun rose. Sometimes there were no paling planets and +no rising sun, and a black sea, ridged with white, tossed under a low +dark sky with dim rifts. + +One morning, they saw the sun rise with a serenity and majesty which it +rarely has outside of the theatre. The dawn began over that sea which was +like the rumpled canvas imitations of the sea on the stage, under long +mauve clouds bathed in solemn light. Above these, in the pale tender sky, +two silver stars hung, and the steamer's smoke drifted across them like a +thin dusky veil. To the right a bank of dun cloud began to burn crimson, +and to burn brighter till it was like a low hill-side full of gorgeous +rugosities fleeced with a dense dwarfish growth of autumnal shrubs. The +whole eastern heaven softened and flushed through diaphanous mists; the +west remained a livid mystery. The eastern masses and flakes of cloud +began to kindle keenly; but the stars shone clearly, and then one star, +till the tawny pink hid it. All the zenith reddened, but still the sun +did not show except in the color of the brilliant clouds. At last the +lurid horizon began to burn like a flame-shot smoke, and a fiercely +bright disc edge pierced its level, and swiftly defined itself as the +sun's orb. + +Many thoughts went through March's mind; some of them were sad, but in +some there was a touch of hopefulness. It might have been that beauty +which consoled him for his years; somehow he felt himself, if no longer +young, a part of the young immortal frame of things. His state was +indefinable, but he longed to hint at it to his companion. + +"Yes," said Eltwin, with a long deep sigh. "I feel as if I could walk out +through that brightness and find her. I reckon that such hopes wouldn't +be allowed to lie to us; that so many ages of men couldn't have fooled +themselves so. I'm glad I've seen this." He was silent and they both +remained watching the rising sun till they could not bear its splendor. +"Now," said the major, "it must be time for that mud, as you call it." +Over their coffee and crackers at the end of the table which they had to +themselves, he resumed. "I was thinking all the time--we seem to think +half a dozen things at once, and this was one of them--about a piece of +business I've got to settle when I reach home; and perhaps you can advise +me about it; you're an editor. I've got a newspaper on my hands; I reckon +it would be a pretty good thing, if it had a chance; but I don't know +what to do with it: I got it in trade with a fellow who has to go West +for his lungs, but he's staying till I get back. What's become of that +young chap--what's his name?--that went out with us?" + +"Burnamy?" prompted March, rather breathlessly. + +"Yes. Couldn't he take hold of it? I rather liked him. He's smart, isn't +he?" + +"Very," said March. "But I don't know where he is. I don't know that he +would go into the country--. But he might, if--" + +They entered provisionally into the case, and for argument's sake +supposed that Burnamy would take hold of the major's paper if he could be +got at. It really looked to March like a good chance for him, on Eltwin's +showing; but he was not confident of Burnamy's turning up very soon, and +he gave the major a pretty clear notion why, by entering into the young +fellow's history for the last three months. + +"Isn't it the very irony of fate?" he said to his wife when he found her +in their room with a cup of the same mud he had been drinking, and +reported the facts to her. + +"Irony?" she said, with all the excitement he could have imagined or +desired. "Nothing of the kind. It's a leading, if ever there was one. It +will be the easiest thing in the world to find Burnamy. And out there she +can sit on her steps!" + +He slowly groped his way to her meaning, through the hypothesis of +Burnamy's reconciliation and marriage with Agatha Triscoe, and their +settlement in Major Eltwin's town under social conditions that implied a +habit of spending the summer evenings on their front porch. While he was +doing this she showered him with questions and conjectures and +requisitions in which nothing but the impossibility of going ashore saved +him from the instant devotion of all his energies to a world-wide, +inquiry into Burnamy's whereabouts. + +The next morning he was up before Major Eltwin got out, and found the +second-cabin passengers free of the first-cabin promenade at an hour when +their superiors were not using it. As he watched these inferiors, +decent-looking, well-clad men and women, enjoying their privilege with a +furtive air, and with stolen glances at him, he asked himself in what +sort he was their superior, till the inquiry grew painful. Then he rose +from his chair, and made his way to the place where the material barrier +between them was lifted, and interested himself in a few of them who +seemed too proud to avail themselves of his society on the terms made. A +figure seized his attention with a sudden fascination of conjecture and +rejection: the figure of a tall young man who came out on the promenade +and without looking round, walked swiftly away to the bow of the ship, +and stood there, looking down at the water in an attitude which was +bewilderingly familiar. His movement, his posture, his dress, even, was +that of Burnamy, and March, after a first flush of pleasure, felt a +sickening repulsion in the notion of his presence. It would have been +such a cheap performance on the part of life, which has all sorts of +chances at command, and need not descend to the poor tricks of +second-rate fiction; and he accused Burnamy of a complicity in the bad +taste of the affair, though he realized, when he reflected, that if it +were really Burnamy he must have sailed in as much unconsciousness of the +Triscoes as he himself had done. He had probably got out of money and had +hurried home while he had still enough to pay the second-cabin fare on +the first boat back. Clearly he was not to blame, but life was to blame +for such a shabby device; and March felt this so keenly that he wished to +turn from the situation, and have nothing to do with it. He kept moving +toward him, drawn by the fatal attraction, and at a few paces' distance +the young man whirled about and showed him the face of a stranger. + +March made some witless remark on the rapid course of the ship as it cut +its way through the water of the bow; the stranger answered with a strong +Lancashire accent; and in the talk which followed, he said he was going +out to see the cotton-mills at Fall River and New Bedford, and he seemed +hopeful of some advice or information from March; then he said he must go +and try to get his Missus out; March understood him to mean his wife, and +he hurried down to his own, to whom he related his hair-breadth escape +from Burnamy. + +"I don't call it an escape at all!" she declared. "I call it the greatest +possible misfortune. If it had been Burnamy we could have brought them +together at once, just when she has seen so clearly that she was in the +wrong, and is feeling all broken up. There wouldn't have been any +difficulty about his being in the second-cabin. We could have contrived +to have them meet somehow. If the worst came to the worst you could have +lent him money to pay the difference, and got him into the first-cabin." + +"I could have taken that six-hundred-dollar room for him," said March, +"and then he could have eaten with the swells." + +She answered that now he was teasing; that he was fundamentally incapable +of taking anything seriously; and in the end he retired before the +stewardess bringing her first coffee, with a well-merited feeling that if +it had not been for his triviality the young Lancashireman would really +have been Burnamy. + + + + +LXXV. + +Except for the first day and night out from Queenstown, when the ship +rolled and pitched with straining and squeaking noises, and a thumping of +the lifted screws, there was no rough weather, and at last the ocean was +livid and oily, with a long swell, on which she swayed with no +perceptible motion save from her machinery. + +Most of the seamanship seemed to be done after dark, or in those early +hours when March found the stewards cleaning the stairs, and the sailors +scouring the promenades. He made little acquaintance with his +fellow-passengers. One morning he almost spoke with an old Quaker lady +whom he joined in looking at the Niagara flood which poured from the +churning screws; but he did not quite get the words out. On the contrary +he talked freely with an American who, bred horses on a farm near +Boulogne, and was going home to the Horse Show; he had been thirty-five +years out of the country, but he had preserved his Yankee accent in all +its purity, and was the most typical-looking American on board. Now and +then March walked up and down with a blond Mexican whom he found of the +usual well-ordered Latin intelligence, but rather flavorless; at times he +sat beside a nice Jew, who talked agreeably, but only about business; and +he philosophized the race as so tiresome often because it seemed so often +without philosophy. He made desperate attempts at times to interest +himself in the pool-selling in the smoking-room where the betting on the +ship's wonderful run was continual. + +He thought that people talked less and less as they drew nearer home; but +on the last day out there was a sudden expansion, and some whom he had +not spoken with voluntarily addressed him. The sweet, soft air was like +midsummer the water rippled gently, without a swell, blue under the clear +sky, and the ship left a wide track that was silver in the sun. There +were more sail; the first and second class baggage was got up and piled +along the steerage deck. + +Some people dressed a little more than usual for the last dinner which +was earlier than usual, so as to be out of the way against the arrival +which had been variously predicted at from five to seven-thirty. An +indescribable nervousness culminated with the appearance of the customs +officers on board, who spread their papers on cleared spaces of the +dining-tables, and summoned the passengers to declare that they had +nothing to declare, as a preliminary to being searched like thieves at +the dock. + +This ceremony proceeded while the Cupania made her way up the Narrows, +and into the North River, where the flare of lights from the crazy steeps +and cliffs of architecture on the New York shore seemed a persistence of +the last Fourth of July pyrotechnics. March blushed for the grotesque +splendor of the spectacle, and was confounded to find some Englishmen +admiring it, till he remembered that aesthetics were not the strong point +of our race. His wife sat hand in hand with Miss Triscoe, and from time +to time made him count the pieces of small baggage in the keeping of +their steward; while General Triscoe held aloof in a sarcastic calm. + +The steamer groped into her dock; the gangways were lifted to her side; +the passengers fumbled and stumbled down their incline, and at the bottom +the Marches found themselves respectively in the arms of their son and +daughter. They all began talking at once, and ignoring and trying to +remember the Triscoes to whom the young Marches were presented. Bella did +her best to be polite to Agatha, and Tom offered to get an inspector for +the general at the same time as for his father. Then March, remorsefully +remembered the Eltwins, and looked about for them, so that his son might +get them an inspector too. He found the major already in the hands of an +inspector, who was passing all his pieces after carelessly looking into +one: the official who received the declarations on board had noted a +Grand Army button like his own in the major's lapel, and had marked his +fellow-veteran's paper with the mystic sign which procures for the bearer +the honor of being promptly treated as a smuggler, while the less favored +have to wait longer for this indignity at the hands of their government. +When March's own inspector came he was as civil and lenient as our +hateful law allows; when he had finished March tried to put a bank-note +in his hand, and was brought to a just shame by his refusal of it. The +bed-room steward keeping guard over the baggage helped put-it together +after the search, and protested that March had feed him so handsomely +that he would stay there with it as long as they wished. This partly +restored March's self-respect, and he could share in General Triscoe's +indignation with the Treasury ruling which obliged him to pay duty on his +own purchases in excess of the hundred-dollar limit, though his daughter +had brought nothing, and they jointly came far within the limit for two. + +He found that the Triscoes were going to a quiet old hotel on the way to +Stuyvesant Square, quite in his own neighborhood, and he quickly arranged +for all the ladies and the general to drive together while he was to +follow with his son on foot and by car. They got away from the scene of +the customs' havoc while the steamer shed, with its vast darkness dimly +lit by its many lamps, still showed like a battle-field where the +inspectors groped among the scattered baggage like details from the +victorious army searching for the wounded. His son clapped him on the +shoulder when he suggested this notion, and said he was the same old +father; and they got home as gayly together as the dispiriting influences +of the New York ugliness would permit. It was still in those good and +decent times, now so remote, when the city got something for the money +paid out to keep its streets clean, and those they passed through were +not foul but merely mean. + +The ignoble effect culminated when they came into Broadway, and found its +sidewalks, at an hour when those of any European metropolis would have +been brilliant with life, as unpeopled as those of a minor country town, +while long processions of cable-cars carted heaps of men and women up and +down the thoroughfare amidst the deformities of the architecture. + +The next morning the March family breakfasted late after an evening +prolonged beyond midnight in spite of half-hourly agreements that now +they must really all go to bed. The children had both to recognize again +and again how well their parents were looking; Tom had to tell his father +about the condition of 'Every Other Week'; Bella had to explain to her +mother how sorry her husband was that he could not come on to meet them +with her, but was coming a week later to take her home, and then she +would know the reason why they could not all, go back to Chicago with +him: it was just the place for her father to live, for everybody to live. +At breakfast she renewed the reasoning with which she had maintained her +position the night before; the travellers entered into a full expression +of their joy at being home again; March asked what had become of that +stray parrot which they had left in the tree-top the morning they +started; and Mrs. March declared that this was the last Silver Wedding +Journey she ever wished to take, and tried to convince them all that she +had been on the verge of nervous collapse when she reached the ship. They +sat at table till she discovered that it was very nearly eleven o'clock, +and said it was disgraceful. + +Before they rose, there was a ring at the door, and a card was brought in +to Tom. He glanced at it, and said to his father, "Oh, yes! This man has +been haunting the office for the last three days. He's got to leave +to-day, and as it seemed to be rather a case of life and death with him, +I said he'd probably find you here this morning. But if you don't want to +see him, I can put him off till afternoon, I suppose." + +He tossed the card to his father, who looked at it quietly, and then gave +it to his wife. "Perhaps I'd as well see him?" + +"See him!" she returned in accents in which all the intensity of her soul +was centred. By an effort of self-control which no words can convey a +just sense of she remained with her children, while her husband with a +laugh more teasing than can be imagined went into the drawing-room to +meet Burnamy. + +The poor fellow was in an effect of belated summer as to clothes, and he +looked not merely haggard but shabby. He made an effort for dignity as +well as gayety, however, in stating himself to March, with many apologies +for his persistency. But, he said, he was on his way West, and he was +anxious to know whether there was any chance of his 'Kasper Hauler' paper +being taken if he finished it up. March would have been a far +harder-hearted editor than he was, if he could have discouraged the +suppliant before him. He said he would take the Kasper Hauler paper and +add a band of music to the usual rate of ten dollars a thousand words. +Then Burnamy's dignity gave way, if not his gayety; he began to laugh, +and suddenly he broke down and confessed that he had come home in the +steerage; and was at his last cent, beyond his fare to Chicago. His straw +hat looked like a withered leaf in the light of his sad facts; his thin +overcoat affected March's imagination as something like the diaphanous +cast shell of a locust, hopelessly resumed for comfort at the approach of +autumn. He made Burnamy sit down, after he had once risen, and he told +him of Major Eltwin's wish to see him; and he promised to go round with +him to the major's hotel before the Eltwins left town that afternoon. + +While he prolonged the interview in this way, Mrs. March was kept from +breaking in upon them only by the psychical experiment which she was +making with the help and sympathy of her daughter at the window of the +dining-room which looked up Sixteenth Street. At the first hint she gave +of the emotional situation which Burnamy was a main part of, her son; +with the brutal contempt of young men for other young men's love affairs, +said he must go to the office; he bade his mother tell his father there +was no need of his coming down that day, and he left the two women +together. This gave the mother a chance to develop the whole fact to the +daughter with telegrammic rapidity and brevity, and then to enrich the +first-outline with innumerable details, while they both remained at the +window, and Mrs. March said at two-minutely intervals, with no sense of +iteration for either of them, "I told her to come in the morning, if she +felt like it, and I know she will. But if she doesn't, I shall say there +is nothing in fate, or Providence either. At any rate I'm going to stay +here and keep longing for her, and we'll see whether there's anything in +that silly theory of your father's. I don't believe there is," she said, +to be on the safe side. + +Even when she saw Agatha Triscoe enter the park gate on Rutherford Place, +she saved herself from disappointment by declaring that she was not +coming across to their house. As the girl persisted in coming and coming, +and at last came so near that she caught sight of Mrs. March at the +window and nodded, the mother turned ungratefully upon her daughter, and +drove her away to her own room, so that no society detail should hinder +the divine chance. She went to the door herself when Agatha rang, and +then she was going to open the way into the parlor where March was still +closeted with Burnamy, and pretend that she had not known they were +there. But a soberer second thought than this prevailed, and she told the +girl who it was that was within and explained the accident of his +presence. "I think," she said nobly, "that you ought to have the chance +of going away if you don't wish to meet him." + +The girl, with that heroic precipitation which Mrs. March had noted in +her from the first with regard to what she wanted to do, when Burnamy was +in question, answered, "But I do wish to meet him, Mrs. March." + +While they stood looking at each other, March came out to ask his wife if +she would see Burnamy, and she permitted herself so much stratagem as to +substitute Agatha, after catching her husband aside and subduing his +proposed greeting of the girl to a hasty handshake. + +Half an hour later she thought it time to join the young people, urged +largely by the frantic interest of her daughter. But she returned from +the half-open door without entering. "I couldn't bring myself to break in +on the poor things. They are standing at the window together looking over +at St. George's." + +Bella silently clasped her hands. March gave cynical laugh, and said, +"Well we are in for it, my dear." Then he added, "I hope they'll take us +with them on their Silver Wedding Journey." + + + + +PG EDITOR'S BOOKMARKS: + + Declare that they had nothing to declare + Despair which any perfection inspires + Disingenuous, hypocritical passion of love + Fundamentally incapable of taking anything seriously + Held aloof in a sarcastic calm + Illusions: no marriage can be perfect without them + Married life: we expect too much of each other + Not do to be perfectly frank with one's own country + Offence which any difference of taste was apt to give him + Passionate desire for excess in a bad thing + Puddles of the paths were drying up with the haste + Race seemed so often without philosophy + Self-sacrifice which could be had, as it were, at a bargain + She always came to his defence when he accused himself + + + + +PG EDITORS BOOKMARKS FOR THE COMPLETE TRILOGY: + + Affected absence of mind + Affectional habit + All the loveliness that exists outside of you, dearest is little + All luckiest or the unluckiest, the healthiest or the sickest + Americans are hungrier for royalty than anybody else + Amusing world, if you do not refuse to be amused + Anticipative homesickness + Anticipative reprisal + Any sort of stuff was good enough to make a preacher out of + Appearance made him doubt their ability to pay so much + Artists never do anything like other people + As much of his story as he meant to tell without prompting + At heart every man is a smuggler + Bad wars, or what are comically called good wars + Ballast of her instinctive despondency + Be good, sweet man, and let who will be clever + Beautiful with the radiance of loving and being loved + Bewildering labyrinth of error + Biggest place is always the kindest as well as the cruelest + Brag of his wife, as a good husband always does + Brown-stone fronts + But when we make that money here, no one loses it + Buttoned about him as if it concealed a bad conscience + Calm of those who have logic on their side + Civilly protested and consented + Clinging persistence of such natures + Coldly and inaccessibly vigilant + Collective silence which passes for sociality + Comfort of the critical attitude + Conscience weakens to the need that isn't + Considerable comfort in holding him accountable + Courage hadn't been put to the test + Courtship + Deadly summer day + Death is peace and pardon + Death is an exile that no remorse and no love can reach + Decided not to let the facts betray themselves by chance + Declare that they had nothing to declare + Despair which any perfection inspires + Did not idealize him, but in the highest effect she realized him + Dinner unites the idea of pleasure and duty + Disingenuous, hypocritical passion of love + Dividend: It's a chicken before it's hatched + Does any one deserve happiness + Does anything from without change us? + Dog that had plainly made up his mind to go mad + Effort to get on common ground with an inferior + Europe, where society has them, as it were, in a translation + Evil which will not let a man forgive his victim + Explained perhaps too fully + Extract what consolation lurks in the irreparable + Family buryin' grounds + Favorite stock of his go up and go down under the betting + Feeblest-minded are sure to lead the talk + Feeling rather ashamed,--for he had laughed too + Feeling of contempt for his unambitious destination + Flavors not very sharply distinguished from one another + Fundamentally incapable of taking anything seriously + Futility of travel + Gayety, which lasted beyond any apparent reason for it + Glad; which considering, they ceased to be + Got their laugh out of too many things in life + Guilty rapture of a deliberate dereliction + Had learned not to censure the irretrievable + Had no opinions that he was not ready to hold in abeyance + Handsome pittance + Happiness is so unreasonable + Happiness built upon and hedged about with misery + He expected to do the wrong thing when left to his own devices + He buys my poverty and not my will + Headache darkens the universe while it lasts + Heart that forgives but does not forget + Held aloof in a sarcastic calm + Helplessness begets a sense of irresponsibility + Helplessness accounts for many heroic facts in the world + Hemmed round with this eternal darkness of death + Homage which those who have not pay to those who have + Honest selfishness + Hopeful recklessness + How much can a man honestly earn without wronging or oppressing + Humanity may at last prevail over nationality + Hurry up and git well--or something + Hypothetical difficulty + I cannot endure this--this hopefulness of yours + I want to be sorry upon the easiest possible terms + I supposed I had the pleasure of my wife's acquaintance + I'm not afraid--I'm awfully demoralized + If you dread harm enough it is less likely to happen + Ignorant of her ignorance + Illusions: no marriage can be perfect without them + Impertinent prophecies of their enjoying it so much + Indispensable + Indulge safely in the pleasures of autobiography + Intrepid fancy that they had confronted fate + It had come as all such calamities come, from nothing + It must be your despair that helps you to bear up + It don't do any good to look at its drawbacks all the time + It 's the same as a promise, your not saying you wouldn't + Jesting mood in the face of all embarrassments + Justice must be paid for at every step in fees and costs + Less intrusive than if he had not been there + Less certain of everything that I used to be sure of + Life was like the life at a sea-side hotel, but more monotonous + Life of the ship, like the life of the sea: a sodden monotony + Life has taught him to truckle and trick + Long life of holidays which is happy marriage + Love of justice hurry them into sympathy with violence + Made money and do not yet know that money has made them + Madness of sight-seeing, which spoils travel + Man's willingness to abide in the present + Married life: we expect too much of each other + Married the whole mystifying world of womankind + Married for no other purpose than to avoid being an old maid + Marry for love two or three times + Monologue to which the wives of absent-minded men resign + Muddy draught which impudently affected to be coffee + Nervous woes of comfortable people + Never-blooming shrub + Never could have an emotion without desiring to analyze it + Night so bad that it was worse than no night at all + No man deserves to sufer at the hands of another + No longer the gross appetite for novelty + No right to burden our friends with our decisions + Not do to be perfectly frank with one's own country + Nothing so apt to end in mutual dislike,--except gratitude + Nothing so sad to her as a bride, unless it's a young mother + Novelists, who really have the charge of people's thinking + Oblivion of sleep + Offence which any difference of taste was apt to give him + Only so much clothing as the law compelled + Only one of them was to be desperate at a time + Our age caricatures our youth + Parkman + Passionate desire for excess in a bad thing + Patience with mediocrity putting on the style of genius + Patronizing spirit of travellers in a foreign country + People that have convictions are difficult + Person talks about taking lessons, as if they could learn it + Poverty as hopeless as any in the world + Prices fixed by his remorse + Puddles of the paths were drying up with the haste + Race seemed so often without philosophy + Recipes for dishes and diseases + Reckless and culpable optimism + Reconciliation with death which nature brings to life at last + Rejoice in everything that I haven't done + Rejoice as much at a non-marriage as a marriage + Repeated the nothings they had said already + Respect for your mind, but she don't think you've got any sense + Say when he is gone that the woman gets along better without him + Seemed the last phase of a world presently to be destroyed + Seeming interested in points necessarily indifferent to him + Self-sufficiency, without its vulgarity + Self-sacrifice which could be had, as it were, at a bargain + Servant of those he loved + She always came to his defence when he accused himself + She cares for him: that she was so cold shows that + She could bear his sympathy, but not its expression + Shouldn't ca' fo' the disgrace of bein' poo'--its inconvenience + Sigh with which ladies recognize one another's martyrdom + So hard to give up doing anything we have meant to do + So old a world and groping still + Society: All its favors are really bargains + Sorry he hadn't asked more; that's human nature + Suffering under the drip-drip of his innocent egotism + Superstition that having and shining is the chief good + Superstition of the romances that love is once for all + That isn't very old--or not so old as it used to be + The knowledge of your helplessness in any circumstances + There is little proportion about either pain or pleasure + They were so near in age, though they were ten years apart + They can only do harm by an expression of sympathy + Timidity of the elder in the presence of the younger man + To do whatever one likes is finally to do nothing that one likes + Took the world as she found it, and made the best of it + Tragical character of heat + Travel, with all its annoyances and fatigues + Tried to be homesick for them, but failed + Turn to their children's opinion with deference + Typical anything else, is pretty difficult to find + Unfounded hope that sooner or later the weather would be fine + Used to having his decisions reached without his knowledge + Vexed by a sense of his own pitifulness + Voice of the common imbecility and incoherence + Voting-cattle whom they bought and sold + Wages are the measure of necessity and not of merit + We get too much into the hands of other people + We don't seem so much our own property + Weariness of buying + What we can be if we must + When you look it--live it + Wilful sufferers + Willingness to find poetry in things around them + Wish we didn't always recognize the facts as we do + Without realizing his cruelty, treated as a child + Woman harnessed with a dog to a cart + Wooded with the precise, severely disciplined German forests + Work he was so fond of and so weary of + Would sacrifice his best friend to a phrase + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Their Silver Wedding Journey, Part III. +by William Dean Howells + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THEIR SILVER WEDDING *** + +***** This file should be named 3373.txt or 3373.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + https://www.gutenberg.org/3/3/7/3373/ + +Produced by David Widger + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the 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FOR PUBLIC DOMAIN ETEXTS*Ver.12.12.00*END* + + + + + +This etext was produced by David Widger <widger@cecomet.net> + + + + + +[NOTE: There is a short list of bookmarks, or pointers, at the end of the +file for those who may wish to sample the authors ideas before making an +entire meal of them. D.W.] + + + + + +THEIR SILVER WEDDING JOURNEY + +by William Dean Howells + + + + +PART III. + + + +XLVIII. + +At the first station where the train stopped, a young German bowed +himself into the compartment with the Marches, and so visibly resisted an +impulse to smoke that March begged him to light his cigarette. In the +talk which this friendly overture led to between them he explained that +he was a railway architect, employed by the government on that line of +road, and was travelling officially. March spoke of Nuremberg; he owned +the sort of surfeit he had suffered from its excessive mediaevalism, and +the young man said it was part of the new imperial patriotism to cherish +the Gothic throughout Germany; no other sort of architecture was +permitted in Nuremberg. But they would find enough classicism at +Ansbach, he promised them, and he entered with sympathetic intelligence +into their wish to see this former capital when March told him they were +going to stop there, in hopes of something typical of the old disjointed +Germany of the petty principalities, the little paternal despotisms now +extinct. + +As they talked on, partly in German and partly in English, their purpose +in visiting Ansbach appeared to the Marches more meditated than it was. +In fact it was somewhat accidental; Ansbach was near Nuremberg; it was +not much out of the way to Holland. They took more and more credit to +themselves for a reasoned and definite motive, in the light of their +companion's enthusiasm for the place, and its charm began for them with +the drive from the station through streets whose sentiment was both +Italian and French, and where there was a yellowish cast in the gray of +the architecture which was almost Mantuan. They rested their +sensibilities, so bruised and fretted by Gothic angles and points, +against the smooth surfaces of the prevailing classicistic facades of the +houses as they passed, and when they arrived at their hotel, an old +mansion of Versailles type, fronting on a long irregular square planted +with pollard sycamores, they said that it might as well have been Lucca. + +The archway and stairway of the hotel were draped with the Bavarian +colors, and they were obscurely flattered to learn that Prince Leopold, +the brother of the Prince-Regent of the kingdom, had taken rooms there, +on his way to the manoeuvres at Nuremberg, and was momently expected with +his suite. They realized that they were not of the princely party, +however, when they were told that he had sole possession of the dining- +room, and they went out to another hotel, and had their supper in keeping +delightfully native. People seemed to come there to write their letters +and make up their accounts, as well as to eat their suppers; they called +for stationery like characters in old comedy, and the clatter of crockery +and the scratching of pens went on together; and fortune offered the +Marches a delicate reparation for their exclusion from their own hotel in +the cold popular reception of the prince which they got back just in time +to witness. A very small group of people, mostly women and boys, had +gathered to see him arrive, but there was no cheering or any sign of +public interest. Perhaps he personally merited none; he looked a dull, +sad man, with his plain, stubbed features; and after he had mounted to +his apartment, the officers of his staff stood quite across the landing, +and barred the passage of the Americans, ignoring even Mrs. March's +presence, as they talked together. + +"Well, my dear," said her husband, "here you have it at last. This is +what you've been living for, ever since we came to Germany. It's a great +moment." + +"Yes. What are you going to do?" + +"Who? I? Oh, nothing! This is your affair; it's for you to act." + +If she had been young, she might have withered them with a glance; she +doubted now if her dim eyes would have any such power; but she advanced +steadily upon them, and then the officers seemed aware of her, and stood +aside. + +March always insisted that they stood aside apologetically, but she held +as firmly that they stood aside impertinently, or at least indifferently, +and that the insult to her American womanhood was perfectly ideal. It is +true that nothing of the kind happened again during their stay at the +hotel; the prince's officers were afterwards about in the corridors and +on the stairs, but they offered no shadow of obstruction to her going and +coming, and the landlord himself was not so preoccupied with his +highhotes but he had time to express his grief that she had been obliged +to go out for supper. + +They satisfied the passion for the little obsolete capital which had been +growing upon them by strolling past the old Resident at an hour so +favorable for a first impression. It loomed in the gathering dusk even +vaster than it was, and it was really vast enough for the pride of a King +of France, much more a Margrave of Ansbach. Time had blackened and +blotched its coarse limestone walls to one complexion with the statues +swelling and strutting in the figure of Roman legionaries before it, and +standing out against the evening sky along its balustraded roof, and had +softened to the right tint the stretch of half a dozen houses with +mansard roofs and renaissance facades obsequiously in keeping with the +Versailles ideal of a Resident. In the rear, and elsewhere at fit +distance from its courts, a native architecture prevailed; and at no +great remove the Marches found themselves in a simple German town again. +There they stumbled upon a little bookseller's shop blinking in a quiet +corner, and bought three or four guides and small histories of Ansbach, +which they carried home, and studied between drowsing and waking. The +wonderful German syntax seems at its most enigmatical in this sort of +literature, and sometimes they lost themselves in its labyrinths +completely, and only made their way perilously out with the help of +cumulative declensions, past articles and adjectives blindly seeking +their nouns, to long-procrastinated verbs dancing like swamp-fires in the +distance. They emerged a little less ignorant than they went in, and +better qualified than they would otherwise have been for their second +visit to the Schloss, which they paid early the next morning. + +They were so early, indeed, that when they mounted from the great inner +court, much too big for Ansbach, if not for the building, and rung the +custodian's bell, a smiling maid who let them into an ante-room, where +she kept on picking over vegetables for her dinner, said the custodian +was busy, and could not be seen till ten o'clock. She seemed, in her +nook of the pretentious pile, as innocently unconscious of its history +as any hen-sparrow who had built her nest in some coign of its +architecture; and her friendly, peaceful domesticity remained a wholesome +human background to the tragedies and comedies of the past, and held them +in a picturesque relief in which they were alike tolerable and even +charming. + +The history of Ansbach strikes its roots in the soil of fable, and above +ground is a gnarled and twisted growth of good and bad from the time of +the Great Charles to the time of the Great Frederick. Between these +times she had her various rulers, ecclesiastical and secular, in various +forms of vassalage to the empire; but for nearly four centuries her +sovereignty was in the hands of the margraves, who reigned in a +constantly increasing splendor till the last sold her outright to the +King of Prussia in 1791, and went to live in England on the proceeds. +She had taken her part in the miseries and glories of the wars that +desolated Germany, but after the Reformation, when she turned from the +ancient faith to which she owed her cloistered origin under St. +Gumpertus, her people had peace except when their last prince sold them +to fight the battles of others. It is in this last transaction that her +history, almost in the moment when she ceased to have a history of her +own, links to that of the modern world, and that it came home to the +Marches in their national character; for two thousand of those poor +Ansbach mercenaries were bought up by England and sent to put down a +rebellion in her American colonies. + +Humanly, they were more concerned for the Last Margrave, because of +certain qualities which made him the Best Margrave, in spite of the +defects of his qualities. He was the son of the Wild Margrave, equally +known in the Ansbach annals, who may not have been the Worst Margrave, +but who had certainly a bad trick of putting his subjects to death +without trial, and in cases where there was special haste, with his own +hand. He sent his son to the university at Utrecht because he believed +that the republican influences in Holland would be wholesome for him, and +then he sent him to travel in Italy; but when the boy came home looking +frail and sick, the Wild Margrave charged his official travelling +companion with neglect, and had the unhappy Hofrath Meyer hanged without +process for this crime. One of the gentlemen of his realm, for a +pasquinade on the Margrave, was brought to the scaffold; he had, at +various times, twenty-two of his soldiers shot with arrows and bullets or +hanged for desertion, besides many whose penalties his clemency commuted +to the loss of an ear or a nose; a Hungarian who killed his hunting-dog, +he had broken alive on the wheel. A soldier's wife was hanged for +complicity in a case of desertion; a young soldier who eloped with the +girl he loved was brought to Ansbach from a neighboring town, and hanged +with her on the same gallows. A sentry at the door of one of the +Margrave's castles amiably complied with the Margrave's request to let +him take his gun for a moment, on the pretence of wishing to look at it. +For this breach of discipline the prince covered him with abuse and gave +him over to his hussars, who bound him to a horse's tail and dragged him +through the streets; he died of his injuries. The kennel-master who had +charge of the Margrave's dogs was accused of neglecting them: without +further inquiry the Margrave rode to the man's house and shot him down on +his own threshold. A shepherd who met the Margrave on a shying horse did +not get his flock out of the way quickly enough; the Margrave demanded +the pistols of a gentleman in his company, but he answered that they were +not loaded, and the shepherd's life was saved. As they returned home the +gentleman fired them off. "What does that mean?" cried the Margrave, +furiously. "It means, gracious lord, that you will sleep sweeter +tonight, for not having heard my pistols an hour sooner." + +From this it appears that the gracious lord had his moments of regret; +but perhaps it is not altogether strange that when he died, the whole +population "stormed through the streets to meet his funeral train, not in +awe-stricken silence to meditate on the fall of human grandeur, but to +unite in an eager tumult of rejoicing, as if some cruel brigand who had +long held the city in terror were delivered over to them bound and in +chains." For nearly thirty years this blood-stained miscreant had +reigned over his hapless people in a sovereign plenitude of power, which +by the theory of German imperialism in our day is still a divine right. + +They called him the Wild Margrave, in their instinctive revolt from the +belief that any man not untamably savage could be guilty of his +atrocities; and they called his son the Last Margrave, with a touch of +the poetry which perhaps records a regret for their extinction as a +state. He did not harry them as his father had done; his mild rule was +the effect partly of the indifference and distaste for his country bred, +by his long sojourns abroad; but doubtless also it was the effect of a +kindly nature. Even in the matter of selling a few thousands of them to +fight the battles of a bad cause on the other side of the world, he had +the best of motives, and faithfully applied the proceeds to the payment +of the state debt and the embellishment of the capital. + +His mother was a younger sister of Frederick the Great, and was so +constantly at war with her husband that probably she had nothing to do +with the marriage which the Wild Margrave forced upon their son. Love +certainly had nothing to do with it, and the Last Margrave early escaped +from it to the society of Mlle. Clairon, the great French tragedienne, +whom he met in Paris, and whom he persuaded to come and make her home +with him in Ansbach. She lived there seventeen years, and though always +an alien, she bore herself with kindness to all classes, and is still +remembered there by the roll of butter which calls itself a Klarungswecke +in its imperfect French. + +No roll of butter records in faltering accents the name of the brilliant +and disdainful English lady who replaced this poor tragic muse in the +Margrave's heart, though the lady herself lived to be the last Margravine +of Ansbach, where everybody seems to have hated her with a passion which +she doubtless knew how to return. She was the daughter of the Earl of +Berkeley, and the wife of Lord Craven, a sufficiently unfaithful and +unworthy nobleman by her account, from whom she was living apart when the +Margrave asked her to his capital. There she set herself to oust Mlle. +Clairon with sneers and jests for the theatrical style which the actress +could not outlive. Lady Craven said she was sure Clairon's nightcap must +be a crown of gilt paper; and when Clairon threatened to kill herself, +and the Margrave was alarmed, "You forget," said Lady Craven, "that +actresses only stab themselves under their sleeves." + +She drove Clairon from Ansbach, and the great tragedienne returned to +Paris, where she remained true to her false friend, and from time to time +wrote him letters full of magnanimous counsel and generous tenderness. +But she could not have been so good company as Lady Craven, who was a +very gifted person, and knew how to compose songs and sing them, and +write comedies and play them, and who could keep the Margrave amused in +many ways. When his loveless and childless wife died he married the +English woman, but he grew more and more weary of his dull little court +and his dull little country, and after a while, considering the uncertain +tenure sovereigns had of their heads since the French King had lost his, +and the fact that he had no heirs to follow him in his principality, he +resolved to cede it for a certain sum to Prussia. To this end his new +wife's urgence was perhaps not wanting. They went to England, where she +outlived him ten years, and wrote her memoirs. + +The custodian of the Schloss came at last, and the Marches saw instantly +that he was worth waiting for. He was as vainglorious of the palace as +any grand-monarching margrave of them all. He could not have been more +personally superb in showing their different effigies if they had been +his own family portraits, and he would not spare the strangers a single +splendor of the twenty vast, handsome, tiresome, Versailles-like rooms he +led them through. The rooms were fatiguing physically, but so poignantly +interesting that Mrs. March would not have missed, though she perished of +her pleasure, one of the things she saw. She had for once a surfeit of +highhoting in the pictures, the porcelains, the thrones and canopies, the +tapestries, the historical associations with the margraves and their +marriages, with the Great Frederick and the Great Napoleon. The Great +Napoleon's man Bernadotte made the Schloss his headquarters when he +occupied Ansbach after Austerlitz, and here he completed his arrangements +for taking her bargain from Prussia and handing it over to Bavaria, with +whom it still remains. Twice the Great Frederick had sojourned in the +palace; visiting his sister Louise, the wife of the Wild Margrave, and +more than once it had welcomed her next neighbor and sister Wilhelmina, +the Margravine of Baireuth, whose autobiographic voice, piercingly +plaintive and reproachful, seemed to quiver in the air. Here, oddly +enough, the spell of the Wild Margrave weakened in the presence of his +portrait, which signally failed to justify his fame of furious tyrant. +That seems, indeed, to have been rather the popular and historical +conception of him than the impression he made upon his exalted +contemporaries. The Margravine of Baireuth at any rate could so far +excuse her poor blood-stained brother-in-law as to say: "The Margrave of +Ansbach . . . was a young prince who had been very badly educated. +He continually ill-treated my sister; they led the life of cat and dog. +My sister, it is true, was sometimes in fault . . . . Her education +had been very bad. . . She was married at fourteen." + +At parting, the custodian told the Marches that he would easily have +known them for Americans by the handsome fee they gave him; they came +away flown with his praise; and their national vanity was again flattered +when they got out into the principal square of Ansbach. There, in a +bookseller's window, they found among the pamphlets teaching different +languages without a master, one devoted to the Amerikanische Sprache as +distinguished from the Englische Sprache. That there could be no +mistake, the cover was printed with colors in a German ideal of the star- +spangled banner; and March said he always knew that we had a language of +our own, and that now he was going in to buy that pamphlet and find out +what it was like. He asked the young shop-woman how it differed from +English, which she spoke fairly well from having lived eight years in +Chicago. She said that it differed from the English mainly in emphasis +and pronunciation. "For instance, the English say 'HALF past', and the +Americans 'Half PAST'; the English say 'laht' and the Americans say +'late'." + +The weather had now been clear quite long enough, and it was raining +again, a fine, bitter, piercing drizzle. They asked the girl if it +always rained in Ansbach; and she owned that it nearly always did. She +said that sometimes she longed for a little American summer; that it was +never quite warm in Ansbach; and when they had got out into the rain, +March said: "It was very nice to stumble on Chicago in an Ansbach book- +store. You ought to have told her you had a married daughter in Chicago. +Don't miss another such chance." + +"We shall need another bag if we keep on buying books at this rate," said +his wife with tranquil irrelevance; and not to give him time for protest; +she pushed him into a shop where the valises in the window perhaps +suggested her thought. March made haste to forestall her there by saying +they were Americans, but the mistress of the shop seemed to have her +misgivings, and "Born Americans, perhaps?" she ventured. She had +probably never met any but the naturalized sort, and supposed these were +the only sort. March re-assured her, and then she said she had a son +living in Jersey City, and she made March take his address that he might +tell him he had seen his mother; she had apparently no conception what a +great way Jersey City is from New York. + +Mrs. March would not take his arm when they came out. "Now, that is what +I never can get used to in you, Basil, and I've tried to palliate it for +twenty-seven years. You know you won't look up that poor woman's son! +Why did you let her think you would?" + +"How could I tell her I wouldn't? Perhaps I shall." + +"No, no! You never will. I know you're good and kind, and that's why I +can't understand your being so cruel. When we get back, how will you +ever find time to go over to Jersey City?" + +He could not tell, but at last he said : "I'll tell yon what! You must +keep me up to it. You know how much you enjoy making me do my duty, and +this will be such a pleasure!" + +She laughed forlornly, but after a moment she took his arm; and he began, +from the example of this good mother, to philosophize the continuous +simplicity and sanity of the people of Ansbach under all their civic +changes. Saints and soldiers, knights and barons, margraves, princes, +kings, emperors, had come and gone, and left their single-hearted, +friendly subjectfolk pretty much what they found them. The people had +suffered and survived through a thousand wars, and apparently prospered +on under all governments and misgovernments. When the court was most +French, most artificial, most vicious, the citizen life must have +remained immutably German, dull, and kind. After all, he said, humanity +seemed everywhere to be pretty safe, and pretty much the same. + +"Yes, that is all very well," she returned, "and you can theorize +interestingly enough; but I'm afraid that poor mother, there, had no more +reality for you than those people in the past. You appreciate her as a +type, and you don't care for her as a human being. You're nothing but a +dreamer, after all. I don't blame you," she went on. "It's your +temperament, and you can't change, now." + +"I may change for the worse," he threatened. "I think I have, already. +I don't believe I could stand up to Dryfoos, now, as I did for poor old +Lindau, when I risked your bread and butter for his. I look back in +wonder and admiration at myself. I've steadily lost touch with life +since then. I'm a trifler, a dilettante, and an amateur of the right and +the good as I used to be when I was young. Oh, I have the grace to be +troubled at times, now, and once I never was. It never occurred to me +then that the world wasn't made to interest me, or at the best to +instruct me, but it does, now, at times." + +She always came to his defence when he accused himself; it was the best +ground he could take with her. "I think you behaved very well with +Burnamy. You did your duty then." + +"Did I? I'm not so sure. At any rate, it's the last time I shall do it. +I've served my term. I think I should tell him that he was all right in +that business with Stoller, if I were to meet him, now." + +"Isn't it strange," she said, provisionally, "that we don't come upon a +trace of him anywhere in Ansbach?" + +"Ah, you've been hoping he would turn up!" + +"Yes. I don't deny it. I feel very unhappy about him." + +"I don't. He's too much like me. He would have been quite capable of +promising that poor woman to look up her son in Jersey City. When I +think of that, I have no patience with Burnamy." + +"I am going to ask the landlord about him, now he's got rid of his +highhotes," said Mrs. March. + + + + +XLIX. + +They went home to their hotel for their midday dinner, and to the comfort +of having it nearly all to themselves. Prince Leopold had risen early, +like all the hard-working potentates of the continent, and got away to +the manoeuvres somewhere at six o'clock; the decorations had been +removed, and the court-yard where the hired coach and pair of the prince +had rolled in the evening before had only a few majestic ducks waddling +about in it and quacking together, indifferent to the presence of a +yellow mail-wagon, on which the driver had been apparently dozing till +the hour of noon should sound. He sat there immovable, but at the last +stroke of the clock he woke up and drove vigorously away to the station. + +The dining-room which they had been kept out of by the prince the night +before was not such as to embitter the sense of their wrong by its +splendor. After all, the tastes of royalty must be simple, if the prince +might have gone to the Schloss and had chosen rather to stay at this +modest hotel; but perhaps the Schloss was reserved for more immediate +royalty than the brothers of prince-regents; and in that case he could +not have done better than dine at the Golden Star. If he paid no more +than two marks, he dined as cheaply as a prince could wish, and as +abundantly. The wine at Ansbach was rather thin and sour, but the bread, +March declared, was the best bread in the whole world, not excepting the +bread of Carlsbad. + +After dinner the Marches had some of the local pastry, not so +incomparable as the bread, with their coffee, which they had served them +in a pavilion of the beautiful garden remaining to the hotel from the +time when it was a patrician mansion. The garden had roses in it and +several sorts of late summer flowers, as well as ripe cherries, currants, +grapes, and a Virginia-creeper red with autumn, all harmoniously +contemporaneous, as they might easily be in a climate where no one of the +seasons can very well know itself from the others. It had not been +raining for half an hour, and the sun was scalding hot, so that the +shelter of their roof was very grateful, and the puddles of the paths +were drying up with the haste which puddles have to make in Germany, +between rains, if they are ever going to dry up at all. + +The landlord came out to see if they were well served, and he was +sincerely obliging in the English he had learned as a waiter in London. +Mrs. March made haste to ask him if a young American of the name of +Burnamy had been staying with him a few weeks before; and she described +Burnamy's beauty and amiability so vividly that the landlord, if he had +been a woman, could not have failed to remember him. But he failed, with +a real grief, apparently, and certainly a real politeness, to recall +either his name or his person. The landlord was an intelligent, good- +looking young fellow; he told them that he was lately married, and they +liked him so much that they were sorry to see him afterwards privately +boxing the ears of the piccolo, the waiter's little understudy. Perhaps +the piccolo deserved it, but they would rather not have witnessed his +punishment; his being in a dress-coat seemed to make it also an +indignity. + +In the late afternoon they went to the caf‚ in the old Orangery of the +Schloss for a cup of tea, and found themselves in the company of several +Ansbach ladies who had brought their work, in the evident habit of coming +there every afternoon for their coffee and for a dish of gossip. They +were kind, uncomely, motherly-looking bodies; one of them combed her hair +at the table; and they all sat outside of the caf‚ with their feet on the +borders of the puddles which had not dried up there in the shade of the +building. + +A deep lawn, darkened at its farther edge by the long shadows of trees, +stretched before them with the sunset light on it, and it was all very +quiet and friendly. The tea brought to the Marches was brewed from some +herb apparently of native growth, with bits of what looked like willow +leaves in it, but it was flavored with a clove in each cup, and they sat +contentedly over it and tried to make out what the Ansbach ladies were, +talking about. These had recognized the strangers for Americans, and one +of them explained that Americans spoke the same language as the English +and yet were not quite the same people. + +"She differs from the girl in the book-store," said March, translating to +his wife. "Let us get away before she says that we are not so nice as +the English," and they made off toward the avenue of trees beyond the +lawn. + +There were a few people walking up and down in the alley, making the most +of the moment of dry weather. They saluted one another like +acquaintances, and three clean-shaven, walnut-faced old peasants bowed in +response to March's stare, with a self-respectful civility. They were +yeomen of the region of Ansbach, where the country round about is dotted +with their cottages, and not held in vast homeless tracts by the nobles +as in North Germany. + +The Bavarian who had imparted this fact to March at breakfast, not +without a certain tacit pride in it to the disadvantage of the Prussians, +was at the supper table, and was disposed to more talk, which he managed +in a stout, slow English of his own. He said he had never really spoken +English with an English-speaking person before, or at all since he +studied it in school at Munich. + +"I should be afraid to put my school-boy German against your English," +March said, and, when he had understood, the other laughed for pleasure, +and reported the compliment to his wife in their own parlance. "You +Germans certainly beat us in languages." + +"Oh, well," he retaliated, "the Americans beat us in some other things," +and Mrs. March felt that this was but just; she would have liked to +mention a few, but not ungraciously; she and the German lady kept smiling +across the table, and trying detached vocables of their respective +tongues upon each other. + +The Bavarian said he lived in Munich still, but was in Ansbach on an +affair of business; he asked March if he were not going to see the +manoeuvres somewhere. Till now the manoeuvres had merely been the +interesting background of their travel; but now, hearing that the Emperor +of Germany, the King of Saxony, the Regent of Bavaria, and the King of +Wurtemberg, the Grand-Dukes of Weimar and Baden, with visiting potentates +of all sorts, and innumerable lesser highhotes, foreign and domestic, +were to be present, Mrs. March resolved that they must go to at least one +of the reviews. + +"If you go to Frankfort, you can see the King of Italy too," said the +Bavarian, but he owned that they probably could not get into a hotel +there, and he asked why they should not go to Wurzburg, where they could +see all the sovereigns except the King of Italy. + +"Wurzburg? Wurzburg?" March queried of his wife. "Where did we hear of +that place?" + +"Isn't it where Burnamy said Mr. Stoller had left his daughters at +school?" + +"So it is! And is that on the way to the Rhine?" he asked the Bavarian. + +"No, no! Wurzburg is on the Main, about five hours from Ansbach. And it +is a very interesting place. It is where the good wine comes from." + +"Oh, yes," said March, and in their rooms his wife got out all their +guides and maps and began to inform herself and to inform him about +Wurzburg. But first she said it was very cold and he must order some +fire made in the tall German stove in their parlor. The maid who came +said "Gleich," but she did not come back, and about the time they were +getting furious at her neglect, they began getting warm. He put his hand +on the stove and found it hot; then he looked down for a door in the +stove where he might shut a damper; there was no door. + +"Good heavens!" he shouted. "It's like something in a dream," and he ran +to pull the bell for help. + +"No, no! Don't ring! It will make us ridiculous. They'll think +Americans don't know anything. There must be some way of dampening the +stove; and if there isn't, I'd rather suffocate than give myself away." +Mrs. March ran and opened the window, while her husband carefully +examined the stove at every point, and explored the pipe for the damper +in vain. "Can't you find it?" The night wind came in raw and damp, and +threatened to blow their lamp out, and she was obliged to shut the +window. + +"Not a sign of it. I will go down and ask the landlord in strict +confidence how they dampen their stoves in Ansbach." + +"Well, if you must. It's getting hotter every moment." She followed him +timorously into the corridor, lit by a hanging lamp, turned low for the +night. + +He looked at his watch; it was eleven o'clock. "I'm afraid they're all +in bed." + +"Yes; you mustn't go! We must try to find out for ourselves. What can +that door be for?" + +It was a low iron door, half the height of a man, in the wall near their +room, and it yielded to his pull. "Get a candle," he whispered, and when +she brought it, he stooped to enter the doorway. + +"Oh, do you think you'd better?" she hesitated. + +"You can come, too, if you're afraid. You've always said you wanted to +die with me." + +"Well. But you go first." + +He disappeared within, and then came back to the doorway. "Just come in +here, a moment." She found herself in a sort of antechamber, half the +height of her own room, and following his gesture she looked down where +in one corner some crouching monster seemed showing its fiery teeth in a +grin of derision. This grin was the damper of their stove, and this was +where the maid had kindled the fire which had been roasting them alive, +and was still joyously chuckling to itself. "I think that Munich man was +wrong. I don't believe we beat the Germans in anything. There isn't a +hotel in the United States where the stoves have no front doors, and +every one of them has the space of a good-sized flat given up to the +convenience of kindling a fire in it." + + + + +L. + +After a red sunset of shameless duplicity March was awakened to a rainy +morning by the clinking of cavalry hoofs on the pavement of the long- +irregular square before the hotel, and he hurried out to see the passing +of the soldiers on their way to the manoeuvres. They were troops of all +arms, but mainly infantry, and as they stumped heavily through the groups +of apathetic citizens in their mud-splashed boots, they took the steady +downpour on their dripping helmets. Some of them were smoking, but none +smiling, except one gay fellow who made a joke to a serving-maid on the +sidewalk. An old officer halted his staff to scold a citizen who had +given him a mistaken direction. The shame of the erring man was great, +and the pride of a fellow-citizen who corrected him was not less, though +the arrogant brute before whom they both cringed used them with equal +scorn; the younger officers listened indifferently round on horseback +behind the glitter of their eyeglasses, and one of them amused himself by +turning the silver bangles on his wrist. + +Then the files of soldier slaves passed on, and March crossed the bridge +spanning the gardens in what had been the city moat, and found his way to +the market-place, under the walls of the old Gothic church of St. +Gumpertus. The market, which spread pretty well over the square, seemed +to be also a fair, with peasants' clothes and local pottery for sale, +as well as fruits and vegetables, and large baskets of flowers, with old +women squatting before them. It was all as picturesque as the markets +used to be in Montreal and Quebec, and in a cloudy memory of his wedding +journey long before, he bought so lavishly of the flowers to carry back +to his wife that a little girl, who saw his arm-load from her window as +he returned, laughed at him, and then drew shyly back. Her laugh +reminded him how many happy children he had seen in Germany, and how +freely they seemed to play everywhere, with no one to make them afraid. +When they grow up the women laugh as little as the men, whose rude toil +the soldiering leaves them to. + +He got home with his flowers, and his wife took them absently, and made +him join her in watching the sight which had fascinated her in the street +under their windows. A slender girl, with a waist as slim as a corseted +officer's, from time to time came out of the house across the way to the +firewood which had been thrown from a wagon upon the sidewalk there. +Each time she embraced several of the heavy four-foot logs and +disappeared with them in-doors. Once she paused from her work to joke +with a well-dressed man who came by; and seemed to find nothing odd in +her work; some gentlemen lounging at the window over head watched her +with no apparent sense of anomaly. + +"What do you think of that?" asked Mrs. March. "I think it's good +exercise for the girl, and I should like to recommend it to those fat +fellows at the window. I suppose she'll saw the wood in the cellar, and +then lug it up stairs, and pile it up in the stoves' dressing-rooms." + +"Don't laugh! It's too disgraceful." + +"Well, I don't know! If you like, I'll offer these gentlemen across the +way your opinion of it in the language of Goethe and Schiller." + +"I wish you'd offer my opinion of them. They've been staring in here +with an opera-glass." + +"Ah, that's a different affair. There isn't much going on in Ansbach, +and they have to make the most of it." + +The lower casements of the houses were furnished with mirrors set at +right angles with them, and nothing which went on in the streets was +lost. Some of the streets were long and straight, and at rare moments +they lay full of sun. At such times the Marches were puzzled by the +sight of citizens carrying open umbrellas, and they wondered if they had +forgotten to put them down, or thought it not worth while in the brief +respites from the rain, or were profiting by such rare occasions to dry +them; and some other sights remained baffling to the last. Once a man +with his hands pinioned before him, and a gendarme marching stolidly +after him with his musket on his shoulder, passed under their windows; +but who he was, or what he, had done, or was to suffer, they never knew. +Another time a pair went by on the way to the railway station: a young +man carrying an umbrella under his arm, and a very decent-looking old +woman lugging a heavy carpet bag, who left them to the lasting question +whether she was the young man's servant in her best clothes, or merely +his mother. + +Women do not do everything in Ansbach, however, the sacristans being men, +as the Marches found when they went to complete their impression of the +courtly past of the city by visiting the funeral chapel of the margraves +in the crypt of St. Johannis Church. In the little ex-margravely capital +there was something of the neighborly interest in the curiosity of +strangers which endears Italian witness. The white-haired street-sweeper +of Ansbach, who willingly left his broom to guide them to the house of +the sacristan, might have been a street-sweeper in Vicenza; and the old +sacristan, when he put his velvet skull-cap out of an upper window and +professed his willingness to show them the chapel, disappointed them by +saying "Gleich!" instead of "Subito!" The architecture of the houses was +a party to the illusion. St. Johannis, like the older church of St. +Gumpertus, is Gothic, with the two unequal towers which seem distinctive +of Ansbach; at the St. Gumpertus end of the place where they both stand +the dwellings are Gothic too, and might be in Hamburg; but at the St. +Johannis end they seem to have felt the exotic spirit of the court, and +are of a sort of Teutonized renaissance. + +The rococo margraves and margravines used of course to worship in St. +Johannis Church. Now they all, such as did not marry abroad, lie in the +crypt of the church, in caskets of bronze and copper and marble, with +draperies of black samite, more and more funereally vainglorious to the +last. Their courtly coffins are ranged in a kind of hemicycle, with the +little coffins of the children that died before they came to the +knowledge of their greatness. On one of these a kneeling figurine in +bronze holds up the effigy of the child within; on another the epitaph +plays tenderly with the fate of a little princess, who died in her first +year. + + In the Rose-month was this sweet Rose taken. + For the Rose-kind hath she earth forsaken. + The Princess is the Rose, that here no longer blows. + From the stem by death's hand rudely shaken. + Then rest in the Rose-house. + Little Princess-Rosebud dear! + There life's Rose shall bloom again + In Heaven's sunshine clear. + +While March struggled to get this into English words, two German ladies, +who had made themselves of his party, passed reverently away and left him +to pay the sacristan alone. + +"That is all right," he said, when he came out. "I think we got the most +value; and they didn't look as if they could afford it so well; though +you never can tell, here. These ladies may be the highest kind of +highhotes practising a praiseworthy economy. I hope the lesson won't be +lost on us. They have saved enough by us for their coffee at the +Orangery. Let us go and have a little willow-leaf tea!" + +The Orangery perpetually lured them by what it had kept of the days when +an Orangery was essential to the self-respect of every sovereign prince, +and of so many private gentlemen. On their way they always passed the +statue of Count Platen, the dull poet whom Heine's hate would have +delivered so cruelly over to an immortality of contempt, but who stands +there near the Schloss in a grass-plot prettily planted with flowers, and +ignores his brilliant enemy in the comfortable durability of bronze; and +there always awaited them in the old pleasaunce the pathos of Kaspar +Hauser's fate; which his murder affixes to it with a red stain. + +After their cups of willow leaves at the caf‚ they went up into that nook +of the plantation where the simple shaft of church-warden's Gothic +commemorates the assassination on the spot where it befell. Here the +hapless youth, whose mystery will never be fathomed on earth, used to +come for a little respite from his harsh guardian in Ansbach, homesick +for the kindness of his Nuremberg friends; and here his murderer found +him and dealt him the mortal blow. + +March lingered upon the last sad circumstance of the tragedy in which the +wounded boy dragged himself home, to suffer the suspicion and neglect of +his guardian till death attested his good faith beyond cavil. He said +this was the hardest thing to bear in all his story, and that he would +like to have a look into the soul of the dull, unkind wretch who had so +misread his charge. He was going on with an inquiry that pleased him +much, when his wife pulled him abruptly away. + +"Now, I see, you are yielding to the fascination of it, and you are +wanting to take the material from Burnamy!" + +"Oh, well, let him have the material; he will spoil it. And I can always +reject it, if he offers it to 'Every Other Week'." + +"I could believe, after your behavior to that poor woman about her son in +Jersey City, you're really capable of it." + +"What comprehensive inculpation! I had forgotten about that poor woman." + + + + +LI. + +The letters which March had asked his Nuremberg banker to send them came +just as they were leaving Ansbach. The landlord sent them down to the +station, and Mrs. March opened them in the train, and read them first so +that she could prepare him if there were anything annoying in them, as +well as indulge her livelier curiosity. + +"They're from both the children," she said, without waiting for him to +ask. "You can look at them later. There's a very nice letter from Mrs. +Adding to me, and one from dear little Rose for you." Then she +hesitated, with her hand on a letter faced down in her lap. "And there's +one from Agatha Triscoe, which I wonder what you'll think of." She +delayed again, and then flashed it open before him, and waited with a +sort of impassioned patience while he read it. + +He read it, and gave it back to her. "There doesn't seem to be very much +in it." + +"That's it! Don't you think I had a right to there being something in +it, after all I did for her?" + +"I always hoped you hadn't done anything for her, but if you have, why +should she give herself away on paper? It's a very proper letter." + +"It's a little too proper, and it's the last I shall have to do with her. +She knew that I should be on pins and needles till I heard how her father +had taken Burnamy's being there, that night, and she doesn't say a word +about it." + +"The general may have had a tantrum that she couldn't describe. Perhaps +she hasn't told him, yet." + +"She would tell him instantly!" cried Mrs. March who began to find +reason in the supposition, as well as comfort for the hurt which the +girl's reticence had given her. "Or if she wouldn't, it would be because +she was waiting for the best chance." + +"That would be like the wise daughter of a difficult father. She may be +waiting for the best chance to say how he took it. No, I'm all for Miss +Triscoe, and I hope that now, if she's taken herself off our hands, +she'll keep off." + +"It's altogether likely that he's made her promise not to tell me +anything about it," Mrs. March mused aloud. + +"That would be unjust to a person who had behaved so discreetly as you +have," said her husband. + +They were on their way to Wurzburg, and at the first station, which was a +junction, a lady mounted to their compartment just before the train began +to move. She was stout and middle-aged, and had never been pretty, but +she bore herself with a kind of authority in spite of her thread gloves, +her dowdy gray travelling-dress, and a hat of lower middle-class English +tastelessness. She took the only seat vacant, a backward-riding place +beside a sleeping passenger who looked like a commercial traveller, but +she seemed ill at ease in it, and March offered her his seat. She +accepted it very promptly, and thanked him for it in the English of a +German, and Mrs. March now classed her as a governess who had been +teaching in England and had acquired the national feeling for dress. +But in this character she found her interesting, and even a little +pathetic, and she made her some overtures of talk which the other met +eagerly enough. They were now running among low hills, not so +picturesque as those between Eger and Nuremberg, but of much the same +toylike quaintness in the villages dropped here and there in their +valleys. One small town, completely walled, with its gray houses and red +roofs, showed through the green of its trees and gardens so like a +colored print in a child's story-book that Mrs. March cried out for joy +in it, and then accounted for her rapture by explaining to the stranger +that they were Americans and had never been in Germany before. The lady +was not visibly affected by the fact, she said casually that she had +often been in that little town, which she named; her uncle had a castle +in the country back of it, and she came with her husband for the shooting +in the autumn. By a natural transition she spoke of her children, for +whom she had an English governess; she said she had never been in +England, but had learnt the language from a governess in her own +childhood; and through it all Mrs. March perceived that she was trying to +impress them with her consequence. To humor her pose, she said they had +been looking up the scene of Kaspar Hauser's death at Ansbach; and at +this the stranger launched into such intimate particulars concerning him, +and was so familiar at first hands with the facts of his life, that Mrs. +March let her run on, too much amused with her pretensions to betray any +doubt of her. She wondered if March were enjoying it all as much, and +from time to time she tried to catch his eye, while the lady talked +constantly and rather loudly, helping herself out with words from them +both when her English failed her. In the safety of her perfect +understanding of the case, Mrs. March now submitted farther, and even +suffered some patronage from her, which in another mood she would have +met with a decided snub. + +As they drew in among the broad vine-webbed slopes of the Wurzburg, +hills, the stranger said she was going to change there, and take a train +on to Berlin. Mrs. March wondered whether she would be able to keep up +the comedy to the last; and she had to own that she carried it off very +easily when the friends whom she was expecting did not meet her on the +arrival of their train. She refused March's offers of help, and remained +quietly seated while he got out their wraps and bags. She returned with +a hardy smile the cold leave Mrs. March took of her; and when a porter +came to the door, and forced his way by the Marches, to ask with anxious +servility if she, were the Baroness von-----, she bade the man get them. +a 'traeger', and then come back for her. She waved them a complacent +adieu before they mixed with the crowd and lost sight of her. + +"Well, my dear," said March, addressing the snobbishness in his wife +which he knew to be so wholly impersonal, "you've mingled with one +highhote, anyway. I must say she didn't look it, any more than the Duke +and Duchess of Orleans, and yet she's only a baroness. Think of our +being three hours in the same compartment, and she doing all she could to +impress us and our getting no good of it! I hoped you were feeling her +quality, so that we should have it in the family, anyway, and always know +what it was like. But so far, the highhotes have all been terribly +disappointing." + +He teased on as they followed the traeger with their baggage out of the +station; and in the omnibus on the way to their hotel, he recurred to the +loss they had suffered in the baroness's failure to dramatize her +nobility effectually. "After all, perhaps she was as much disappointed +in us. I don't suppose we looked any more like democrats than she looked +like an aristocrat." + +"But there's a great difference," Mrs. March returned at last. "It isn't +at all a parallel case. We were not real democrats, and she was a real +aristocrat." + +"To be sure. There is that way of looking at it. That's rather novel; I +wish I had thought of that myself. She was certainly more to blame than +we were." + + + + +LII. + +The square in front of the station was planted with flag-poles wreathed +in evergreens; a triumphal arch was nearly finished, and a colossal +allegory in imitation bronze was well on the way to completion, in honor +of the majesties who were coming for the manoeuvres. The streets which +the omnibus passed through to the Swan Inn were draped with the imperial +German and the royal Bavarian colors; and the standards of the visiting +nationalities decked the fronts of the houses where their military +attaches were lodged; but the Marches failed to see our own banner, and +were spared for the moment the ignominy of finding it over an apothecary +shop in a retired avenue. The sun had come out, the sky overhead was of +a smiling blue; and they felt the gala-day glow and thrill in the depths +of their inextinguishable youth. + +The Swan Inn sits on one of the long quays bordering the Main, and its +windows look down upon the bridges and shipping of the river; but the +traveller reaches it by a door in the rear, through an archway into a +back street, where an odor dating back to the foundation of the city is +waiting to welcome him. + +The landlord was there, too, and he greeted the Marches so cordially that +they fully partook his grief in being able to offer them rooms on the +front of the house for two nights only. They reconciled themselves to +the necessity of then turning out for the staff of the King of Saxony, +the more readily because they knew that there was no hope of better +things at any other hotel. + +The rooms which they could have for the time were charming, and they came +down to supper in a glazed gallery looking out on the river picturesque +with craft of all fashions: with row-boats, sail-boats, and little +steamers, but mainly with long black barges built up into houses in the +middle, and defended each by a little nervous German dog. Long rafts of +logs weltered in the sunset red which painted the swift current, and +mantled the immeasurable vineyards of the hills around like the color of +their ripening grapes. Directly in face rose a castled steep, which kept +the ranging walls and the bastions and battlements of the time when such +a stronghold could have defended the city from foes without or from +tumult within. The arches of a stately bridge spanned the river +sunsetward, and lifted a succession of colossal figures against the +crimson sky. + +"I guess we have been wasting our time, my dear," said March, as they, +turned from this beauty to the question of supper. "I wish we had always +been here!" + +Their waiter had put them at a table in a division of the gallery beyond +that which they entered, where some groups of officers were noisily +supping. There was no one in their room but a man whose face was +indistinguishable against the light, and two young girls who glanced at +them with looks at once quelled and defiant, and then after a stare at +the officers in the gallery beyond, whispered together with suppressed +giggling. The man fed on without noticing them, except now and then to +utter a growl that silenced the whispering and giggling for a moment. +The Marches, from no positive evidence of any sense, decided that they +were Americans. + +"I don't know that I feel responsible for them as their fellow- +countryman; I should, once," he said. + +"It isn't that. It's the worry of trying to make out why they are just +what they are," his wife returned. + +The girls drew the man's attention to them and he looked at them for the +first time; then after a sort of hesitation he went on with his supper. +They had only begun theirs when he rose with the two girls, whom Mrs. +March now saw to be of the same size and dressed alike, and came heavily +toward them. + +"I thought you was in Carlsbad," he said bluntly to March, with a nod at +Mrs. March. He added, with a twist of his head toward the two girls, +"My daughters," and then left them to her, while he talked on with her +husband. "Come to see this foolery, I suppose. I'm on my way to the +woods for my after-cure; but I thought I might as well stop and give the +girls a chance; they got a week's vacation, anyway." Stoller glanced at +them with a sort of troubled tenderness in his strong dull face. + +"Oh, yes. I understood they were at school here," said March, and he +heard one of them saying, in a sweet, high pipe to his wife: + +"Ain't it just splendid? I ha'n't seen anything equal to it since the +Worrld's Fairr." She spoke with a strong contortion of the Western r, +and her sister hastened to put in: + +"I don't think it's to be compared with the Worrld's Fairr. But these +German girls, here, just think it's great. It just does me good to laff +at 'em, about it. I like to tell 'em about the electric fountain and the +Courrt of Iionorr when they get to talkin' about the illuminations +they're goun' to have. You goun' out to the parade? You better engage +your carriage right away if you arre. The carrs'll be a perfect jam. +Father's engaged ourrs; he had to pay sixty marrks forr it." + +They chattered on without shyness and on as easy terms with a woman of +three times their years as if she had been a girl of their own age; they +willingly took the whole talk to themselves, and had left her quite +outside of it before Stoller turned to her. + +"I been telling Mr. March here that you better both come to the parade +with us. I guess my twospanner will hold five; or if it won't, we'll +make it. I don't believe there's a carriage left in Wurzburg; and if you +go in the cars, you'll have to walk three or four miles before you get to +the parade-ground. You think it over," he said to March. "Nobody else +is going to have the places, anyway, and you can say yes at the last +minute just as well as now." + +He moved off with his girls, who looked over their shoulders at the +officers as they passed on through the adjoining room. + +"My dear!" cried Mrs. March. "Didn't you suppose he classed us with +Burnamy in that business? Why should he be polite to us?" + +"Perhaps he wants you to chaperon his daughters. He's probably heard of +your performance at the Kurhaus ball. But he knows that I thought +Burnamy in the wrong. This may be Stoller's way of wiping out an +obligation. Wouldn't you like to go with him?" + +"The mere thought of his being in the same town is prostrating. I'd far +rather he hated us; then he would avoid us." + +"Well, he doesn't own the town, and if it comes to the worst, perhaps we +can avoid him. Let us go out, anyway, and see if we can't." + +"No, no; I'm too tired; but you go. And get all the maps and guides you +can; there's so very little in Baedeker, and almost nothing in that great +hulking Bradshaw of yours; and I'm sure there must be the most +interesting history of Wurzburg. Isn't it strange that we haven't the +slightest association with the name?" + +"I've been rummaging in my mind, and I've got hold of an association at +last," said March. "It's beer; a sign in a Sixth Avenue saloon window +Wurzburger Hof-Brau." + +"No matter if it is beer. Find some sketch of the history, and we'll try +to get away from the Stollers in it. I pitied those wild girls, too. +What crazy images of the world must fill their empty minds! How their +ignorant thoughts must go whirling out into the unknown! I don't envy +their father. Do hurry back! I shall be thinking about them every +instant till you come." + +She said this, but in their own rooms it was so soothing to sit looking +through the long twilight at the lovely landscape that the sort of bruise +given by their encounter with the Stollers had left her consciousness +before March returned. She made him admire first the convent church on a +hill further up the river which exactly balanced the fortress in front of +them, and then she seized upon the little books he had brought, and set +him to exploring the labyrinths of their German, with a mounting +exultation in his discoveries. There was a general guide to the city, +and a special guide, with plans and personal details of the approaching +manoeuvres and the princes who were to figure in them; and there was a +sketch of the local history: a kind of thing that the Germans know how to +write particularly, well, with little gleams of pleasant humor blinking +through it. For the study of this, Mrs. March realized, more and more +passionately, that they were in the very most central and convenient +point, for the history of Wurzburg might be said to have begun with her +prince-bishops, whose rule had begun in the twelfth century, and who had +built, on a forgotten Roman work, the fortress of the Marienburg on that +vineyarded hill over against the Swan Inn. There had of course been +history before that, but 'nothing so clear, nothing so peculiarly swell, +nothing that so united the glory of this world and the next as that of +the prince-bishops. They had made the Marienburg their home, and kept it +against foreign and domestic foes for five hundred years. Shut within +its well-armed walls they had awed the often-turbulent city across the +Main; they had held it against the embattled farmers in the Peasants' +War, and had splendidly lost it to Gustavus Adolphus, and then got it +back again and held it till Napoleon took it from them. He gave it with +their flock to the Bavarians, who in turn briefly yielded it to the +Prussians in 1866, and were now in apparently final possession of it. + +Before the prince-bishops, Charlemagne and Barbarossa had come and gone, +and since the prince-bishops there had been visiting thrones and kingdoms +enough in the ancient city, which was soon to be illustrated by the +presence of imperial Germany, royal, Wirtemberg and Saxony, grand-ducal +Baden and Weimar, and a surfeit of all the minor potentates among those +who speak the beautiful language of the Ja. + +But none of these could dislodge the prince-bishops from that supreme +place which they had at once taken in Mrs. March's fancy. The potentates +were all going to be housed in the vast palace which the prince-bishops +had built themselves in Wurzburg as soon as they found it safe to come +down from their stronghold of Marienburg, and begin to adorn their city, +and to confirm it in its intense fidelity to the Church. Tiepolo had +come up out of Italy to fresco their palace, where he wrought year after +year, in that worldly taste which has somehow come to express the most +sovereign moment of ecclesiasticism. It prevailed so universally in +Wurzburg that it left her with the name of the Rococo City, intrenched in +a period of time equally remote from early Christianity and modern +Protestantism. Out of her sixty thousand souls, only ten thousand are +now of the reformed religion, and these bear about the same relation to +the Catholic spirit of the place that the Gothic architecture bears to +the baroque. + +As long as the prince-bishops lasted the Wurzburgers got on very well +with but one newspaper, and perhaps the smallest amount of merrymaking +known outside of the colony of Massachusetts Bay at the same epoch. The +prince-bishops had their finger in everybody's pie, and they portioned +out the cakes and ale, which were made according to formulas of their +own. The distractions were all of a religious character; churches, +convents, monasteries, abounded; ecclesiastical processions and +solemnities were the spectacles that edified if they did not amuse the +devout population. + +It seemed to March an ironical outcome of all this spiritual severity +that one of the greatest modern scientific discoveries should have been +made in Wurzburg, and that the Roentgen rays should now be giving her +name a splendor destined to eclipse the glories of her past. + +Mrs. March could not allow that they would do so; or at least that the +name of Roentgen would ever lend more lustre to his city than that of +Longfellow's Walther von der Vogelweide. She was no less surprised than +pleased to realize that this friend of the birds was a Wurzburger, and +she said that their first pilgrimage in the morning should be to the +church where he lies buried. + + + + +LIII. + +March went down to breakfast not quite so early as his wife had planned, +and left her to have her coffee in her room. He got a pleasant table in +the gallery overlooking the river, and he decided that the landscape, +though it now seemed to be rather too much studied from a drop-certain, +had certainly lost nothing of its charm in the clear morning light. The +waiter brought his breakfast, and after a little delay came back with a +card which he insisted was for March. It was not till he put on his +glasses and read the name of Mr. R. M. Kenby that he was able at all to +agree with the waiter, who stood passive at his elbow. + +"Well," he said, "why wasn't this card sent up last night?" + +The waiter explained that the gentleman had just, given him his card, +after asking March's nationality, and was then breakfasting in the next +room. March caught up his napkin and ran round the partition wall, and +Kenby rose with his napkin and hurried to meet him. + +"I thought it must be you," he called out, joyfully, as they struck their +extended hands together, "but so many people look alike, nowadays, that I +don't trust my eyes any more." + +Kenby said he had spent the time since they last met partly in Leipsic +and partly in Gotha, where he had amused himself in rubbing up his rusty +German. As soon as he realized that Wurzburg was so near he had slipped +down from Gotha for a glimpse of the manoeuvres. He added that he +supposed March was there to see them, and he asked with a quite +unembarrassed smile if they had met Mr. Adding in Carlsbad, and without +heeding March's answer, he laughed and added: "Of course, I know she must +have told Mrs. March all about it." + +March could not deny this; he laughed, too; though in his wife's absence +he felt bound to forbid himself anything more explicit. + +"I don't give it up, you know," Kenby went on, with perfect ease. "I'm +not a young fellow, if you call thirty-nine old." + +"At my age I don't," March put in, and they roared together, in men's +security from the encroachments of time. + +"But she happens to be the only woman I've ever really wanted to marry, +for more than a few days at a stretch. You know how it is with us." + +"Oh, yes, I know," said March, and they shouted again. + +"We're in love, and we're out of love, twenty times. But this isn't a +mere fancy; it's a conviction. And there's no reason why she shouldn't +marry me." + +March smiled gravely, and his smile was not lost upon Kenby. "You mean +the boy," he said. "Well, I like Rose," and now March really felt swept +from his feet. "She doesn't deny that she likes me, but she seems to +think that her marrying again will take her from him; the fact is, it +will only give me to him. As for devoting her whole life to him, she +couldn't do a worse thing for him. What the boy needs is a man's care, +and a man's will-- Good heavens! You don't think I could ever be unkind +to the little soul?" Kenby threw himself forward over the table. + +"My dear fellow!" March protested. + +"I'd rather cut off my right hand! " Kenby pursued, excitedly, and then +he said, with a humorous drop: "The fact is, I don't believe I should +want her so much if I couldn't have Rose too. I want to have them both. +So far, I've only got no for an answer; but I'm not going to keep it. +I had a letter from Rose at Carlsbad, the other day; and--" + +The waiter came forward with a folded scrap of paper on his salver, which +March knew must be from his wife. "What is keeping you so?" she wrote. +"I am all ready." "It's from Mrs. March," he explained to Kenby. "I am +going out with her on some errands. I'm awfully glad to see you again. +We must talk it all over, and you must--you mustn't--Mrs. March will want +to see you later--I--Are you in the hotel?" + +"Oh yes. I'll see you at the one-o'clock table d'hote, I suppose." + +March went away with his head whirling in the question whether he should +tell his wife at once of Kenby's presence, or leave her free for the +pleasures of Wurzburg, till he could shape the fact into some safe and +acceptable form. She met him at the door with her guide-books, wraps and +umbrellas, and would hardly give him time to get on his hat and coat. + +"Now, I want you to avoid the Stollers as far as you can see them. This +is to be a real wedding-journey day, with no extraneous acquaintance to +bother; the more strangers the better. Wurzburg is richer than anything +I imagined. I've looked it all up; I've got the plan of the city, so +that we can easily find the way. We'll walk first, and take carriages +whenever we get tired. We'll go to the cathedral at once; I want a good +gulp of rococo to begin with; there wasn't half enough of it at Ansbach. +Isn't it strange how we've come round to it?" + +She referred to that passion for the Gothic which they had obediently +imbibed from Ruskin in the days of their early Italian travel and +courtship, when all the English-speaking world bowed down to him in +devout aversion from the renaissance, and pious abhorrence of the rococo. + +"What biddable little things we were!" she went on, while March was +struggling to keep Kenby in the background of his consciousness. +"The rococo must have always had a sneaking charm for us, when we were +pinning our faith to pointed arches; and yet I suppose we were perfectly +sincere. Oh, look at that divinely ridiculous Madonna!" They were now +making their way out of the crooked footway behind their hotel toward the +street leading to the cathedral, and she pointed to the Blessed Virgin +over the door of some religious house, her drapery billowing about her +feet; her body twisting to show the sculptor's mastery of anatomy, and +the halo held on her tossing head with the help of stout gilt rays. In +fact, the Virgin's whole figure was gilded, and so was that of the child +in her arms. "Isn't she delightful?" + +"I see what you mean," said March, with a dubious glance at the statue, +"but I'm not sure, now, that I wouldn't like something quieter in my +Madonnas." + +The thoroughfare which they emerged upon, with the cathedral ending the +prospective, was full of the holiday so near at hand. The narrow +sidewalks were thronged with people, both soldiers and civilians, and up +the middle of the street detachments of military came and went, halting +the little horse-cars and the huge beer-wagons which otherwise seemed to +have the sole right to the streets of Wurzburg; they came jingling or +thundering out of the aide streets and hurled themselves round the +corners reckless of the passers, who escaped alive by flattening +themselves like posters against the house walls. There were peasants, +men and women, in the costume which the unbroken course of their country +life had kept as quaint as it was a hundred years before; there were +citizens in the misfits of the latest German fashions; there were +soldiers of all arms in their vivid uniforms, and from time to time there +were pretty young girls in white dresses with low necks, and bare arms +gloved to the elbows, who were following a holiday custom of the place in +going about the streets in ball costume. The shop windows were filled +with portraits of the Emperor and the Empress, and the Prince-Regent and +the ladies of his family; the German and Bavarian colors draped the +facades of the houses and festooned the fantastic Madonnas posing above +so many portals. The modern patriotism included the ancient piety +without disturbing it; the rococo city remained ecclesiastical through +its new imperialism, and kept the stamp given it by the long rule of the +prince-bishops under the sovereignty of its King and the suzerainty of +its Kaiser. + +The Marches escaped from the present, when they entered the cathedral, as +wholly as if they had taken hold of the horns of the altar, though they +were far from literally doing this in an interior so grandiose. There +area few rococo churches in Italy, and perhaps more in Spain, which +approach the perfection achieved by the Wurzburg cathedral in the baroque +style. For once one sees what that style can do in architecture and +sculpture, and whatever one may say of the details, one cannot deny that +there is a prodigiously effective keeping in it all. This interior came +together, as the decorators say, with a harmony that the travellers had +felt nowhere in their earlier experience of the rococo. It was, +unimpeachably perfect in its way, "Just," March murmured to his wife, +"as the social and political and scientific scheme of the eighteenth +century was perfected in certain times and places. But the odd thing is +to find the apotheosis of the rococo away up here in Germany. I wonder +how much the prince-bishops really liked it. But they had become rococo, +too! Look at that row of their statues on both sides of the nave! What +magnificent swell! How they abash this poor plain Christ, here; he would +like to get behind the pillar; he knows that he could never lend himself +to the baroque style. It expresses the eighteenth century, though. But +how you long for some little hint of the thirteenth, or even the +nineteenth." + +"I don't," she whispered back. "I'm perfectly wild with Wurzburg. +I like to have a thing go as far as it can. At Nuremberg I wanted all +the Gothic I could get, and in Wurzburg I want all the baroque I can get. +I am consistent." + +She kept on praising herself to his disadvantage, as women do, all the +way to the Neumunster Church, where they were going to revere the tomb of +Walther yon der Vogelweide, not so much for his own sake as for +Longfellow's. The older poet lies buried within, but his monument is +outside the church, perhaps for the greater convenience of the sparrows, +which now represent the birds he loved. The cenotaph is surmounted by a +broad vase, and around this are thickly perched the effigies of the +Meistersinger's feathered friends, from whom the canons of the church, as +Mrs. March read aloud from her Baedeker, long ago directed his bequest to +themselves. In revenge for their lawless greed the defrauded +beneficiaries choose to burlesque the affair by looking like the four- +and-twenty blackbirds when the pie was opened. + +She consented to go for a moment to the Gothic Marienkapelle with her +husband in the revival of his mediaeval taste, and she was rewarded +amidst its thirteenth-century sincerity by his recantation. "You are +right! Baroque is the thing for Wurzburg; one can't enjoy Gothic here +any more than one could enjoy baroque in Nuremberg." + +Reconciled in the rococo, they now called a carriage, and went to visit +the palace of the prince-bishops who had so well known how to make the +heavenly take the image and superscription of the worldly; and they were +jointly indignant to find it shut against the public in preparation for +the imperialities and royalties coining to occupy it. They were in time +for the noon guard-mounting, however, and Mrs. March said that the way +the retiring squad kicked their legs out in the high martial step of the +German soldiers was a perfect expression of the insolent militarism of +their empire, and was of itself enough to make one thank Heaven that one +was an American and a republican. She softened a little toward their +system when it proved that the garden of the palace was still open, and +yet more when she sank down upon a bench between two marble groups +representing the Rape of Proserpine and the Rape of Europa. They stood +each in a gravelled plot, thickly overrun by a growth of ivy, and the +vine climbed the white naked limbs of the nymphs, who were present on a +pretence of gathering flowers, but really to pose at the spectators, and +clad them to the waist and shoulders with an effect of modesty never +meant by the sculptor, but not displeasing. There was an old fountain +near, its stone rim and centre of rock-work green with immemorial mould, +and its basin quivering between its water-plants under the soft fall of +spray. At a waft of fitful breeze some leaves of early autumn fell from +the trees overhead upon the elderly pair where they sat, and a little +company of sparrows came and hopped about their feet. Though the square +without was so all astir with festive expectation, there were few people +in the garden; three or four peasant women in densely fluted white skirts +and red aprons and shawls wandered by and stared at the Europa and at the +Proserpine. + +It was a precious moment in which the charm of the city's past seemed to +culminate, and they were loath to break it by speech. + +"Why didn't we have something like all this on our first wedding +journey?" she sighed at last. "To think of our battening from Boston to +Niagara and back! And how hard we tried to make something of Rochester +and Buffalo, of Montreal and Quebec!" + +"Niagara wasn't so bad," he said, "and I will never go back on Quebec." + +"Ah, but if we could have had Hamburg and Leipsic, and Carlsbad and +Nuremberg, and Ansbach and Wurzburg! Perhaps this is meant as a +compensation for our lost youth. But I can't enjoy it as I could when I +was young. It's wasted on my sere and yellow leaf. I wish Burnamy and +Miss Triscoe were here; I should like to try this garden on them." + +"They wouldn't care for it," he replied, and upon a daring impulse he +added, "Kenby and Mrs. Adding might." If she took this suggestion in +good part, he could tell her that Kenby was in Wurzburg. + +"Don't speak of them! They're in just that besotted early middle-age +when life has settled into a self-satisfied present, with no past and no +future; the most philistine, the most bourgeois, moment of existence. +Better be elderly at once, as far as appreciation of all this goes." +She rose and put her hand on his arm, and pushed him away in the +impulsive fashion of her youth, across alleys of old trees toward a +balustraded terrace in the background which had tempted her. + +"It isn't so bad, being elderly," he said. "By that time we have +accumulated enough past to sit down and really enjoy its associations. +We have got all sorts of perspectives and points of view. We know ° +where we are at." + +"I don't mind being elderly. The world's just as amusing as ever, and +lots of disagreeable things have dropped out. It's the getting more than +elderly; it's the getting old; and then--" + +They shrank a little closer together, and walked on in silence till he +said, "Perhaps there's something else, something better--somewhere." + +They had reached the balustraded terrace, and were pausing for pleasure +in the garden tops below, with the flowery spaces, and the statued +fountains all coming together. She put her hand on one of the fat little +urchin-groups on the stone coping. "I don't want cherubs, when I can +have these putti. And those old prince-bishops didn't, either!" + +I don't suppose they kept a New England conscience," he said, with a +vague smile. "It would be difficult in the presence of the rococo." + +They left the garden through the beautiful gate which the old court +ironsmith Oegg hammered out in lovely forms of leaves and flowers, and +shaped laterally upward, as lightly as if with a waft of his hand, in +gracious Louis Quinze curves; and they looked back at it in the kind of +despair which any perfection inspires. They said how feminine it was, +how exotic, how expressive of a luxurious ideal of life which art had +purified and left eternally charming. They remembered their Ruskinian +youth, and the confidence with which they would once have condemned it; +and they had a sense of recreance in now admiring it; but they certainly +admired it, and it remained for them the supreme expression of that time- +soul, mundane, courtly, aristocratic, flattering, which once influenced +the art of the whole world, and which had here so curiously found its +apotheosis in a city remote from its native place and under a rule +sacerdotally vowed to austerity. The vast superb palace of the prince +bishops, which was now to house a whole troop of sovereigns, imperial, +royal, grand ducal and ducal, swelled aloft in superb amplitude; but it +did not realize their historic pride so effectively as this exquisite +work of the court ironsmith. It related itself in its aerial beauty to +that of the Tiepolo frescoes which the travellers knew were swimming and +soaring on the ceilings within, and from which it seemed to accent their +exclusion with a delicate irony, March said. "Or iron-mongery," he +corrected himself upon reflection. + + + + +LIV. + +He had forgotten Kenby in these aesthetic interests, but he remembered +him again when he called a carriage, and ordered it driven to their +hotel. It was the hour of the German mid-day table d'hote, and they +would be sure to meet him there. The question now was how March should +own his presence in time to prevent his wife from showing her ignorance +of it to Kenby himself, and he was still turning the question hopelessly +over in his mind when the sight of the hotel seemed to remind her of a +fact which she announced. + +"Now, my dear, I am tired to death, and I am not going to sit through a +long table d'hote. I want you to send me up a simple beefsteak and a cup +of tea to our rooms; and I don't want you to come near for hours; because +I intend to take a whole afternoon nap. You can keep all the maps and +plans, and guides, and you had better go and see what the Volksfest is +like; it will give you some notion of the part the people are really +taking in all this official celebration, and you know I don't care. +Don't come up after dinner to see how I am getting along; I shall get +along; and if you should happen to wake me after I had dropped off--" + +Kenby had seen them arrive from where he sat at the reading-room window, +waiting for the dinner hour, and had meant to rush out and greet Mrs. +March as they passed up the corridor. But she looked so tired that he +had decided to spare her till she came down to dinner; and as he sat with +March at their soup, he asked if she were not well. + +March explained, and he provisionally invented some regrets from her that +she should not see Kenby till supper. + +Kenby ordered a bottle of one of the famous Wurzburg wines for their +mutual consolation in her absence, and in the friendliness which its +promoted they agreed to spend the afternoon together. No man is so +inveterate a husband as not to take kindly an occasional release to +bachelor companionship, and before the dinner was over they agreed that +they would go to the Volksfest, and get some notion of the popular life +and amusements of Wurzburg, which was one of the few places where Kenby +had never been before; and they agreed that they would walk. + +Their way was partly up the quay of the Main, past a barrack full of +soldiers. They met detachments of soldiers everywhere, infantry, +artillery, cavalry. + +"This is going to be a great show," Kenby said, meaning the manoeuvres, +and he added, as if now he had kept away from the subject long enough and +had a right to recur to it, at least indirectly, "I should like to have +Rose see it, and get his impressions." + +"I've an idea he wouldn't approve of it. His mother says his mind is +turning more and more to philanthropy." + +Kenby could not forego such a chance to speak of Mrs. Adding. "It's one +of the prettiest things to see how she understands Rose. It's charming +to see them together. She wouldn't have half the attraction without +him." + +"Oh, yes," March assented. He had often wondered how a man wishing to +marry a widow managed with the idea of her children by another marriage; +but if Kenby was honest; it was much simpler than he had supposed. He +could not say this to him, however, and in a certain embarrassment he had +with the conjecture in his presence he attempted a diversion. "We're +promised something at the Volksfest which will be a great novelty to us +as Americans. Our driver told us this morning that one of the houses +there was built entirely of wood." + +When they reached the grounds of the Volksfest, this civil feature of the +great military event at hand, which the Marches had found largely set +forth in the programme of the parade, did not fully keep the glowing +promises made for it; in fact it could not easily have done so. It was +in a pleasant neighborhood of new villas such as form the modern quarter +of every German city, and the Volksfest was even more unfinished than its +environment. It was not yet enclosed by the fence which was to hide its +wonders from the non-paying public, but March and Kenby went in through +an archway where the gate-money was as effectually collected from them as +if they were barred every other entrance. + +The wooden building was easily distinguishable from the other edifices +because these were tents and booths still less substantial. They did not +make out its function, but of the others four sheltered merry-go-rounds, +four were beer-gardens, four were restaurants, and the rest were devoted +to amusements of the usual country-fair type. Apparently they had little +attraction for country people. The Americans met few peasants in the +grounds, and neither at the Edison kinematograph, where they refreshed +their patriotism with some scenes of their native life, nor at the little +theatre where they saw the sports of the arena revived, in the wrestle of +a woman with a bear, did any of the people except tradesmen and artisans +seem to be taking part in the festival expression of the popular +pleasure. + +The woman, who finally threw the bear, whether by slight, or by main +strength, or by a previous understanding with him, was a slender +creature, pathetically small and not altogether plain; and March as they +walked away lapsed into a pensive muse upon her strange employ. He +wondered how she came to take it up, and whether she began with the bear +when they were both very young, and she could easily throw him. + +"Well, women have a great deal more strength than we suppose," Kenby +began with a philosophical air that gave March the hope of some rational +conversation. Then his eye glazed with a far-off look, and a doting +smile came into his face. "When we went through the Dresden gallery +together, Rose and I were perfectly used up at the end of an hour, but +his mother kept on as long as there was anything to see, and came away as +fresh as a peach." + +Then March saw that it was useless to expect anything different from him, +and he let him talk on about Mrs. Adding all the rest of the way back to +the hotel. Kenby seemed only to have begun when they reached the door, +and wanted to continue the subject in the reading-room. + +March pleaded his wish to find how his wife had got through the +afternoon, and he escaped to her. He would have told her now that Kenby +was in the house, but he was really so sick of the fact himself that he +could not speak of it at once, and he let her go on celebrating all she +had seen from the window since she had waked from her long nap. She said +she could never be glad enough that they had come just at that time. +Soldiers had been going by the whole afternoon, and that made it so +feudal. + +Yes," he assented. "But aren't you coming up to the station with me to +see the Prince-Regent arrive? He's due at seven, you know." + +"I declare I had forgotten all about it. No, I'm not equal to it. You +must go; you can tell me everything; be sure to notice how the Princess +Maria looks; the last of the Stuarts, you know; and some people consider +her the rightful Queen of England; and I'll have the supper ordered, and +we can go down as soon as you've got back." + + + + +LV. + +March felt rather shabby stealing away without Kenby; but he had really +had as much of Mrs. Adding as he could stand, for one day, and he was +even beginning to get sick of Rose. Besides, he had not sent back a line +for 'Every Other Week' yet, and he had made up his mind to write a sketch +of the manoeuvres. To this end he wished to receive an impression of the +Prince-Regent's arrival which should not be blurred or clouded by other +interests. His wife knew the kind of thing he liked to see, and would +have helped him out with his observations, but Kenby would have got in +the way, and would have clogged the movement of his fancy in assigning +the facts to the parts he would like them to play in the sketch. + +At least he made some such excuses to himself as he hurried along toward +the Kaiserstrasse. The draught of universal interest in that direction +had left the other streets almost deserted, but as he approached the +thoroughfare he found all the ways blocked, and the horse-cars, +ordinarily so furiously headlong, arrested by the multiple ranks of +spectators on the sidewalks. The avenue leading from the railway station +to the palace was decorated with flags and garlands, and planted with the +stems of young firs and birches. The doorways were crowded, and the +windows dense with eager faces peering out of the draped bunting. The +carriageway was kept clear by mild policemen who now and then allowed one +of the crowd to cross it. + +The crowd was made up mostly of women and boys, and when March joined +them, they had already been waiting an hour for the sight of the princes +who were to bless them with a vision of the faery race which kings always +are to common men. He thought the people looked dull, and therefore able +to bear the strain of expectation with patience better than a livelier +race. They relieved it by no attempt at joking; here and there a dim +smile dawned on a weary face, but it seemed an effect of amiability +rather than humor. There was so little of this, or else it was so well +bridled by the solemnity of the occasion, that not a man, woman, or child +laughed when a bareheaded maid-servant broke through the lines and ran +down between them with a life-size plaster bust of the Emperor William in +her arms: she carried it like an overgrown infant, and in alarm at her +conspicuous part she cast frightened looks from side to side without +arousing any sort of notice. Undeterred by her failure, a young dog, +parted from his owner, and seeking him in the crowd, pursued his search +in a wild flight down the guarded roadway with an air of anxiety that in +America would have won him thunders of applause, and all sorts of kindly +encouragements to greater speed. But this German crowd witnessed his +progress apparently without interest, and without a sign of pleasure. +They were there to see the Prince-Regent arrive, and they did not suffer +themselves to be distracted by any preliminary excitement. Suddenly the +indefinable emotion which expresses the fulfilment of expectation in a +waiting crowd passed through the multitude, and before he realized it +March was looking into the friendly gray-bearded face of the Prince- +Regent, for the moment that his carriage allowed in passing. This came +first preceded by four outriders, and followed by other simple equipages +of Bavarian blue, full of highnesses of all grades. Beside the Regent +sat his daughter-in-law, the Princess Maria, her silvered hair framing a +face as plain and good as the Regent's, if not so intelligent. + +He, in virtue of having been born in Wurzburg, is officially supposed to +be specially beloved by his fellow townsmen; and they now testified their +affection as he whirled through their ranks, bowing right and left, by +what passes in Germany for a cheer. It is the word Hoch, groaned forth +from abdominal depths, and dismally prolonged in a hollow roar like that +which the mob makes behind the scenes at the theatre before bursting in +visible tumult on the stage. Then the crowd dispersed, and March came +away wondering why such a kindly-looking Prince-Regent should not have +given them a little longer sight of himself; after they had waited so +patiently for hours to see him. But doubtless in those countries, he +concluded, the art of keeping the sovereign precious by suffering him to +be rarely and briefly seen is wisely studied. + +On his way home he resolved to confess Kenby's presence; and he did so as +soon as he sat down to supper with his wife. "I ought to have told you +the first thing after breakfast. But when I found you in that mood of +having the place all to ourselves, I put it off." + +"You took terrible chances, my dear," she said, gravely. + +"And I have been terribly punished. You've no idea how much Kenby has +talked to me about Mrs. Adding!" + +She broke out laughing. "Well, perhaps you've suffered enough. But you +can see now, can't you, that it would have been awful if I had met him, +and let out that I didn't know he was here?" + +"Terrible. But if I had told, it would have spoiled the whole morning +for you; you couldn't have thought of anything else." + +"Oh, I don't know," she said, airily. "What should you think if I told +you I had known he was here ever since last night?" She went on in +delight at the start he gave. "I saw him come into the hotel while you +were gone for the guide-books, and I determined to keep it from you as +long as I could; I knew it would worry you. We've both been very nice; +and I forgive you," she hurried on, "because I've really got something to +tell you." + +"Don't tell me that Burnamy is here!" + +"Don't jump to conclusions! No, Burnamy isn't here, poor fellow! And +don't suppose that I'm guilty of concealment because I haven't told you +before. I was just thinking whether I wouldn't spare you till morning, +but now I shall let you take the brunt of it. Mrs. Adding and Rose are +here." She gave the fact time to sink in, and then she added, "And Miss +Triscoe and her father are here." + +"What is the matter with Major Eltwin and his wife being here, too? Are +they in our hotel?" + +"No, they are not. They came to look for rooms while you were off +waiting for the Prince-Regent, and I saw them. They intended to go to +Frankfort for the manoeuvres, but they heard that there was not even +standing-room there, and so the general telegraphed to the Spanischer +Hof, and they all came here. As it is, he will have to room with Rose, +and Agatha and Mrs. Adding will room together. I didn't think Agatha was +looking very well; she looked unhappy; I don't believe she's heard, from +Burnamy yet; I hadn't a chance to ask her. And there's something else +that I'm afraid will fairly make you sick." + +"Oh, no; go on. I don't think anything can do that, after an afternoon +of Kenby's confidences." + +"It's worse than Kenby," she said with a sigh. "You know I told you at +Carlsbad I thought that ric1icnlous old thing was making up to Mrs. +Adding." + +"Kenby ? Why of co--" + +"Don't be stupid, my dear! No, not Kenby: General Triscoe. I wish you +could have been here to see him paying her all sort; of silly attentions, +and hear him making her compliments." + +"Thank you. I think I'm just as well without it. Did she pay him silly +attentions and compliments, too?" + +"That's the only thing that can make me forgive her for his wanting her. +She was keeping him at arm's-length the whole time, and she was doing it +so as not to make him contemptible before his daughter." + +"It must have been hard. And Rose?" + +"Rose didn't seem very well. He looks thin and pale; but he's sweeter +than ever. She's certainly commoner clay than Rose. No, I won't say +that! It's really nothing but General Triscoe's being an old goose about +her that makes her seem so, and it isn't fair." + +March went down to his coffee in the morning with the delicate duty of +telling Kenby that Mrs. Adding was in town. Kenby seemed to think it +quite natural she should wish to see the manoeuvres, and not at all +strange that she should come to them with General Triscoe and his +daughter. He asked if March would not go with him to call upon her after +breakfast, and as this was in the line of his own instructions from Mrs. +March, he went. + +They found Mrs. Adding with the Triscoes, and March saw nothing that was +not merely friendly, or at the most fatherly, in the general's behavior +toward her. If Mrs. Adding or Miss Triscoe saw more, they hid it in a +guise of sisterly affection for each other. At the most the general +showed a gayety which one would not have expected of him under any +conditions, and which the fact that he and Rose had kept each other awake +a good deal the night before seemed so little adapted to call out. He +joked with Rose about their room and their beds, and put on a comradery +with him that was not a perfect fit, and that suffered by contrast with +the pleasure of the boy and Kenby in meeting. There was a certain +question in the attitude of Mrs. Adding till March helped Kenby to +account for his presence; then she relaxed in an effect of security so +tacit that words overstate it, and began to make fun of Rose. + +March could not find that Miss Triscoe looked unhappy, as his wife had +said; he thought simply that she had grown plainer; but when he reported +this, she lost her patience with him. In a girl, she said, plainness was +unhappiness; and she wished to know when he would ever learn to look an +inch below the surface: She was sure that Agatha Triscoe had not heard +from Burnamy since the Emperor's birthday; that she was at swords'-points +with her father, and so desperate that she did not care what became of +her. + +He had left Kenby with the others, and now, after his wife had talked +herself tired of them all, he proposed going out again to look about the +city, where there was nothing for the moment to remind them of the +presence of their friends or even of their existence. She answered that +she was worrying about all those people, and trying to work out their +problem for them. He asked why she did not let them work it out +themselves as they would have to do, after all her worry, and she said +that where her sympathy had been excited she could not stop worrying, +whether it did any good or not, and she could not respect any one who +could drop things so completely out of his mind as he could; she had +never been able to respect that in him. + +"I know, my dear," he assented. "But I don't think it's a question of +moral responsibility; it's a question of mental structure, isn't it? +Your consciousness isn't built in thought-tight compartments, and one +emotion goes all through it, and sinks you; but I simply close the doors +and shut the emotion in, and keep on." + +The fancy pleased him so much that he worked it out in all its +implications, and could not, after their long experience of each other, +realize that she was not enjoying the joke too, till she said she saw +that he merely wished to tease. Then, too late, he tried to share her +worry; but she protested that she was not worrying at all; that she cared +nothing about those people: that she was nervous, she was tired; and she +wished he would leave her, and go out alone. + +He found himself in the street again, and he perceived that he must be +walking fast when a voice called him by name, and asked him what his +hurry was. The voice was Stoller's, who got into step with him and +followed the first with a second question. + +"Made up your mind to go to the manoeuvres with me?" + +His bluntness made it easy for March to answer: "I'm afraid my wife +couldn't stand the drive back and forth." + +"Come without her." + +"Thank you. It's very kind of yon. I'm not certain that I shall go at +all. If I do, I shall run out by train, and take my chances with the +crowd." + +Stoller insisted no further. He felt no offence at the refusal of his +offer, or chose to show none. He said, with the same uncouth abruptness +as before: "Heard anything of that fellow since he left Carlsbad?" + +"Burnamy?" + +"Mm." + +"No." + +"Know where he is?" + +"I don't in the least." + +Stoller let another silence elapse while they hurried on, before he said, +"I got to thinking what he done -afterwards. He wasn't bound to look out +for me; he might suppose I knew what I was about." + +March turned his face and stared in Stoller's, which he was letting hang +forward as he stamped heavily on. Had the disaster proved less than he +had feared, and did he still want Burnamy's help in patching up the +broken pieces; or did he really wish to do Burnamy justice to his friend? + +In any case March's duty was clear. "I think Burnamy was bound to look +out for you; Mr. Stoller, and I am glad to know that he saw it in the +same light." + +"I know he did," said Stoker with a blaze as from a long-smouldering +fury, "and damn him, I'm not going to have it. I'm not going to, plead +the baby act with him, or with any man. You tell him so, when you get +the chance. You tell him I don't hold him accountable for anything I +made him do. That ain't business; I don't want him around me, any more; +but if he wants to go back to the paper he can have his place. You tell +him I stand by what I done; and it's all right between him and me. +I hain't done anything about it, the way I wanted him to help me to; I've +let it lay, and I'm a-going to. I guess it ain't going to do me any +harm, after all; our people hain't got very long memories; but if it is, +let it. You tell him it's all right." + +"I don't know where he is, Mr. Stoller, and I don't know that I care to +be the bearer of your message," said March. + +"Why not?" + +"Why, for one thing, I don't agree with you that it's all right. Your +choosing to stand by the consequences of Burnamy's wrong doesn't undo it. +As I understand, you don't pardon it--" + +Stoller gulped and did not answer at once. Then he said, "I stand by +what I done. I'm not going to let him say I turned him down for doing +what I told him to, because I hadn't the sense to know what I was about." + +"Ah, I don't think it's a thing he'll like to speak of in any case," said +March. + +Stoller left him, at the corner they had reached, as abruptly as he had +joined him, and March hurried back to his wife, and told her what had +just passed between him and Stoller. + +She broke out, "Well, I am surprised at you, my dear! You have always +accused me of suspecting people, and attributing bad motives; and here +you've refused even to give the poor man the benefit of the doubt. He +merely wanted to save his savage pride with you, and that's all he wants +to do with Burnamy. How could it hurt the poor boy to know that Stoller +doesn't blame him? Why should you refuse to give his message to Burnamy? +I don't want you to ridicule me for my conscience any more, Basil; you're +twice as bad as I ever was. Don't you think that a person can ever +expiate an offence? I've often heard you say that if any one owned his +fault, he put it from him, and it was the same as if it hadn't been; and +hasn't Burnamy owned up over and over again? I'm astonished at you, +dearest." + +March was in fact somewhat astonished at himself in the light of her +reasoning; but she went on with some sophistries that restored him to his +self-righteousness. + +"I suppose you think he has interfered with Stoller's political ambition, +and injured him in that way. Well, what if he has? Would it be a good +thing to have a man like that succeed in politics? You're always saying +that the low character of our politicians is the ruin of the country; and +I'm sure," she added, with a prodigious leap over all the sequences, +"that Mr. Stoller is acting nobly; and it's your duty to help him relieve +Burnamy's mind." At the laugh he broke into she hastened to say, "Or if +you won't, I hope you'll not object to my doing so, for I shall, anyway!" + +She rose as if she were going to begin at once, in spite of his laughing; +and in fact she had already a plan for coming to Stoller's assistance by +getting at Burnamy through Miss Triscoe, whom she suspected of knowing +where he was. There had been no chance for them to speak of him either +that morning or the evening before, and after a great deal of controversy +with herself in her husband's presence she decided to wait till they came +naturally together the next morning for the walk to the Capuchin Church +on the hill beyond the river, which they had agreed to take. She could +not keep from writing a note to Miss Triscoe begging her to be sure to +come, and hinting that she had something very important to speak of. + +She was not sure but she had been rather silly to do this, but when they +met the girl confessed that she had thought of giving up the walk, and +might not have come except for Mrs. March's note. She had come with +Rose, and had left him below with March; Mrs. Adding was coming later +with Kenby and General Triscoe. + +Mrs. March lost no time in telling her the great news; and if she had +been in doubt before of the girl's feeling for Burnamy she was now in +none. She had the pleasure of seeing her flush with hope, and then the +pain which was also a pleasure, of seeing her blanch with dismay. + +"I don't know where he is, Mrs. March. I haven't heard a word from him +since that night in Carlsbad. I expected--I didn't know but you--" + +Mrs. March shook her head. She treated the fact skillfully as something +to be regretted simply because it would be such a relief to Burnamy to +know how Mr. Stoller now felt. Of course they could reach him somehow; +you could always get letters to people in Europe, in the end; and, in +fact, it was altogether probable that he was that very instant in +Wurzburg; for if the New York-Paris Chronicle had wanted him to write up +the Wagner operas, it would certainly want him to write up the +manoeuvres. She established his presence in Wurzburg by such an +irrefragable chain of reasoning that, at a knock outside, she was just +able to kelp back a scream, while she ran to open the door. It was not +Burnamy, as in compliance with every nerve it ought to have been, but her +husband, who tried to justify his presence by saying that they were all +waiting for her and Miss Triscoe, and asked when they were coming. + +She frowned him silent, and then shut herself outside with him long +enough to whisper, "Say she's got a headache, or anything you please; +but don't stop talking here with me, or I shall go wild." She then shut +herself in again, with the effect of holding him accountable for the +whole affair. + + + + +LVI. + +General Triscoe could not keep his irritation, at hearing that his +daughter was not coming, out of the excuses he made to Mrs. Adding; +he said again and again that it must seem like a discourtesy to her. +She gayly disclaimed any such notion; she would not hear of putting off +their excursion to another day; it had been raining just long enough to +give them a reasonable hope of a few hours' drought, and they might not +have another dry spell for weeks. She slipped off her jacket after they +started, and gave it to Kenby, but she let General Triscoe hold her +umbrella over her, while he limped beside her. She seemed to March, as +he followed with Rose, to be playing the two men off against each other, +with an ease which he wished his wife could be there to see, and to judge +aright. + +They crossed by the Old Bridge, which is of the earliest years of the +seventh century, between rows of saints whose statues surmount the piers. +Some are bishops as well as saints; one must have been at Rome in his +day, for he wore his long thick beard in the fashion of Michelangelo's +Moses. He stretched out toward the passers two fingers of blessing and +was unaware of the sparrow which had lighted on them and was giving him +the effect of offering it to the public admiration. Squads of soldiers +tramping by turned to look and smile, and the dull faces of citizens +lighted up at the quaint sight. Some children stopped and remained very +quiet, not to scare away the bird; and a cold-faced, spiritual-looking +priest paused among them as if doubting whether to rescue the absent- +minded bishop from a situation derogatory to his dignity; but he passed +on, and then the sparrow suddenly flew off. + +Rose Adding had lingered for the incident with March, but they now pushed +on, and came up with the others at the end of the bridge, where they +found them in question whether they had not better take a carriage and +drive to the foot of the hill before they began their climb. March +thanked them, but said he was keeping up the terms of his cure, and was +getting in all the walking he could. Rose begged his mother not to +include him in the driving party; he protested that he was feeling so +well, and the walk was doing him good. His mother consented, if he would +promise not to get tired, and then she mounted into the two-spanner which +had driven instinctively up to their party when their parley began, and +General Triscoe took the place beside her, while Kenby, with smiling +patience, seated himself in front. + +Rose kept on talking with March about Wurzburg and its history, which it +seemed he had been reading the night before when he could not sleep. He +explained, "We get little histories of the places wherever we go. That's +what Mr. Kenby does, you know." + +"Oh, yes," said March. + +"I don't suppose I shall get a chance to read much here," Rose continued, +"with General Triscoe in the room. He doesn't like the light." + +"Well, well. He's rather old, you know. And you musn't read too much, +Rose. It isn't good for you." + +"I know, but if I don't read, I think, and that keeps me awake worse. Of +course, I respect General Triscoe for being in the war, and getting +wounded," the boy suggested. + +"A good many did it," March was tempted to say. + +The boy did not notice his insinuation. "I suppose there were some +things they did in the army, and then they couldn't get over the habit. +But General Grant says in his 'Life' that he never used a profane +expletive." + +"Does General Triscoe ?" + +Rose answered reluctantly, "If anything wakes him in the night, or if he +can't make these German beds over to suit him--" + +"I see." March turned his face to hide the smile which he would not have +let the boy detect. He thought best not to let Rose resume his +impressions of the general; and in talk of weightier matters they found +themselves at that point of the climb where the carriage was waiting for +them. From this point they followed an alley through ivied, garden +walls, till they reached the first of the balustraded terraces which +ascend to the crest of the hill where the church stands. Each terrace is +planted with sycamores, and the face of the terrace wall supports a bass- +relief commemorating with the drama of its lifesize figures the stations +of the cross. + +Monks and priests were coming and going, and dropped on the steps leading +from terrace to terrace were women and children on their knees in prayer. +It was all richly reminiscent of pilgrim scenes in other Catholic lands; +but here there was a touch of earnest in the Northern face of the +worshipers which the South had never imparted. Even in the beautiful +rococo interior of the church at the top of the hill there was a sense of +something deeper and truer than mere ecclesiasticism; and March came out +of it in a serious muse while the boy at his side did nothing to +interrupt. A vague regret filled his heart as he gazed silently out over +the prospect of river and city and vineyard, purpling together below the +top where he stood, and mixed with this regret was a vague resentment of +his wife's absence. She ought to have been there to share his pang and +his pleasure; they had so long enjoyed everything together that without +her he felt unable to get out of either emotion all there was in it. + +The forgotten boy stole silently down the terraces after the rest of the +party who had left him behind with March. At the last terrace they +stopped and waited; and after a delay that began to be long to Mrs. +Adding, she wondered aloud what could have become of them. + +Kenby promptly offered to go back and see, and she consented in seeming +to refuse: "It isn't worth while. Rose has probably got Mr. March into +some deep discussion, and they've forgotten all about us. But if you +will go, Mr. Kenby, you might just remind Rose of my existence." She let +him lay her jacket on her shoulders before he left her, and then she sat +down on one of the steps, which General Triscoe kept striking with the +point of her umbrella as he stood before her. + +"I really shall have to take it from you if you do that any more," she +said, laughing up in his face. "I'm serious." + +He stopped. "I wish I could believe you were serious, for a moment." + +"You may, if you think it will do you any good. But I don't see why." + +The general smiled, but with a kind of tremulous eagerness which might +have been pathetic to any one who liked him. "Do you know this is almost +the first time I have spoken alone with you?" + +"Really, I hadn't noticed," said Mrs. Adding. + +General Triscoe laughed in rather a ghastly way. "Well, that's +encouraging, at least, to a man who's had his doubts whether it wasn't +intended." + +"Intended? By whom? What do you mean, General Triscoe? Why in the +world shouldn't you have spoken alone with me before?" + +He was not, with all his eagerness, ready to say, and while she smiled +pleasantly she had the look in her eyes of being brought to bay and being +prepared, if it must come to that, to have the worst over, then and +there. She was not half his age, but he was aware of her having no +respect for his years; compared with her average American past as he +understood it, his social place was much higher, but, she was not in the +least awed by it; in spite of his war record she was making him behave +like a coward. He was in a false position, and if he had any one but +himself to blame he had not her. He read her equal knowledge of these +facts in the clear eyes that made him flush and turn his own away. + +Then he started with a quick "Hello!" and stood staring up at the steps +from the terrace above, where Rose Adding was staying himself weakly by a +clutch of Kenby on one side and March on the other. + +His mother looked round and caught herself up from where she sat and ran +toward him. "Oh, Rose!" + +"It's nothing, mother," he called to her, and as she dropped on her knees +before him he sank limply against her. "It was like what I had in +Carlsbad; that's all. Don't worry about me, please!" + +"I'm not worrying, Rose," she said with courage of the same texture as +his own. "You've been walking too much. You must go back in the +carriage with us. Can't you have it come here?" she asked Kenby. + +"There's no road, Mrs. Adding. But if Rose would let me carry him--" . + +"I can walk," the boy protested, trying to lift himself from her neck. + +"No, no! you mustn't." She drew away and let him fall into the arms that +Kenby put round him. He raised the frail burden lightly to his shoulder, +and moved strongly away, followed by the eyes of the spectators who had +gathered about the little group, but who dispersed now, and went back to +their devotions. + +March hurried after Kenby with Mrs. Adding, whom he told he had just +missed Rose and was looking about for him, when Kenby came with her +message for them. They made sure that he was nowhere about the church, +and then started together down the terraces. At the second or third +station below they found the boy clinging to the barrier that protected +the bass-relief from the zeal of the devotees. He looked white and sick, +though he insisted that he was well, and when he turned to come away with +them he reeled and would have fallen if Kenby had not caught him. Kenby +wanted to carry him, but Rose would not let him, and had made his way +down between them. + +"Yea, he has such a spirit," she said, "and I've no doubt he's suffering +now more from Mr. Kenby's kindness than from his own sickness he had one +of these giddy turns in Carlsbad, though, and I shall certainly have a +doctor to see him." + +"I think I should, Mrs. Adding," said March, not too gravely, for it +seemed to him that it was not quite his business to alarm her further, +if she was herself taking the affair with that seriousness. +He questioned whether she was taking it quite seriously enough, +when she turned with a laugh, and called to General Triscoe, who was +limping down the steps of the last terrace behind them: + +"Oh, poor General Triscoe! I thought you had gone on ahead." + +General Triscoe could not enter into the joke of being forgotten, +apparently. He assisted with gravity at the disposition of the party for +the return, when they all reached the carriage. Rose had the place +beside his mother, and Kenby wished March to take his with the general +and let him sit with the driver; but he insisted that he would rather +walk home, and he did walk till they had driven out of eight. Then he +called a passing one-spanner, and drove to his hotel in comfort and +silence. + + + + +LVII. + +Kenby did not come to the Swan before supper; then he reported that the +doctor had said Rose was on the verge of a nervous collapse. He had +overworked at school, but the immediate trouble was the high, thin air, +which the doctor said he must be got out of at once, into a quiet place +at the sea-shore somewhere. He had suggested Ostend; or some point on +the French coast; Kenby had thought of Schevleningen, and the doctor had +said that would do admirably. + +"I understood from Mrs. Adding," he concluded, "that you were going. +there for your after-cure, Mr. March, and I didn't know but you might be +going soon." + +At the mention of Schevleningen the Marches had looked at each other with +a guilty alarm, which they both tried to give the cast of affectionate +sympathy but she dismissed her fear that he might be going to let his +compassion prevail with him to his hurt when he said: "Why, we ought to +have been there before this, but I've been taking my life in my hands in +trying to see a little of Germany, and I'm afraid now that Mrs. March has +her mind too firmly fixed on Berlin to let me think of going to +Schevleningen till we've been there." + +"It's too bad!" said Mrs. March, with real regret. "I wish we were +going." But she had not the least notion of gratifying her wish; and +they were all silent till Kenby broke out: + +"Look here! You know how I feel about Mrs Adding! I've been pretty +frank with Mr. March myself, and I've had my suspicions that she's been +frank with you, Mrs. March. There isn't any doubt about my wanting to +marry her, and up to this time there hasn't been any doubt about her not +wanting to marry me. But it isn't a question of her or of me, now. It's +a question of Rose. I love the boy," and Kenby's voice shook, and he +faltered a moment. "Pshaw! You understand." + +"Indeed I do, Mr. Kenby," said Mrs. March. "I perfectly understand +you." + +"Well, I don't think Mrs. Adding is fit to make the journey with him +alone, or to place herself in the best way after she gets to +Schevleningen. She's been badly shaken up; she broke down before the +doctor; she said she didn't know what to do; I suppose she's +frightened--" + +Kenby stopped again, and March asked, "When is she going?" + +"To-morrow," said Kenby, and he added, "And now the question is, why +shouldn't I go with her?" + +Mrs. March gave a little start, and looked at her husband, but he said +nothing, and Kenby seemed not to have supposed that he would say +anything. + +"I know it would be very American, and all that, but I happen to be an +American, and it wouldn't be out of character for me. I suppose," he +appealed to Mrs. March, "that it's something I might offer to do if it +were from New York to Florida--and I happened to be going there? And I +did happen to be going to Holland." + +"Why, of course, Mr. Kenby," she responded, with such solemnity that +March gave way in an outrageous laugh. + +Kenby laughed, and Mrs. March laughed too, but with an inner note of +protest. + +"Well," Kenby continued, still addressing her, "what I want you to do is +to stand by me when I propose it." + +Mrs. March gathered strength to say, "No, Mr. Kenby, it's your own +affair, and you must take the responsibility." + +"Do you disapprove?" + +"It isn't the same as it would be at home. You see that yourself." + +"Well," said Kenby, rising, "I have to arrange about their getting away +to-morrow. It won't be easy in this hurly-burly that's coming off." + +"Give Rose our love; and tell Mrs. Adding that I'll come round and see +her to-morrow before she starts." + +"Oh! I'm afraid you can't, Mrs. March. They're to start at six in the +morning." + +"They are! Then we must go and see them tonight. We'll be there almost +as soon as you are." + +March went up to their rooms with, his wife, and she began on the stairs: + +"Well, my dear, I hope you realize that your laughing so gave us +completely away. And what was there to keep grinning about, all +through?" + +"Nothing but the disingenuous, hypocritical passion of love. It's always +the most amusing thing in the world; but to see it trying to pass itself +off in poor old Kenby as duty and humanity, and disinterested affection +for Rose, was more than I could stand. I don't apologize for laughing; +I wanted to yell." + +His effrontery and his philosophy both helped to save him; and she said +from the point where he had side-tracked her mind: "I don't call it +disingenuous. He was brutally frank. He's made it impossible to treat +the affair with dignity. I want you to leave the whole thing to me, from +this out. Now, will you?" + +On their way to the Spanischer Hof she arranged in her own mind for Mrs. +Adding to get a maid, and for the doctor to send an assistant with her on +the journey, but she was in such despair with her scheme that she had not +the courage to right herself when Mrs. Adding met her with the appeal: + +"Oh, Mrs. March, I'm so glad you approve of Mr. Kenby's plan. It does +seem the only thing to do. I can't trust myself alone with Rose, and Mr. +Kenby's intending to go to Schevleningen a few days later anyway. Though +it's too bad to let him give up the manoeuvres." + +"I'm sure he won't mind that," Mrs. March's voice said mechanically, +while her thought was busy with the question whether this scandalous +duplicity was altogether Kenby's, and whether Mrs. Adding was as +guiltless of any share in it as she looked. She looked pitifully +distracted; she might not have understood his report; or Kenby might +really have mistaken Mrs. March's sympathy for favor. + +"No, he only lives to do good," Mrs. Adding returned. "He's with Rose; +won't you come in and see them?" + +Rose was lying back on the pillows of a sofa, from which they would not +let him get up. He was full of the trip to Holland, and had already +pushed Kenby, as Kenby owned, beyond the bounds of his very general +knowledge of the Dutch language, which Rose had plans for taking up after +they were settled in Schevleningen. The boy scoffed at the notion that +he was not perfectly well, and he wished to talk with March on the points +where he had found Kenby wanting. + +"Kenby is an encyclopaedia compared with me, Rose," the editor protested, +and he amplified his ignorance for the boy's good to an extent which Rose +saw was a joke. He left Holland to talk about other things which his +mother thought quite as bad for him. He wished to know if March did not +think that the statue of the bishop with the sparrow on its finger was a +subject for a poem; and March said gayly that if Rose would write it he +would print it in 'Every Other Week'. + +The boy flushed with pleasure at his banter. "No, I couldn't do it. +But I wish Mr. Burnamy had seen it. He could. Will you tell him about +it?" He wanted to know if March had heard from Burnamy lately, and in +the midst of his vivid interest he gave a weary sigh. + +His mother said that now he had talked enough, and bade him say good-by +to the Marches, who were coming so soon to Holland, anyway. Mrs. March +put her arms round him to kiss him, and when she let him sink back her +eyes were dim. + +"You see how frail he is?" said Mrs. Adding. "I shall not let him out of +my sight, after this, till he's well again." + +She had a kind of authority in sending Kenby away with them which was not +lost upon the witnesses. He asked them to come into the reading-room a +moment with him, and Mrs. March wondered if he were going to make some +excuse to her for himself; but he said: "I don't know how we're to manage +about the Triscoes. The general will have a room to himself, but if Mrs. +Adding takes Rose in with her, it leaves Miss Triscoe out, and there +isn't a room to be had in this house for love or money. Do you think," +he appealed directly to Mrs. March, "that it would do to offer her my +room at the Swan?" + +"Why, yes," she assented, with a reluctance rather for the complicity in +which he had already involved her, and for which he was still unpunished, +than for what he was now proposing. "Or she could come in with me, and +Mr. March could take it." + +"Whichever you think," said Kenby so submissively that she relented, to +ask: + +"And what will you do?" + +He laughed. "Well, people have been known to sleep in a chair. I shall +manage somehow." + +"You might offer to go in with the general," March suggested, and the men +apparently thought this was a joke. Mrs. March did not laugh in her +feminine worry about ways and means. + +"Where is Miss Triscoe?" she asked. "We haven't seen them." + +"Didn't Mrs. Adding tell you? They went to supper at a restaurant; the +general doesn't like the cooking here. They ought to have been back +before this." + +He looked up at the clock on the wall, and she said, "I suppose you would +like us to wait." + +"It would be very kind of you." + +"Oh, it's quite essential," she returned with an airy freshness which +Kenby did not seem to feel as painfully as he ought. + +They all sat down, and the Triscoes came in after a few minutes, and a +cloud on the general's face lifted at the proposition Kenby left Mrs. +March to make. + +"I thought that child ought to be in his mother's charge," he said. With +his own comfort provided for, he made no objections to Mrs. March's plan; +and Agatha went to take leave of Rose and his mother. "By-the-way," the +general turned to March, "I found Stoller at the restaurant where we +supped. He offered me a place in his carriage for the manoeuvres. How +are you going?" + +"I think I shall go by train. I don't fancy the long drive." + +"Well, I don't know that it's worse than the long walk after you leave +the train," said the general from the offence which any difference of +taste was apt to give him. "Are you going by train, too?" he asked Kenby +with indifference. + +"I'm not going at all," said Kenby. "I'm leaving Wurzburg in the +morning." + +"Oh, indeed," said the general. + +Mrs. March could not make out whether he knew that Kenby was going with +Rose and Mrs. Adding, but she felt that there must be a full and open +recognition of the fact among them. "Yes," she said, "isn't it fortunate +that Mr. Kenby should be going to Holland, too! I should have been so +unhappy about them if Mrs. Adding had been obliged to make that long +journey with poor little Rose alone." + +"Yes, yes; very fortunate, certainly," said the general colorlessly. + +Her husband gave her a glance of intelligent appreciation; but Kenby was +too simply, too densely content with the situation to know the value of +what she had done. She thought he must certainly explain, as he walked +back with her to the Swan, whether he had misrepresented her to Mrs. +Adding, or Mrs. Adding had misunderstood him. Somewhere there had been +an error, or a duplicity which it was now useless to punish; and Kenby +was so apparently unconscious of it that she had not the heart to be +cross with him. She heard Miss Triscoe behind her with March laughing in +the gayety which the escape from her father seemed to inspire in her. +She was promising March to go with him in the morning to see the Emperor +and Empress of Germany arrive at the station, and he was warning her that +if she laughed there, like that, she would subject him to fine and +imprisonment. She pretended that she would like to see him led off +between two gendarmes, but consented to be a little careful when he asked +her how she expected to get back to her hotel without him, if such a +thing happened. + + + + +LVIII. + +After all, Miss Triscoe did not go with March; she preferred to sleep. +The imperial party was to arrive at half past seven, but at six the crowd +was already dense before the station, and all along the street leading to +the Residenz. It was a brilliant day, with the promise of sunshine, +through which a chilly wind blew, for the manoeuvres. The colors of all +the German states flapped in this breeze from the poles wreathed with +evergreen which encircled the square; the workmen putting the last +touches on the bronzed allegory hurried madly to be done, and they had, +scarcely finished their labors when two troops of dragoons rode into the +place and formed before the station, and waited as motionlessly as their +horses would allow. + +These animals were not so conscious as lions at the approach of princes; +they tossed and stamped impatiently in the long interval before the +Regent and his daughter-in-law came to welcome their guests. All the +human beings, both those who were in charge and those who were under +charge, were in a quiver of anxiety to play their parts well, as if there +were some heavy penalty for failure in the least point. The policemen +keeping the people, in line behind the ropes which restrained them +trembled with eagerness; the faces of some of the troopers twitched. +An involuntary sigh went up from the crowd as the Regent's carriage +appeared, heralded by outriders, and followed by other plain carriages of +Bavarian blue with liveries of blue and silver. Then the whistle of the +Kaiser's train sounded; a trumpeter advanced and began to blow his +trumpet as they do in the theatre; and exactly at the appointed moment +the Emperor and Empress came out of the station through the brilliant +human alley leading from it, mounted their carriages, with the stage +trumpeter always blowing, and whirled swiftly round half the square and +flashed into the corner toward the Residenz out of sight. The same +hollow groans of Ho-o-o-ch greeted and followed them from the spectators +as had welcomed the Regent when he first arrived among his fellow- +townsmen, with the same effect of being the conventional cries of a stage +mob behind the scenes. + +The Emperor was like most of his innumerable pictures, with a swarthy +face from which his blue eyes glanced pleasantly; he looked good-humored +if not good-natured; the Empress smiled amiably beneath her deeply +fringed white parasol, and they both bowed right and left in +acknowledgment of those hollow groans; but again it seemed, to March that +sovereignty, gave the popular curiosity, not to call it devotion, a +scantier return than it merited. He had perhaps been insensibly working +toward some such perception as now came to him that the great difference +between Europe and America was that in Europe life is histrionic and +dramatized, and that in America, except when it is trying to be European, +it is direct and sincere. He wondered whether the innate conviction of +equality, the deep, underlying sense of a common humanity transcending +all social and civic pretences, was what gave their theatrical effect to +the shows of deference from low to high, and of condescension from high +to low. If in such encounters of sovereigns and subjects, the prince did +not play his part so well as the people, it might be that he had a harder +part to play, and that to support his dignity at all, to keep from being +found out the sham that he essentially was, he had to hurry across the +stage amidst the distracting thunders of the orchestra. If the star +staid to be scrutinized by the soldiers, citizens, and so forth, even the +poor supernumeraries and scene-shifters might see that he was a tallow +candle like themselves. + +In the censorious mood induced by the reflection that he had waited an +hour and a half for half a minute's glimpse of the imperial party, March +now decided not to go to the manoeuvres, where he might be subjected to +still greater humiliation and disappointment. He had certainly come to +Wurzburg for the manoeuvres, but Wurzburg had been richly repaying in +itself; and why should he stifle half an hour in an overcrowded train, +and struggle for three miles on foot against that harsh wind, to see a +multitude of men give proofs of their fitness to do manifold murder? +He was, in fact, not the least curious for the sight, and the only thing +that really troubled him was the question of how he should justify his +recreance to his wife. This did alloy the pleasure with which he began, +after an excellent breakfast at a neighboring caf‚, to stroll about the +streets, though he had them almost to himself, so many citizens had +followed the soldiers to the manoeuvres. + +It was not till the soldiers began returning from the manoeuvres, dusty- +footed, and in white canvas overalls drawn over their trousers to save +them, that he went back to Mrs. March and Miss Triscoe at the Swan. He +had given them time enough to imagine him at the review, and to wonder +whether he had seen General Triscoe and the Stollers there, and they met +him with such confident inquiries that he would not undeceive them at +once. He let them divine from his inventive answers that he had not gone +to the manoeuvres, which put them in the best humor with themselves, and +the girl said it was so cold and rough that she wished her father had not +gone, either. The general appeared just before dinner and frankly avowed +the same wish. He was rasping and wheezing from the dust which filled +his lungs; he looked blown and red, and he was too angry with the company +he had been in to have any comments on the manoeuvres. He referred to +the military chiefly in relation to the Miss Stollers' ineffectual +flirtations, which he declared had been outrageous. Their father had +apparently no control over them whatever, or else was too ignorant to +know that they were misbehaving. They were without respect or reverence +for any one; they had talked to General Triscoe as if he were a boy of +their own age, or a dotard whom nobody need mind; they had not only kept +up their foolish babble before him, they had laughed and giggled, they +had broken into snatches of American song, they had all but whistled and +danced. They made loud comments in Illinois English--on the cuteness of +the officers whom they admired, and they had at one time actually got out +their handkerchiefs. He supposed they meant to wave them at the +officers, but at the look he gave them they merely put their hats +together and snickered in derision of him. They were American girls of +the worst type; they conformed to no standard of behavior; their conduct +was personal. They ought to be taken home. + +Mrs. March said she saw what he meant, and she agreed with him that they +were altogether unformed, and were the effect of their own ignorant +caprices. Probably, however, it was too late to amend them by taking +them away. + +"It would hide them, at any rate," he answered. "They would sink back +into the great mass of our vulgarity, and not be noticed. We behave like +a parcel of peasants with our women. We think that if no harm is meant +or thought, we may risk any sort of appearance, and we do things that are +scandalously improper simply because they are innocent. That may be all +very well at home, but people who prefer that sort of thing had better +stay there, where our peasant manners won't make them conspicuous." + +As their train ran northward out of Wurzburg that afternoon, Mrs. March +recurred to the general's closing words. "That was a slap at Mrs. Adding +for letting Kenby go off with her." + +She took up the history of the past twenty-four hours, from the time +March had left her with Miss Triscoe when he went with her father and the +Addings and Kenby to see that church. She had had no chance to bring up +these arrears until now, and she atoned to herself for the delay by +making the history very full, and going back and adding touches at any +point where she thought she had scanted it. After all, it consisted +mainly of fragmentary intimations from Miss Triscoe and of half-uttered +questions which her own art now built into a coherent statement. + +March could not find that the general had much resented Burnamy's +clandestine visit to Carlsbad when his daughter told him of it, or that +he had done more than make her promise that she would not keep up the +acquaintance upon any terms unknown to him. + +"Probably," Mrs. March said, "as long as he had any hopes of Mrs. Adding, +he was a little too self-conscious to be very up and down about Burnamy." + +"Then you think he was really serious about her?" + +"Now my dear! He was so serious that I suppose he was never so +completely taken aback in his life as when he met Kenby in Wurzburg and +saw how she received him. Of course, that put an end to the fight." + +"The fight?" + +"Yes--that Mrs. Adding and Agatha were keeping up to prevent his offering +himself." + +"Oh! And how do you know that they were keeping up the fight together?" + +"How do I? Didn't you see yourself what friends they were? Did you tell +him what Stoller had, said about Burnamy?" + +"I had no chance. I don't know that I should have done it, anyway. It +wasn't my affair." + +"Well, then, I think you might. It would have been everything for that +poor child; it would have completely justified her in her own eyes." + +"Perhaps your telling her will serve the same purpose." + +"Yes, I did tell her, and I am glad of it. She had a right to know it." + +"Did she think Stoller's willingness to overlook Burnamy's performance +had anything to do with its moral quality?" + +Mrs. March was daunted for the moment, but she said, "I told her you +thought that if a person owned to a fault they disowned it, and put it +away from them just as if it had never been committed; and that if a +person had taken their punishment for a wrong they had done, they had +expiated it so far as anybody else was concerned. And hasn't poor +Burnamy done both?" + +As a moralist March was flattered to be hoist with his own petard, but as +a husband he was not going to come down at once. "I thought probably you +had told her that. You had it pat from having just been over it with me. +When has she heard from him?" + +"Why, that's the strangest thing about it. She hasn't heard at all. She +doesn't know where he is. She thought we must know. She was terribly +broken up." + +"How did she show it?" + +"She didn't show it. Either you want to tease, or you've forgotten how +such things are with young people--or at least girls." + +"Yes, it's all a long time ago with me, and I never was a girl. Besides, +the frank and direct behavior of Kenby and Mrs. Adding has been very +obliterating to my early impressions of love-making." + +"It certainly hasn't been ideal," said Mrs. March with a sigh. + +"Why hasn't it been ideal?" he asked. "Kenby is tremendously in love +with her; and I believe she's had a fancy for him from the beginning. +If it hadn't been for Rose she would have accepted him at once; and now +he's essential to them both in their helplessness. As for Papa Triscoe +and his Europeanized scruples, if they have any reality at all they're +the residuum of his personal resentment, and Kenby and Mrs. Adding have +nothing to do with their unreality. His being in love with her is no +reason why he shouldn't be helpful to her when she needs him, and every +reason why he should. I call it a poem, such as very few people have the +luck to live out together." + +Mrs. March listened with mounting fervor, and when he stopped, she cried +out, "Well, my dear, I do believe you are right! It is ideal, as you +say; it's a perfect poem. And I shall always say--" + +She stopped at the mocking light which she caught in his look, and +perceived that he had been amusing himself with her perennial enthusiasm +for all sorts of love-affairs. But she averred that she did not care; +what he had said was true, and she should always hold him to it. + +They were again in the wedding-journey sentiment in which they had left +Carlsbad, when they found themselves alone together after their escape +from the pressure of others' interests. The tide of travel was towards +Frankfort, where the grand parade was to take place some days later. +They were going to Weimar, which was so few hours out of their way that +they simply must not miss it; and all the way to the old literary capital +they were alone in their compartment, with not even a stranger, much less +a friend to molest them. The flying landscape without was of their own +early autumnal mood, and when the vineyards of Wurzburg ceased to purple +it, the heavy after-math of hay and clover, which men, women, and +children were loading on heavy wains, and driving from the meadows +everywhere, offered a pastoral and pleasing change. It was always the +German landscape; sometimes flat and fertile, sometimes hilly and poor; +often clothed with dense woods, but always charming, with castled tops in +ruin or repair, and with levels where Gothic villages drowsed within +their walls, and dreamed of the mediaeval past, silent, without apparent +life, except for some little goose-girl driving her flock before her as +she sallied out into the nineteenth century in search of fresh pasturage. + +As their train mounted among the Thuringian uplands they were aware of a +finer, cooler air through their open window. The torrents foamed white +out of the black forests of fir and pine, and brawled along the valleys, +where the hamlets roused themselves in momentary curiosity as the train +roared into them from the many tunnels. The afternoon sunshine had the +glister of mountain sunshine everywhere, and the travellers had a +pleasant bewilderment in which their memories of Switzerland and the +White Mountains mixed with long-dormant emotions from Adirondack +sojourns. They chose this place and that in the lovely region where they +lamented that they had not come at once for the after-cure, and they +appointed enough returns to it in future years to consume all the summers +they had left to live. + + + +LIX. + +It was falling night when they reached Weimar, where they found at the +station a provision of omnibuses far beyond the hotel accommodations. +They drove first to the Crown-Prince, which was in a promising state of +reparation, but which for the present could only welcome them to an +apartment where a canvas curtain cut them off from a freshly plastered +wall. The landlord deplored the fact, and sent hospitably out to try and +place them at the Elephant. But the Elephant was full, and the Russian +Court was full too. Then the landlord of the Crown-Prince bethought +himself of a new hotel, of the second class, indeed, but very nice, where +they might get rooms, and after the delay of an hour, they got a carriage +and drove away from the Crown-Prince, where the landlord continued to the +last as benevolent as if they had been a profit instead of a loss to him. + +The streets of the town at nine o'clock were empty and quiet, and they +instantly felt the academic quality of the place. Through the pale night +they could see that the architecture was of the classic sentiment which +they were destined to feel more and more; at one point they caught a +fleeting glimpse of two figures with clasped hands and half embraced, +which they knew for the statues of Goethe and Schiller; and when they +mounted to their rooms at the Grand-Duke of Saxe-Weimar, they passed +under a fresco representing Goethe and four other world-famous poets, +Shakspere, Milton, Tasso, and Schiller. The poets all looked like +Germans, as was just, and Goethe was naturally chief among them; he +marshalled the immortals on their way, and Schiller brought up the rear +and kept them from going astray in an Elysium where they did not speak +the language. For the rest, the hotel was brand-new, of a quite American +freshness, and was pervaded by a sweet smell as of straw matting, and +provided with steam-radiators. In the sense of its homelikeness the +Marches boasted that they were never going away from it. + +In the morning they discovered that their windows looked out on the +grand-ducal museum, with a gardened space before and below its +classicistic bulk, where, in a whim of the weather, the gay flowers were +full of sun. In a pleasant illusion of taking it unawares, March +strolled up through the town; but Weimar was as much awake at that hour +as at any of the twenty-four, and the tranquillity of its streets, where +he encountered a few passers several blocks apart, was their habitual +mood. He came promptly upon two objects which he would willingly have +shunned: a 'denkmal' of the Franco-German war, not so furiously bad as +most German monuments, but antipathetic and uninteresting, as all +patriotic monuments are; and a woman-and-dog team. In the shock from +this he was sensible that he had not seen any woman-and-dog teams for +some time, and he wondered by what civic or ethnic influences their +distribution was so controlled that they should have abounded in Hamburg, +Leipsic, and Carlsbad, and wholly ceased in Nuremberg, Ansbach, and +Wurzburg, to reappear again in Weimar, though they seemed as +characteristic of all Germany as the ugly denkmals to her victories over +France. + +The Goethe and Schiller monument which he had glimpsed the night before +was characteristic too, but less offensively so. German statues at the +best are conscious; and the poet-pair, as the inscription calls them, +have the air of showily confronting posterity with their clasped hands, +and of being only partially rapt from the spectators. But they were more +unconscious than any other German statues that March had seen, and he +quelled a desire to ask Goethe, as he stood with his hand on Schiller's +shoulder, and looked serenely into space far above one of the typical +equipages of his country, what he thought of that sort of thing. But +upon reflection he did not know why Goethe should be held personally +responsible for the existence of the woman-and-dog team. He felt that he +might more reasonably attribute to his taste the prevalence of classic +profiles which he began to note in the Weimar populace. This could be a +sympathetic effect of that passion for the antique which the poet brought +back with him from his sojourn in Italy; though many of the people, +especially the children, were bow-legged. Perhaps the antique had: begun +in their faces, and had not yet got down to their legs; in any case they +were charming children, and as a test of their culture, he had a mind to +ask a little girl if she could tell him where the statue of Herder was, +which he thought he might as well take in on his ramble, and so be done +with as many statues as he could. She answered with a pretty regret in +her tender voice, "That I truly cannot," and he was more satisfied than +if she could, for he thought it better to be a child and honest, than to +know where any German statue was. + +He easily found it for himself in the place which is called the Herder +Platz after it. He went into the Peter and Paul Church there; where +Herder used to preach sermons, sometimes not at all liked by the nobility +and gentry for their revolutionary tendency; the sovereign was shielded +from the worst effects of his doctrine by worshipping apart from other +sinners in a glazed gallery. Herder is buried in the church, and when +you ask where, the sacristan lifts a wooden trap-door in the pavement, +and you think you are going down into the crypt, but you are only to see +Herder's monumental stone, which is kept covered so to save it from +passing feet. Here also is the greatest picture of that great soul Luke +Kranach, who had sincerity enough in his paining to atone for all the +swelling German sculptures in the world. It is a crucifixion, and the +cross is of a white birch log, such as might have been cut out of the +Weimar woods, shaved smooth on the sides, with the bark showing at the +edges. Kranach has put himself among the spectators, and a stream of +blood from the side of the Savior falls in baptism upon the painter's +head. He is in the company of John the Baptist and Martin Luther; Luther +stands with his Bible open, and his finger on the line, "The blood of +Jesus cleanseth us." + +Partly because he felt guilty at doing all these things without his wife, +and partly because he was now very hungry, March turned from them and got +back to his hotel, where she was looking out for him from their open +window. She had the air of being long domesticated there, as she laughed +down at seeing him come; and the continued brilliancy of the weather +added to the illusion of home. + +It was like a day of late spring in Italy or America; the sun in that +gardened hollow before the museum was already hot enough to make him glad +of the shelter of the hotel. The summer seemed to have come back to +oblige them, and when they learned that they were to see Weimar in a +festive mood because this was Sedan Day, their curiosity, if not their +sympathy, accepted the chance gratefully. But they were almost moved to +wish that the war had gone otherwise when they learned that all the +public carriages were engaged, and they must have one from a stable if +they wished to drive after breakfast. Still it was offered them for such +a modest number of marks, and their driver proved so friendly and +conversable, that they assented to the course of history, and were more +and more reconciled as they bowled along through the grand-ducal park +beside the waters of the classic Ilm. + +The waters of the classic Ilm are sluggish and slimy in places, and in +places clear and brooklike, but always a dull dark green in color. They +flow in the shadow of pensive trees, and by the brinks of sunny meadows, +where the after-math wanders in heavy windrows, and the children sport +joyously over the smooth-mown surfaces in all the freedom that there is +in Germany. At last, after immemorial appropriation the owners of the +earth are everywhere expropriated, and the people come into the pleasure +if not the profit of it. At last, the prince, the knight, the noble +finds, as in his turn the plutocrat will find, that his property is not +for him, but for all; and that the nation is to enjoy what he takes from +it and vainly thinks to keep from it. Parks, pleasaunces, gardens, set +apart for kings, are the play-grounds of the landless poor in the Old +World, and perhaps yield the sweetest joy of privilege to some state-sick +ruler, some world-weary princess, some lonely child born to the solitude +of sovereignty, as they each look down from their palace windows upon the +leisure of overwork taking its little holiday amidst beauty vainly +created for the perpetual festival of their empty lives. + +March smiled to think that in this very Weimar, where sovereignty had +graced and ennobled itself as nowhere else in the world by the +companionship of letters and the arts, they still were not hurrying first +to see the palace of a prince, but were involuntarily making it second to +the cottage of a poet. But in fact it is Goethe who is forever the +prince in Weimar. His greatness blots out its history, his name fills +the city; the thought of him is its chiefest imitation and largest +hospitality. The travellers remembered, above all other facts of the +grand-ducal park, that it was there he first met Christiane Vulpius, +beautiful and young, when he too was beautiful and young, and took her +home to be his love, to the just and lasting displeasure of Fran von +Stein, who was even less reconciled when, after eighteen years of due +reflection, the love of Goethe and Christiane became their marriage. +They, wondered just where it was he saw the young girl coming to meet him +as the Grand-Duke's minister with an office-seeking petition from her +brother, Goethe's brother author, long famed and long forgotten for his +romantic tale of "Rinaldo Rinaldini." + +They had indeed no great mind, in their American respectability, for that +rather matter-of-fact and deliberate liaison, and little as their +sympathy was for the passionless intellectual intrigue with the Frau von +Stein, it cast no halo of sentiment about the Goethe cottage to suppose +that there his love-life with Christiane began. Mrs. March even resented +the fact, and when she learned later that it was not the fact at all, she +removed it from her associations with the pretty place almost +indignantly. + +In spite of our facile and multiple divorces we Americans are worshipers +of marriage, and if a great poet, the minister of a prince, is going to +marry a poor girl, we think he had better not wait till their son is +almost of age. Mrs. March would not accept as extenuating circumstances +the Grand-Duke's godfatherhood, or Goethe's open constancy to Christiane, +or the tardy consecration of their union after the French sack of, +Weimar, when the girl's devotion had saved him from the rudeness of the +marauding soldiers. For her New England soul there were no degrees in +such guilt; and, perhaps there are really not so many as people have +tried to think, in their deference to Goethe's greatness. But certainly +the affair was not so simple for a grand-ducal minister of world-wide +renown, and he might well have felt its difficulties, for he could not +have been proof against the censorious public opinion of Weimar, or the +yet more censorious private opinion of Fran von Stein. + +On that lovely Italo-American morning no ghost of these old dead +embarrassments lingered within or without the Goethe garden-house. +The trees which the poet himself planted flung a sun-shot shadow upon it, +and about its feet basked a garden of simple flowers, from which the +sweet lame girl who limped through the rooms and showed them, gathered a +parting nosegay for her visitors. The few small livingrooms were above +the ground-floor, with kitchen and offices below in the Italian fashion; +in one of the little chambers was the camp-bed which Goethe carried with +him on his journeys through Italy; and in the larger room at the front +stood the desk where he wrote, with the chair before it from which he +might just have risen. + +All was much more livingly conscious of the great man gone than the proud +little palace in the town, which so abounds with relics and memorials of +him. His library, his study, his study table, with everything on it just +as he left it when + + "Cadde la stanca mana." + +are there, and there is the death-chair facing the window, from which he +gasped for "more light" at last. The handsome, well-arranged rooms are +full of souvenirs of his travel, and of that passion for Italy which he +did so much to impart to all German hearts, and whose modern waning +leaves its records here of an interest pathetically, almost amusingly, +faded. They intimate the classic temper to which his mind tended more +and more, and amidst the multitude of sculptures, pictures, prints, +drawings, gems, medals, autographs, there is the sense of the many- +mindedness, the universal taste, for which he found room in little +Weimar, but not in his contemporaneous Germany. But it is all less +keenly personal, less intimate than the simple garden-house, or else, +with the great troop of people going through it, and the custodians +lecturing in various voices and languages to the attendant groups, the +Marches had it less to themselves, and so imagined him less in it. + + + + +LX. + +All palaces have a character of tiresome unlivableness which is common to +them everywhere, and very probably if one could meet their proprietors in +them one would as little remember them apart afterwards as the palaces +themselves. It will not do to lift either houses or men far out of the +average; they become spectacles, ceremonies; they cease to have charm, to +have character, which belong to the levels of life, where alone there are +ease and comfort, and human nature may be itself, with all the little +delightful differences repressed in those who represent and typify. + +As they followed the custodian through the grand-ducal Residenz at +Weimar, March felt everywhere the strong wish of the prince who was +Goethe's friend to ally himself with literature, and to be human at least +in the humanities. He came honestly by his passion for poets; his mother +had known it in her time, and Weimar was the home of Wieland and of +Herder before the young Grand-Duke came back from his travels bringing +Goethe with him, and afterwards attracting Schiller. The story of that +great epoch is all there in the Residenz, told as articulately as a +palace can. + +There are certain Poets' Rooms, frescoed with illustrations of Goethe, +Schiller, and Wieland; there is the room where Goethe and the Grand-Duke +used to play chess together; there is the conservatory opening from it +where they liked to sit and chat; everywhere in the pictures and +sculptures, the engraving and intaglios, are the witnesses of the tastes +they shared, the love they both had for Italy, and for beautiful Italian +things. The prince was not so great a prince but that he could very +nearly be a man; the court was perhaps the most human court that ever +was; the Grand-Duke and the grand poet were first boon companions, and +then monarch and minister working together for the good of the country; +they were always friends, and yet, as the American saw in the light of +the New World, which he carried with him, how far from friends! At best +it was make-believe, the make-believe of superiority and inferiority, the +make-believe of master and man, which could only be the more painful and +ghastly for the endeavor of two generous spirits to reach and rescue each +other through the asphyxiating unreality; but they kept up the show of +equality faithfully to the end. Goethe was born citizen of a free +republic, and his youth was nurtured in the traditions of liberty; he was +one of the greatest souls of any time, and he must have known the +impossibility of the thing they pretended; but he died and made no sign, +and the poet's friendship with the prince has passed smoothly into +history as one of the things that might really be. They worked and +played together; they dined and danced, they picnicked and poetized, each +on his own side of the impassable gulf; with an air of its not being +there which probably did not deceive their contemporaries so much as +posterity. + +A part of the palace was of course undergoing repair; and in the gallery +beyond the conservatory a company of workmen were sitting at a table +where they had spread their luncheon. They were somewhat subdued by the +consciousness of their august environment; but the sight of them was +charming; they gave a kindly interest to the place which it had wanted +before; and which the Marches felt again in another palace where the +custodian showed them the little tin dishes and saucepans which the +German Empress Augusta and her sisters played with when they were +children. The sight of these was more affecting even than the withered +wreaths which they had left on the death-bed of their mother, and which +are still mouldering there. + +This was in the Belvedere, the country house on the height overlooking +Weimar, where the grand-ducal family spend the month of May, and where +the stranger finds himself amid overwhelming associations of Goethe, +although the place is so full of relics and memorials of the owners. +It seemed in fact to be a storehouse for the wedding-presents of the +whole connection, which were on show in every room; Mrs. March hardly +knew whether they heightened the domestic effect or took from it; but +they enabled her to verify with the custodian's help certain royal +intermarriages which she had been in doubt about before. + +Her zeal for these made such favor with him that he did not spare them a +portrait of all those which March hoped to escape; he passed them over, +scarcely able to stand, to the gardener, who was to show them the open- +air theatre where Goethe used to take part in the plays. + +The Natur-Theater was of a classic ideal, realized in the trained vines +and clipped trees which formed the coulisses. There was a grassy space +for the chorus and the commoner audience, and then a few semicircular +gradines cut in the turf, one alcove another, where the more honored +spectators sat. Behind the seats were plinths bearing the busts of +Goethe, Schiller, Wieland, and Herder. It was all very pretty, and if +ever the weather in Weimar was dry enough to permit a performance, it +must have been charming to see a play in that open day to which the drama +is native, though in the late hours it now keeps in the thick air of +modern theatres it has long forgotten the fact. It would be difficult to +be Greek under a German sky, even when it was not actually raining, but +March held that with Goethe's help it might have been done at Weimar, and +his wife and he proved themselves such enthusiasts for the Natur-Theater +that the walnut-faced old gardener who showed it put together a sheaf of +the flowers that grew nearest it and gave them to Mrs. March for a +souvenir. + +They went for a cup of tea to the caf‚ which looks, as from another +eyebrow of the hill, out over lovely little Weimar in the plain below. +In a moment of sunshine the prospect was very smiling; but their spirits +sank over their tea when it came; they were at least sorry they had not +asked for coffee. Most of the people about them were taking beer, +including the pretty girls of a young ladies' school, who were there with +their books and needle-work, in the care of one of the teachers, +apparently for the afternoon. + +Mrs. March perceived that they were not so much engaged with their books +or their needle-work but they had eyes for other things, and she followed +the glances of the girls till they rested upon the people at a table +somewhat obliquely to the left. These were apparently a mother and +daughter, and they were listening to a young man who sat with his back to +Mrs. March, and leaned low over the table talking to them. They were +both smiling radiantly, and as the girl smiled she kept turning herself +from the waist up, and slanting her face from this side to that, as if to +make sure that every one saw her smiling. + +Mrs. March felt her husband's gaze following her own, and she had just +time to press her finger firmly on his arm and reduce his cry of +astonishment to the hoarse whisper in which he gasped, "Good gracious! +It's the pivotal girl!" + +At the same moment the girl rose with her mother, and with the young man, +who had risen too, came directly toward the Marches on their way out of +the place without noticing them, though Burnamy passed so near that Mrs. +March could almost have touched him. + +She had just strength to say, "Well, my dear! That was the cut direct." + +She said this in order to have her husband reassure her. "Nonsense! He +never saw us. Why didn't you speak to him?" + +"Speak to him? I never shall speak to him again. No! This is the last +of Mr. Burnamy for me. I shouldn't have minded his not recognizing us, +for, as you say, I don't believe he saw us; but if he could go back to +such a girl as that, and flirt with her, after Miss Triscoe, that's all I +wish to know of him. Don't you try to look him up, Basil.! I'm glad- +yes, I'm glad he doesn't know how Stoller has come to feel about him; he +deserves to suffer, and I hope he'll keep on suffering: You were quite +right, my dear--and it shows how true your instinct is in such things (I +don't call it more than instinct)--not to tell him what Stoller said, and +I don't want you ever should." + +She had risen in her excitement, and was making off in such haste that +she would hardly give him time to pay for their tea, as she pulled him +impatiently to their carriage. + +At last he got a chance to say, "I don't think I can quite promise that; +my mind's been veering round in the other direction. I think I shall +tell him." + +"What! After you've seen him flirting with that girl? Very well, then, +you won't, my dear; that's all! He's behaving very basely to Agatha." + +"What's his flirtation with all the girls in the universe to do with my +duty to him? He has a right to know what Stoller thinks. And as to his +behaving badly toward Miss Triscoe, how has he done it? So far as you +know, there is nothing whatever between them. She either refused him +outright, that last night in Carlsbad, or else she made impossible +conditions with him. Burnamy is simply consoling himself, and I don't +blame him." + +"Consoling himself with a pivotal girl!" cried Mrs. March. + +"Yes, with a pivotal girl. Her pivotality may be a nervous idiosyncrasy, +or it may be the effect of tight lacing; perhaps she has to keep turning +and twisting that way to get breath. But attribute the worst motive: say +it is to make people look at her! Well, Burnamy has a right to look with +the rest; and I am not going to renounce him because he takes refuge with +one pretty girl from another. It's what men have been doing from the +beginning of time." + +"Oh, I dare say!" + +"Men," he went on, "are very delicately constituted; very peculiarly. +They have been known to seek the society of girls in general, of any +girl, because some girl has made them happy; and when some girl has made +them unhappy, they are still more susceptible. Burnamy may be merely +amusing himself, or he may be consoling himself; but in either case I +think the pivotal girl has as much right to him as Miss Triscoe. She had +him first; and I'm all for her." + + + + +LXI. + +Burnamy came away from seeing the pivotal girl and her mother off on the +train which they were taking that evening for Frankfort and Hombourg, and +strolled back through the Weimar streets little at ease with himself. +While he was with the girl and near her he had felt the attraction by +which youth impersonally draws youth, the charm which mere maid has for +mere man; but once beyond the range of this he felt sick at heart and +ashamed. He was aware of having used her folly as an anodyne for the +pain which was always gnawing at him, and he had managed to forget it in +her folly, but now it came back, and the sense that he had been reckless +of her rights came with it. He had done his best to make her think him +in love with her, by everything but words; he wondered how he could be +such an ass, such a wicked ass, as to try making her promise to write to +him from Frankfort; he wished never to see her again, and he wished still +less to hear from her. It was some comfort to reflect that she had not +promised, but it was not comfort enough to restore him to such +fragmentary self-respect as he had been enjoying since he parted with +Agatha Triscoe in Carlsbad; he could not even get back to the resentment +with which he had been staying himself somewhat before the pivotal girl +unexpectedly appeared with her mother in Weimar. + +It was Sedan Day, but there was apparently no official observance of the +holiday, perhaps because the Grand-Duke was away at the manoeuvres, with +all the other German princes. Burnamy had hoped for some voluntary +excitement among the people, at least enough to warrant him in making a +paper about Sedan Day in Weimar, which he could sell somewhere; but the +night was falling, and there was still no sign of popular rejoicing over +the French humiliation twenty-eight years before, except in the multitude +of Japanese lanterns which the children were everywhere carrying at the +ends of sticks. Babies had them in their carriages, and the effect of +the floating lights in the winding, up-and-down-hill streets was charming +even to Burnamy's lack-lustre eyes. He went by his hotel and on to a +caf‚ with a garden, where there was a patriotic, concert promised; he +supped there, and then sat dreamily behind his beer, while the music +banged and brayed round him unheeded. + +Presently he heard a voice of friendly banter saying in English, "May I +sit at your table?" and he saw an ironical face looking down on him. +"There doesn't seem any other place." + +"Why, Mr. March!" Burnamy sprang up and wrung the hand held out to him, +but he choked with his words of recognition; it was so good to see this +faithful friend again, though he saw him now as he had seen him last, +just when he had so little reason to be proud of himself. + +March settled his person in the chair facing Burnamy, and then glanced +round at the joyful jam of people eating and drinking, under a firmament +of lanterns. "This is pretty," he said, "mighty pretty. I shall make +Mrs. March sorry for not coming, when I go back." + +"Is Mrs. March--she is--with you--in Weimar?" Burnamy asked stupidly. + +March forbore to take advantage of him. "Oh, yes. We saw you out at +Belvedere this afternoon. Mrs. March thought for a moment that you meant +not to see us. A woman likes to exercise her imagination in those little +flights." + +"I never dreamed of your being there--I never saw--" Burnamy began. + +"Of course not. Neither did Mrs. Etkins, nor Miss Etkins; she was +looking very pretty. Have you been here some time?" + +"Not long. A week or so. I've been at the parade at Wurzburg." + +"At Wurzburg! Ah, how little the world is, or how large Wurzburg is! +We were there nearly a week, and we pervaded the place. But there was a +great crowd for you to hide in from us. What had I better take?" +A waiter had come up, and was standing at March's elbow. "I suppose I +mustn't sit here without ordering something?" + +"White wine and selters," said Burnamy vaguely. + +"The very thing! Why didn't I think of it? It's a divine drink: it +satisfies without filling. I had it a night or two before we left home, +in the Madison Square Roof Garden. Have you seen 'Every Other Week' +lately?" + +"No," said Burnamy, with more spirit than he had yet shown. + +"We've just got our mail from Nuremberg. The last number has a poem in +it that I rather like." March laughed to see the young fellow's face +light up with joyful consciousness. "Come round to my hotel, after +you're tired here, and I'll let you see it. There's no hurry. Did you +notice the little children with their lanterns, as you came along? It's +the gentlest effect that a warlike memory ever came to. The French +themselves couldn't have minded those innocents carrying those soft +lights on the day of their disaster. You ought to get something out of +that, and I've got a subject in trust for you from Rose Adding. He and +his mother were at Wurzburg; I'm sorry to say the poor little chap didn't +seem very well. They've gone to Holland for the sea air." March had +been talking for quantity in compassion of the embarrassment in which +Burnamy seemed bound; but he questioned how far he ought to bring comfort +to the young fellow merely because he liked him. So far as he could make +out, Burnamy had been doing rather less than nothing to retrieve himself +since they had met; and it was by an impulse that he could not have +logically defended to Mrs. March that he resumed. "We found another +friend of yours in Wurzburg: Mr. Stoller." + +"Mr. Stoller?" Burnamy faintly echoed. + +"Yes; he was there to give his daughters a holiday during the manoeuvres; +and they made the most of it. He wanted us to go to the parade with his +family but we declined. The twins were pretty nearly the death of +General Triscoe." + +Again Burnamy echoed him. "General Triscoe?" + +"Ah, yes: I didn't tell you. General Triscoe and his daughter had come +on with Mrs. Adding and Rose. Kenby--you remember Kenby, On the +Norumbia?--Kenby happened to be there, too; we were quite a family party; +and Stoller got the general to drive out to the manoeuvres with him and +his girls." + +Now that he was launched, March rather enjoyed letting himself go. He +did not know what he should say to Mrs. March when he came to confess +having told Burnamy everything before she got a chance at him; he pushed +on recklessly, upon the principle, which probably will not hold in +morals, that one may as well be hung for a sheep as a lamb. "I have a +message for you from Mr. Stoller." + +"For me?" Burnamy gasped. + +"I've been wondering how I should put it, for I hadn't expected to see +you. But it's simply this: he wants you to know--and he seemed to want +me to know--that he doesn't hold you accountable in the way he did. He's +thought it all over, and he's decided that he had no right to expect you +to save him from his own ignorance where he was making a show of +knowledge. As he said, he doesn't choose to plead the baby act. He says +that you're all right, and your place on the paper is open to you." + +Burnamy had not been very prompt before, but now he seemed braced for +instant response. "I think he's wrong," he said, so harshly that the +people at the next table looked round. "His feeling as he does has +nothing to do with the fact, and it doesn't let me out." + +March would have liked to take him in his arms; he merely said, "I think +you're quite right, as to that. But there's such a thing as forgiveness, +you know. It doesn't change the nature of what you've done; but as far +as the sufferer from it is concerned, it annuls it." + +"Yes, I understand that. But I can't accept his forgiveness if I hate +him." + +"But perhaps you won't always hate him. Some day you may have a chance +to do him a good turn. It's rather banale; but there doesn't seem any +other way. Well, I have given you his message. Are you going with me to +get that poem?" + +When March had given Burnamy the paper at his hotel, and Burnamy had put +it in his pocket, the young man said he thought he would take some +coffee, and he asked March to join him in the dining-room where they had +stood talking. + +"No, thank you," said the elder, "I don't propose sitting up all night, +and you'll excuse me if I go to bed now. It's a little informal to leave +a guest--" + +"You're not leaving a guest! I'm at home here. I'm staying in this +hotel too." + +March said, "Oh!" and then he added abruptly, "Good-night," and went up +stairs under the fresco of the five poets. + +"Whom were you talking with below?" asked Mrs. March through the door +opening into his room from hers. + +"Burnamy," he answered from within. "He's staying in this house. He let +me know just as I was going to turn him out for the night. It's one of +those little uncandors of his that throw suspicion on his honesty in +great things." + +"Oh! Then you've been telling him," she said, with a mental bound high +above and far beyond the point. + +"Everything." + +"About Stoller, too?" + +"About Stoller and his daughters, and Mrs. Adding and Rose and Kenby and +General Triscoe--and Agatha." + +"Very well. That's what I call shabby. Don't ever talk to me again +about the inconsistencies of women. But now there's something perfectly +fearful." + +"What is it?" + +"A letter from Miss Triscoe came after you were gone, asking us to find +rooms in some hotel for her and her father to-morrow. He isn't well, and +they're coming. And I've telegraphed them to come here. Now what do you +say?" + + + + +LXII. + +They could see no way out of the trouble, and Mrs. March could not resign +herself to it till her husband suggested that she should consider it +providential. This touched the lingering superstition in which she had +been ancestrally taught to regard herself as a means, when in a very +tight place, and to leave the responsibility with the moral government of +the universe. As she now perceived, it had been the same as ordered that +they should see Burnamy under such conditions in the afternoon that they +could not speak to him, and hear where he was staying; and in an inferior +degree it had been the same as ordered that March should see him in the +evening and tell him everything, so that she should know just how to act +when she saw him in the morning. If he could plausibly account for the +renewal of his flirtation with Miss Elkins, or if he seemed generally +worthy apart from that, she could forgive him. + +It was so pleasant when he came in at breakfast with his well-remembered +smile, that she did not require from him any explicit defence. While +they talked she was righting herself in an undercurrent of drama with +Miss Triscoe, and explaining to her that they could not possibly wait +over for her and her father in Weimar, but must be off that day for +Berlin, as they had made all their plans. It was not easy, even in drama +where one has everything one's own way, to prove that she could not +without impiety so far interfere with the course of Providence as to +prevent Miss Triscoe's coming with her father to the same hotel where +Burnamy was staying. She contrived, indeed, to persuade her that she had +not known he was staying there when she telegraphed them where to come, +and that in the absence of any open confidence from Miss Triscoe she was +not obliged to suppose that his presence would be embarrassing. + +March proposed leaving her with Burnamy while he went up into the town +and interviewed the house of Schiller, which he had not done yet; and as +soon as he got himself away she came to business, breaking altogether +from the inner drama with Miss Triscoe and devoting herself to Burnamy. +They had already got so far as to have mentioned the meeting with the +Triscoes in Wurzburg, and she said: "Did Mr. March tell you they were +coming here? Or, no! We hadn't heard then. Yes, they are coming to- +morrow. They may be going to stay some time. She talked of Weimar when +we first spoke of Germany on the ship." Burnamy said nothing, and she +suddenly added, with a sharp glance, "They wanted us to get them rooms, +and we advised their coming to this house." He started very +satisfactorily, and "Do you think they would be comfortable, here?" she +pursued. + +"Oh, yes, very. They can have my room; it's southeast; I shall be going +into other quarters." She did not say anything; and "Mrs. March," he +began again, "what is the use of my beating about the bush? You must +know what I went back to Carlsbad for, that night--" + +"No one ever told--" + +"Well, you must have made a pretty good guess. But it was a failure. I +ought to have failed, and I did. She said that unless her father liked +it-- And apparently he hasn't liked it." Burnamy smiled ruefully. + +"How do you know? She didn't know where you were!" + +"She could have got word to me if she had had good news for me. They've +forwarded other letters from Pupp's. But it's all right; I had no +business to go back to Carlsbad. Of course you didn't know I was in this +house when you told them to come; and I must clear out. I had better +clear out of Weimar, too." + +"No, I don't think so; I have no right to pry into your affairs, but--" + +"Oh, they're wide enough open!" + +"And you may have changed your mind. I thought you might, when I saw you +yesterday at Belvedere--" + +"I was only trying to make bad worse." + +"Then I think the situation has changed entirely through what Mr. Stoller +said to Mr. March." + +"I can't see how it has. I committed an act of shabby treachery, and I'm +as much to blame as if he still wanted to punish me for it." + +"Did Mr. March say that to you?" + +"No; I said that to Mr. March; and he couldn't answer it, and you can't. +You're very good, and very kind, but you can't answer it." + +"I can answer it very well," she boasted, but she could find nothing +better to say than, "It's your duty to her to see her and let her know." + +"Doesn't she know already?" + +"She has a right to know it from you. I think you are morbid, Mr. +Burnamy. You know very well I didn't like your doing that to Mr. +Stoller. I didn't say so at the time, because you seemed to feel it +enough yourself. But I did like your owning up to it," and here Mrs. +March thought it time to trot out her borrowed battle-horse again. "My +husband always says that if a person owns up to an error, fully and +faithfully, as you've always done, they make it the same in its +consequences to them as if it had never been done." + +"Does Mr. March say that?" asked Burnamy with a relenting smile. + +"Indeed he does!" + +Burnamy hesitated; then he asked, gloomily again: + +"And what about the consequences to the, other fellow?" + +"A woman," said Mrs. March, "has no concern with them. And besides, I +think you've done all you could to save Mr. Stoller from the +consequences." + +"I haven't done anything." + +"No matter. You would if you could. I wonder," she broke off, to +prevent his persistence at a point where her nerves were beginning to +give way, "what can be keeping Mr. March?" + +Nothing much more important, it appeared later, than the pleasure of +sauntering through the streets on the way to the house of Schiller, and +looking at the pretty children going to school, with books under their +arms. It was the day for the schools to open after the long summer +vacation, and there was a freshness of expectation in the shining faces +which, if it could not light up his own graybeard visage, could at least +touch his heart: + +When he reached the Schiller house he found that it was really not the +Schiller house, but the Schiller flat, of three or four rooms, one flight +up, whose windows look out upon the street named after the poet. The +whole place is bare and clean; in one corner of the large room fronting +the street stands Schiller's writing-table, with his chair before it; +with the foot extending toward this there stands, in another corner, the +narrow bed on which he died; some withered wreaths on the pillow frame a +picture of his deathmask, which at first glance is like his dead face +lying there. It is all rather tasteless, and all rather touching, and +the place with its meagre appointments, as compared with the rich Goethe +house, suggests that personal competition with Goethe in which Schiller +is always falling into the second place. Whether it will be finally so +with him in literature it is too early to ask of time, and upon other +points eternity will not be interrogated. "The great, Goethe and the +good Schiller," they remain; and yet, March reasoned, there was something +good in Goethe and something great, in Schiller. + +He was so full of the pathos of their inequality before the world that he +did not heed the warning on the door of the pastry-shop near the Schiller +house, and on opening it he bedaubed his hand with the fresh paint on it. +He was then in such a state, that he could not bring his mind to bear +upon the question of which cakes his wife would probably prefer, and he +stood helplessly holding up his hand till the good woman behind the +counter discovered his plight, and uttered a loud cry of compassion. +She ran and got a wet napkin, which she rubbed with soap, and then she +instructed him by word and gesture to rub his hand upon it, and she did +not leave him till his rescue was complete. He let her choose a variety +of the cakes for him, and came away with a gay paper bag full of them, +and with the feeling that he had been in more intimate relations with the +life of Weimar than travellers are often privileged to be. He argued +from the instant and intelligent sympathy of the pastry woman a high +grade of culture in all classes; and he conceived the notion of +pretending to Mrs. March that he had got these cakes from, a descendant +of Schiller. + +His deceit availed with her for the brief moment in which she always, +after so many years' experience of his duplicity, believed anything he +told her. They dined merrily together at their hotel, and then Burnamy +came down to the station with them and was very comfortable to March in +helping him to get their tickets and their baggage registered. The train +which was to take them to Halle, where they were to change for Berlin, +was rather late, and they had but ten minutes after it came in before it +would start again. Mrs. March was watching impatiently at the window of +the waiting-room for the dismounting passengers to clear the platform and +allow the doors to be opened; suddenly she gave a cry, and turned and ran +into the passage by which the new arrivals were pouring out toward the +superabundant omnibuses. March and Burnamy, who had been talking apart, +mechanically rushed after her and found her kissing Miss Triscoe and +shaking hands with the general amidst a tempest of questions and answers, +from which it appeared that the Triscoes had got tired of staying in +Wurzburg, and had simply come on to Weimar a day sooner than they had +intended. + +The, general was rather much bundled up for a day which was mild for a +German summer day, and he coughed out an explanation that he had taken an +abominable cold at that ridiculous parade, and had not shaken it off yet. +He had a notion that change of air would be better for him; it could not +be worse. + +He seemed a little vague as to Burnamy, rather than inimical. While the +ladies were still talking eagerly together in proffer and acceptance of +Mrs. March's lamentations that she should be going away just as Miss +Triscoe was coming, he asked if the omnibus for their hotel was there. +He by no means resented Burnamy's assurance that it was, and he did not +refuse to let him order their baggage, little and large, loaded upon it. +By the time this was done, Mrs. March and Miss Triscoe had so far +detached themselves from each other that they could separate after one +more formal expression of regret and forgiveness. With a lament into +which she poured a world of inarticulate emotions, Mrs. March wrenched +herself from the place, and suffered herself, to be pushed toward her +train. But with the last long look which she cast over her shoulder, +before she vanished into the waiting-room, she saw Miss Triscoe and +Burnamy transacting the elaborate politenesses of amiable strangers with +regard to the very small bag which the girl had in her hand. He +succeeded in relieving her of it; and then he led the way out of the +station on the left of the general, while Miss Triscoe brought up the +rear. + + + + +LXIII. + +From the window of the train as it drew out Mrs. March tried for a +glimpse of the omnibus in which her proteges were now rolling away +together. As they were quite out of sight in the omnibus, which was +itself out of sight, she failed, but as she fell back against her seat +she treated the recent incident with a complexity and simultaneity of +which no report can give an idea. At the end one fatal conviction +remained: that in everything she had said she had failed to explain to +Miss Triscoe how Burnamy happened to be in Weimar and how he happened to +be there with them in the station. She required March to say how she had +overlooked the very things which she ought to have mentioned first, and +which she had on the point of her tongue the whole time. She went over +the entire ground again to see if she could discover the reason why she +had made such an unaccountable break, and it appeared that she was led to +it by his rushing after her with Burnamy before she had had a chance to +say a word about him; of course she could not say anything in his +presence. This gave her some comfort, and there was consolation in the +fact that she had left them together without the least intention or +connivance, and now, no matter what happened, she could not accuse +herself, and he could not accuse her of match-making. + +He said that his own sense of guilt was so great that he should not dream +of accusing her of anything except of regret that now she could never +claim the credit of bringing the lovers together under circumstances so +favorable. As soon as they were engaged they could join in renouncing +her with a good conscience, and they would probably make this the basis +of their efforts to propitiate the general. + +She said she did not care, and with the mere removal of the lovers in +space, her interest in them began to abate. They began to be of a minor +importance in the anxieties of the change of trains at Halle, and in the +excitement of settling into the express from Frankfort there were moments +when they were altogether forgotten. The car was of almost American +length, and it ran with almost American smoothness; when the conductor +came and collected an extra fare for their seats, the Marches felt that +if the charge had been two dollars instead of two marks they would have +had every advantage of American travel. + +On the way to Berlin the country was now fertile and flat, and now +sterile and flat; near the capital the level sandy waste spread almost to +its gates. The train ran quickly through the narrow fringe of suburbs, +and then they were in one of those vast Continental stations which put +our outdated depots to shame. The good 'traeger' who took possession of +them and their hand-bags, put their boxes on a baggage-bearing drosky, +and then got them another drosky for their personal transportation. This +was a drosky of the first-class, but they would not have thought it so, +either from the vehicle itself, or from the appearance of the driver and +his horses. The public carriages of Germany are the shabbiest in the +world; at Berlin the horses look like old hair trunks and the drivers +like their moth-eaten contents. + +The Marches got no splendor for the two prices they paid, and their +approach to their hotel on Unter den Linden was as unimpressive as the +ignoble avenue itself. It was a moist, cold evening, and the mean, +tiresome street, slopped and splashed under its two rows of small trees, +to which the thinning leaves clung like wet rags, between long lines of +shops and hotels which had neither the grace of Paris nor the grandiosity +of New York. March quoted in bitter derision: + + "Bees, bees, was it your hydromel, + Under the Lindens?" + +and his wife said that if Commonwealth Avenue in Boston could be imagined +with its trees and without their beauty, flanked by the architecture of +Sixth Avenue, with dashes of the west side of Union Square, that would be +the famous Unter den Linden, where she had so resolutely decided that +they would stay while in Berlin. + +They had agreed upon the hotel, and neither could blame the other because +it proved second-rate in everything but its charges. They ate a poorish +table d'hote dinner in such low spirits that March had no heart to get a +rise from his wife by calling her notice to the mouse which fed upon the +crumbs about their feet while they dined. Their English-speaking waiter +said that it was a very warm evening, and they never knew whether this +was because he was a humorist, or because he was lonely and wished to +talk, or because it really was a warm evening, for Berlin. When they had +finished, they went out and drove about the greater part of the evening +looking for another hotel, whose first requisite should be that it was +not on Unter den Linden. What mainly determined Mrs. March in favor of +the large, handsome, impersonal place they fixed upon was the fact that +it was equipped for steam-heating; what determined March was the fact +that it had a passenger-office where when he wished to leave, he could +buy his railroad tickets and have his baggage checked without the +maddening anxiety, of doing it at the station. But it was precisely in +these points that the hotel which admirably fulfilled its other functions +fell short. The weather made a succession of efforts throughout their +stay to clear up cold; it merely grew colder without clearing up, but +this seemed to offer no suggestion of steam for heating their bleak +apartment and the chilly corridors to the management. With the help of a +large lamp which they kept burning night and day they got the temperature +of their rooms up to sixty; there was neither stove nor fireplace, the +cold electric bulbs diffused a frosty glare; and in the vast, stately +dining-room with its vaulted roof, there was nothing to warm them but +their plates, and the handles of their knives and forks, which, by a +mysterious inspiration, were always hot. When they were ready to go, +March experienced from the apathy of the baggage clerk and the reluctance +of the porters a more piercing distress than any he had known at the +railroad stations; and one luckless valise which he ordered sent after +him by express reached his bankers in Paris a fortnight overdue, with an +accumulation of charges upon it outvaluing the books which it contained. + +But these were minor defects in an establishment which had many merits, +and was mainly of the temperament and intention of the large English +railroad hotels. They looked from their windows down into a gardened +square, peopled with a full share of the superabounding statues of Berlin +and frequented by babies and nurse maids who seemed not to mind the cold +any more than the stone kings and generals. The aspect of this square, +like the excellent cooking of the hotel and the architecture of the +imperial capital, suggested the superior civilization of Paris. Even the +rows of gray houses and private palaces of Berlin are in the French +taste, which is the only taste there is in Berlin. The suggestion of +Paris is constant, but it is of Paris in exile, and without the chic +which the city wears in its native air. The crowd lacks this as much as +the architecture and the sculpture; there is no distinction among the men +except for now and then a military figure, and among the women no style +such as relieves the commonplace rash of the New York streets. The +Berliners are plain and ill dressed, both men and women, and even the +little children are plain. Every one is ill dressed, but no one is +ragged, and among the undersized homely folk of the lower classes there +is no such poverty-stricken shabbiness as shocks and insults the sight in +New York. That which distinctly recalls our metropolis is the lofty +passage of the elevated trains intersecting the prospectives of many +streets; but in Berlin the elevated road is carried on massive brick +archways and not lifted upon gay, crazy iron ladders like ours. + +When you look away from this, and regard Berlin on its aesthetic, side +you are again in that banished Paris, whose captive art-soul is made to +serve, so far as it may be enslaved to such an effect, in the celebration +of the German triumph over France. Berlin has never the presence of a +great capital, however, in spite of its perpetual monumental insistence. +There is no streaming movement in broad vistas; the dull looking +population moves sluggishly; there is no show of fine equipages. The +prevailing tone of the city and the sky is gray; but under the cloudy +heaven there is no responsive Gothic solemnity in the architecture. +There are hints of the older German cities in some of the remote and +observe streets, but otherwise all is as new as Boston, which in fact the +actual Berlin hardly antedates. + +There are easily more statues in Berlin than in any other city in the +world, but they only unite in failing to give Berlin an artistic air. +They stand in long rows on the cornices; they crowd the pediments; they +poise on one leg above domes and arches; they shelter themselves in +niches; they ride about on horseback; they sit or lounge on street +corners or in garden walks; all with a mediocrity in the older sort which +fails of any impression. If they were only furiously baroque they would +be something, and it may be from a sense of this that there is a self- +assertion in the recent sculptures, which are always patriotic, more +noisy and bragging than anything else in perennial brass. This offensive +art is the modern Prussian avatar of the old German romantic spirit, and +bears the same relation to it that modern romanticism in literature bears +to romance. It finds its apotheosis in the monument to Kaiser Wilhelm +I., a vast incoherent group of swelling and swaggering bronze, +commemorating the victory of the first Prussian Emperor in the war with +the last French Emperor, and avenging the vanquished upon the victors by +its ugliness. The ungainly and irrelevant assemblage of men and animals +backs away from the imperial palace, and saves itself too soon from +plunging over the border of a canal behind it, not far from Rauch's great +statue of the great Frederic. To come to it from the simplicity and +quiet of that noble work is like passing from some exquisite masterpiece +of naturalistic acting to the rant and uproar of melodrama; and the +Marches stood stunned and bewildered by its wild explosions. + +When they could escape they found themselves so convenient to the +imperial palace that they judged best to discharge at once the obligation +to visit it which must otherwise weigh upon them. They entered the court +without opposition from the sentinel, and joined other strangers +straggling instinctively toward a waiting-room in one corner of the +building, where after they had increased to some thirty, a custodian took +charge of them, and led them up a series of inclined plains of brick to +the state apartments. In the antechamber they found a provision of +immense felt over-shoes which they were expected to put on for their +passage over the waxed marquetry of the halls. These roomy slippers were +designed for the accommodation of the native boots; and upon the mixed +company of foreigners the effect was in the last degree humiliating. The +women's skirts some what hid their disgrace, but the men were openly put +to shame, and they shuffled forward with their bodies at a convenient +incline like a company of snow-shoers. In the depths of his own +abasement March heard a female voice behind him sighing in American +accents, "To think I should be polishing up these imperial floors with my +republican feet!" + +The protest expressed the rebellion which he felt mounting in his own +heart as they advanced through the heavily splendid rooms, in the +historical order of the family portraits recording the rise of the +Prussian sovereigns from Margraves to Emperors. He began to realize here +the fact which grew open him more and more that imperial Germany is not +the effect of a popular impulse but of a dynastic propensity. There is +nothing original in the imperial palace, nothing national; it embodies +and proclaims a powerful personal will, and in its adaptations of French +art it appeals to no emotion in the German witness nobler than his pride +in the German triumph over the French in war. March found it tiresome +beyond the tiresome wont of palaces, and he gladly shook off the sense of +it with his felt shoes. "Well," he confided to his wife when they were +fairly out-of-doors, "if Prussia rose in the strength of silence, as +Carlyle wants us to believe, she is taking it out in talk now, and tall +talk." + +"Yes, isn't she!" Mrs. March assented, and with a passionate desire for +excess in a bad thing, which we all know at times, she looked eagerly +about her for proofs of that odious militarism of the empire, which ought +to have been conspicuous in the imperial capital; but possibly because +the troops were nearly all away at the manoeuvres, there were hardly more +in the streets than she had sometimes seen in Washington. Again the +German officers signally failed to offer her any rudeness when she met +them on the side-walks. There were scarcely any of them, and perhaps +that might have been the reason why they were not more aggressive; but a +whole company of soldiers marching carelessly up to the palace from the +Brandenburg gate, without music, or so much style as our own militia +often puts on, regarded her with inoffensive eyes so far as they looked +at her. She declared that personally there was nothing against the +Prussians; even when in uniform they were kindly and modest-looking men; +it was when they got up on pedestals, in bronze or marble, that they, +began to bully and to brag. + + + + +LXIV. + +The dinner which the Marches got at a restaurant on Unter den Linden +almost redeemed the avenue from the disgrace it had fallen into with +them. It was, the best meal they had yet eaten in Europe, and as to fact +and form was a sort of compromise between a French dinner and an English +dinner which they did not hesitate to pronounce Prussian. The waiter who +served it was a friendly spirit, very sensible of their intelligent +appreciation of the dinner; and from him they formed a more respectful +opinion of Berlin civilization than they had yet held. After the manner +of strangers everywhere they judged the country they were visiting from +such of its inhabitants as chance brought them in contact with; and it +would really be a good thing for nations that wish to stand well with the +world at large to look carefully to the behavior of its cabmen and car +conductors, its hotel clerks and waiters, its theatre-ticket sellers and +ushers, its policemen and sacristans, its landlords and salesmen; for by +these rather than by its society women and its statesmen and divines, is +it really judged in the books of travellers; some attention also should +be paid to the weather, if the climate is to be praised. In the railroad +caf‚ at Potsdam there was a waiter so rude to the Marches that if they +had not been people of great strength of character he would have undone +the favorable impression the soldiers and civilians of Berlin generally +had been at such pains to produce in them; and throughout the week of +early September which they passed there, it rained so much and so +bitterly, it was so wet and so cold, that they might have come away +thinking it's the worst climate in the world, if it had not been for a +man whom they saw in one of the public gardens pouring a heavy stream +from his garden hose upon the shrubbery already soaked and shuddering in +the cold. But this convinced them that they were suffering from weather +and not from the climate, which must really be hot and dry; and they went +home to their hotel and sat contentedly down in a temperature of sixty +degrees. The weather, was not always so bad; one day it was dry cold +instead of wet cold, with rough, rusty clouds breaking a blue sky; +another day, up to eleven in the forenoon, it was like Indian summer; +then it changed to a harsh November air; and then it relented and ended +so mildly, that they hired chairs in the place before the imperial palace +for five pfennigs each, and sat watching the life before them. Motherly +women-folk were there knitting; two American girls in chairs near them +chatted together; some fine equipages, the only ones they saw in Berlin, +went by; a dog and a man (the wife who ought to have been in harness was +probably sick, and the poor fellow was forced to take her place)passed +dragging a cart; some schoolboys who had hung their satchels upon the low +railing were playing about the base of the statue of King William III. +in the joyous freedom of German childhood. + +They seemed the gayer for the brief moments of sunshine, but to the +Americans, who were Southern by virtue of their sky, the brightness had a +sense of lurking winter in it, such as they remembered feeling on a sunny +day in Quebec. The blue heaven looked sad; but they agreed that it fitly +roofed the bit of old feudal Berlin which forms the most ancient wing of +the Schloss. This was time-blackened and rude, but at least it did not +try to be French, and it overhung the Spree which winds through the city +and gives it the greatest charm it has. In fact Berlin, which is +otherwise so grandiose without grandeur and so severe without +impressiveness, is sympathetic wherever the Spree opens it to the sky. +The stream is spanned by many bridges, and bridges cannot well be +unpicturesque, especially if they have statues to help them out. The +Spree abounds in bridges, and it has a charming habit of slow hay-laden +barges; at the landings of the little passenger-steamers which ply upon +it there are cafes and summer-gardens, and these even in the inclement +air of September suggested a friendly "gayety. + +The Marches saw it best in the tour of the elevated road in Berlin which +they made in an impassioned memory of the elevated road in New York. The +brick viaducts which carry this arch the Spree again and again in their +course through and around the city, but with never quite such spectacular +effects as our spidery tressels, achieve. The stations are pleasant, +sometimes with lunch-counters and news-stands, but have not the comic- +opera-chalet prettiness of ours, and are not so frequent. The road is +not so smooth, the cars not so smooth-running or so swift. On the other +hand they are comfortably cushioned, and they are never overcrowded. The +line is at times above, at times below the houses, and at times on a +level with them, alike in city and in suburbs. The train whirled out of +thickly built districts, past the backs of the old houses, into outskirts +thinly populated, with new houses springing up without order or +continuity among the meadows and vegetable-gardens, and along the ready- +made, elm-planted avenues, where wooden fences divided the vacant lots. +Everywhere the city was growing out over the country, in blocks and +detached edifices of limestone, sandstone, red and yellow brick, larger +or smaller, of no more uniformity than our suburban dwellings, but never +of their ugliness or lawless offensiveness. + +In an effort for the intimate life of the country March went two +successive mornings for his breakfast to the Caf‚ Bauer, which has some +admirable wall-printings, and is the chief caf‚ on Unter den Linden; but +on both days there were more people in the paintings than out of them. +The second morning the waiter who took his order recognized him and +asked, "Wie gestern?" and from this he argued an affectionate constancy +in the Berliners, and a hospitable observance of the tastes of strangers. +At his bankers, on the other hand, the cashier scrutinized his signature +and remarked that it did not look like the signature in his letter of +credit, and then he inferred a suspicious mind in the moneyed classes of +Prussia; as he had not been treated with such unkind doubt by Hebrew +bankers anywhere, he made a mental note that the Jews were politer than +the Christians in Germany. In starting for Potsdam he asked a traeger +where the Potsdam train was and the man said, "Dat train dare," and in +coming back he helped a fat old lady out of the car, and she thanked him +in English. From these incidents, both occurring the same day in the +same place, the inference of a widespread knowledge of our language in +all classes of the population was inevitable. + +In this obvious and easy manner he studied contemporary civilization in +the capital. He even carried his researches farther, and went one rainy +afternoon to an exhibition of modern pictures in a pavilion of the +Thiergarten, where from the small attendance he inferred an indifference +to the arts which he would not ascribe to the weather. One evening at a +summer theatre where they gave the pantomime of the 'Puppenfee' and the +operetta of 'Hansel and Gretel', he observed that the greater part of the +audience was composed of nice plain young girls and children, and he +noted that there was no sort of evening dress; from the large number of +Americans present he imagined a numerous colony in Berlin, where they +mast have an instinctive sense of their co-nationality, since one of them +in the stress of getting his hat and overcoat when they all came out, +confidently addressed him in English. But he took stock of his +impressions with his wife, and they seemed to him so few, after all, that +he could not resist a painful sense of isolation in the midst of the +environment. + +They made a Sunday excursion to the Zoological Gardens in the +Thiergarten, with a large crowd of the lower classes, but though they had +a great deal of trouble in getting there by the various kinds of +horsecars and electric cars, they did not feel that they had got near to +the popular life. They endeavored for some sense of Berlin society by +driving home in a drosky, and on the way they passed rows of beautiful +houses, in French and Italian taste, fronting the deep, damp green park +from the Thiergartenstrasse, in which they were confident cultivated and +delightful people lived; but they remained to the last with nothing but +their unsupported conjecture. + + + + +LXV. + +Their excursion to Potsdam was the cream of their sojourn in Berlin. +They chose for it the first fair morning, and they ran out over the flat +sandy plains surrounding the capital, and among the low hills surrounding +Potsdam before it actually began to rain. + +They wished immediately to see Sans Souci for the great Frederick's sake, +and they drove through a lively shower to the palace, where they waited +with a horde of twenty-five other tourists in a gusty colonnade before +they were led through Voltaire's room and Frederick's death chamber. + +The French philosopher comes before the Prussian prince at Sans Souci +even in the palatial villa which expresses the wilful caprice of the +great Frederick as few edifices have embodied the whims or tastes of +their owners. The whole affair is eighteenth-century French, as the +Germans conceived it. The gardened terrace from which the low, one-story +building, thickly crusted with baroque sculptures, looks down into a +many-colored parterre, was luxuriantly French, and sentimentally French +the colonnaded front opening to a perspective of artificial ruins, with +broken pillars lifting a conscious fragment of architrave against the +sky. Within, all again was French in the design, the decoration and the +furnishing. At that time there, was in fact no other taste, and +Frederick, who despised and disused his native tongue, was resolved upon +French taste even in his intimate companionship. The droll story of his +coquetry with the terrible free spirit which he got from France to be his +guest is vividly reanimated at Sans Souci, where one breathes the very +air in which the strangely assorted companions lived, and in which they +parted so soon to pursue each other with brutal annoyance on one side, +and with merciless mockery on the other. Voltaire was long ago revenged +upon his host for all the indignities he suffered from him in their +comedy; he left deeply graven upon Frederick's fame the trace of those +lacerating talons which he could strike to the quick; and it is the +singular effect of this scene of their brief friendship that one feels +there the pre-eminence of the wit in whatever was most important to +mankind. + +The rain had lifted a little and the sun shone out on the bloom of the +lovely parterre where the Marches profited by a smiling moment to wander +among the statues and the roses heavy with the shower. Then they walked +back to their carriage and drove to the New Palace, which expresses in +differing architectural terms the same subjection to an alien ideal of +beauty. It is thronged without by delightfully preposterous rococco +statues, and within it is rich in all those curiosities and memorials of +royalty with which palaces so well know how to fatigue the flesh and +spirit of their visitors. + +The Marches escaped from it all with sighs and groans of relief, and +before they drove off to see the great fountain of the Orangeries, they +dedicated a moment of pathos to the Temple of Friendship which Frederick +built in memory of unhappy Wilhelmina of Beyreuth, the sister he loved in +the common sorrow of their wretched home, and neglected when he came to +his kingdom. It is beautiful in its rococco way, swept up to on its +terrace by most noble staircases, and swaggered over by baroque +allegories of all sorts: Everywhere the statues outnumbered the visitors, +who may have been kept away by the rain; the statues naturally did not +mind it. + +Sometime in the midst of their sight-seeing the Marches had dinner in a +mildewed restaurant, where a compatriotic accent caught their ear in a +voice saying to the waiter, "We are in a hurry." They looked round and +saw that it proceeded from the pretty nose of a young American girl, who +sat with a party of young American girls at a neighboring table. Then +they perceived that all the people in that restaurant were Americans, +mostly young girls, who all looked as if they were in a hurry. But +neither their beauty nor their impatience had the least effect with the +waiter, who prolonged the dinner at his pleasure, and alarmed the Marches +with the misgiving that they should not have time for the final palace on +their list. + +This was the palace where the father of Frederick, the mad old Frederick +William, brought up his children with that severity which Solomon urged +but probably did not practise. It is a vast place, but they had time for +it all, though the custodian made the most of them as the latest comers +of the day, and led them through it with a prolixity as great as their +waiter's. He was a most friendly custodian, and when he found that they +had some little notion of what they wanted to see, he mixed zeal with his +patronage, and in a manner made them his honored guests. They saw +everything but the doorway where the faithful royal father used to lie in +wait for his children and beat them, princes and princesses alike, with +his knobby cane as they came through. They might have seen this doorway +without knowing it; but from the window overlooking the parade-ground +where his family watched the manoeuvres of his gigantic grenadiers, they +made sure of just such puddles as Frederick William forced his family to +sit with their feet in, while they dined alfresco on pork and cabbage; +and they visited the room of the Smoking Parliament where he ruled his +convives with a rod of iron, and made them the victims of his bad jokes. +The measuring-board against which he took the stature of his tall +grenadiers is there, and one room is devoted to those masterpieces which +he used to paint in the agonies of gout. His chef d'oeuvre contains a +figure with two left feet, and there seemed no reason why it might not. +have had three. In another room is a small statue of Carlyle, who did so +much to rehabilitate the house which the daughter of it, Wilhelmina, did +so much to demolish in the regard of men. + +The palace is now mostly kept for guests, and there is a chamber where +Napoleon slept, which is not likely to be occupied soon by any other +self-invited guest of his nation. It is perhaps to keep the princes of +Europe humble that hardly a palace on the Continent is without the +chamber of this adventurer, who, till he stooped to be like them, was +easily their master. Another democracy had here recorded its invasion in +the American stoves which the custodian pointed out in the corridor when +Mrs, March, with as little delay as possible, had proclaimed their +country. The custodian professed an added respect for them from the +fact, and if he did not feel it, no doubt he merited the drink money +which they lavished on him at parting. + +Their driver also was a congenial spirit, and when he let them out of his +carriage at the station, he excused the rainy day to them. He was a +merry fellow beyond the wont of his nation, and he-laughed at the bad +weather, as if it had been a good joke on them. + +His gayety, and the red sunset light, which shone on the stems of the +pines on the way back to Berlin, contributed to the content in which they +reviewed their visit to Potsdam. They agreed that the place was +perfectly charming, and that it was incomparably expressive of kingly +will and pride. These had done there on the grand scale what all the +German princes and princelings had tried to do in imitation and emulation +of French splendor. In Potsdam the grandeur, was not a historical growth +as at Versailles, but was the effect of family genius, in which there was +often the curious fascination of insanity. + +They felt this strongly again amidst the futile monuments of the +Hohenzollern Museum, in Berlin, where all the portraits, effigies, +personal belongings and memorials of that gifted, eccentric race are +gathered and historically disposed. The princes of the mighty line who +stand out from the rest are Frederick the Great and his infuriate. +father; and in the waxen likeness of the son, a small thin figure, +terribly spry, and a face pitilessly alert, appears something of the +madness which showed in the life of the sire. + +They went through many rooms in which the memorials of the kings and +queens, the emperors and empresses were carefully ordered, and felt no +kindness except before the relics relating to the Emperor Frederick and +his mother. In the presence of the greatest of the dynasty they +experienced a kind of terror which March expressed, when they were safely +away, in the confession of his joy that those people were dead. + + + + + +LXVI. + +The rough weather which made Berlin almost uninhabitable to Mrs. March +had such an effect with General Triscoe at Weimar that under the orders +of an English-speaking doctor he retreated from it altogether and went to +bed. Here he escaped the bronchitis which had attacked him, and his +convalesence left him so little to complain of that he could not always +keep his temper. In the absence of actual offence, either from his +daughter or from Burnamy, his sense of injury took a retroactive form; it +centred first in Stoller and the twins; then it diverged toward Rose +Adding, his mother and Kenby, and finally involved the Marches in the +same measure of inculpation; for they had each and all had part, directly +or indirectly, in the chances that brought on his cold. + +He owed to Burnamy the comfort of the best room in the hotel, and he was +constantly dependent upon his kindness; but he made it evident that he +did not over-value Burnamy's sacrifice and devotion, and that it was not +an unmixed pleasure, however great a convenience, to have him about. In +giving up his room, Burnamy had proposed going out of the hotel +altogether; but General Triscoe heard of this with almost as great +vexation as he had accepted the room. He besought him not to go, but so +ungraciously that his daughter was ashamed, and tried to atone for his +manner by the kindness of her own. + +Perhaps General Triscoe would not have been without excuse if he were not +eager to have her share with destitute merit the fortune which she had +hitherto shared only with him. He was old, and certain luxuries had +become habits if not necessaries with him. Of course he did not say this +to himself; and still less did he say it to her. But he let her see that +he did not enjoy the chance which had thrown them again in such close +relations with Burnamy, and he did pot hide his belief that the Marches +were somehow to blame for it. This made it impossible for her to write +at once to Mrs. March as she had promised; but she was determined that it +should not make her unjust to Burnamy. She would not avoid him; she +would not let anything that had happened keep her from showing that she +felt his kindness and was glad of his help. + +Of course they knew no one else in Weimar, and his presence merely as a +fellow-countryman would have been precious. He got them a doctor, +against General Triscoe's will; he went for his medicines; he lent him +books and papers; he sat with him and tried to amuse him. But with the +girl he attempted no return to the situation at Carlsbad; there is +nothing like the delicate pride of a young man who resolves to forego +unfair advantage in love. + +The day after their arrival, when her father was making up for the sleep +he had lost by night, she found herself alone in the little reading-room +of the hotel with Burnamy for the first time, and she said: "I suppose +you must have been all over Weimar by this time." + +"Well, I've been here, off and on, almost a month. It's an interesting +place. There's a good deal of the old literary quality left." + +"And you enjoy that! I saw"--she added this with a little unnecessary +flush--"your poem in the paper you lent papa." + +"I suppose I ought to have kept that back. But I couldn't." He laughed, +and she said: + +"You must find a great deal of inspiration in such a literary place." + +"It isn't lying about loose, exactly." Even in the serious and +perplexing situation in which he found himself he could not help being +amused with her unliterary notions of literature, her conventional and +commonplace conceptions of it. They had their value with him as those of +a more fashionable world than his own, which he believed was somehow a +greater world. At the same time he believed that she was now interposing +them between the present and the past, and forbidding with them any +return to the mood of their last meeting in Carlsbad. He looked at her +ladylike composure and unconsciousness, and wondered if she could be the +same person and the same person as they who lost themselves in the crowd +that night and heard and said words palpitant with fate. Perhaps there +had been no such words; perhaps it was all a hallucination. He must +leave her to recognize that it was reality; till she did so, he felt +bitterly that there was nothing for him but submission and patience; if +she never did so, there was nothing for him but acquiescence. + +In this talk and in the talks they had afterwards she seemed willing +enough to speak of what had happened since: of coming on to Wurzburg with +the Addings and of finding the Marches there; of Rose's collapse, and of +his mother's flight seaward with him in the care of Kenby, who was so +fortunately going to Holland, too. He on his side told her of going to +Wurzburg for the manoeuvres, and they agreed that it was very strange +they had not met. + +She did not try to keep their relations from taking the domestic +character which was inevitable, and it seemed to him that this in itself +was significant of a determination on her part that was fatal to his +hopes. With a lover's indefinite power of blinding himself to what is +before his eyes, he believed that if she had been more diffident of him, +more uneasy in his presence, he should have had more courage; but for her +to breakfast unafraid with him, to meet him at lunch and dinner in the +little dining-room where they were often the only guests, and always the +only English-speaking guests, was nothing less than prohibitive. + +In the hotel service there was one of those men who are porters in this +world, but will be angels in the next, unless the perfect goodness of +their looks, the constant kindness of their acts, belies them. The +Marches had known and loved the man in their brief stay, and he had been +the fast friend of Burnamy from the moment they first saw each other at +the station. He had tenderly taken possession of General Triscoe on his +arrival, and had constituted himself the nurse and keeper of the +irascible invalid, in the intervals of going to the trains, with a zeal +that often relieved his daughter and Burnamy. The general in fact +preferred him to either, and a tacit custom grew up by which when August +knocked at his door, and offered himself in his few words of serviceable +English, that one of them who happened to be sitting with the general +gave way, and left him in charge. The retiring watcher was then apt to +encounter the other watcher on the stairs, or in the reading-room, or in +the tiny, white-pebbled door-yard at a little table in the shade of the +wooden-tubbed evergreens. From the habit of doing this they one day +suddenly formed the habit of going across the street to that gardened +hollow before and below the Grand-Ducal Museum. There was here a bench +in the shelter of some late-flowering bush which the few other +frequenters of the place soon recognized as belonging to the young +strangers, so that they would silently rise and leave it to them when +they saw them coming. Apparently they yielded not only to their right, +but to a certain authority which resides in lovers, and which all other +men, and especially all other women, like to acknowledge and respect. + +In the absence of any civic documents bearing upon the affair it is +difficult to establish the fact that this was the character in which +Agatha and Burnamy were commonly regarded by the inhabitants of Weimar. +But whatever their own notion of their relation was, if it was not that +of a Brant and a Brautigam, the people of Weimar would have been puzzled +to say what it was. It was known that the gracious young lady's father, +who would naturally have accompanied them, was sick, and in the fact that +they were Americans much extenuation was found for whatever was +phenomenal in their unencumbered enjoyment of each other's society. + +If their free American association was indistinguishably like the peasant +informality which General Triscoe despised in the relations of Kenby and +Mrs. Adding, it is to be said in his excuse that he could not be fully +cognizant of it, in the circumstances, and so could do nothing to prevent +it. His pessimism extended to his health; from the first he believed +himself worse than the doctor thought him, and he would have had some +other physician if he had not found consolation in their difference of +opinion and the consequent contempt which he was enabled to cherish for +the doctor in view of the man's complete ignorance of the case. In proof +of his own better understanding of it, he remained in bed some time after +the doctor said he might get up. + +Nearly ten days had passed before he left his room, and it was not till +then that he clearly saw how far affairs had gone with his daughter and +Burnamy, though even then his observance seemed to have anticipated +theirs. He found them in a quiet acceptance of the fortune which had +brought them together, so contented that they appeared to ask nothing +more of it. The divine patience and confidence of their youth might +sometimes have had almost the effect of indifference to a witness who had +seen its evolution from the moods of the first few days of their reunion +in Weimar. To General Triscoe, however, it looked like an understanding +which had been made without reference to his wishes, and had not been +directly brought to his knowledge. + +"Agatha," he said, after due note of a gay contest between her and +Burnamy over the pleasure and privilege of ordering his supper sent to +his room when he had gone back to it from his first afternoon in the open +air, "how long is that young man going to stay in Weimar?" + +"Why, I don't know!" she answered, startled from her work of beating the +sofa pillows into shape, and pausing with one of them in her hand. +"I never asked him." She looked down candidly into his face where he sat +in an easy-chair waiting for her arrangement of the sofa. "What makes +you ask?" + +He answered with another question. "Does he know that we had thought of +staying here?" + +"Why, we've always talked of that, haven't we? Yes, he knows it. Didn't +you want him to know it, papa? You ought to have begun on the ship, +then. Of course I've asked him what sort of place it was. I'm sorry if +you didn't want me to." + +"Have I said that? It's perfectly easy to push on to Paris. Unless--" + +"Unless what?" Agatha dropped the pillow, and listened respectfully. But +in spite of her filial attitude she could not keep her youth and strength +and courage from quelling the forces of the elderly man. + +He said querulously, "I don't see why you take that tone with me. You +certainly know what I mean. But if you don't care to deal openly with +me, I won't ask you." He dropped his eyes from her face, and at the same +time a deep blush began to tinge it, growing up from her neck to her +forehead. "You must know--you're not a child," he continued, still with +averted eyes, "that this sort of thing can't go on... It must be +something else, or it mustn't be anything at all. I don't ask you for +your confidence, and you know that I've never sought to control you." + +This was not the least true, but Agatha answered, either absently or +provisionally, "No." + +"And I don't seek to do so now. If you have nothing that you wish to +tell me--" + +He waited, and after what seemed a long time, she asked as if she had not +heard him, "Will you lie down a little before your supper, papa?" + +"I will lie down when I feel like it," he answered. "Send August with +the supper; he can look after me." + +His resentful tone, even more than his words, dismissed her, but she left +him without apparent grievance, saying quietly, "I will send August." + + + + +LXVII. + +Agatha did not come down to supper with Burnamy. She asked August, when +she gave him her father's order, to have a cup of tea sent to her room, +where, when it came, she remained thinking so long that it was rather +tepid by the time she drank it. + +Then she went to her window, and looked out, first above and next below. +Above, the moon was hanging over the gardened hollow before the Museum +with the airy lightness of an American moon. Below was Burnamy behind +the tubbed evergreens, sitting tilted in his chair against the house +wall, with the spark of his cigar fainting and flashing like an American +firefly. Agatha went down to the door, after a little delay, and seemed +surprised to find him there; at least she said, "Oh!" in a tone of +surprise. + +Burnamy stood up, and answered, "Nice night." + +"Beautiful!" she breathed. "I didn't suppose the sky in Germany could +ever be so clear." + +"It seems to be doing its best." + +"The flowers over there look like ghosts in the light," she said +dreamily. + +"They're not. Don't you want to get your hat and wrap, and go over and +expose the fraud?" + +"Oh," she answered, as if it were merely a question of the hat and wrap, +"I have them." + +They sauntered through the garden walks for a while, long enough to have +ascertained that there was not a veridical phantom among the flowers, if +they had been looking, and then when they came to their accustomed seat, +they sat down, and she said, "I don't know that I've seen the moon so +clear since we left Carlsbad." At the last word his heart gave a jump +that seemed to lodge it in his throat and kept him from speaking, so that +she could resume without interruption, "I've got something of yours, that +you left at the Posthof. The girl that broke the dishes found it, and +Lili gave it to Mrs. March for you." This did not account for Agatha's +having the thing, whatever it was; but when she took a handkerchief from +her belt, and put out her hand with it toward him, he seemed to find that +her having it had necessarily followed. He tried to take it from her, +but his own hand trembled so that it clung to hers, and he gasped, "Can't +you say now, what you wouldn't say then?" + +The logical sequence was no more obvious than be fore; but she apparently +felt it in her turn as he had felt it in his. She whispered back, "Yes," +and then she could not get out anything more till she entreated in a +half-stifled voice, "Oh, don't!" ` + +"No, no!" he panted. "I won't--I oughtn't to have done it--I beg your +pardon--I oughtn't to have spoken,--even--I--" + +She returned in a far less breathless and tremulous fashion, but still +between laughing and crying, "I meant to make you. And now, if you're +ever sorry, or I'm ever too topping about anything, you can be perfectly +free to say that you'd never have spoken if you hadn't seen that I wanted +you to." + +"But I didn't see any such thing," he protested. "I spoke because I +couldn't help it any longer." + +She laughed triumphantly. "Of course you think so! And that shows that +you are only a man after all; in spite of your finessing. But I am going +to have the credit of it. I knew that you were holding back because you +were too proud, or thought you hadn't the right, or something. Weren't +you?" She startled him with the sudden vehemence of her challenge: "If +you pretend, that you weren't I shall never forgive you!" + +"But I was! Of course I was. I was afraid--" + +"Isn't that what I said?" She triumphed over him with another laugh, and +cowered a little closer to him, if that could be. + +They were standing, without knowing how they had got to their feet; and +now without any purpose of the kind, they began to stroll again among the +garden paths, and to ask and to answer questions, which touched every +point of their common history, and yet left it a mine of inexhaustible +knowledge for all future time. Out of the sweet and dear delight of this +encyclopedian reserve two or three facts appeared with a present +distinctness. One of these was that Burnamy had regarded her refusal to +be definite at Carlsbad as definite refusal, and had meant never to see +her again, and certainly never to speak again of love to her. Another +point was that she had not resented his coming back that last night, but +had been proud and happy in it as proof of his love, and had always meant +somehow to let him know that she was torched by his trusting her enough +to come back while be was still under that cloud with Mr. Stoller. With +further logic, purely of the heart, she acquitted him altogether of wrong +in that affair, and alleged in proof, what Mr. Stoller had said of it to +Mr. March. Burnamy owned that he knew what Stoller had said, but even in +his present condition he could not accept fully her reading of that +obscure passage of his life. He preferred to put the question by, and +perhaps neither of them cared anything about it except as it related to +the fact that they were now each other's forever. + +They agreed that they must write to Mr. and Mrs. March at once; or at +least, Agatha said, as soon as she had spoken to her father. At her +mention of her father she was aware of a doubt, a fear, in Burnamy which +expressed itself by scarcely more than a spiritual consciousness from his +arm to the hands which she had clasped within it. "He has always +appreciated you," she said courageously, " and I know he will see it in +the right light." + +She probably meant no more than to affirm her faith in her own ability +finally to bring her father to a just mind concerning it; but Burnamy +accepted her assurance with buoyant hopefulness, and said he would see +General Triscoe the first thing in the morning. + +"No, I will see him," she said, "I wish to see him first; he will expect +it of me. We had better go in, now," she added, but neither made any +motion for the present to do so. On the contrary, they walked in the +other direction, and it was an hour after Agatha declared their duty in +the matter before they tried to fulfil it. + +Then, indeed, after they returned to the hotel, she lost no time in going +to her father beyond that which must be given to a long hand-pressure +under the fresco of the five poets on the stairs landing, where her ways +and Burnamy's parted. She went into her own room, and softly opened the +door into her father's and listened. + +"Well?" he said in a sort of challenging voice. + +"Have you been asleep?" she asked. + +"I've just blown out my light. What has kept you?" + +She did not reply categorically. Standing there in the sheltering dark, +she said, "Papa, I wasn't very candid with you, this afternoon. I am +engaged to Mr. Burnamy." + +"Light the candle," said her father. "Or no," he added before she could +do so. "Is it quite settled?" + +"Quite," she answered in a voice that admitted of no doubt. "That is, as +far as it can be, without you." + +"Don't be a hypocrite, Agatha," said the general. "And let me try to get +to sleep. You know I don't like it, and you know I can't help it." + +"Yes," the girl assented. + +"Then go to bed," said the general concisely. + +Agatha did not obey her father. She thought she ought to kiss him, but +she decided that she had better postpone this; so she merely gave him a +tender goodnight, to which he made no response, and shut herself into her +own room, where she remained sitting and staring out into the moonlight, +with a smile that never left her lips. + +When the moon sank below the horizon, the sky was pale with the coming +day, but before it was fairly dawn, she saw something white, not much +greater than some moths, moving before her window. She pulled the valves +open and found it a bit of paper attached to a thread dangling from +above. She broke it loose and in the morning twilight she read the great +central truth of the universe: + +"I love you. L. J. B." + +She wrote under the tremendous inspiration: + +"So do I. Don't be silly. A. T." + +She fastened the paper to the thread again, and gave it a little twitch. +She waited for the low note of laughter which did not fail to flutter +down from above; then she threw herself upon the bed, and fell asleep. + +It was not so late as she thought when she woke, and it seemed, at +breakfast, that Burnamy had been up still earlier. Of the three involved +in the anxiety of the night before General Triscoe was still respited +from it by sleep, but he woke much more haggard than either of the young +people. They, in fact, were not at all haggard; the worst was over, if +bringing their engagement to his knowledge was the worst; the formality +of asking his consent which Burnamy still had to go through was +unpleasant, but after all it was a formality. Agatha told him everything +that had passed between herself and her father, and if it had not that +cordiality on his part which they could have wished it was certainly not +hopelessly discouraging. + +They agreed at breakfast that Burnamy had better have it over as quickly +as possible, and he waited only till August came down with the general's +tray before going up to his room. The young fellow did not feel more at +his ease than the elder meant he should in taking the chair to which the +general waved him from where he lay in bed; and there was no talk wasted +upon the weather between them. + +"I suppose I know what you have come for, Mr. Burnamy," said General +Triscoe in a tone which was rather judicial than otherwise, "and I +suppose you know why you have come." The words certainly opened the way +for Burnamy, but he hesitated so long to take it that the general had +abundant time to add, "I don't pretend that this event is unexpected, but +I should like to know what reason you have for thinking I should wish you +to marry my daughter. I take it for granted that you are attached to +each other, and we won't waste time on that point. Not to beat about the +bush, on the next point, let me ask at once what your means of supporting +her are. How much did you earn on that newspaper in Chicago?" + +"Fifteen hundred dollars," Burnamy answered, promptly enough. + +"Did you earn anything more, say within the last year?" + +"I got three hundred dollars advance copyright for a book I sold to a +publisher." The glory had not yet faded from the fact in Burnamy's mind. + +"Eighteen hundred. What did you get for your poem in March's book?" + +"That's a very trifling matter: fifteen dollars." + +"And your salary as private secretary to that man Stoller?" + +"Thirty dollars a week, and my expenses. But I wouldn't take that, +General Triscoe," said Burnamy. + +General Triscoe, from his 'lit de justice', passed this point in silence. +"Have you any one dependent on you?" + +"My mother; I take care of my mother," answered Burnamy, proudly. + +"Since you have broken with Stoller, what are your prospects?" + +"I have none." + +"Then you don't expect to support my daughter; you expect to live upon +her means." + +"I expect to do nothing of the kind! " cried Burnamy. "I should be +ashamed--I should feel disgraced--I should--I don't ask you--I don't ask +her till I have the means to support her--" + +"If you were very fortunate," continued the general, unmoved by the young +fellow's pain, and unperturbed by the fact that he had himself lived upon +his wife's means as long as she lived, and then upon his daughter's, "if +you went back to Stoller--" + +"I wouldn't go back to him. I don't say he's knowingly a rascal, but +he's ignorantly a rascal, and he proposed a rascally thing to me. I +behaved badly to him, and I'd give anything to undo the wrong I let him +do himself; but I'll never go back to him." + +"If you went back, on your old salary," the general persisted pitilessly, +"you would be very fortunate if you brought your earnings up to twenty- +five hundred a year." + +"Yes--" + +"And how far do you think that would go in supporting my daughter on the +scale she is used to? I don't speak of your mother, who has the first +claim upon you." + +Burnamy sat dumb; and his head which he had lifted indignantly when the +question was of Stoller, began to sink. + +The general went on. "You ask me to give you my daughter when you +haven't money enough to keep her in gowns; you ask me to give her to a +stranger--" + +"Not quite a stranger, General Triscoe," Burnamy protested. "You have +known me for three months at least, and any one who knows me in Chicago +will tell you--" + +"A stranger, and worse than a stranger," the general continued, so +pleased with the logical perfection of his position that he almost +smiled, and certainly softened toward Burnamy. "It isn't a question of +liking you, Mr. Burnamy, but of knowing you; my daughter likes you; so do +the Marches; so does everybody who has met you. I like you myself. +You've done me personally a thousand kindnesses. But I know very little +of you, in spite of our three months' acquaintance; and that little is-- +But you shall judge for yourself! You were in the confidential employ of +a man who trusted you, and you let him betray himself." + +"I did. I don't excuse it. The thought of it burns like fire. But it +wasn't done maliciously; it wasn't done falsely; it was done +inconsiderately; and when it was done, it seemed irrevocable. But it +wasn't; I could have prevented, I could have stooped the mischief; and I +didn't! I can never outlive that." + +"I know," said the general relentlessly, "that you have never attempted +any defence. That has been to your credit with me. It inclined me to +overlook your unwarranted course in writing to my daughter, when you told +her you would never see her again. What did you expect me to think, +after that, of your coming back to see her? Or didn't you expect me to +know it?" + +"I expected you to know it; I knew she would tell you. But I don't +excuse that, either. It was acting a lie to come back. All I can say is +that I had to see her again for one last time." + +"And to make sure that it was to be the last time, you offered yourself +to her." + +"I couldn't help doing that." + +"I don't say you could. I don't judge the facts at all. I leave them +altogether to you; and you shall say what a man in my position ought to +say to such a man as you have shown yourself." + +"No, I will say." The door into the adjoining room was flung open, and +Agatha flashed in from it. + +Her father looked coldly at her impassioned face. "Have you been +listening?" he asked. + +"I have been hearing--" + +"Oh!" As nearly as a man could, in bed, General Triscoe shrugged. + +"I suppose I had, a right to be in my own room. I couldn't help hearing; +and I was perfectly astonished at you, papa, the cruel way you went on, +after all you've said about Mr. Stoller, and his getting no more than he +deserved." + +"That doesn't justify me," Burnamy began, but she cut him short almost as +severely as she--had dealt with her father. + +"Yes, it does! It justifies you perfectly! And his wanting you to +falsify the whole thing afterwards, more than justifies you." + +Neither of the men attempted anything in reply to her casuistry; they +both looked equally posed by it, for different reasons; and Agatha went +on as vehemently as before, addressing herself now to one and now to the +other. + +"And besides, if it didn't justify you, what you have done yourself +would; and your never denying it, or trying to excuse it, makes it the +same as if you hadn't done it, as far as you are concerned; and that is +all I care for." Burnamy started, as if with the sense of having heard +something like this before, and with surprise at hearing it now; and she +flushed a little as she added tremulously, "And I should never, never +blame you for it, after that; it's only trying to wriggle out of things +which I despise, and you've never done that. And he simply had to come +back," she turned to her father, "and tell me himself just how it was. +And you said yourself, papa--or the same as said--that he had no right to +suppose I was interested in his affairs unless he--unless-- And I should +never have forgiven him, if he hadn't told me then that he that he had +come back because he--felt the way he did. I consider that that +exonerated him for breaking his word, completely. If he hadn't broken +his word I should have thought he had acted very cruelly and--and +strangely. And ever since then, he has behaved so nobly, so honorably, +so delicately, that I don't believe he would ever have said anything +again--if I hadn't fairly forced him. Yes! Yes, I did! " she cried at a +movement of remonstrance from Burnamy. "And I shall always be proud of +you for it." Her father stared steadfastly at her, and he only lifted +his eyebrows, for change of expression, when she went over to where +Burnamy stood, and put her hand in his with a certain childlike +impetuosity. "And as for the rest," she declared, "everything I have is +his; just as everything of his would be mine if I had nothing. Or if he +wishes to take me without anything, then he can have me so, and I sha'n't +be afraid but we can get along somehow." She added, "I have managed +without a maid, ever since I left home, and poverty has no terrors for +me!" + + + + +LXVIII. + +General Triscoe submitted to defeat with the patience which soldiers +learn. He did not submit amiably; that would have been out of character, +and perhaps out of reason; but Burnamy and Agatha were both so amiable +that they supplied good-humor for all. They flaunted their rapture in +her father's face as little as they could, but he may have found their +serene satisfaction, their settled confidence in their fate, as hard to +bear as a more boisterous happiness would have been. + +It was agreed among them all that they were to return soon to America, +and Burnamy was to find some sort of literary or journalistic employment +in New York. She was much surer than he that this could be done with +perfect ease; but they were of an equal mind that General Triscoe was not +to be disturbed in any of his habits, or vexed in the tenor of his +living; and until Burnamy was at least self-supporting there must be no +talk of their being married. + +The talk of their being engaged was quite enough for the time. It +included complete and minute auto-biographies on both sides, reciprocal +analyses of character, a scientifically exhaustive comparison of tastes, +ideas and opinions; a profound study of their respective chins, noses, +eyes, hands, heights, complexions, moles and freckles, with some account +of their several friends. + +In this occupation, which was profitably varied by the confession of what +they had each thought and felt and dreamt concerning the other at every +instant since they met, they passed rapidly the days which the persistent +anxiety of General Triscoe interposed before the date of their leaving +Weimar for Paris, where it was arranged that they should spend a month +before sailing for New York. Burnamy had a notion, which Agatha +approved, of trying for something there on the New York-Paris Chronicle; +and if he got it they might not go home at once. His gains from that +paper had eked out his copyright from his book, and had almost paid his +expenses in getting the material which he had contributed to it. They +were not so great, however, but that his gold reserve was reduced to less +than a hundred dollars, counting the silver coinages which had remained +to him in crossing and recrossing frontiers. He was at times dimly +conscious of his finances, but he buoyantly disregarded the facts, as +incompatible with his status as Agatha's betrothed, if not unworthy of +his character as a lover in the abstract. + +The afternoon before they were to leave Weimar, they spent mostly in the +garden before the Grand-Ducal Museum, in a conference so important that +when it came on to rain, at one moment, they put up Burnamy's umbrella, +and continued to sit under it rather than interrupt the proceedings even +to let Agatha go back to the hotel and look after her father's packing. +Her own had been finished before dinner, so as to leave her the whole +afternoon for their conference, and to allow her father to remain in +undisturbed possession of his room as long as possible. + +What chiefly remained to be put into the general's trunk were his coats +and trousers, hanging in the closet, and August took these down, and +carefully folded and packed them. Then, to make sure that nothing had +been forgotten, Agatha put a chair into the closet when she came in, and +stood on it to examine the shelf which stretched above the hooks. + +There seemed at first to be nothing on it, and then there seemed to be +something in the further corner, which when it was tiptoed for, proved to +be a bouquet of flowers, not so faded as to seem very old; the blue satin +ribbon which they were tied up with, and which hung down half a yard, was +of entire freshness except far the dust of the shelf where it had lain. + +Agatha backed out into the room with her find in her hand, and examined +it near to, and then at arm's length. August stood by with a pair of the +general's trousers lying across his outstretched hands, and as Agatha +absently looked round at him, she caught a light of intelligence in his +eyes which changed her whole psychological relation to the withered +bouquet. Till then it had been a lifeless, meaningless bunch of flowers, +which some one, for no motive, had tossed up on that dusty shelf in the +closet. At August's smile it became something else. Still she asked +lightly enough, "Was ist loss, August?" + +His smile deepened and broadened. "Fur die Andere," he explained. + +Agatha demanded in English, "What do you mean by feardy ondery?" + +"Oddaw lehdy." + +"Other lady?" August nodded, rejoicing in big success, and Agatha closed +the door into her own room, where the general had been put for the time +so as to be spared the annoyance of the packing; then she sat down with +her hands in her lap, and the bouquet in her hands. "Now, August," she +said very calmly, "I want you to tell me-ich wunsche Sie zu mir sagen-- +what other lady--wass andere Dame--these flowers belonged to--diese +Blumen gehorte zu. Verstehen Sie?" + +August nodded brightly, and with German carefully adjusted to Agatha's +capacity, and with now and then a word or phrase of English, he conveyed +that before she and her Herr Father had appeared, there had been in +Weimar another American Fraulein with her Frau Mother; they had not +indeed staid in that hotel, but had several times supped there with the +young Herr Bornahmee, who was occupying that room before her Herr Father. +The young Herr had been much about with these American Damen, driving and +walking with them, and sometimes dining or supping with them at their +hotel, The Elephant. August had sometimes carried notes to them from the +young Herr, and he had gone for the bouquet which the gracious Fraulein +was holding, on the morning of the day that the American Damen left by +the train for Hanover. + +August was much helped and encouraged throughout by the friendly +intelligence of the gracious Fraulein, who smiled radiantly in clearing +up one dim point after another, and who now and then supplied the English +analogues which he sought in his effort to render his German more +luminous. + +At the end she returned to the work of packing, in which she directed +him, and sometimes assisted him with her own hands, having put the +bouquet on the mantel to leave herself free. She took it up again and +carried it into her own room, when she went with August to summon her +father back to his. She bade August say to the young Herr, if he saw +him, that she was going to sup with her father, and August gave her +message to Burnamy, whom he met on the stairs coming down as he was going +up with their tray. + +Agatha usually supped with her father, but that evening Burnamy was less +able than usual to bear her absence in the hotel dining-room, and he went +up to a caf‚ in the town for his supper. He did not stay long, and when +he returned his heart gave a joyful lift at sight of Agatha looking out +from her balcony, as if she were looking for him. He made her a gay +flourishing bow, lifting his hat high, and she came down to meet him at +the hotel door. She had her hat on and jacket over one arm and she +joined him at once for the farewell walk he proposed in what they had +agreed to call their garden. + +She moved a little ahead of him, and when they reached the place where +they always sat, she shifted her jacket to the other arm and uncovered +the hand in which she had been carrying the withered bouquet. "Here is +something I found in your closet, when I was getting papa's things out." + +"Why, what is it?" he asked innocently, as he took it from her. + +"A bouquet, apparently," she answered, as he drew the long ribbons +through his fingers, and looked at the flowers curiously, with his head +aslant. + +"Where did you get it?" + +"On the shelf." + +It seemed a long time before Burnamy said with a long sigh, as of final +recollection, "Oh, yes," and then he said nothing; and they did not sit +down, but stood looking at each other. + +"Was it something you got for me, and forgot to give me?" she asked in a +voice which would not have misled a woman, but which did its work with +the young man. + +He laughed and said, "Well, hardly! The general has been in the room +ever since you came." + +"Oh, yes. Then perhaps somebody left it there before you had the room?" + +Burnamy was silent again, but at last he said, "No, I flung it up there I +had forgotten all about it." + +"And you wish me to forget about it, too?" Agatha asked in a gayety of +tone that still deceived him. + +"It would only be fair. You made me," he rejoined, and there was +something so charming in his words and way, that she would have been glad +to do it. + +But she governed herself against the temptation and said, "Women are not +good at forgetting, at least till they know what." + +"Oh, I'll tell you, if you want to know," he said with a laugh, and at +the words she--sank provisionally in their accustomed seat. He sat down +beside her, but not so near as usual, and he waited so long before he +began that it seemed as if he had forgotten again. "Why, it's nothing. +Miss Etkins and her mother were here before you came, and this is a +bouquet that I meant to give her at the train when she left. But I +decided I wouldn't, and I threw it onto the shelf in the closet." + +"May I ask why you thought of taking a bouquet to her at the train?" + +"Well, she and her mother--I had been with them a good deal, and I +thought it would be civil." + +"And why did you decide not to be civil?" + +"I didn't want it to look like more than civility." + +"Were they here long?" + +"About a week. They left just after the Marches came." + +Agatha seemed not to heed the answer she had exacted. She sat reclined +in the corner of the seat, with her head drooping. After an interval +which was long to Burnamy she began to pull at a ring on the third finger +of her left hand, absently, as if she did not know what she was doing; +but when she had got it off she held it towards Burnamy and said quietly, +"I think you had better have this again," and then she rose and moved +slowly and weakly away. + +He had taken the ring mechanically from her, and he stood a moment +bewildered; then he pressed after her. + +"Agatha, do you--you don't mean--" + +"Yes," she said, without looking round at his face, which she knew was +close to her shoulder. "It's over. It isn't what you've done. It's +what you are. I believed in you, in spite of what you did to that man-- +and your coming back when you said you wouldn't--and-- But I see now that +what you did was you; it was your nature; and I can't believe in you any +more." + +"Agatha!" he implored. "You're not going to be so unjust! There was +nothing between you and me when that girl was here! I had a right to--" + +"Not if you really cared for me! Do you think I would have flirted with +any one so soon, if I had cared for you as you pretended you did for me +that night in Carlsbad? Oh, I don't say you're false. But you're +fickle--" + +"But I'm not fickle! From the first moment I saw you, I never cared for +any one but you!" + +"You have strange ways of showing your devotion. Well, say you are not +fickle. Say, that I'm fickle. I am. I have changed my mind. I see +that it would never do. I leave you free to follow all the turning and +twisting of your fancy." She spoke rapidly, almost breathlessly, and she +gave him no chance to get out the words that seemed to choke him. She +began to run, but at the door of the hotel she stopped and waited till he +came stupidly up. "I have a favor to ask, Mr. Burnamy. I beg you will +not see me again, if you can help it before we go to-morrow. My father +and I are indebted to you for too many kindnesses, and you mustn't take +any more trouble on our account. August can see us off in the morning." + +She nodded quickly, and was gone in-doors while he was yet struggling +with his doubt of the reality of what had all so swiftly happened. + +General Triscoe was still ignorant of any change in the status to which +he had reconciled himself with so much difficulty, when he came down to +get into the omnibus for the train. Till then he had been too proud to +ask what had become of Burnamy, though he had wondered, but now he looked +about and said impatiently, "I hope that young man isn't going to keep us +waiting." + +Agatha was pale and worn with sleeplessness, but she said firmly, "He +isn't going, papa. I will tell you in the train. August will see to the +tickets and the baggage." + +August conspired with the traeger to get them a first-class compartment +to themselves. But even with the advantages of this seclusion Agatha's +confidences to her father were not full. She told her father that her +engagement was broken for reasons that did not mean anything very wrong +in Mr. Burnamy but that convinced her they could never be happy together. +As she did not give the reasons, he found a natural difficulty in +accepting them, and there was something in the situation which appealed +strongly to his contrary-mindedness. Partly from this, partly from his +sense of injury in being obliged so soon to adjust himself to new +conditions, and partly from his comfortable feeling of security from an +engagement to which his assent had been forced, he said, "I hope you're +not making a mistake." + +"Oh, no," she answered, and she attested her conviction by a burst of +sobbing that lasted well on the way to the first stop of the train. + + + + +LXIX. + +It would have been always twice as easy to go direct from Berlin to the +Hague through Hanover; but the Marches decided to go by Frankfort and the +Rhine, because they wished to revisit the famous river, which they +remembered from their youth, and because they wished to stop at +Dusseldorf, where Heinrich Heine was born. Without this Mrs. March, who +kept her husband up to his early passion for the poet with a feeling that +she was defending him from age in it, said that their silver wedding +journey would not be complete; and he began himself to think that it +would be interesting. + +They took a sleeping-car for Frankfort and they woke early as people do +in sleeping-cars everywhere. March dressed and went out for a cup of the +same coffee of which sleeping-car buffets have the awful secret in Europe +as well as America, and for a glimpse of the twilight landscape. One +gray little town, towered and steepled and red-roofed within its +mediaeval walls, looked as if it would have been warmer in something +more. There was a heavy dew, if not a light frost, over all, and in +places a pale fog began to lift from the low hills. Then the sun rose +without dispersing the cold, which was afterwards so severe in their room +at the Russischer Hof in Frankfort that in spite of the steam-radiators +they sat shivering in all their wraps till breakfast-time. + +There was no steam on in the radiators, of course; when they implored the +portier for at least a lamp to warm their hands by he turned on all the +electric lights without raising the temperature in the slightest degree. +Amidst these modern comforts they were so miserable that they vowed each +other to shun, as long as they were in Germany, or at least while the +summer lasted, all hotels which were steam-heated and electric-lighted. +They heated themselves somewhat with their wrath, and over their +breakfast they relented so far as to suffer themselves a certain interest +in the troops of all arms beginning to pass the hotel. They were +fragments of the great parade, which had ended the day before, and they +were now drifting back to their several quarters of the empire. Many of +them were very picturesque, and they had for the boys and girls running +before and beside them, the charm which armies and circus processions +have for children everywhere. But their passage filled with cruel +anxiety a large old dog whom his master had left harnessed to a milk-cart +before the hotel door; from time to time he lifted up his voice, and +called to the absentee with hoarse, deep barks that almost shook him from +his feet. + +The day continued blue and bright and cold, and the Marches gave the +morning to a rapid survey of the city, glad that it was at least not wet. +What afterwards chiefly remained to them was the impression of an old +town as quaint almost and as Gothic as old Hamburg, and a new town, +handsome and regular, and, in the sudden arrest of some streets, +apparently overbuilt. The modern architectural taste was of course +Parisian; there is no other taste for the Germans; but in the prevailing +absence of statues there was a relief from the most oppressive +characteristic of the imperial capital which was a positive delight. +Some sort of monument to the national victory over France there must have +been; but it must have been unusually inoffensive, for it left no record +of itself in the travellers' consciousness. They were aware of gardened +squares and avenues, bordered by stately dwellings, of dignified civic +edifices, and of a vast arid splendid railroad station, such as the state +builds even in minor European cities, but such as our paternal +corporations have not yet given us anywhere in America. They went to the +Zoological Garden, where they heard the customary Kalmucks at their +public prayers behind a high board fence; and as pilgrims from the most +plutrocratic country in the world March insisted that they must pay their +devoirs at the shrine of the Rothschilds, whose natal banking-house they +revered from the outside. + +It was a pity, he said, that the Rothschilds were not on his letter of +credit; he would have been willing to pay tribute to the Genius of +Finance in the percentage on at least ten pounds. But he consoled +himself by reflecting that he did not need the money; and he consoled +Mrs. March for their failure to penetrate to the interior of the +Rothschilds' birthplace by taking her to see the house where Goethe was +born. The public is apparently much more expected there, and in the +friendly place they were no doubt much more welcome than they would have +been in the Rothschild house. Under that roof they renewed a happy +moment of Weimar, which after the lapse of a week seemed already so +remote. They wondered, as they mounted the stairs from the basement +opening into a clean little court, how Burnamy was getting on, and +whether it had yet come to that understanding between him and Agatha, +which Mrs. March, at least, had meant to be inevitable. Then they became +part of some such sight-seeing retinue as followed the custodian about in +the Goethe horse in Weimar, and of an emotion indistinguishable from that +of their fellow sight-seers. They could make sure, afterwards, of a +personal pleasure in a certain prescient classicism of the house. It +somehow recalled both the Goethe houses at Weimar, and it somehow +recalled Italy. It is a separate house of two floors above the entrance, +which opens to a little court or yard, and gives access by a decent +stairway to the living-rooms. The chief of these is a sufficiently +dignified parlor or salon, and the most important is the little chamber +in the third story where the poet first opened his eyes to the light +which he rejoiced in for so long a life, and which, dying, he implored to +be with him more. It is as large as his death-chamber in Weimar, where +he breathed this prayer, and it looks down into the Italian-looking +court, where probably he noticed the world for the first time, and +thought it a paved enclosure thirty or forty feet square. In the birth- +room they keep his puppet theatre, and the place is fairly suggestive of +his childhood; later, in his youth, he could look from the parlor windows +and see the house where his earliest love dwelt. So much remains of +Goethe in the place where he was born, and as such things go, it is not a +little. The house is that of a prosperous and well-placed citizen, and +speaks of the senatorial quality in his family which Heine says he was +fond of recalling, rather than the sartorial quality of the ancestor who, +again as Heine says, mended the Republic's breeches. + +From the Goethe house, one drives by the Goethe monument to the Romer, +the famous town-hall of the old free imperial city which Frankfort once +was; and by this route the Marches drove to it, agreeing with their +coachman that he was to keep as much in the sun as possible. It was +still so cold that when they reached the Romer, and he stopped in a broad +blaze of the only means of heating that they have in Frankfort in the +summer, the travellers were loath to leave it for the chill interior, +where the German emperors were elected for so many centuries. As soon as +an emperor was chosen, in the great hall effigied round with the +portraits of his predecessors, he hurried out in the balcony, ostensibly +to show himself to the people, but really, March contended, to warm up a +little in the sun. The balcony was undergoing repairs that day, and the +travellers could not go out on it; but under the spell of the historic +interest of the beautiful old Gothic place, they lingered in the interior +till they were half-torpid with the cold. Then she abandoned to him the +joint duty of viewing the cathedral, and hurried to their carriage where +she basked in the sun till he came to her. He returned shivering, after +a half-hour's absence, and pretended that she had missed the greatest +thing in the world, but as he could never be got to say just what she had +lost, and under the closest cross-examination could not prove that this +cathedral was memorably different from hundreds of other fourteenth- +century cathedrals, she remained in a lasting content with the easier +part she had chosen. His only definite impression at the cathedral +seemed to be confined to a Bostonian of gloomily correct type, whom he +had seen doing it with his Baedeker, and not letting an object of +interest escape; and his account of her fellow-townsman reconciled Mrs. +March more and more to not having gone. + +As it was warmer out-doors than in-doors at Frankfort, and as the breadth +of sunshine increased with the approach of noon they gave the rest of the +morning to driving about and ignorantly enjoying the outside of many +Gothic churches, whose names even they did not trouble themselves to +learn. They liked the river Main whenever they came to it, because it +was so lately from Wurzburg, and because it was so beautiful with its +bridges, old and new, and its boats of many patterns. They liked the +market-place in front of the Romer not only because it was full of +fascinating bargains in curious crockery and wooden-ware, but because +there was scarcely any shade at all in it. They read from their Baedeker +that until the end of the last century no Jew was suffered to enter the +marketplace, and they rejoiced to find from all appearances that the Jews +had been making up for their unjust exclusion ever since. They were +almost as numerous there as the Anglo-Saxons were everywhere else in +Frankfort. These, both of the English and American branches of the race, +prevailed in the hotel diningroom, where the Marches had a mid-day dinner +so good that it almost made amends for the steam-heating and electric- +lighting. + +As soon as possible after dinner they took the train for Mayence, and ran +Rhinewards through a pretty country into what seemed a milder climate. +It grew so much milder, apparently, that a lady in their compartment to +whom March offered his forward-looking seat, ordered the window down when +the guard came, without asking their leave. Then the climate proved much +colder, and Mrs. March cowered under her shawls the rest of the way, and +would not be entreated to look at the pleasant level landscape near, or +the hills far off. He proposed to put up the window as peremptorily as +it had been put down, but she stayed him with a hoarse whisper, "She may +be another Baroness!" At first he did not know what she meant, then he +remembered the lady whose claims to rank her presence had so poorly +enforced on the way to Wurzburg, and he perceived that his wife was +practising a wise forbearance with their fellow-passengers, and giving +her a chance to turn out any sort of highhote she chose. She failed to +profit by the opportunity; she remained simply a selfish, disagreeable +woman, of no more perceptible distinction than their other fellow- +passenger, a little commercial traveller from Vienna (they resolved from +his appearance and the lettering on his valise that he was no other), who +slept with a sort of passionate intensity all the way to Mayence. + + + + +LXX. + +The Main widened and swam fuller as they approached the Rhine, and +flooded the low-lying fields in-places with a pleasant effect under a wet +sunset. When they reached the station in Mayence they drove interminably +to the hotel they had chosen on the river-shore, through a city handsomer +and cleaner than any American city they could think of, and great part of +the way by a street of dwellings nobler, Mrs. March owned, than even +Commonwealth Avenue in Boston. It was planted, like that, with double +rows of trees, but lacked its green lawns; and at times the sign of +Weinhandlung at a corner, betrayed that there was no such restriction +against shops as keeps the Boston street so sacred. Otherwise they had +to confess once more that any inferior city of Germany is of a more +proper and dignified presence than the most parse-proud metropolis in +America. To be sure, they said, the German towns had generally a +thousand years' start; but all the same the fact galled them. + +It was very bleak, though very beautiful when they stopped before their +hotel on the Rhine, where all their impalpable memories of their visit to +Mayence thirty years earlier precipitated themselves into something +tangible. There were the reaches of the storied and fabled stream with +its boats and bridges and wooded shores and islands; there were the +spires and towers and roofs of the town on either bank crowding to the +river's brink; and there within-doors was the stately portier in gold +braid, and the smiling, bowing, hand-rubbing landlord, alluring them to +his most expensive rooms, which so late in the season he would fain have +had them take. But in a little elevator, that mounted slowly, very +slowly, in the curve of the stairs, they went higher to something lower, +and the landlord retired baked, and left them to the ministrations of the +serving-men who arrived with their large and small baggage. All these +retired in turn when they asked to have a fire lighted in the stove, +without which Mrs. March would never have taken the fine stately rooms, +and sent back a pretty young girl to do it. She came indignant, not +because she had come lugging a heavy hod of coal and a great arm-load of +wood, but because her sense of fitness was outraged by the strange +demand. + +"What!" she cried. "A fire in September!" + +"Yes," March returned, inspired to miraculous aptness in his German by +the exigency, "yes, if September is cold." + +The girl looked at him, and then, either because she thought him mad, or +liked him merry, burst into a loud laugh, and kindled the fire without a +word more. + +He lighted all the reluctant gas-jets in the vast gilt chandelier, and in +less than half an hour the temperature of the place rose to at least +sixty-five Fahrenheit, with every promise of going higher. Mrs. March +made herself comfortable in a deep chair before the stove, and said she +would have her supper there; and she bade him send her just such a supper +of chicken and honey and tea as they had all had in Mayence when they +supped in her aunt's parlor there all those years ago. He wished to +compute the years, but she drove him out with an imploring cry, and he +went down to a very gusty dining-room on the ground-floor, where he found +himself alone with a young English couple and their little boy. They +were friendly, intelligent people, and would have been conversable, +apparently, but for the terrible cold of the husband, which he said he +had contracted at the manoeuvres in Hombourg. March said he was going to +Holland, and the Englishman was doubtful of the warmth which March +expected to find there. He seemed to be suffering from a suspense of +faith as to the warmth anywhere; from time to time the door of the +dining-room self-opened in a silent, ghostly fashion into the court +without, and let in a chilling draught about the legs of all, till the +little English boy got down from his place and shut it. + +He alone continued cheerful, for March's spirits certainly did not rise +when some mumbling Americans came in and muttered over their meat at +another table. He hated to own it, but he had to own that wherever he +had met the two branches of the Anglo-Saxon race together in Europe, the +elder had shown, by a superior chirpiness, to the disadvantage of the +younger. The cast clothes of the old-fashioned British offishness seemed +to have fallen to the American travellers who were trying to be correct +and exemplary; and he would almost rather have had back the old-style +bragging Americans whom he no longer saw. He asked of an agreeable +fellow-countryman whom he found later in the reading-room, what had +become of these; and this compatriot said he had travelled with one only +the day before, who had posed before their whole compartment in his scorn +of the German landscape, the German weather, the German government, the +German railway management, and then turned out an American of German +birth! March found his wife in great bodily comfort when he went back to +her, but in trouble of mind about a clock which she had discovered +standing on the lacquered iron top of the stove. It was a French clock, +of architectural pretensions, in the taste of the first Empire, and it +looked as if it had not been going since Napoleon occupied Mayence early +in the century. But Mrs. March now had it sorely on her conscience +where, in its danger from the heat of the stove, it rested with the +weight of the Pantheon, whose classic form it recalled. She wondered +that no one had noticed it before the fire was kindled, and she required +her husband to remove it at once from the top of the stove to the mantel +under the mirror, which was the natural habitat of such a clock. He said +nothing could be simpler, but when he lifted it, it began to fall all +apart, like a clock in the house of the Hoodoo. Its marble base +dropped-off; its pillars tottered; its pediment swayed to one side. +While Mrs. March lamented her hard fate, and implored him to hurry it +together before any one came, he contrived to reconstruct it in its new +place. Then they both breathed freer, and returned to sit down before +the stove. But at the same moment they both saw, ineffaceably outlined +on the lacquered top, the basal form of the clock. The chambermaid would +see it in the morning; she would notice the removal of the clock, and +would make a merit of reporting its ruin by the heat to the landlord, and +in the end they would be mulcted of its value. Rather than suffer this +wrong they agreed to restore it to its place, and, let it go to +destruction upon its own terms. March painfully rebuilt it where he had +found it, and they went to bed with a bad conscience to worse dreams. + +He remembered, before he slept, the hour of his youth when he was in +Mayence before, and was so care free that he had heard with impersonal +joy two young American voices speaking English in the street under his +window. One of them broke from the common talk with a gay burlesque of +pathos in the line: + + "Oh heavens! she cried, my Heeding country save!" + +and then with a laughing good-night these unseen, unknown spirits of +youth parted and departed. Who were they, and in what different places, +with what cares or ills, had their joyous voices grown old, or fallen +silent for evermore? It was a moonlight night, March remembered, and he +remembered how he wished he were out in it with those merry fellows. + +He nursed the memory and the wonder in his dreaming thought, and he woke +early to other voices under his window. But now the voices, though +young, were many and were German, and the march of feet and the stamp of +hooves kept time with their singing. He drew his curtain and saw the +street filled with broken squads of men, some afoot and some on +horseback, some in uniform and some in civil dress with students' caps, +loosely straggling on and roaring forth that song whose words he could +not make out. At breakfast he asked the waiter what it all meant, and he +said that these were conscripts whose service had expired with the late +manoeuvres, and who were now going home. He promised March a translation +of the song, but he never gave it; and perhaps the sense of their joyful +home-going remained the more poetic with him because its utterance +remained inarticulate. + +March spent the rainy Sunday, on which they had fallen, in wandering +about the little city alone. His wife said she was tired and would sit +by the fire, and hear about Mayence when he came in. He went to the +cathedral, which has its renown for beauty and antiquity, and he there +added to his stock of useful information the fact that the people of +Mayence seemed very Catholic and very devout. They proved it by +preferring to any of the divine old Gothic shrines in the cathedral, an +ugly baroque altar, which was everywhere hung about with votive +offerings. A fashionably dressed young man and young girl sprinkled +themselves with holy water as reverently as if they had been old and +ragged. Some tourists strolled up and down the aisles with their red +guide-books, and studied the objects of interest. A resplendent beadle +in a cocked hat, and with along staff of authority posed before his own +ecclesiastical consciousness in blue and silver. At the high altar a +priest was saying mass, and March wondered whether his consciousness was +as wholly ecclesiastical as the beadle's, or whether somewhere in it he +felt the historical majesty, the long human consecration of the place. + +He wandered at random in the town through streets German and quaint and +old, and streets French and fine and new, and got back to the river, +which he crossed on one of the several handsome bridges. The rough river +looked chill under a sky of windy clouds, and he felt out of season, both +as to the summer travel, and as to the journey he was making. The summer +of life as well as the summer of that year was past. Better return to +his own radiator in his flat on Stuyvesant Square; to the great ugly +brutal town which, if it was not home to him, was as much home to him as +to any one. A longing for New York welled up his heart, which was +perhaps really a wish to be at work again. He said he must keep this +from his wife, who seemed not very well, and whom he must try to cheer up +when he returned to the hotel. + +But they had not a very joyous afternoon, and the evening was no gayer. +They said that if they had not ordered their letters sent to Dusseldorf +they believed they should push on to Holland without stopping; and March +would have liked to ask, Why not push on to America? But he forbore, and +he was afterwards glad that he had done so. + +In the morning their spirits rose with the sun, though the sun got up +behind clouds as usual; and they were further animated by the imposition +which the landlord practised upon them. After a distinct and repeated +agreement as to the price of their rooms he charged them twice as much, +and then made a merit of throwing off two marks out of the twenty he had +plundered them of. + +"Now I see," said Mrs. March, on their way down to the boat, "how +fortunate it was that we baked his clock. You may laugh, but I believe +we were the instruments of justice." + +"Do you suppose that clock was never baked before?" asked her husband. +"The landlord has his own arrangement with justice. When he overcharges +his parting guests he says to his conscience, Well, they baked my clock." + + + + +LXXI. + +The morning was raw, but it was something not to have it rainy; and the +clouds that hung upon the hills and hid their tops were at least as fine +as the long board signs advertising chocolate on the river banks. The +smoke rising from the chimneys of the manufactories of Mayence was not so +bad, either, when one got them in the distance a little; and March liked +the way the river swam to the stems of the trees on the low grassy +shores. It was like the Mississippi between St. Louis and Cairo in that, +and it was yellow and thick, like the Mississippi, though he thought he +remembered it blue and clear. A friendly German, of those who began to +come aboard more and more at all the landings after leaving Mayence, +assured him that be was right, and that the Rhine was unusually turbid +from the unusual rains. March had his own belief that whatever the color +of the Rhine might be the rains were not unusual, but he could not +gainsay the friendly German. + +Most of the passengers at starting were English and American; but they +showed no prescience of the international affinition which has since +realized itself, in their behavior toward one another. They held +silently apart, and mingled only in the effect of one young man who kept +the Marches in perpetual question whether he was a Bostonian or an +Englishman. His look was Bostonian, but his accent was English; and was +he a Bostonian who had been in England long enough to get the accent, or +was he an Englishman who had been in Boston long enough to get the look? +He wore a belated straw hat, and a thin sack-coat; and in the rush of the +boat through the raw air they fancied him very cold, and longed to offer +him one of their superabundant wraps. At times March actually lifted a +shawl from his knees, feeling sure that the stranger was English and that +he might make so bold with him; then at some glacial glint in the young +man's eye, or at some petrific expression of his delicate face, he felt +that he was a Bostonian, and lost courage and let the shawl sink again. +March tried to forget him in the wonder of seeing the Germans begin to +eat and drink, as soon as they came on boards either from the baskets +they had brought with them, or from the boat's provision. But he +prevailed, with his smile that was like a sneer, through all the events +of the voyage; and took March's mind off the scenery with a sudden wrench +when he came unexpectedly into view after a momentary disappearance. At +the table d'hote, which was served when the landscape began to be less +interesting, the guests were expected to hand their plates across the +table to the stewards but to keep their knives and forks throughout the +different courses, and at each of these partial changes March felt the +young man's chilly eyes upon him, inculpating him for the semi- +civilization of the management. At such times he knew that he was a +Bostonian. + +The weather cleared, as they descended the river, and under a sky at last +cloudless, the Marches had moments of swift reversion to their former +Rhine journey, when they were young and the purple light of love mantled +the vineyarded hills along the shore, and flushed the castled steeps. +The scene had lost nothing of the beauty they dimly remembered; there +were certain features of it which seemed even fairer and grander than +they remembered. The town of Bingen, where everybody who knows the poem +was more or less born, was beautiful in spite of its factory chimneys, +though there were no compensating castles near it; and the castles seemed +as good as those of the theatre. Here and there some of them had been +restored and were occupied, probably by robber barons who had gone into +trade. Others were still ruinous, and there was now and then such a mere +gray snag that March, at sight of it, involuntarily put his tongue to the +broken tooth which he was keeping for the skill of the first American +dentist. + +For natural sublimity the Rhine scenery, as they recognized once more, +does not compare with the Hudson scenery; and they recalled one point on +the American river where the Central Road tunnels a jutting cliff, which +might very well pass for the rock of the Loreley, where she dreams + + Sole sitting by the shores of old romance. + +and the trains run in and out under her knees unheeded. "Still, still +you know," March argued, "this is the Loreley on the Rhine, and not the +Loreley on the Hudson; and I suppose that makes all the difference. +Besides, the Rhine doesn't set up to be sublime; it only means to be +storied and dreamy and romantic and it does it. And then we have really +got no Mouse Tower; we might build one, to be sure." + +"Well, we have got no denkmal, either," said his wife, meaning the +national monument to the German reconquest of the Rhine, which they had +just passed, "and that is something in our favor." + +"It was too far off for us to see how ugly it was," he returned. + +"The denkmal at Coblenz was so near that the bronze Emperor almost rode +aboard the boat." + +He could not answer such a piece of logic as that. He yielded, and began +to praise the orcharded levels which now replaced the vine-purpled slopes +of the upper river. He said they put him in mind of orchards that he had +known in his boyhood; and they, agreed that the supreme charm of travel, +after all, was not in seeing something new and strange, but in finding +something familiar and dear in the heart of the strangeness. + +At Cologne they found this in the tumult of getting ashore with their +baggage and driving from the steamboat landing to the railroad station, +where they were to get their train for Dusseldorf an hour later. The +station swarmed with travellers eating and drinking and smoking; but they +escaped from it for a precious half of their golden hour, and gave the +time to the great cathedral, which was built, a thousand years ago, just +round the corner from the station, and is therefore very handy to it. +Since they saw the cathedral last it had been finished, and now under a +cloudless evening sky, it soared and swept upward like a pale flame. +Within it was a bit over-clean, a bit bare, but without it was one of the +great memories of the race, the record of a faith which wrought miracles +of beauty, at least, if not piety. + +The train gave the Marches another, and last, view of it as they slowly +drew out of the city, and began to run through a level country walled +with far-off hills; past fields of buckwheat showing their stems like +coral under their black tops; past peasant houses changing their wonted +shape to taller and narrower forms; past sluggish streams from which the +mist rose and hung over the meadows, under a red sunset, glassy clear +till the manifold factory chimneys of Dusseldorf stained it with their +dun smoke. + +This industrial greeting seemed odd from the town where Heinrich Heine +was born; but when they had eaten their supper in the capital little +hotel they found there, and went out for a stroll, they found nothing to +remind them of the factories, and much to make them think of the poet. +The moon, beautiful and perfect as a stage moon, came up over the +shoulder of a church as they passed down a long street which they had all +to themselves. Everybody seemed to have gone to bed, but at a certain +corner a girl opened a window above them, and looked out at the moon. + +When they returned to their hotel they found a highwalled garden facing +it, full of black depths of foliage. In the night March woke and saw the +moon standing over the garden, and silvering its leafy tops. This was +really as it should be in the town where the idolized poet of his youth +was born; the poet whom of all others he had adored, and who had once +seemed like a living friend; who had been witness of his first love, and +had helped him to speak it. His wife used to laugh at him for his Heine- +worship in those days; but she had since come to share it, and she, +even more than he, had insisted upon this pilgrimage. He thought long +thoughts of the past, as he looked into the garden across the way, with +an ache for his perished self and the dead companionship of his youth, +all ghosts together in the silvered shadow. The trees shuddered in the +night breeze, and its chill penetrated to him where he stood. + +His wife called to him from her room, "What are you doing?" + +"Oh, sentimentalizing," he answered boldly. + +"Well, you will be sick," she said, and he crept back into bed again. + +They had sat up late, talking in a glad excitement. But he woke early, +as an elderly man is apt to do after broken slumbers, and left his wife +still sleeping. He was not so eager for the poetic interests of the town +as he had been the night before; he even deferred his curiosity for +Heine's birth-house to the instructive conference which he had with his +waiter at breakfast. After all, was not it more important to know +something of the actual life of a simple common class of men than to +indulge a faded fancy for the memory of a genius, which no amount of +associations could feed again to its former bloom? The waiter said he +was a Nuremberger, and had learned English in London where he had served +a year for nothing. Afterwards, when he could speak three languages he +got a pound a week, which seemed low for so many, though not so low as +the one mark a day which he now received in Dusseldorf; in Berlin he paid +the hotel two marks a day. March confided to him his secret trouble as +to tips, and they tried vainly to enlighten each other as to what a just +tip was. + +He went to his banker's, and when he came back he found his wife with her +breakfast eaten, and so eager for the exploration of Heine's birthplace +that she heard with indifference of his failure to get any letters. It +was too soon to expect them, she said, and then she showed him her plan, +which she had been working out ever since she woke. It contained every +place which Heine had mentioned, and she was determined not one should +escape them. She examined him sharply upon his condition, accusing him +of having taken cold when he got up in the night, and acquitting him with +difficulty. She herself was perfectly well, but a little fagged, and +they must have a carriage. + +They set out in a lordly two-spanner, which took up half the little +Bolkerstrasse where Heine was born, when they stopped across the way from +his birthhouse, so that she might first take it all in from the outside +before they entered it. It is a simple street, and not the cleanest of +the streets in a town where most of them are rather dirty. Below the +houses are shops, and the first story of Heine's house is a butcher shop, +with sides of pork and mutton hanging in the windows; above, where the +Heine family must once have lived, a gold-beater and a frame-maker +displayed their signs. + +But did the Heine family really once live there? The house looked so +fresh and new that in spite of the tablet in its front affirming it the +poet's birthplace, they doubted; and they were not reassured by the +people who half halted as they passed, and stared at the strangers, so +anomalously interested in the place. They dismounted, and crossed to the +butcher shop where the provision man corroborated the tablet, but could +not understand their wish to go up stairs. He did not try to prevent +them, however, and they climbed to the first floor above, where a placard +on the door declared it private and implored them not to knock. Was this +the outcome of the inmate's despair from the intrusion of other pilgrims +who had wised to see the Heine dwelling-rooms? They durst not knock and +ask so much, and they sadly descended to the ground-floor, where they +found a butcher boy of much greater apparent intelligence than the +butcher himself, who told them that the building in front was as new as +it looked, and the house where Heine was really born was the old house in +the rear. He showed them this house, across a little court patched with +mangy grass and lilac-bushes; and when they wished to visit it he led the +way. The place was strewn both underfoot and overhead with feathers; it +had once been all a garden out to the street, the boy said, but from +these feathers, as well as the odor which prevailed, and the anxious +behavior of a few hens left in the high coop at one side, it was plain +that what remained of the garden was now a chicken slaughteryard. There +was one well-grown tree, and the boy said it was of the poet's time; but +when he let them into the house, he became vague as to the room where +Heine was born; it was certain only that it was somewhere upstairs and +that it could not be seen. The room where they stood was the frame- +maker's shop, and they bought of him a small frame for a memorial. They +bought of the butcher's boy, not so commercially, a branch of lilac; and +they came away, thinking how much amused Heine himself would have been +with their visit; how sadly, how merrily he would have mocked at their +effort to revere his birthplace. + +They were too old if not too wise to be daunted by their defeat, and they +drove next to the old court garden beside the Rhine where the poet says +he used to play with the little Veronika, and probably did not. At any +rate, the garden is gone; the Schloss was burned down long ago; and +nothing remains but a detached tower in which the good Elector Jan +Wilhelm, of Heine's time, amused himself with his many mechanical +inventions. The tower seemed to be in process of demolition, but an +intelligent workman who came down out of it, was interested in the +strangers' curiosity, and directed them to a place behind the Historical +Museum where they could find a bit of the old garden. It consisted of +two or three low trees, and under them the statue of the Elector by which +Heine sat with the little Veronika, if he really did. Afresh gale +blowing through the trees stirred the bushes that backed the statue, but +not the laurel wreathing the Elector's head, and meeting in a neat point +over his forehead. The laurel wreath is stone, like the rest of the +Elector, who stands there smirking in marble ermine and armor, and +resting his baton on the nose of a very small lion, who, in the +exigencies of foreshortening, obligingly goes to nothing but a tail under +the Elector's robe. + +This was a prince who loved himself in effigy so much that he raised an +equestrian statue to his own renown in the market-place, though he +modestly refused the credit of it, and ascribed its erection to the +affection of his subjects. You see him therein a full-bottomed wig, +mounted on a rampant charger with a tail as big round as a barrel, and +heavy enough to keep him from coming down on his fore legs as long as he +likes to hold them up. It was to this horse's back that Heine clambered +when a small boy, to see the French take formal possession of Dusseldorf; +and he clung to the waist of the bronze Elector, who had just abdicated, +while the burgomaster made a long speech, from the balcony of the +Rathhaus, and the Electoral arms were taken down from its doorway. + +The Rathhaus is a salad-dressing of German gothic and French rococo as to +its architectural style, and is charming in its way, but the Marches were +in the market-place for the sake of that moment of Heine's boyhood. They +felt that he might have been the boy who stopped as he ran before them, +and smacked the stomach of a large pumpkin lying at the feet of an old +market-woman, and then dashed away before she could frame a protest +against the indignity. From this incident they philosophized that the +boys of Dusseldorf are as mischievous at the end of the century as they +were at the beginning; and they felt the fascination that such a +bounteous, unkempt old marketplace must have for the boys of any period. +There were magnificent vegetables of all sorts in it, and if the fruits +were meagre that was the fault of the rainy summer, perhaps. The market- +place was very dirty, and so was the narrow street leading down from it +to the Rhine, which ran swift as a mountain torrent along a slatternly +quay. A bridge of boats crossing the stream shook in the rapid current, +and a long procession of market carts passed slowly over, while a cluster +of scows waited in picturesque patience for the draw to open. + +They saw what a beautiful town that was for a boy to grow up in, and how +many privileges it offered, how many dangers, how many chances for +hairbreadth escapes. They chose that Heine must often have rushed +shrieking joyfully down that foul alley to the Rhine with other boys; and +they easily found a leaf-strewn stretch of the sluggish Dussel, in the +Public Garden, where his playmate, the little Wilhelm, lost his life and +saved the kitten's. They were not so sure of the avenue through which +the poet saw the Emperor Napoleon come riding on his small white horse +when he took possession of the Elector's dominions. But if it was that +where the statue of the Kaiser Wilhelm I. comes riding on a horse led by +two Victories, both poet and hero are avenged there on the accomplished +fact. Defeated and humiliated France triumphs in the badness of that +foolish denkmal (one of the worst in all denkmal-ridden Germany), and the +memory of the singer whom the Hohenzollern family pride forbids honor in +his native place, is immortal in its presence. + +On the way back to their hotel, March made some reflections upon the open +neglect, throughout Germany, of the greatest German lyrist, by which the +poet might have profited if he had been present. He contended that it +was not altogether an effect of Hohenzollern pride, which could not +suffer a joke or two from the arch-humorist; but that Heine had said +things of Germany herself which Germans might well have found +unpardonable. He concluded that it would not do to be perfectly frank +with one's own country. Though, to be sure, there would always be the +question whether the Jew-born Heine had even a step-fatherland in the +Germany he loved so tenderly and mocked so pitilessly. He had to own +that if he were a negro poet he would not feel bound to measure terms in +speaking of America, and he would not feel that his fame was in her +keeping. + +Upon the whole he blamed Heine less than Germany and he accused her of +taking a shabby revenge, in trying to forget him; in the heat of his +resentment that there should be no record of Heine in the city where he +was born, March came near ignoring himself the fact that the poet +Freiligrath was also born there. As for the famous Dusseldorf school of +painting, which once filled the world with the worst art, he rejoiced +that it was now so dead, and he grudged the glance which the beauty of +the new Art Academy extorted from him. It is in the French taste, and is +so far a monument to the continuance in one sort of that French +supremacy, of which in another sort another denkmal celebrates the +overthrow. Dusseldorf is not content with the denkmal of the Kaiser on +horseback, with the two Victories for grooms; there is a second, which +the Marches found when they strolled out again late in the afternoon. It +is in the lovely park which lies in the heart of the city, and they felt +in its presence the only emotion of sympathy which the many patriotic +monuments of Germany awakened in them. It had dignity and repose, which +these never had elsewhere; but it was perhaps not so much for the dying +warrior and the pitying lion of the sculpture that their hearts were +moved as for the gentle and mournful humanity of the inscription, which +dropped into equivalent English verse in March's note-book: + + Fame was enough for the Victors, and glory and verdurous laurel; + Tears by their mothers wept founded this image of stone. + +To this they could forgive the vaunting record, on the reverse, of the +German soldiers who died heroes in the war with France, the war with +Austria, and even the war with poor little Denmark! + +The morning had been bright and warm, and it was just that the afternoon +should be dim and cold, with a pale sun looking through a September mist, +which seemed to deepen the seclusion and silence of the forest reaches; +for the park was really a forest of the German sort, as parks are apt to +be in Germany. But it was beautiful, and they strayed through it, and +sometimes sat down on the benches in its damp shadows, and said how much +seemed to be done in Germany for the people's comfort and pleasure. In +what was their own explicitly, as well as what was tacitly theirs, they +were not so restricted as we were at home, and especially the children +seemed made fondly and lovingly free of all public things. The Marches +met troops of them in the forest, as they strolled slowly back by the +winding Dussel to the gardened avenue leading to the park, and they found +them everywhere gay and joyful. But their elders seemed subdued, and +were silent. The strangers heard no sound of laughter in the streets of +Dusseldorf, and they saw no smiling except on the part of a very old +couple, whose meeting they witnessed and who grinned and cackled at each +other like two children as they shook hands. Perhaps they were indeed +children of that sad second childhood which one would rather not blossom +back into. + +In America, life is yet a joke with us, even when it is grotesque and +shameful, as it so often is; for we think we can make it right when we +choose. But there is no joking in Germany, between the first and second +childhoods, unless behind closed doors. Even there, people do not joke +above their breath about kings and emperors. If they joke about them in +print, they take out their laugh in jail, for the press laws are severely +enforced, and the prisons are full of able editors, serious as well as +comic. Lese-majesty is a crime that searches sinners out in every walk +of life, and it is said that in family jars a husband sometimes has the +last word of his wife by accusing her of blaspheming the sovereign, and +so having her silenced for three months at least behind penitential bars. + +"Think," said March, "how simply I could adjust any differences of +opinion between us in Dusseldorf." + +"Don't!" his wife implored with a burst of feeling which surprised him. +"I want to go home!" + +They had been talking over their day, and planning their journey to +Holland for the morrow, when it came to this outburst from her in the +last half-hour before bed which they sat prolonging beside their stove. + +"What! And not go to Holland? What is to become of my after-cure?" + +"Oh, it's too late for that, now. We've used up the month running about, +and tiring ourselves to death. I should like to rest a week--to get into +my berth on the Norumbia and rest!" + +"I guess the September gales would have something to say about that." + +"I would risk the September gales." + + + + +LXXII. + +In the morning March came home from his bankers gay with the day's +provisional sunshine in his heart, and joyously expectant of his wife's +pleasure in the letters he was bringing. There was one from each of +their children, and there was one from Fulkerson, which March opened and +read on the street, so as to intercept any unpleasant news there might be +in them; there were two letters for Mrs. March which he knew without +opening were from Miss Triscoe and Mrs. Adding respectively; Mrs. +Adding's, from the postmarks, seemed to have been following them about +for some time. + +"They're all right at home," he said. "Do see what those people have +been doing." + +"I believe," she said, taking a knife from the breakfast tray beside her +bed to cut the envelopes, "that you've really cared more about them all +along than I have." + +"No, I've only been anxious to be done with them." + +She got the letters open, and holding one of them up in each hand she +read them impartially and simultaneously; then she flung them both down, +and turned her face into her pillow with an impulse of her inalienable +girlishness. "Well, it is too silly." + +March felt authorized to take them up and read them consecutively; when +he had done, so he did not differ from his wife. In one case, Agatha had +written to her dear Mrs. March that she and Burnamy had just that evening +become engaged; Mrs. Adding, on her part owned a farther step, and +announced her marriage to Mr. Kenby. Following immemorial usage in such +matters Kenby had added a postscript affirming his happiness in unsparing +terms, and in Agatha's letter there was an avowal of like effect from +Burnamy. Agatha hinted her belief that her father would soon come to +regard Burnamy as she did; and Mrs. Adding professed a certain +humiliation in having realized that, after all her misgiving about him, +Rose seemed rather relieved than otherwise, as if he were glad to have +her off his hands. + +"Well," said March, "with these troublesome affairs settled, I don't see +what there is to keep us in Europe any longer, unless it's the consensus +of opinion in Tom, Bella, and Fulkerson, that we ought to stay the +winter." + +"Stay the winter!" Mrs. March rose from her pillow, and clutched the +home letters to her from the abeyance in which they had fallen on the +coverlet while she was dealing with the others. "What do you mean?" + +"It seems to have been prompted by a hint you let drop, which Tom has +passed to Bella and Fulkerson." + +"Oh, but that was before we left Carlsbad!" she protested, while she +devoured the letters with her eyes, and continued to denounce the +absurdity of the writers. Her son and daughter both urged that now their +father and mother were over there, they had better stay as long as they +enjoyed it, and that they certainly ought not to come home without going +to Italy, where they had first met, and revisiting the places which they +had seen together when they were young engaged people: without that their +silver wedding journey would not be complete. Her son said that +everything was going well with 'Every Other Week', and both himself and +Mr. Fulkerson thought his father ought to spend the winter in Italy, and +get a thorough rest. "Make a job of it, March," Fulkerson wrote, "and +have a Sabbatical year while you're at it. You may not get another." + +"Well, I can tell them," said Mrs. March indignantly, "we shall not do +anything of the kind." + +"Then you didn't mean it?" + +"Mean it!" She stopped herself with a look at her husband, and asked +gently, "Do you want to stay?" + +"Well, I don't know," he answered vaguely. The fact was, he was sick of +travel and of leisure; he was longing to be at home and at work again. +But if there was to be any self-sacrifice which could be had, as it were, +at a bargain; which could be fairly divided between them, and leave him +the self and her the sacrifice, he was too experienced a husband not to +see the advantage of it, or to refuse the merit. "I thought you wished +to stay." + +"Yes," she sighed, "I did. It has been very, very pleasant, and, if +anything, I have over-enjoyed myself. We have gone romping through it +like two young people, haven't we?" + +"You have," he assented. "I have always felt the weight of my years in +getting the baggage registered; they have made the baggage weigh more +every time." + +"And I've forgotten mine. Yes, I have. But the years haven't forgotten +me, Basil, and now I remember them. I'm tired. It doesn't seem as if I +could ever get up. But I dare say it's only a mood; it may be only a +cold; and if you wish to stay, why--we will think it over." + +"No, we won't, my dear," he said, with a generous shame for his hypocrisy +if not with a pure generosity. "I've got all the good out of it that +there was in it, for me, and I shouldn't go home any better six months +hence than I should now. Italy will keep for another time, and so, for +the matter of that, will Holland." + +"No, no!" she interposed. "We won't give up Holland, whatever we do. +I couldn't go home feeling that I had kept you out of your after-cure; +and when we get there, no doubt the sea air will bring me up so that I +shall want to go to Italy, too, again. Though it seems so far off, now! +But go and see when the afternoon train for the Hague leaves, and I shall +be ready. My mind's quite made up on that point." + +"What a bundle of energy!" said her husband laughing down at her. + +He went and asked about the train to the Hague, but only to satisfy a +superficial conscience; for now he knew that they were both of one mind +about going home. He also looked up the trains for London, and found +that they could get there by way of Ostend in fourteen hours. Then he +went back to the banker's, and with the help of the Paris-New York +Chronicle which he found there, he got the sailings of the first steamers +home. After that he strolled about the streets for a last impression of +Dusseldorf, but it was rather blurred by the constantly recurring pull of +his thoughts toward America, and he ended by turning abruptly at a +certain corner, and going to his hotel. + +He found his wife dressed, but fallen again on her bed, beside which her +breakfast stood still untasted; her smile responded wanly to his +brightness. "I'm not well, my dear," she said. "I don't believe I could +get off to the Hague this afternoon." + +"Could you to Liverpool?" he returned. + +"To Liverpool?" she gasped. "What do you mean?" + +"Merely that the Cupania is sailing on the twentieth, and I've +telegraphed to know if we can get a room. I'm afraid it won't be a good +one, but she's the first boat out, and--" + +"No, indeed, we won't go to Liverpool, and we will never go home till +you've had your after-cure in Holland." She was very firm in this, but +she added, "We will stay another night, here, and go to the Hague +tomorrow. Sit down, and let us talk it over. Where were we?" + +She lay down on the sofa, and he put a shawl over her. "We were just +starting for Liverpool." + +"No, no we weren't! Don't say such things, dearest! I want you to help +me sum it all, up. You think it's been a success, don't you?" + +"As a cure?" + +"No, as a silver wedding journey?" + +"Perfectly howling." + +"I do think we've had a good time. I never expected to enjoy myself so +much again in the world. I didn't suppose I should ever take so much +interest in anything. It shows that when we choose to get out of our rut +we shall always find life as fresh and delightful as ever. There is +nothing to prevent our coming any year, now that Tom's shown himself so +capable, and having another silver wedding journey. I don't like to +think of it's being confined to Germany quite." + +"Oh, I don't know. We can always talk of it as our German-Silver Wedding +Journey." + +"That's true. But nobody would understand nowadays what you meant by +German-silver; it's perfectly gone out. How ugly it was! A sort of +greasy yellowish stuff, always getting worn through; I believe it was +made worn through. Aunt Mary had a castor of it, that I can remember +when I was a child; it went into the kitchen long before I grew up. +Would a joke like that console you for the loss of Italy?" + +"It would go far to do it. And as a German-Silver Wedding Journey, it's +certainly been very complete." + +"What do you mean?" + +"It's given us a representative variety of German cities. First we had +Hamburg, you know, a great modern commercial centre." + +"Yes! Go on!" + +"Then we had Leipsic, the academic." + +"Yes!" + +"Then Carlsbad, the supreme type of a German health resort; then +Nuremberg, the mediaeval; then Anspach, the extinct princely capital; +then Wurzburg, the ecclesiastical rococo; then Weimar, for the literature +of a great epoch; then imperial Berlin; then Frankfort, the memory of the +old free city; then Dusseldorf, the centre of the most poignant personal +interest in the world--I don't see how we could have done better, if we'd +planned it all, and not acted from successive impulses." + +"It's been grand; it's been perfect! As German-Silver Wedding Journey +it's perfect--it seems as if it had been ordered! But I will never let +you give up Holland! No, we will go this afternoon, and when I get to +Schevleningen, I'll go to bed, and stay there, till you've completed your +after-cure." + +"Do you think that will be wildly gay for the convalescent?" + +She suddenly began to cry. "Oh, dearest, what shall we do? I feel +perfectly broken down. I'm afraid I'm going to be sick--and away from +home! How could you ever let me overdo, so?" She put her handkerchief to +her eyes, and turned her face into the sofa pillow. + +This was rather hard upon him, whom her vivid energy and inextinguishable +interest had not permitted a moment's respite from pleasure since they +left Carlsbad. But he had been married, too long not to understand that +her blame of him was only a form of self-reproach for her own self- +forgetfulness. She had not remembered that she was no longer young till +she had come to what he saw was a nervous collapse. The fact had its +pathos and its poetry which no one could have felt more keenly than he. +If it also had its inconvenience and its danger he realized these too. + +"Isabel," he said, "we are going home." + +"Very well, then it will be your doing." + +"Quite. Do you think you could stand it as far as Cologne? We get the +sleeping-car there, and you can lie down the rest of the way to Ostend." + +"This afternoon? Why I'm perfectly strong; it's merely my nerves that +are gone." She sat up, and wiped her eyes. "But Basil! If you're doing +this for me--" + +"I'm doing it for myself," said March, as he went out of the room. + +She stood the journey perfectly well, and in the passage to Dover she +suffered so little from the rough weather that she was an example to many +robust matrons who filled the ladies' cabin with the noise of their +anguish during the night. She would have insisted upon taking the first +train up to London, if March had not represented that this would not +expedite the sailing of the Cupania, and that she might as well stay the +forenoon at the convenient railway hotel, and rest. It was not quite his +ideal of repose that the first people they saw in the coffee-room when +they went to breakfast should be Kenby and Rose Adding, who were having +their tea and toast and eggs together in the greatest apparent good- +fellowship. He saw his wife shrink back involuntarily from the +encounter, but this was only to gather force for it; and the next moment +she was upon them in all the joy of the surprise. Then March allowed +himself to be as glad as the others both seemed, and he shook hands with +Kenby while his wife kissed Rose; and they all talked at once. In the +confusion of tongues it was presently intelligible that Mrs. Kenby was +going to be down in a few minutes; and Kenby took March into his +confidence with a smile which was, almost a wink in explaining that he +knew how it was with the ladies. He said that Rose and he usually got +down to breakfast first, and when he had listened inattentively to Mrs. +March's apology for being on her way home, he told her that she was lucky +not to have gone to Schevleningen, where she and March would have frozen +to death. He said that they were going to spend September at a little +place on the English coast, near by, where he had been the day before +with Rose to look at lodgings, and where you could bathe all through the +month. He was not surprised that the Marches were going home, and said, +Well, that was their original plan, wasn't it? + +Mrs. Kenby, appearing upon this, pretended to know better, after the +outburst of joyful greeting with the Marches; and intelligently reminded +Kenby that he knew the Marches had intended to pass the winter in Paris. +She was looking extremely pretty, but she wished only to make them see +how well Rose was looking, and she put her arm round his shoulders as she +spoke, Schevleningen had done wonders for him, but it was fearfully cold +there, and now they were expecting everything from Westgate, where she +advised March to come, too, for his after-cure: she recollected in time +to say, She forgot they were on their way home. She added that she did +not know when she should return; she was merely a passenger, now; she +left everything to the men of the family. She had, in fact, the air of +having thrown off every responsibility, but in supremacy, not submission. +She was always ordering Kenby about; she sent him for her handkerchief, +and her rings which she had left either in the tray of her trunk, or on +the pin-cushion, or on the wash-stand or somewhere, and forbade him to +come back without them. He asked for her keys, and then with a joyful +scream she owned that she had left the door-key in the door and the whole +bunch of trunk-keys in her trunk; and Kenby treated it all as the +greatest joke; Rose, too, seemed to think that Kenby would make +everything come right, and he had lost that look of anxiety which he used +to have; at the most he showed a friendly sympathy for Kenby, for whose +sake he seemed mortified at her. He was unable to regard his mother as +the delightful joke which she appeared to Kenby, but that was merely +temperamental; and he was never distressed except when she behaved with +unreasonable caprice at Kenby's cost. + +As for Kenby himself he betrayed no dissatisfaction with his fate to +March. He perhaps no longer regarded his wife as that strong character +which he had sometimes wearied March by celebrating; but she was still +the most brilliant intelligence, and her charm seemed only to have grown +with his perception of its wilful limitations. He did not want to talk +about her so much; he wanted rather to talk about Rose, his health, his +education, his nature, and what was best to do for him. The two were on +terms of a confidence and affection which perpetually amused Mrs. Kenby, +but which left the sympathetic witness nothing to desire in their +relation. + +They all came to the train when the Marches started up to London, and +stood waving to them as they pulled out of the station. "Well, I can't +see but that's all right," he said as he sank back in his seat with a +sigh of relief. "I never supposed we should get out of their marriage +half so well, and I don't feel that you quite made the match either, my +dear." + +She was forced to agree with him that the Kenbys seemed happy together, +and that there was nothing to fear for Rose in their happiness. He would +be as tenderly cared for by Kenby as he could have been by his mother, +and far more judiciously. She owned that she had trembled for him till +she had seen them all together; and now she should never tremble again. + +"Well?" March prompted, at a certain inconclusiveness in her tone rather +than her words. + +"Well, you can see that it, isn't ideal." + +"Why isn't it ideal? I suppose you think that the marriage of Burnamy +and Agatha Triscoe will be ideal, with their ignorances and inexperiences +and illusions." + +"Yes! It's the illusions: no marriage can be perfect without them, and at +their age the Kenbys can't have them." + +"Kenby is a solid mass of illusion. And I believe that people can go and +get as many new illusions as they want, whenever they've lost their old +ones." + +"Yes, but the new illusions won't wear so well; and in marriage you want +illusions that will last. No; you needn't talk to me. It's all very +well, but it isn't ideal." + +March laughed. "Ideal! What is ideal?" + +"Going home!" she said with such passion that he had not the heart to +point out that they were merely returning to their old duties, cares and +pains, with the worn-out illusion that these would be altogether +different when they took them up again. + + + + +LXXIII. + +In fulfilment of another ideal Mrs. March took straightway to her berth +when she got on board the Cupania, and to her husband's admiration she +remained there till the day before they reached New York. Her theory was +that the complete rest would do more than anything else to calm her +shaken nerves; and she did not admit into her calculations the chances of +adverse weather which March would not suggest as probable in the last +week in September. The event justified her unconscious faith. The +ship's run was of unparalled swiftness, even for the Cupania, and of +unparalled smoothness. For days the sea was as sleek as oil; the racks +were never on the tables once; the voyage was of the sort which those who +make it no more believe in at the time than those whom they afterwards +weary in boasting of it. + +The ship was very full, but Mrs. March did not show the slightest +curiosity to know who her fellow-passengers were. She said that she +wished to be let perfectly alone, even by her own emotions, and for this +reason she forbade March to bring her a list of the passengers till after +they had left Queenstown lest it should be too exciting. He did not take +the trouble to look it up, therefore; and the first night out he saw no +one whom he knew at dinner; but the next morning at breakfast he found +himself to his great satisfaction at the same table with the Eltwins. +They were so much at ease with him that even Mrs. Eltwin took part in the +talk, and told him how they had spent the time of her husband's rigorous +after-cure in Switzerland, and now he was going home much better than +they had expected. She said they had rather thought of spending the +winter in Europe, but had given it up because they were both a little +homesick. March confessed that this was exactly the case with his wife +and himself; and he had to add that Mrs. March was not very well +otherwise, and he should be glad to be at home on her account. The +recurrence of the word home seemed to deepen Eltwin's habitual gloom, +and Mrs. Eltwin hastened to leave the subject of their return for inquiry +into Mrs. March's condition; her interest did not so far overcome her +shyness that she ventured to propose a visit to her; and March found that +the fact of the Eltwins' presence on board did not agitate his wife. +It seemed rather to comfort her, and she said she hoped he would see all +he could of the poor old things. She asked if he had met any one else he +knew, and he was able to tell her that there seemed to be a good many +swells on board, and this cheered her very much, though he did not know +them; she liked to be near the rose, though it was not a flower that she +really cared for. + +She did not ask who the swells were, and March took no trouble to find +out. He took no trouble to get a passenger-list, and he had the more +trouble when he tried at last; the lists seemed to have all vanished, as +they have a habit of doing, after the first day; the one that he made +interest for with the head steward was a second-hand copy, and had no one +he knew in it but the Eltwins. The social solitude, however, was rather +favorable to certain other impressions. There seemed even more elderly +people than there were on the Norumbia; the human atmosphere was gray and +sober; there was nothing of the gay expansion of the outward voyage; +there was little talking or laughing among those autumnal men who were +going seriously and anxiously home, with faces fiercely set for the +coming grapple; or necks meekly bowed for the yoke. They had eaten their +cake, and it had been good, but there remained a discomfort in the +digestion. They sat about in silence, and March fancied that the flown +summer was as dreamlike to each of them as it now was to him. He hated +to be of their dreary company, but spiritually he knew that he was of it; +and he vainly turned to cheer himself with the younger passengers. Some +matrons who went about clad in furs amused him, for they must have been +unpleasantly warm in their jackets and boas; nothing but the hope of +being able to tell the customs inspector with a good conscience that the +things had been worn, would have sustained one lady draped from head to +foot in Astrakhan. + +They were all getting themselves ready for the fray or the play of the +coming winter; but there seemed nothing joyous in the preparation. There +were many young girls, as there always are everywhere, but there were not +many young men, and such as there were kept to the smoking-room. There +was no sign of flirtation among them; he would have given much for a +moment of the pivotal girl, to see whether she could have brightened +those gloomy surfaces with her impartial lamp. March wished that he +could have brought some report from the outer world to cheer his wife, +as he descended to their state-room. They had taken what they could get +at the eleventh hour, and they had got no such ideal room as they had in +the Norumbia. It was, as Mrs. March graphically said, a basement room. +It was on the north side of the ship, which is a cold exposure, and if +there had been any sun it could not have got into their window, which was +half the time under water. The green waves, laced with foam, hissed as +they ran across the port; and the electric fan in the corridor moaned +like the wind in a gable. + +He felt a sinking of the heart as he pushed the state-room door open, and +looked at his wife lying with her face turned to the wall; and he was +going to withdraw, thinking her asleep, when she said quietly, "Are we +going down?" + +"Not that I know of," he answered with a gayety he did not feel. "But +I'll ask the head steward." + +She put out her hand behind her for him to take, and clutched his fingers +convulsively. "If I'm never any better, you will always remember this +happy, summer, won't you? Oh, it's been such a happy summer! It has +been one long joy, one continued triumph! But it was too late; we were +too old; and it's broken me." + +The time had been when he would have attempted comfort; when he would +have tried mocking; but that time was long past; he could only pray +inwardly for some sort of diversion, but what it was to be in their +barren circumstance he was obliged to leave altogether to Providence. +He ventured, pending an answer to his prayers upon the question, "Don't +you think I'd better see the doctor, and get you some sort of tonic?" + +She suddenly turned and faced him. "The doctor! Why, I'm not sick, +Basil! If you can see the purser and get our rooms changed, or do +something to stop those waves from slapping against that horrible +blinking one-eyed window, you can save my life; but no tonic is going to +help me." + +She turned her face from him again, and buried it in the bedclothes, +while he looked desperately at the racing waves, and the port that seemed +to open and shut like a weary eye. + +"Oh, go away!" she implored. "I shall be better presently, but if you +stand there like that-- Go and see if you can't get some other room, +where I needn't feel as if I were drowning, all the way over." + +He obeyed, so far as to go away at once, and having once started, he did +not stop short of the purser's office. He made an excuse of getting +greenbacks for some English bank-notes, and then he said casually that he +supposed there would be no chance of having his room on the lower deck +changed for something a little less intimate with the sea. The purser +was not there to take the humorous view, but he conceived that March +wanted something higher up, and he was able to offer him a room of those +on the promenade where he had seen swells going in and out, for six +hundred dollars. March did not blench, but said he would get his wife to +look at it with him, and then he went out somewhat dizzily to take +counsel with himself how he should put the matter to her. She would be +sure to ask what the price of the new room would be, and he debated +whether to take it and tell her some kindly lie about it, or trust to the +bracing effect of the sum named in helping restore the lost balance of +her nerves. He was not so rich that he could throw six hundred dollars +away, but there might be worse things; and he walked up and down +thinking. All at once it flashed upon him that he had better see the +doctor, anyway, and find out whether there were not some last hope in +medicine before he took the desperate step before him. He turned in half +his course, and ran into a lady who had just emerged from the door of the +promenade laden with wraps, and who dropped them all and clutched him to +save herself from falling. + +"Why, Mr. March!" she shrieked. + +"Miss Triscoe!" he returned, in the astonishment which he shared with her +to the extent of letting the shawls he had knocked from her hold lie +between them till she began to pick them up herself. Then he joined her +and in the relief of their common occupation they contrived to possess +each other of the reason of their presence on, the same boat. She had +sorrowed over Mrs. March's sad state, and he had grieved to hear that her +father was going home because he was not at all well, before they found +the general stretched out in his steamer-chair, and waiting with a grim +impatience for his daughter. + +"But how is it you're not in the passenger-list?" he inquired of them +both, and Miss Triscoe explained that they had taken their passage at the +last moment, too late, she supposed, to get into the list. They were in +London, and had run down to Liverpool on the chance of getting berths. +Beyond this she was not definite, and there was an absence of Burnamy not +only from her company but from her conversation which mystified March +through all his selfish preoccupations with his wife. She was a girl who +had her reserves, but for a girl who had so lately and rapturously +written them of her engagement, there was a silence concerning her +betrothed that had almost positive quality. With his longing to try Miss +Triscoe upon Mrs. March's malady as a remedial agent, he had now the +desire to try Mrs. March upon Miss Triscoe's mystery as a solvent. She +stood talking to him, and refusing to sit down and be wrapped up in the +chair next her father. She said that if he were going to ask Mrs. March +to let her come to her, it would not be worth while to sit down; and he +hurried below. + +"Did you get it?" asked his wife, without looking round, but not so +apathetically as before. + +"Oh, yes. That's all right. But now, Isabel, there's something I've got +to tell you. You'd find it out, and you'd better know it at once." + +She turned her face, and asked sternly, "What is it?" + +Then he said, with, an almost equal severity, "Miss Triscoe is on board. +Miss Triscoe-and-her-father. She wishes to come down and see you." + +Mrs. March sat up and began to twist her hair into shape. "And Burnamy?" + +"There is no Burnamy physically, or so far as I can make out, +spiritually. She didn't mention him, and I talked at least five minutes +with her." + +"Hand me my dressing-sack," said Mrs. March, "and poke those things on +the sofa under the berth. Shut up that wash-stand, and pull the curtain +across that hideous window. Stop! Throw those towels into your berth. +Put my shoes, and your slippers into the shoe-bag on the door. Slip the +brushes into that other bag. Beat the dent out of the sofa cushion that +your head has made. Now!" + +"Then--then yon will see her?" + +"See her!" + +Her voice was so terrible that he fled before it, and he returned with +Miss Triscoe in a dreamlike simultaneity. He remembered, as he led the +way into his corridor, to apologize for bringing her down into a basement +room. + +"Oh, we're in the basement, too; it was all we could get," she said in +words that ended within the state-room he opened to her. Then he went +back and took her chair and wraps beside her father. + +He let the general himself lead the way up to his health, which he was +not slow in reaching, and was not quick in leaving. He reminded March of +the state he had seen him in at Wurzburg, and he said it had gone from +bad to worse with him. At Weimar he had taken to his bed and merely +escaped from it with his life. Then they had tried Schevleningen for a +week, where, he said in a tone of some injury, they had rather thought +they might find them, the Marches. The air had been poison to him, and +they had come over to England with some notion of Bournemouth; but the +doctor in London had thought not, and urged their going home. "All +Europe is damp, you know, and dark as a pocket in winter," he ended. + +There had been nothing about Burnamy, and March decided that he must wait +to see his wife if he wished to know anything, when the general, who had +been silent, twisted his head towards him, and said without regard to the +context, "It was complicated, at Weimar, by that young man in the most +devilish way. Did my daughter write to Mrs. March about-- Well it came +to nothing, after all; and I don't understand how, to this day. I doubt +if they do. It was some sort of quarrel, I suppose. I wasn't consulted +in the matter either way. It appears that parents are not consulted in +these trifling affairs, nowadays." He had married his daughter's mother +in open defiance of her father; but in the glare of his daughter's +wilfulness this fact had whitened into pious obedience. "I dare say I +shall be told, by-and-by, and shall be expected to approve of the +result." + +A fancy possessed March that by operation of temperamental laws General +Triscoe was no more satisfied with Burnamy's final rejection than with +his acceptance. If the engagement was ever to be renewed, it might be +another thing; but as it stood, March divined a certain favor for the +young man in the general's attitude. But the affair was altogether too +delicate for comment; the general's aristocratic frankness in dealing +with it might have gone farther if his knowledge had been greater; but in +any case March did not see how he could touch it. He could only say, He +had always liked Burnamy, himself. + +He had his good qualities, the general owned. He did not profess to +understand the young men of our time; but certainly the fellow had the +instincts of a gentleman. He had nothing to say against him, unless in +that business with that man--what was his name? + +"Stoller?" March prompted. "I don't excuse him in that, but I don't +blame him so much, either. If punishment means atonement, he had the +opportunity of making that right very suddenly, and if pardon means +expunction, then I don't see why that offence hasn't been pretty well +wiped out. + +"Those things are not so simple as they used to seem," said the general, +with a seriousness beyond his wont in things that did not immediately +concern his own comfort or advantage. + + + + +LXXVI. + +In the mean time Mrs. March and Miss Triscoe were discussing another +offence of Burnamy's. + +"It wasn't," said the girl, excitedly, after a plunge through all the +minor facts to the heart of the matter, "that he hadn't a perfect right +to do it, if he thought I didn't care for him. I had refused him at +Carlsbad, and I had forbidden him to speak to me about--on the subject. +But that was merely temporary, and he ought to have known it. He ought to +have known that I couldn't accept him, on the spur of the moment, that +way; and when he had come back, after going away in disgrace, before he +had done anything to justify himself. I couldn't have kept my self- +respect; and as it was I had the greatest difficulty; and he ought to +have seen it. Of course he said afterwards that he didn't see it. But +when--when I found out that SHE had been in Weimar, and all that time, +while I had been suffering in Carlsbad and Wurzburg, and longing to see +him--let him know how I was really feeling--he was flirting with that-- +that girl, then I saw that he was a false nature, and I determined to put +an end to everything. And that is what I did; and I shall always think +I--did right--and--" + +The rest was lost in Agatha's handkerchief, which she put up to her eyes. +Mrs. March watched her from her pillow keeping the girl's unoccupied hand +in her own, and softly pressing it till the storm was past sufficiently +to allow her to be heard. + +Then she said, "Men are very strange--the best of them. And from the +very fact that he was disappointed, he would be all the more apt to rush +into a flirtation with somebody else." + +Miss Triscoe took down her handkerchief from a face that had certainly +not been beautified by grief. "I didn't blame him for the flirting; or +not so much. It was his keeping it from me afterwards. He ought to have +told me the very first instant we were engaged. But he didn't. He let +it go on, and if I hadn't happened on that bouquet I might never have +known anything about it. That is what I mean by--a false nature. +I wouldn't have minded his deceiving me; but to let me deceive myself-- +Oh, it was too much!" + +Agatha hid her face in her handkerchief again. She was perching on the +edge of the berth, and Mrs. March said, with a glance, which she did not +see, toward the sofa, "I'm afraid that's rather a hard seat for you. + +"Oh, no, thank you! I'm perfectly comfortable--I like it--if you don't +mind?" + +Mrs. March pressed her hand for answer, and after another little delay, +sighed and said, "They are not like us, and we cannot help it. They are +more temporizing." + +"How do you mean?" Agatha unmasked again. + +"They can bear to keep things better than we can, and they trust to time +to bring them right, or to come right of themselves." + +"I don't think Mr. March would trust things to come right of themselves!" +said Agatha in indignant accusal of Mrs. March's sincerity. + +"Ah, that's just what he would do, my dear, and has done, all along; and +I don't believe we could have lived through without it: we should have +quarrelled ourselves into the grave!" + +"Mrs. March!" + +"Yes, indeed. I don't mean that he would ever deceive me. But he would +let things go on, and hope that somehow they would come right without any +fuss." + +"Do you mean that he would let anybody deceive themselves?" + +"I'm afraid he would--if he thought it would come right. It used to be a +terrible trial to me; and it is yet, at times when I don't remember that +he means nothing but good and kindness by it. Only the other day in +Ansbach--how long ago it seems!--he let a poor old woman give him her +son's address in Jersey City, and allowed her to believe he would look +him up when we got back and tell him we had seen her. I don't believe, +unless I keep right round after him, as we say in New England, that he'll +ever go near the man." + +Agatha looked daunted, but she said, "That is a very different thing." + +"It isn't a different kind of thing. And it shows what men are,--the +sweetest and best of them, that is. They are terribly apt to be +--easy-going." + +"Then you think I was all wrong?" the girl asked in a tremor. + +"No, indeed! You were right, because you really expected perfection of +him. You expected the ideal. And that's what makes all the trouble, in +married life: we expect too much of each other--we each expect more of +the other than we are willing to give or can give. If I had to begin +over again, I should not expect anything at all, and then I should be +sure of being radiantly happy. But all this talking and all this writing +about love seems to turn our brains; we know that men are not perfect, +even at our craziest, because women are not, but we expect perfection of +them; and they seem to expect it of us, poor things! If we could keep on +after we are in love just as we were before we were in love, and take +nice things as favors and surprises, as we did in the beginning! But we +get more and more greedy and exacting--" + +"Do you think I was too exacting in wanting him to tell me everything +after we were engaged?" + +"No, I don't say that. But suppose he had put it off till you were +married?" Agatha blushed a little, but not painfully, "Would it have +been so bad? Then you might have thought that his flirting up to the +last moment in his desperation was a very good joke. You would have +understood better just how it was, and it might even have made you fonder +of him. You might have seen that he had flirted with some one else +because he was so heart-broken about you." + +"Then you believe that if I could have waited till--till-- but when I had +found out, don't you see I couldn't wait? It would have been all very +well if I hadn't known it till then. But as I did know it. Don't you +see?" + +"Yes, that certainly complicated it," Mrs. March admitted. "But I don't +think, if he'd been a false nature, he'd have owned up as he did. You +see, he didn't try to deny it; and that's a great point gained." + +"Yes, that is true," said Agatha, with conviction. "I saw that +afterwards. But you don't think, Mrs. March, that I was unjust or--or +hasty?" + +"No, indeed! You couldn't have done differently under the circumstances. +You may be sure he felt that--he is so unselfish and generous--" Agatha +began to weep into her handkerchief again; Mrs. March caressed her hand. +"And it will certainly come right if you feel as you do." + +"No," the girl protested. "He can never forgive me; it's all over, +everything is over. It would make very little difference to me, what +happened now--if the steamer broke her shaft, or anything. But if I can +only believe I wasn't unjust--" + +Mrs. March assured her once more that she had behaved with absolute +impartiality; and she proved to her by a process of reasoning quite +irrefragable that it was only a question of time, with which place had +nothing to do, when she and Burnamy should come together again, and all +should be made right between them. The fact that she did not know where +he was, any more than Mrs. March herself, had nothing to do with the +result; that was a mere detail, which would settle itself. She clinched +her argument by confessing that her own engagement had been broken off, +and that it had simply renewed itself. All you had to do was to keep +willing it, and waiting. There was something very mysterious in it. + +"And how long was it till--" Agatha faltered. + +"Well, in our ease it was two years." + +"Oh!" said the girl, but Mrs. March hastened to reassure her. + +"But our case was very peculiar. I could see afterwards that it needn't +have been two months, if I had been willing to acknowledge at once that I +was in the wrong. I waited till we met." + +"If I felt that I was in the wrong, I should write," said Agatha. +"I shouldn't care what he thought of my doing it." + +"Yes, the great thing is to make sure that you were wrong." + +They remained talking so long, that March and the general had exhausted +all the topics of common interest, and had even gone through those they +did not care for. At last the general said, "I'm afraid my daughter will +tire Mrs. March." + +"Oh, I don't think she'll tire my wife. But do you want her?" + +"Well, when you're going down." + +"I think I'll take a turn about the deck, and start my circulation," said +March, and he did so before he went below. + +He found his wife up and dressed, and waiting provisionally on the sofa. +"I thought I might as well go to lunch," she said, and then she told him +about Agatha and Burnamy, and the means she had employed to comfort and +encourage the girl. "And now, dearest, I want you to find out where +Burnamy is, and give him a hint. You will, won't you! If you could have +seen how unhappy she was!" + +"I don't think I should have cared, and I'm certainly not going to +meddle. I think Burnamy has got no more than he deserved, and that he's +well rid of her. I can't imagine a broken engagement that would more +completely meet my approval. As the case stands, they have my blessing." + +"Don't say that, dearest! You know you don't mean it." + +"I do; and I advise you to keep your hands off. You've done all and more +than you ought to propitiate Miss Triscoe. You've offered yourself up, +and you've offered me up--" + +"No, no, Basil! I merely used you as an illustration of what men were-- +the best of them." + +"And I can't observe," he continued, "that any one else has been +considered in the matter. Is Miss Triscoe the sole sufferer by Burnamy's +flirtation? What is the matter with a little compassion for the pivotal +girl?" + +"Now, you know you're not serious," said his wife; and though he would +not admit this, he could not be seriously sorry for the new interest +which she took in the affair. There was no longer any question of +changing their state-room. Under the tonic influence of the excitement +she did not go back to her berth after lunch, and she was up later after +dinner than he could have advised. She was absorbed in Agatha, but in +her liberation from her hypochondria, she began also to make a +comparative study of the American swells, in the light of her late +experience with the German highhotes. It is true that none of the swells +gave her the opportunity of examining them at close range, as the +highhotes had done. They kept to their, state-rooms mostly, where, after +he thought she could bear it, March told her how near he had come to +making her their equal by an outlay of six hundred dollars. She now +shuddered at the thought; but she contended that in their magnificent +exclusiveness they could give points to European princes; and that this +showed again how when Americans did try to do a thing, they beat the +world. Agatha Triscoe knew who they were, but she did not know them; +they belonged to another kind of set; she spoke of them as "rich people," +and she seemed content to keep away from them with Mrs. March and with +the shy, silent old wife of Major Eltwin, to whom March sometimes found +her talking. + +He never found her father talking with Major Eltwin. General Triscoe had +his own friends in the smoking-room, where he held forth in a certain +corner on the chances of the approaching election in New York, and mocked +their incredulity when he prophesied the success of Tammany and the +return of the King. March himself much preferred Major Eltwin to the +general and his friends; he lived back in the talk of the Ohioan into his +own younger years in Indiana, and he was amused and touched to find how +much the mid-Western life seemed still the same as he had known. The +conditions had changed, but not so much as they had changed in the East +and the farther West. The picture that the major drew of them in his own +region was alluring; it made March homesick; though he knew that he +should never go back to his native section. There was the comfort of +kind in the major; and he had a vein of philosophy, spare but sweet, +which March liked; he liked also the meekness which had come through +sorrow upon a spirit which had once been proud. + +They had both the elderly man's habit of early rising, and they usually +found themselves together waiting impatiently for the cup of coffee, +ingenuously bad, which they served on the Cupania not earlier than half +past six, in strict observance of a rule of the line discouraging to +people of their habits. March admired the vileness of the decoction, +which he said could not be got anywhere out of the British Empire, and he +asked Eltwin the first morning if he had noticed how instantly on the +Channel boat they had dropped to it and to the sour, heavy, sodden +British bread, from the spirited and airy Continental tradition of coffee +and rolls. + +The major confessed that he was no great hand to notice such things, and +he said he supposed that if the line had never lost a passenger, and got +you to New York in six days it had a right to feed you as it pleased; he +surmised that if they could get their airing outside before they took +their coffee, it would give the coffee a chance to taste better; and this +was what they afterwards did. They met, well buttoned and well mined up, +on the promenade when it was yet so early that they were not at once sure +of each other in the twilight, and watched the morning planets pale east +and west before the sun rose. Sometimes there were no paling planets and +no rising sun, and a black sea, ridged with white, tossed under a low +dark sky with dim rifts. + +One morning, they saw the sun rise with a serenity and majesty which it +rarely has outside of the theatre. The dawn began over that sea which +was like the rumpled canvas imitations of the sea on the stage, under +long mauve clouds bathed in solemn light. Above these, in the pale +tender sky, two silver stars hung, and the steamer's smoke drifted across +them like a thin dusky veil. To the right a bank of dun cloud began to +burn crimson, and to burn brighter till it was like a low hill-side full +of gorgeous rugosities fleeced with a dense dwarfish growth of autumnal +shrubs. The whole eastern heaven softened and flushed through diaphanous +mists; the west remained a livid mystery. The eastern masses and flakes +of cloud began to kindle keenly; but the stars shone clearly, and then +one star, till the tawny pink hid it. All the zenith reddened, but still +the sun did not show except in the color of the brilliant clouds. At +last the lurid horizon began to burn like a flame-shot smoke, and a +fiercely bright disc edge pierced its level, and swiftly defined itself +as the sun's orb. + +Many thoughts went through March's mind; some of them were sad, but in +some there was a touch of hopefulness. It might have been that beauty +which consoled him for his years; somehow he felt himself, if no longer +young, a part of the young immortal frame of things. His state was +indefinable, but he longed to hint at it to his companion. + +"Yes," said Eltwin, with a long deep sigh. "I feel as if I could walk +out through that brightness and find her. I reckon that such hopes +wouldn't be allowed to lie to us; that so many ages of men couldn't have +fooled themselves so. I'm glad I've seen this." He was silent and they +both remained watching the rising sun till they could not bear its +splendor. "Now," said the major, "it must be time for that mud, as you +call it." Over their coffee and crackers at the end of the table which +they had to themselves, he resumed. "I was thinking all the time-- +we seem to think half a dozen things at once, and this was one of them-- +about a piece of business I've got to settle when I reach home; and +perhaps you can advise me about it; you're an editor. I've got a +newspaper on my hands; I reckon it would be a pretty good thing, if it +had a chance; but I don't know what to do with it: I got it in trade with +a fellow who has to go West for his lungs, but he's staying till I get +back. What's become of that young chap--what's his name?--that went out +with us?" + +"Burnamy?" prompted March, rather breathlessly. + +"Yes. Couldn't he take hold of it? I rather liked him. He's smart, +isn't he?" + +"Very," said March. "But I don't know where he is. I don't know that he +would go into the country--. But he might, if--" + +They entered provisionally into the case, and for argument's sake +supposed that Burnamy would take hold of the major's paper if he could be +got at. It really looked to March like a good chance for him, on +Eltwin's showing; but he was not confident of Burnamy's turning up very +soon, and he gave the major a pretty clear notion why, by entering into +the young fellow's history for the last three months. + +"Isn't it the very irony of fate?" he said to his wife when he found her +in their room with a cup of the same mud he had been drinking, and +reported the facts to her. + +"Irony?" she said, with all the excitement he could have imagined or +desired. "Nothing of the kind. It's a leading, if ever there was one. +It will be the easiest thing in the world to find Burnamy. And out there +she can sit on her steps!" + +He slowly groped his way to her meaning, through the hypothesis of +Burnamy's reconciliation and marriage with Agatha Triscoe, and their +settlement in Major Eltwin's town under social conditions that implied a +habit of spending the summer evenings on their front porch. While he was +doing this she showered him with questions and conjectures and +requisitions in which nothing but the impossibility of going ashore saved +him from the instant devotion of all his energies to a world-wide, +inquiry into Burnamy's whereabouts. + +The next morning he was up before Major Eltwin got out, and found the +second-cabin passengers free of the first-cabin promenade at an hour when +their superiors were not using it. As he watched these inferiors, +decent-looking, well-clad men and women, enjoying their privilege with a +furtive air, and with stolen glances at him, he asked himself in what +sort he was their superior, till the inquiry grew painful. Then he rose +from his chair, and made his way to the place where the material barrier +between them was lifted, and interested himself in a few of them who +seemed too proud to avail themselves of his society on the terms made. +A figure seized his attention with a sudden fascination of conjecture and +rejection: the figure of a tall young man who came out on the promenade +and without looking round, walked swiftly away to the bow of the ship, +and stood there, looking down at the water in au attitude which was +bewilderingly familiar. His movement, his posture, his dress, even, was +that of Burnamy, and March, after a first flush of pleasure, felt a +sickening repulsion in the notion of his presence. It would have been +such a cheap performance on the part of life, which has all sorts of +chances at command, and need not descend to the poor tricks of second- +rate fiction; and he accused Burnamy of a complicity in the bad taste of +the affair, though he realized, when he reflected, that if it were really +Burnamy he must have sailed in as much unconsciousness of the Triscoes as +he himself had done. He had probably got out of money and had hurried +home while he had still enough to pay the second-cabin fare on the first +boat back. Clearly he was not to blame, but life was to blame for such a +shabby device; and March felt this so keenly that he wished to turn from +the situation, and have nothing to do with it. He kept moving toward +him, drawn by the fatal attraction, and at a few paces' distance the +young man whirled about and showed him the face of a stranger. + +March made some witless remark on the rapid course of the ship as it cut +its way through the water of the bow; the stranger answered with a strong +Lancashire accent; and in the talk which followed, he said he was going +out to see the cotton-mills at Fall River and New Bedford, and he seemed +hopeful of some advice or information from March; then he said he must go +and try to get his Missus out; March understood him to mean his wife, and +he hurried down to his own, to whom he related his hair-breadth escape +from Burnamy. + +"I don't call it an escape at all!" she declared. "I call it the +greatest possible misfortune. If it had been Burnamy we could have +brought them together at once, just when she has seen so clearly that she +was in the wrong, and is feeling all broken up. There wouldn't have been +any difficulty about his being in the second-cabin. We could have +contrived to have them meet somehow. If the worst came to the worst you +could have lent him money to pay the difference, and got him into the +first-cabin." + +"I could have taken that six-hundred-dollar room for him," said March, +"and then he could have eaten with the swells." + +She answered that now he was teasing; that he was fundamentally incapable +of taking anything seriously; and in the end he retired before the +stewardess bringing her first coffee, with a well-merited feeling that if +it had not been for his triviality the young Lancashireman would really +have been Burnamy. + + + + +LXXV. + +Except for the first day and night out from Queenstown, when the ship +rolled and pitched with straining and squeaking noises, and a thumping of +the lifted screws, there was no rough weather, and at last the ocean was +livid and oily, with a long swell, on which she swayed with no +perceptible motion save from her machinery. + +Most of the seamanship seemed to be done after dark, or in those early +hours when March found the stewards cleaning the stairs, and the sailors +scouring the promenades. He made little acquaintance with his fellow- +passengers. One morning he almost spoke with an old Quaker lady whom he +joined in looking at the Niagara flood which poured from the churning +screws; but he did not quite get the words out. On the contrary he +talked freely with an American who, bred horses on a farm near Boulogne, +and was going home to the Horse Show; he had been thirty-five years out +of the country, but he had preserved his Yankee accent in all its purity, +and was the most typical-looking American on board. Now and then March +walked up and down with a blond Mexican whom he found of the usual well- +ordered Latin intelligence, but rather flavorless; at times he sat beside +a nice Jew, who talked agreeably, but only about business; and he +philosophized the race as so tiresome often because it seemed so often +without philosophy. He made desperate attempts at times to interest +himself in the pool-selling in the smoking-room where the betting on the +ship's wonderful run was continual. + +He thought that people talked less and less as they drew nearer home; but +on the last day out there was a sudden expansion, and some whom he had +not spoken with voluntarily addressed him. The sweet, soft air was like +midsummer the water rippled gently, without a swell, blue under the clear +sky, and the ship left a wide track that was silver in the sun. There +were more sail; the first and second class baggage was got up and piled +along the steerage deck. + +Some people dressed a little more than usual for the last dinner which +was earlier than usual, so as to be out of the way against the arrival +which had been variously predicted at from five to seven-thirty. An +indescribable nervousness culminated with the appearance of the customs +officers on board, who spread their papers on cleared spaces of the +dining-tables, and summoned the passengers to declare that they had +nothing to declare, as a preliminary to being searched like thieves at +the dock. + +This ceremony proceeded while the Cupania made her way up the Narrows, +and into the North River, where the flare of lights from the crazy steeps +and cliffs of architecture on the New York shore seemed a persistence of +the last Fourth of July pyrotechnics. March blushed for the grotesque +splendor of the spectacle, and was confounded to find some Englishmen +admiring it, till he remembered that aesthetics were not the strong point +of our race. His wife sat hand in hand with Miss Triscoe, and from time +to time made him count the pieces of small baggage in the keeping of +their steward; while General Triscoe held aloof in a sarcastic calm. + +The steamer groped into her dock; the gangways were lifted to her side; +the passengers fumbled and stumbled down their incline, and at the bottom +the Marches found themselves respectively in the arms of their son and +daughter. They all began talking at once, and ignoring and trying to +remember the Triscoes to whom the young Marches were presented. Bella +did her best to be polite to Agatha, and Tom offered to get an inspector +for the general at the same time as for his father. Then March, +remorsefully remembered the Eltwins, and looked about for them, so that +his son might get them an inspector too. He found the major already in +the hands of an inspector, who was passing all his pieces after +carelessly looking into one: the official who received the declarations +on board had noted a Grand Army button like his own in the major's lapel, +and had marked his fellow-veteran's paper with the mystic sign which +procures for the bearer the honor of being promptly treated as a +smuggler, while the less favored have to wait longer for this indignity +at the hands of their government. When March's own inspector came he was +as civil and lenient as our hateful law allows; when he had finished +March tried to put a bank-note in his hand, and was brought to a just +shame by his refusal of it. The bed-room steward keeping guard over the +baggage helped put-it together after the search, and protested that March +had feed him so handsomely that he would stay there with it as long as +they wished. This partly restored March's self-respect, and he could +share in General Triscoe's indignation with the Treasury ruling which +obliged him to pay duty on his own purchases in excess of the hundred- +dollar limit, though his daughter had brought nothing, and they jointly +came far within the limit for two. + +He found that the Triscoes were going to a quiet old hotel on the way to +Stuyvesant Square, quite in his own neighborhood, and he quickly arranged +for all the ladies and the general to drive together while he was to +follow with his son on foot and by car. They got away from the scene of +the customs' havoc while the steamer shed, with its vast darkness dimly +lit by its many lamps, still showed like a battle-field where the +inspectors groped among the scattered baggage like details from the +victorious army searching for the wounded. His son clapped him on the +shoulder when he suggested this notion, and said he was the same old +father; and they got home as gayly together as the dispiriting influences +of the New York ugliness would permit. It was still in those good and +decent times, now so remote, when the city got something for the money +paid out to keep its streets clean, and those they passed through were +not foul but merely mean. + +The ignoble effect culminated when they came into Broadway, and found its +sidewalks, at an hour when those of any European metropolis would have +been brilliant with life, as unpeopled as those of a minor country town, +while long processions of cable-cars carted heaps of men and women up and +down the thoroughfare amidst the deformities of the architecture. + +The next morning the March family breakfasted late after an evening +prolonged beyond midnight in spite of half-hourly agreements that now +they must really all go to bed. The children had both to recognize again +and again how well their parents were looking; Tom had to tell his father +about the condition of 'Every Other Week'; Bella had to explain to her +mother how sorry her husband was that he could not come on to meet them +with her, but was coming a week later to take her home, and then she +would know the reason why they could not all, go back to Chicago with +him: it was just the place for her father to live, for everybody to live. +At breakfast she renewed the reasoning with which she had maintained her +position the night before; the travellers entered into a full expression +of their joy at being home again; March asked what had become of that +stray parrot which they had left in the tree-top the morning they +started; and Mrs. March declared that this was the last Silver Wedding +Journey she ever wished to take, and tried to convince them all that she +had been on the verge of nervous collapse when she reached the ship. +They sat at table till she discovered that it was very nearly eleven +o'clock, and said it was disgraceful. + +Before they rose, there was a ring at the door, and a card was brought in +to Tom. He glanced at it, and said to his father, "Oh, yes! This man +has been haunting the office for the last three days. He's got to leave +to-day, and as it seemed to be rather a case of life and death with him, +I said he'd probably find you here this morning. But if you don't want +to see him, I can put him off till afternoon, I suppose." + +He tossed the card to his father, who looked at it quietly, and then gave +it to his wife. "Perhaps I'd as well see him?" + +"See him!" she returned in accents in which all the intensity of her soul +was centred. By an effort of self-control which no words can convey a +just sense of she remained with her children, while her husband with a +laugh more teasing than can be imagined went into the drawing-room to +meet Burnamy. + +The poor fellow was in an effect of belated summer as to clothes, and he +looked not merely haggard but shabby. He made an effort for dignity as +well as gayety, however, in stating himself to March, with many apologies +for his persistency. But, he said, he was on his way West, and he was +anxious to know whether there was any chance of his 'Kasper Hauler' paper +being taken if he finished it up. March would have been a far harder- +hearted editor than he was, if he could have discouraged the suppliant +before him. He said he would take the Kasper Hauler paper and add a band +of music to the usual rate of ten dollars a thousand words. Then +Burnamy's dignity gave way, if not his gayety; he began to laugh, and +suddenly he broke down and confessed that he had come home in the +steerage; and was at his last cent, beyond his fare to Chicago. His +straw hat looked like a withered leaf in the light of his sad facts; his +thin overcoat affected March's imagination as something like the +diaphanous cast shell of a locust, hopelessly resumed for comfort at the +approach of autumn. He made Burnamy sit down, after he had once risen, +and he told him of Major Eltwin's wish to see him; and he promised to go +round with him to the major's hotel before the Eltwins left town that +afternoon. + +While he prolonged the interview in this way, Mrs. March was kept from +breaking in upon them only by the psychical experiment which she was +making with the help and sympathy of her daughter at the window of the +dining-room which looked up Sixteenth Street. At the first hint she gave +of the emotional situation which Burnamy was a main part of, her son; +with the brutal contempt of young men for other young men's love affairs, +said he must go to the office; he bade his mother tell his father there +was no need of his coming down that day, and he left the two women +together. This gave the mother a chance to develop the whole fact to the +daughter with telegrammic rapidity and brevity, and then to enrich the +first-outline with innumerable details, while they both remained at the +window, and Mrs. March said at two-minutely intervals, with no sense of +iteration for either of them, "I told her to come in the morning, if she +felt like it, and I know she will. But if she doesn't, I shall say there +is nothing in fate, or Providence either. At any rate I'm going to stay +here and keep longing for her, and we'll see whether there's anything in +that silly theory of your father's. I don't believe there is," she said, +to be on the safe side. + +Even when she saw Agatha Triscoe enter the park gate on Rutherford Place, +she saved herself from disappointment by declaring that she was not +coming across to their house. As the girl persisted in coming and +coming, and at last came so near that she caught sight of Mrs. March at +the window and nodded, the mother turned ungratefully upon her daughter, +and drove her away to her own room, so that no society detail should +hinder the divine chance. She went to the door herself when Agatha rang, +and then she was going to open the way into the parlor where March was +still closeted with Burnamy, and pretend that she had not known they were +there. But a soberer second thought than this prevailed, and she told +the girl who it was that was within and explained the accident of his +presence. "I think," she said nobly, "that you ought to have the chance +of going away if you don't wish to meet him." + +The girl, with that heroic precipitation which Mrs. March had noted in +her from the first with regard to what she wanted to do, when Burnamy was +in question, answered, "But I do wish to meet him, Mrs. March." + +While they stood looking at each other, March came out to ask his wife if +she would see Burnamy, and she permitted herself so much stratagem as to +substitute Agatha, after catching her husband aside and subduing his +proposed greeting of the girl to a hasty handshake. + +Half an hour later she thought it time to join the young people, urged +largely by the frantic interest of her daughter. But she returned from +the half-open door without entering. "I couldn't bring myself to break +in on the poor things. They are standing at the window together looking +over at St. George's." + +Bella silently clasped her hands. March gave cynical laugh, and said, +"Well we are in for it, my dear." Then he added, "I hope they'll take us +with them on their Silver Wedding Journey." + +THE END. + + + + +ETEXT EDITOR'S BOOKMARKS: + +Declare that they had nothing to declare . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . +Despair which any perfection inspires. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . +Disingenuous, hypocritical passion of love . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . +Fundamentally incapable of taking anything seriously . . . . . . . . . . +Held aloof in a sarcastic calm . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . +Illusions: no marriage can be perfect without them . . . . . . . . . . . +Married life: we expect too much of each other . . . . . . . . . . . . . +Not do to be perfectly frank with one's own country. . . . . . . . . . . +Offence which any difference of taste was apt to give him. . . . . . . . +Passionate desire for excess in a bad thing. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . +Puddles of the paths were drying up with the haste . . . . . . . . . . . +Race seemed so often without philosophy. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . +Self-sacrifice which could be had, as it were, at a bargain. . . . . . . +She always came to his defence when he accused himself . . . . . . . . . + + + + + +End of this Project Gutenberg Etext of Their Silver Wedding Journey V3, +by William Dean Howells + diff --git a/old/wh3sw10.zip b/old/wh3sw10.zip Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..3935c91 --- /dev/null +++ b/old/wh3sw10.zip diff --git a/old/wh3sw11.txt b/old/wh3sw11.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..c19a7b2 --- /dev/null +++ b/old/wh3sw11.txt @@ -0,0 +1,6988 @@ +The Project Gutenberg Etext of Silver Wedding Journey, by Howells, v3 +#20 in our series by William Dean Howells + +Copyright laws are changing all over the world, be sure to check +the laws for your country before redistributing these files!!!!! + +Please take a look at the important information in this header. +We encourage you to keep this file on your own disk, keeping an +electronic path open for the next readers. + +Please do not remove this. + +This should be the first thing seen when anyone opens the book. +Do not change or edit it without written permission. 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In the +talk which this friendly overture led to between them he explained that +he was a railway architect, employed by the government on that line of +road, and was travelling officially. March spoke of Nuremberg; he owned +the sort of surfeit he had suffered from its excessive mediaevalism, and +the young man said it was part of the new imperial patriotism to cherish +the Gothic throughout Germany; no other sort of architecture was +permitted in Nuremberg. But they would find enough classicism at +Ansbach, he promised them, and he entered with sympathetic intelligence +into their wish to see this former capital when March told him they were +going to stop there, in hopes of something typical of the old disjointed +Germany of the petty principalities, the little paternal despotisms now +extinct. + +As they talked on, partly in German and partly in English, their purpose +in visiting Ansbach appeared to the Marches more meditated than it was. +In fact it was somewhat accidental; Ansbach was near Nuremberg; it was +not much out of the way to Holland. They took more and more credit to +themselves for a reasoned and definite motive, in the light of their +companion's enthusiasm for the place, and its charm began for them with +the drive from the station through streets whose sentiment was both +Italian and French, and where there was a yellowish cast in the gray of +the architecture which was almost Mantuan. They rested their +sensibilities, so bruised and fretted by Gothic angles and points, +against the smooth surfaces of the prevailing classicistic facades of the +houses as they passed, and when they arrived at their hotel, an old +mansion of Versailles type, fronting on a long irregular square planted +with pollard sycamores, they said that it might as well have been Lucca. + +The archway and stairway of the hotel were draped with the Bavarian +colors, and they were obscurely flattered to learn that Prince Leopold, +the brother of the Prince-Regent of the kingdom, had taken rooms there, +on his way to the manoeuvres at Nuremberg, and was momently expected with +his suite. They realized that they were not of the princely party, +however, when they were told that he had sole possession of the dining- +room, and they went out to another hotel, and had their supper in keeping +delightfully native. People seemed to come there to write their letters +and make up their accounts, as well as to eat their suppers; they called +for stationery like characters in old comedy, and the clatter of crockery +and the scratching of pens went on together; and fortune offered the +Marches a delicate reparation for their exclusion from their own hotel in +the cold popular reception of the prince which they got back just in time +to witness. A very small group of people, mostly women and boys, had +gathered to see him arrive, but there was no cheering or any sign of +public interest. Perhaps he personally merited none; he looked a dull, +sad man, with his plain, stubbed features; and after he had mounted to +his apartment, the officers of his staff stood quite across the landing, +and barred the passage of the Americans, ignoring even Mrs. March's +presence, as they talked together. + +"Well, my dear," said her husband, "here you have it at last. This is +what you've been living for, ever since we came to Germany. It's a great +moment." + +"Yes. What are you going to do?" + +"Who? I? Oh, nothing! This is your affair; it's for you to act." + +If she had been young, she might have withered them with a glance; she +doubted now if her dim eyes would have any such power; but she advanced +steadily upon them, and then the officers seemed aware of her, and stood +aside. + +March always insisted that they stood aside apologetically, but she held +as firmly that they stood aside impertinently, or at least indifferently, +and that the insult to her American womanhood was perfectly ideal. It is +true that nothing of the kind happened again during their stay at the +hotel; the prince's officers were afterwards about in the corridors and +on the stairs, but they offered no shadow of obstruction to her going and +coming, and the landlord himself was not so preoccupied with his +highhotes but he had time to express his grief that she had been obliged +to go out for supper. + +They satisfied the passion for the little obsolete capital which had been +growing upon them by strolling past the old Resident at an hour so +favorable for a first impression. It loomed in the gathering dusk even +vaster than it was, and it was really vast enough for the pride of a King +of France, much more a Margrave of Ansbach. Time had blackened and +blotched its coarse limestone walls to one complexion with the statues +swelling and strutting in the figure of Roman legionaries before it, and +standing out against the evening sky along its balustraded roof, and had +softened to the right tint the stretch of half a dozen houses with +mansard roofs and renaissance facades obsequiously in keeping with the +Versailles ideal of a Resident. In the rear, and elsewhere at fit +distance from its courts, a native architecture prevailed; and at no +great remove the Marches found themselves in a simple German town again. +There they stumbled upon a little bookseller's shop blinking in a quiet +corner, and bought three or four guides and small histories of Ansbach, +which they carried home, and studied between drowsing and waking. The +wonderful German syntax seems at its most enigmatical in this sort of +literature, and sometimes they lost themselves in its labyrinths +completely, and only made their way perilously out with the help of +cumulative declensions, past articles and adjectives blindly seeking +their nouns, to long-procrastinated verbs dancing like swamp-fires in the +distance. They emerged a little less ignorant than they went in, and +better qualified than they would otherwise have been for their second +visit to the Schloss, which they paid early the next morning. + +They were so early, indeed, that when they mounted from the great inner +court, much too big for Ansbach, if not for the building, and rung the +custodian's bell, a smiling maid who let them into an ante-room, where +she kept on picking over vegetables for her dinner, said the custodian +was busy, and could not be seen till ten o'clock. She seemed, in her +nook of the pretentious pile, as innocently unconscious of its history +as any hen-sparrow who had built her nest in some coign of its +architecture; and her friendly, peaceful domesticity remained a wholesome +human background to the tragedies and comedies of the past, and held them +in a picturesque relief in which they were alike tolerable and even +charming. + +The history of Ansbach strikes its roots in the soil of fable, and above +ground is a gnarled and twisted growth of good and bad from the time of +the Great Charles to the time of the Great Frederick. Between these +times she had her various rulers, ecclesiastical and secular, in various +forms of vassalage to the empire; but for nearly four centuries her +sovereignty was in the hands of the margraves, who reigned in a +constantly increasing splendor till the last sold her outright to the +King of Prussia in 1791, and went to live in England on the proceeds. +She had taken her part in the miseries and glories of the wars that +desolated Germany, but after the Reformation, when she turned from the +ancient faith to which she owed her cloistered origin under St. +Gumpertus, her people had peace except when their last prince sold them +to fight the battles of others. It is in this last transaction that her +history, almost in the moment when she ceased to have a history of her +own, links to that of the modern world, and that it came home to the +Marches in their national character; for two thousand of those poor +Ansbach mercenaries were bought up by England and sent to put down a +rebellion in her American colonies. + +Humanly, they were more concerned for the Last Margrave, because of +certain qualities which made him the Best Margrave, in spite of the +defects of his qualities. He was the son of the Wild Margrave, equally +known in the Ansbach annals, who may not have been the Worst Margrave, +but who had certainly a bad trick of putting his subjects to death +without trial, and in cases where there was special haste, with his own +hand. He sent his son to the university at Utrecht because he believed +that the republican influences in Holland would be wholesome for him, and +then he sent him to travel in Italy; but when the boy came home looking +frail and sick, the Wild Margrave charged his official travelling +companion with neglect, and had the unhappy Hofrath Meyer hanged without +process for this crime. One of the gentlemen of his realm, for a +pasquinade on the Margrave, was brought to the scaffold; he had, at +various times, twenty-two of his soldiers shot with arrows and bullets or +hanged for desertion, besides many whose penalties his clemency commuted +to the loss of an ear or a nose; a Hungarian who killed his hunting-dog, +he had broken alive on the wheel. A soldier's wife was hanged for +complicity in a case of desertion; a young soldier who eloped with the +girl he loved was brought to Ansbach from a neighboring town, and hanged +with her on the same gallows. A sentry at the door of one of the +Margrave's castles amiably complied with the Margrave's request to let +him take his gun for a moment, on the pretence of wishing to look at it. +For this breach of discipline the prince covered him with abuse and gave +him over to his hussars, who bound him to a horse's tail and dragged him +through the streets; he died of his injuries. The kennel-master who had +charge of the Margrave's dogs was accused of neglecting them: without +further inquiry the Margrave rode to the man's house and shot him down on +his own threshold. A shepherd who met the Margrave on a shying horse did +not get his flock out of the way quickly enough; the Margrave demanded +the pistols of a gentleman in his company, but he answered that they were +not loaded, and the shepherd's life was saved. As they returned home the +gentleman fired them off. "What does that mean?" cried the Margrave, +furiously. "It means, gracious lord, that you will sleep sweeter +tonight, for not having heard my pistols an hour sooner." + +From this it appears that the gracious lord had his moments of regret; +but perhaps it is not altogether strange that when he died, the whole +population "stormed through the streets to meet his funeral train, not in +awe-stricken silence to meditate on the fall of human grandeur, but to +unite in an eager tumult of rejoicing, as if some cruel brigand who had +long held the city in terror were delivered over to them bound and in +chains." For nearly thirty years this blood-stained miscreant had +reigned over his hapless people in a sovereign plenitude of power, which +by the theory of German imperialism in our day is still a divine right. + +They called him the Wild Margrave, in their instinctive revolt from the +belief that any man not untamably savage could be guilty of his +atrocities; and they called his son the Last Margrave, with a touch of +the poetry which perhaps records a regret for their extinction as a +state. He did not harry them as his father had done; his mild rule was +the effect partly of the indifference and distaste for his country bred, +by his long sojourns abroad; but doubtless also it was the effect of a +kindly nature. Even in the matter of selling a few thousands of them to +fight the battles of a bad cause on the other side of the world, he had +the best of motives, and faithfully applied the proceeds to the payment +of the state debt and the embellishment of the capital. + +His mother was a younger sister of Frederick the Great, and was so +constantly at war with her husband that probably she had nothing to do +with the marriage which the Wild Margrave forced upon their son. Love +certainly had nothing to do with it, and the Last Margrave early escaped +from it to the society of Mlle. Clairon, the great French tragedienne, +whom he met in Paris, and whom he persuaded to come and make her home +with him in Ansbach. She lived there seventeen years, and though always +an alien, she bore herself with kindness to all classes, and is still +remembered there by the roll of butter which calls itself a Klarungswecke +in its imperfect French. + +No roll of butter records in faltering accents the name of the brilliant +and disdainful English lady who replaced this poor tragic muse in the +Margrave's heart, though the lady herself lived to be the last Margravine +of Ansbach, where everybody seems to have hated her with a passion which +she doubtless knew how to return. She was the daughter of the Earl of +Berkeley, and the wife of Lord Craven, a sufficiently unfaithful and +unworthy nobleman by her account, from whom she was living apart when the +Margrave asked her to his capital. There she set herself to oust Mlle. +Clairon with sneers and jests for the theatrical style which the actress +could not outlive. Lady Craven said she was sure Clairon's nightcap must +be a crown of gilt paper; and when Clairon threatened to kill herself, +and the Margrave was alarmed, "You forget," said Lady Craven, "that +actresses only stab themselves under their sleeves." + +She drove Clairon from Ansbach, and the great tragedienne returned to +Paris, where she remained true to her false friend, and from time to time +wrote him letters full of magnanimous counsel and generous tenderness. +But she could not have been so good company as Lady Craven, who was a +very gifted person, and knew how to compose songs and sing them, and +write comedies and play them, and who could keep the Margrave amused in +many ways. When his loveless and childless wife died he married the +English woman, but he grew more and more weary of his dull little court +and his dull little country, and after a while, considering the uncertain +tenure sovereigns had of their heads since the French King had lost his, +and the fact that he had no heirs to follow him in his principality, he +resolved to cede it for a certain sum to Prussia. To this end his new +wife's urgence was perhaps not wanting. They went to England, where she +outlived him ten years, and wrote her memoirs. + +The custodian of the Schloss came at last, and the Marches saw instantly +that he was worth waiting for. He was as vainglorious of the palace as +any grand-monarching margrave of them all. He could not have been more +personally superb in showing their different effigies if they had been +his own family portraits, and he would not spare the strangers a single +splendor of the twenty vast, handsome, tiresome, Versailles-like rooms he +led them through. The rooms were fatiguing physically, but so poignantly +interesting that Mrs. March would not have missed, though she perished of +her pleasure, one of the things she saw. She had for once a surfeit of +highhoting in the pictures, the porcelains, the thrones and canopies, the +tapestries, the historical associations with the margraves and their +marriages, with the Great Frederick and the Great Napoleon. The Great +Napoleon's man Bernadotte made the Schloss his headquarters when he +occupied Ansbach after Austerlitz, and here he completed his arrangements +for taking her bargain from Prussia and handing it over to Bavaria, with +whom it still remains. Twice the Great Frederick had sojourned in the +palace; visiting his sister Louise, the wife of the Wild Margrave, and +more than once it had welcomed her next neighbor and sister Wilhelmina, +the Margravine of Baireuth, whose autobiographic voice, piercingly +plaintive and reproachful, seemed to quiver in the air. Here, oddly +enough, the spell of the Wild Margrave weakened in the presence of his +portrait, which signally failed to justify his fame of furious tyrant. +That seems, indeed, to have been rather the popular and historical +conception of him than the impression he made upon his exalted +contemporaries. The Margravine of Baireuth at any rate could so far +excuse her poor blood-stained brother-in-law as to say: "The Margrave of +Ansbach . . . was a young prince who had been very badly educated. +He continually ill-treated my sister; they led the life of cat and dog. +My sister, it is true, was sometimes in fault . . . . Her education +had been very bad. . . She was married at fourteen." + +At parting, the custodian told the Marches that he would easily have +known them for Americans by the handsome fee they gave him; they came +away flown with his praise; and their national vanity was again flattered +when they got out into the principal square of Ansbach. There, in a +bookseller's window, they found among the pamphlets teaching different +languages without a master, one devoted to the Amerikanische Sprache as +distinguished from the Englische Sprache. That there could be no +mistake, the cover was printed with colors in a German ideal of the star- +spangled banner; and March said he always knew that we had a language of +our own, and that now he was going in to buy that pamphlet and find out +what it was like. He asked the young shop-woman how it differed from +English, which she spoke fairly well from having lived eight years in +Chicago. She said that it differed from the English mainly in emphasis +and pronunciation. "For instance, the English say 'HALF past', and the +Americans 'Half PAST'; the English say 'laht' and the Americans say +'late'." + +The weather had now been clear quite long enough, and it was raining +again, a fine, bitter, piercing drizzle. They asked the girl if it +always rained in Ansbach; and she owned that it nearly always did. She +said that sometimes she longed for a little American summer; that it was +never quite warm in Ansbach; and when they had got out into the rain, +March said: "It was very nice to stumble on Chicago in an Ansbach book- +store. You ought to have told her you had a married daughter in Chicago. +Don't miss another such chance." + +"We shall need another bag if we keep on buying books at this rate," said +his wife with tranquil irrelevance; and not to give him time for protest; +she pushed him into a shop where the valises in the window perhaps +suggested her thought. March made haste to forestall her there by saying +they were Americans, but the mistress of the shop seemed to have her +misgivings, and "Born Americans, perhaps?" she ventured. She had +probably never met any but the naturalized sort, and supposed these were +the only sort. March re-assured her, and then she said she had a son +living in Jersey City, and she made March take his address that he might +tell him he had seen his mother; she had apparently no conception what a +great way Jersey City is from New York. + +Mrs. March would not take his arm when they came out. "Now, that is what +I never can get used to in you, Basil, and I've tried to palliate it for +twenty-seven years. You know you won't look up that poor woman's son! +Why did you let her think you would?" + +"How could I tell her I wouldn't? Perhaps I shall." + +"No, no! You never will. I know you're good and kind, and that's why I +can't understand your being so cruel. When we get back, how will you +ever find time to go over to Jersey City?" + +He could not tell, but at last he said: "I'll tell you what! You must +keep me up to it. You know how much you enjoy making me do my duty, and +this will be such a pleasure!" + +She laughed forlornly, but after a moment she took his arm; and he began, +from the example of this good mother, to philosophize the continuous +simplicity and sanity of the people of Ansbach under all their civic +changes. Saints and soldiers, knights and barons, margraves, princes, +kings, emperors, had come and gone, and left their single-hearted, +friendly subjectfolk pretty much what they found them. The people had +suffered and survived through a thousand wars, and apparently prospered +on under all governments and misgovernments. When the court was most +French, most artificial, most vicious, the citizen life must have +remained immutably German, dull, and kind. After all, he said, humanity +seemed everywhere to be pretty safe, and pretty much the same. + +"Yes, that is all very well," she returned, "and you can theorize +interestingly enough; but I'm afraid that poor mother, there, had no more +reality for you than those people in the past. You appreciate her as a +type, and you don't care for her as a human being. You're nothing but a +dreamer, after all. I don't blame you," she went on. "It's your +temperament, and you can't change, now." + +"I may change for the worse," he threatened. "I think I have, already. +I don't believe I could stand up to Dryfoos, now, as I did for poor old +Lindau, when I risked your bread and butter for his. I look back in +wonder and admiration at myself. I've steadily lost touch with life +since then. I'm a trifler, a dilettante, and an amateur of the right and +the good as I used to be when I was young. Oh, I have the grace to be +troubled at times, now, and once I never was. It never occurred to me +then that the world wasn't made to interest me, or at the best to +instruct me, but it does, now, at times." + +She always came to his defence when he accused himself; it was the best +ground he could take with her. "I think you behaved very well with +Burnamy. You did your duty then." + +"Did I? I'm not so sure. At any rate, it's the last time I shall do it. +I've served my term. I think I should tell him that he was all right in +that business with Stoller, if I were to meet him, now." + +"Isn't it strange," she said, provisionally, "that we don't come upon a +trace of him anywhere in Ansbach?" + +"Ah, you've been hoping he would turn up!" + +"Yes. I don't deny it. I feel very unhappy about him." + +"I don't. He's too much like me. He would have been quite capable of +promising that poor woman to look up her son in Jersey City. When I +think of that, I have no patience with Burnamy." + +"I am going to ask the landlord about him, now he's got rid of his +highhotes," said Mrs. March. + + + + +XLIX. + +They went home to their hotel for their midday dinner, and to the comfort +of having it nearly all to themselves. Prince Leopold had risen early, +like all the hard-working potentates of the continent, and got away to +the manoeuvres somewhere at six o'clock; the decorations had been +removed, and the court-yard where the hired coach and pair of the prince +had rolled in the evening before had only a few majestic ducks waddling +about in it and quacking together, indifferent to the presence of a +yellow mail-wagon, on which the driver had been apparently dozing till +the hour of noon should sound. He sat there immovable, but at the last +stroke of the clock he woke up and drove vigorously away to the station. + +The dining-room which they had been kept out of by the prince the night +before was not such as to embitter the sense of their wrong by its +splendor. After all, the tastes of royalty must be simple, if the prince +might have gone to the Schloss and had chosen rather to stay at this +modest hotel; but perhaps the Schloss was reserved for more immediate +royalty than the brothers of prince-regents; and in that case he could +not have done better than dine at the Golden Star. If he paid no more +than two marks, he dined as cheaply as a prince could wish, and as +abundantly. The wine at Ansbach was rather thin and sour, but the bread, +March declared, was the best bread in the whole world, not excepting the +bread of Carlsbad. + +After dinner the Marches had some of the local pastry, not so +incomparable as the bread, with their coffee, which they had served them +in a pavilion of the beautiful garden remaining to the hotel from the +time when it was a patrician mansion. The garden had roses in it and +several sorts of late summer flowers, as well as ripe cherries, currants, +grapes, and a Virginia-creeper red with autumn, all harmoniously +contemporaneous, as they might easily be in a climate where no one of the +seasons can very well know itself from the others. It had not been +raining for half an hour, and the sun was scalding hot, so that the +shelter of their roof was very grateful, and the puddles of the paths +were drying up with the haste which puddles have to make in Germany, +between rains, if they are ever going to dry up at all. + +The landlord came out to see if they were well served, and he was +sincerely obliging in the English he had learned as a waiter in London. +Mrs. March made haste to ask him if a young American of the name of +Burnamy had been staying with him a few weeks before; and she described +Burnamy's beauty and amiability so vividly that the landlord, if he had +been a woman, could not have failed to remember him. But he failed, with +a real grief, apparently, and certainly a real politeness, to recall +either his name or his person. The landlord was an intelligent, good- +looking young fellow; he told them that he was lately married, and they +liked him so much that they were sorry to see him afterwards privately +boxing the ears of the piccolo, the waiter's little understudy. Perhaps +the piccolo deserved it, but they would rather not have witnessed his +punishment; his being in a dress-coat seemed to make it also an +indignity. + +In the late afternoon they went to the cafe in the old Orangery of the +Schloss for a cup of tea, and found themselves in the company of several +Ansbach ladies who had brought their work, in the evident habit of coming +there every afternoon for their coffee and for a dish of gossip. They +were kind, uncomely, motherly-looking bodies; one of them combed her hair +at the table; and they all sat outside of the cafe with their feet on the +borders of the puddles which had not dried up there in the shade of the +building. + +A deep lawn, darkened at its farther edge by the long shadows of trees, +stretched before them with the sunset light on it, and it was all very +quiet and friendly. The tea brought to the Marches was brewed from some +herb apparently of native growth, with bits of what looked like willow +leaves in it, but it was flavored with a clove in each cup, and they sat +contentedly over it and tried to make out what the Ansbach ladies were, +talking about. These had recognized the strangers for Americans, and one +of them explained that Americans spoke the same language as the English +and yet were not quite the same people. + +"She differs from the girl in the book-store," said March, translating to +his wife. "Let us get away before she says that we are not so nice as +the English," and they made off toward the avenue of trees beyond the +lawn. + +There were a few people walking up and down in the alley, making the most +of the moment of dry weather. They saluted one another like +acquaintances, and three clean-shaven, walnut-faced old peasants bowed in +response to March's stare, with a self-respectful civility. They were +yeomen of the region of Ansbach, where the country round about is dotted +with their cottages, and not held in vast homeless tracts by the nobles +as in North Germany. + +The Bavarian who had imparted this fact to March at breakfast, not +without a certain tacit pride in it to the disadvantage of the Prussians, +was at the supper table, and was disposed to more talk, which he managed +in a stout, slow English of his own. He said he had never really spoken +English with an English-speaking person before, or at all since he +studied it in school at Munich. + +"I should be afraid to put my school-boy German against your English," +March said, and, when he had understood, the other laughed for pleasure, +and reported the compliment to his wife in their own parlance. "You +Germans certainly beat us in languages." + +"Oh, well," he retaliated, "the Americans beat us in some other things," +and Mrs. March felt that this was but just; she would have liked to +mention a few, but not ungraciously; she and the German lady kept smiling +across the table, and trying detached vocables of their respective +tongues upon each other. + +The Bavarian said he lived in Munich still, but was in Ansbach on an +affair of business; he asked March if he were not going to see the +manoeuvres somewhere. Till now the manoeuvres had merely been the +interesting background of their travel; but now, hearing that the Emperor +of Germany, the King of Saxony, the Regent of Bavaria, and the King of +Wurtemberg, the Grand-Dukes of Weimar and Baden, with visiting potentates +of all sorts, and innumerable lesser highhotes, foreign and domestic, +were to be present, Mrs. March resolved that they must go to at least one +of the reviews. + +"If you go to Frankfort, you can see the King of Italy too," said the +Bavarian, but he owned that they probably could not get into a hotel +there, and he asked why they should not go to Wurzburg, where they could +see all the sovereigns except the King of Italy. + +"Wurzburg? Wurzburg?" March queried of his wife. "Where did we hear of +that place?" + +"Isn't it where Burnamy said Mr. Stoller had left his daughters at +school?" + +"So it is! And is that on the way to the Rhine?" he asked the Bavarian. + +"No, no! Wurzburg is on the Main, about five hours from Ansbach. And it +is a very interesting place. It is where the good wine comes from." + +"Oh, yes," said March, and in their rooms his wife got out all their +guides and maps and began to inform herself and to inform him about +Wurzburg. But first she said it was very cold and he must order some +fire made in the tall German stove in their parlor. The maid who came +said "Gleich," but she did not come back, and about the time they were +getting furious at her neglect, they began getting warm. He put his hand +on the stove and found it hot; then he looked down for a door in the +stove where he might shut a damper; there was no door. + +"Good heavens!" he shouted. "It's like something in a dream," and he ran +to pull the bell for help. + +"No, no! Don't ring! It will make us ridiculous. They'll think +Americans don't know anything. There must be some way of dampening the +stove; and if there isn't, I'd rather suffocate than give myself away." +Mrs. March ran and opened the window, while her husband carefully +examined the stove at every point, and explored the pipe for the damper +in vain. "Can't you find it?" The night wind came in raw and damp, and +threatened to blow their lamp out, and she was obliged to shut the +window. + +"Not a sign of it. I will go down and ask the landlord in strict +confidence how they dampen their stoves in Ansbach." + +"Well, if you must. It's getting hotter every moment." She followed him +timorously into the corridor, lit by a hanging lamp, turned low for the +night. + +He looked at his watch; it was eleven o'clock. "I'm afraid they're all +in bed." + +"Yes; you mustn't go! We must try to find out for ourselves. What can +that door be for?" + +It was a low iron door, half the height of a man, in the wall near their +room, and it yielded to his pull. "Get a candle," he whispered, and when +she brought it, he stooped to enter the doorway. + +"Oh, do you think you'd better?" she hesitated. + +"You can come, too, if you're afraid. You've always said you wanted to +die with me." + +"Well. But you go first." + +He disappeared within, and then came back to the doorway. "Just come in +here, a moment." She found herself in a sort of antechamber, half the +height of her own room, and following his gesture she looked down where +in one corner some crouching monster seemed showing its fiery teeth in a +grin of derision. This grin was the damper of their stove, and this was +where the maid had kindled the fire which had been roasting them alive, +and was still joyously chuckling to itself. "I think that Munich man was +wrong. I don't believe we beat the Germans in anything. There isn't a +hotel in the United States where the stoves have no front doors, and +every one of them has the space of a good-sized flat given up to the +convenience of kindling a fire in it." + + + + +L. + +After a red sunset of shameless duplicity March was awakened to a rainy +morning by the clinking of cavalry hoofs on the pavement of the long- +irregular square before the hotel, and he hurried out to see the passing +of the soldiers on their way to the manoeuvres. They were troops of all +arms, but mainly infantry, and as they stumped heavily through the groups +of apathetic citizens in their mud-splashed boots, they took the steady +downpour on their dripping helmets. Some of them were smoking, but none +smiling, except one gay fellow who made a joke to a serving-maid on the +sidewalk. An old officer halted his staff to scold a citizen who had +given him a mistaken direction. The shame of the erring man was great, +and the pride of a fellow-citizen who corrected him was not less, though +the arrogant brute before whom they both cringed used them with equal +scorn; the younger officers listened indifferently round on horseback +behind the glitter of their eyeglasses, and one of them amused himself by +turning the silver bangles on his wrist. + +Then the files of soldier slaves passed on, and March crossed the bridge +spanning the gardens in what had been the city moat, and found his way to +the market-place, under the walls of the old Gothic church of St. +Gumpertus. The market, which spread pretty well over the square, seemed +to be also a fair, with peasants' clothes and local pottery for sale, +as well as fruits and vegetables, and large baskets of flowers, with old +women squatting before them. It was all as picturesque as the markets +used to be in Montreal and Quebec, and in a cloudy memory of his wedding +journey long before, he bought so lavishly of the flowers to carry back +to his wife that a little girl, who saw his arm-load from her window as +he returned, laughed at him, and then drew shyly back. Her laugh +reminded him how many happy children he had seen in Germany, and how +freely they seemed to play everywhere, with no one to make them afraid. +When they grow up the women laugh as little as the men, whose rude toil +the soldiering leaves them to. + +He got home with his flowers, and his wife took them absently, and made +him join her in watching the sight which had fascinated her in the street +under their windows. A slender girl, with a waist as slim as a corseted +officer's, from time to time came out of the house across the way to the +firewood which had been thrown from a wagon upon the sidewalk there. +Each time she embraced several of the heavy four-foot logs and +disappeared with them in-doors. Once she paused from her work to joke +with a well-dressed man who came by; and seemed to find nothing odd in +her work; some gentlemen lounging at the window over head watched her +with no apparent sense of anomaly. + +"What do you think of that?" asked Mrs. March. "I think it's good +exercise for the girl, and I should like to recommend it to those fat +fellows at the window. I suppose she'll saw the wood in the cellar, and +then lug it up stairs, and pile it up in the stoves' dressing-rooms." + +"Don't laugh! It's too disgraceful." + +"Well, I don't know! If you like, I'll offer these gentlemen across the +way your opinion of it in the language of Goethe and Schiller." + +"I wish you'd offer my opinion of them. They've been staring in here +with an opera-glass." + +"Ah, that's a different affair. There isn't much going on in Ansbach, +and they have to make the most of it." + +The lower casements of the houses were furnished with mirrors set at +right angles with them, and nothing which went on in the streets was +lost. Some of the streets were long and straight, and at rare moments +they lay full of sun. At such times the Marches were puzzled by the +sight of citizens carrying open umbrellas, and they wondered if they had +forgotten to put them down, or thought it not worth while in the brief +respites from the rain, or were profiting by such rare occasions to dry +them; and some other sights remained baffling to the last. Once a man +with his hands pinioned before him, and a gendarme marching stolidly +after him with his musket on his shoulder, passed under their windows; +but who he was, or what he, had done, or was to suffer, they never knew. +Another time a pair went by on the way to the railway station: a young +man carrying an umbrella under his arm, and a very decent-looking old +woman lugging a heavy carpet bag, who left them to the lasting question +whether she was the young man's servant in her best clothes, or merely +his mother. + +Women do not do everything in Ansbach, however, the sacristans being men, +as the Marches found when they went to complete their impression of the +courtly past of the city by visiting the funeral chapel of the margraves +in the crypt of St. Johannis Church. In the little ex-margravely capital +there was something of the neighborly interest in the curiosity of +strangers which endears Italian witness. The white-haired street-sweeper +of Ansbach, who willingly left his broom to guide them to the house of +the sacristan, might have been a street-sweeper in Vicenza; and the old +sacristan, when he put his velvet skull-cap out of an upper window and +professed his willingness to show them the chapel, disappointed them by +saying "Gleich!" instead of "Subito!" The architecture of the houses was +a party to the illusion. St. Johannis, like the older church of St. +Gumpertus, is Gothic, with the two unequal towers which seem distinctive +of Ansbach; at the St. Gumpertus end of the place where they both stand +the dwellings are Gothic too, and might be in Hamburg; but at the St. +Johannis end they seem to have felt the exotic spirit of the court, and +are of a sort of Teutonized renaissance. + +The rococo margraves and margravines used of course to worship in St. +Johannis Church. Now they all, such as did not marry abroad, lie in the +crypt of the church, in caskets of bronze and copper and marble, with +draperies of black samite, more and more funereally vainglorious to the +last. Their courtly coffins are ranged in a kind of hemicycle, with the +little coffins of the children that died before they came to the +knowledge of their greatness. On one of these a kneeling figurine in +bronze holds up the effigy of the child within; on another the epitaph +plays tenderly with the fate of a little princess, who died in her first +year. + + In the Rose-month was this sweet Rose taken. + For the Rose-kind hath she earth forsaken. + The Princess is the Rose, that here no longer blows. + From the stem by death's hand rudely shaken. + Then rest in the Rose-house. + Little Princess-Rosebud dear! + There life's Rose shall bloom again + In Heaven's sunshine clear. + +While March struggled to get this into English words, two German ladies, +who had made themselves of his party, passed reverently away and left him +to pay the sacristan alone. + +"That is all right," he said, when he came out. "I think we got the most +value; and they didn't look as if they could afford it so well; though +you never can tell, here. These ladies may be the highest kind of +highhotes practising a praiseworthy economy. I hope the lesson won't be +lost on us. They have saved enough by us for their coffee at the +Orangery. Let us go and have a little willow-leaf tea!" + +The Orangery perpetually lured them by what it had kept of the days when +an Orangery was essential to the self-respect of every sovereign prince, +and of so many private gentlemen. On their way they always passed the +statue of Count Platen, the dull poet whom Heine's hate would have +delivered so cruelly over to an immortality of contempt, but who stands +there near the Schloss in a grass-plot prettily planted with flowers, and +ignores his brilliant enemy in the comfortable durability of bronze; and +there always awaited them in the old pleasaunce the pathos of Kaspar +Hauser's fate; which his murder affixes to it with a red stain. + +After their cups of willow leaves at the cafe they went up into that nook +of the plantation where the simple shaft of church-warden's Gothic +commemorates the assassination on the spot where it befell. Here the +hapless youth, whose mystery will never be fathomed on earth, used to +come for a little respite from his harsh guardian in Ansbach, homesick +for the kindness of his Nuremberg friends; and here his murderer found +him and dealt him the mortal blow. + +March lingered upon the last sad circumstance of the tragedy in which the +wounded boy dragged himself home, to suffer the suspicion and neglect of +his guardian till death attested his good faith beyond cavil. He said +this was the hardest thing to bear in all his story, and that he would +like to have a look into the soul of the dull, unkind wretch who had so +misread his charge. He was going on with an inquiry that pleased him +much, when his wife pulled him abruptly away. + +"Now, I see, you are yielding to the fascination of it, and you are +wanting to take the material from Burnamy!" + +"Oh, well, let him have the material; he will spoil it. And I can always +reject it, if he offers it to 'Every Other Week'." + +"I could believe, after your behavior to that poor woman about her son in +Jersey City, you're really capable of it." + +"What comprehensive inculpation! I had forgotten about that poor woman." + + + + +LI. + +The letters which March had asked his Nuremberg banker to send them came +just as they were leaving Ansbach. The landlord sent them down to the +station, and Mrs. March opened them in the train, and read them first so +that she could prepare him if there were anything annoying in them, as +well as indulge her livelier curiosity. + +"They're from both the children," she said, without waiting for him to +ask. "You can look at them later. There's a very nice letter from Mrs. +Adding to me, and one from dear little Rose for you." Then she +hesitated, with her hand on a letter faced down in her lap. "And there's +one from Agatha Triscoe, which I wonder what you'll think of." She +delayed again, and then flashed it open before him, and waited with a +sort of impassioned patience while he read it. + +He read it, and gave it back to her. "There doesn't seem to be very much +in it." + +"That's it! Don't you think I had a right to there being something in +it, after all I did for her?" + +"I always hoped you hadn't done anything for her, but if you have, why +should she give herself away on paper? It's a very proper letter." + +"It's a little too proper, and it's the last I shall have to do with her. +She knew that I should be on pins and needles till I heard how her father +had taken Burnamy's being there, that night, and she doesn't say a word +about it." + +"The general may have had a tantrum that she couldn't describe. Perhaps +she hasn't told him, yet." + +"She would tell him instantly!" cried Mrs. March who began to find +reason in the supposition, as well as comfort for the hurt which the +girl's reticence had given her. "Or if she wouldn't, it would be because +she was waiting for the best chance." + +"That would be like the wise daughter of a difficult father. She may be +waiting for the best chance to say how he took it. No, I'm all for Miss +Triscoe, and I hope that now, if she's taken herself off our hands, +she'll keep off." + +"It's altogether likely that he's made her promise not to tell me +anything about it," Mrs. March mused aloud. + +"That would be unjust to a person who had behaved so discreetly as you +have," said her husband. + +They were on their way to Wurzburg, and at the first station, which was a +junction, a lady mounted to their compartment just before the train began +to move. She was stout and middle-aged, and had never been pretty, but +she bore herself with a kind of authority in spite of her thread gloves, +her dowdy gray travelling-dress, and a hat of lower middle-class English +tastelessness. She took the only seat vacant, a backward-riding place +beside a sleeping passenger who looked like a commercial traveller, but +she seemed ill at ease in it, and March offered her his seat. She +accepted it very promptly, and thanked him for it in the English of a +German, and Mrs. March now classed her as a governess who had been +teaching in England and had acquired the national feeling for dress. +But in this character she found her interesting, and even a little +pathetic, and she made her some overtures of talk which the other met +eagerly enough. They were now running among low hills, not so +picturesque as those between Eger and Nuremberg, but of much the same +toylike quaintness in the villages dropped here and there in their +valleys. One small town, completely walled, with its gray houses and red +roofs, showed through the green of its trees and gardens so like a +colored print in a child's story-book that Mrs. March cried out for joy +in it, and then accounted for her rapture by explaining to the stranger +that they were Americans and had never been in Germany before. The lady +was not visibly affected by the fact, she said casually that she had +often been in that little town, which she named; her uncle had a castle +in the country back of it, and she came with her husband for the shooting +in the autumn. By a natural transition she spoke of her children, for +whom she had an English governess; she said she had never been in +England, but had learnt the language from a governess in her own +childhood; and through it all Mrs. March perceived that she was trying to +impress them with her consequence. To humor her pose, she said they had +been looking up the scene of Kaspar Hauser's death at Ansbach; and at +this the stranger launched into such intimate particulars concerning him, +and was so familiar at first hands with the facts of his life, that Mrs. +March let her run on, too much amused with her pretensions to betray any +doubt of her. She wondered if March were enjoying it all as much, and +from time to time she tried to catch his eye, while the lady talked +constantly and rather loudly, helping herself out with words from them +both when her English failed her. In the safety of her perfect +understanding of the case, Mrs. March now submitted farther, and even +suffered some patronage from her, which in another mood she would have +met with a decided snub. + +As they drew in among the broad vine-webbed slopes of the Wurzburg, +hills, the stranger said she was going to change there, and take a train +on to Berlin. Mrs. March wondered whether she would be able to keep up +the comedy to the last; and she had to own that she carried it off very +easily when the friends whom she was expecting did not meet her on the +arrival of their train. She refused March's offers of help, and remained +quietly seated while he got out their wraps and bags. She returned with +a hardy smile the cold leave Mrs. March took of her; and when a porter +came to the door, and forced his way by the Marches, to ask with anxious +servility if she, were the Baroness von-----, she bade the man get them. +a 'traeger', and then come back for her. She waved them a complacent +adieu before they mixed with the crowd and lost sight of her. + +"Well, my dear," said March, addressing the snobbishness in his wife +which he knew to be so wholly impersonal, "you've mingled with one +highhote, anyway. I must say she didn't look it, any more than the Duke +and Duchess of Orleans, and yet she's only a baroness. Think of our +being three hours in the same compartment, and she doing all she could to +impress us and our getting no good of it! I hoped you were feeling her +quality, so that we should have it in the family, anyway, and always know +what it was like. But so far, the highhotes have all been terribly +disappointing." + +He teased on as they followed the traeger with their baggage out of the +station; and in the omnibus on the way to their hotel, he recurred to the +loss they had suffered in the baroness's failure to dramatize her +nobility effectually. "After all, perhaps she was as much disappointed +in us. I don't suppose we looked any more like democrats than she looked +like an aristocrat." + +"But there's a great difference," Mrs. March returned at last. "It isn't +at all a parallel case. We were not real democrats, and she was a real +aristocrat." + +"To be sure. There is that way of looking at it. That's rather novel; I +wish I had thought of that myself. She was certainly more to blame than +we were." + + + + +LII. + +The square in front of the station was planted with flag-poles wreathed +in evergreens; a triumphal arch was nearly finished, and a colossal +allegory in imitation bronze was well on the way to completion, in honor +of the majesties who were coming for the manoeuvres. The streets which +the omnibus passed through to the Swan Inn were draped with the imperial +German and the royal Bavarian colors; and the standards of the visiting +nationalities decked the fronts of the houses where their military +attaches were lodged; but the Marches failed to see our own banner, and +were spared for the moment the ignominy of finding it over an apothecary +shop in a retired avenue. The sun had come out, the sky overhead was of +a smiling blue; and they felt the gala-day glow and thrill in the depths +of their inextinguishable youth. + +The Swan Inn sits on one of the long quays bordering the Main, and its +windows look down upon the bridges and shipping of the river; but the +traveller reaches it by a door in the rear, through an archway into a +back street, where an odor dating back to the foundation of the city is +waiting to welcome him. + +The landlord was there, too, and he greeted the Marches so cordially that +they fully partook his grief in being able to offer them rooms on the +front of the house for two nights only. They reconciled themselves to +the necessity of then turning out for the staff of the King of Saxony, +the more readily because they knew that there was no hope of better +things at any other hotel. + +The rooms which they could have for the time were charming, and they came +down to supper in a glazed gallery looking out on the river picturesque +with craft of all fashions: with row-boats, sail-boats, and little +steamers, but mainly with long black barges built up into houses in the +middle, and defended each by a little nervous German dog. Long rafts of +logs weltered in the sunset red which painted the swift current, and +mantled the immeasurable vineyards of the hills around like the color of +their ripening grapes. Directly in face rose a castled steep, which kept +the ranging walls and the bastions and battlements of the time when such +a stronghold could have defended the city from foes without or from +tumult within. The arches of a stately bridge spanned the river +sunsetward, and lifted a succession of colossal figures against the +crimson sky. + +"I guess we have been wasting our time, my dear," said March, as they, +turned from this beauty to the question of supper. "I wish we had always +been here!" + +Their waiter had put them at a table in a division of the gallery beyond +that which they entered, where some groups of officers were noisily +supping. There was no one in their room but a man whose face was +indistinguishable against the light, and two young girls who glanced at +them with looks at once quelled and defiant, and then after a stare at +the officers in the gallery beyond, whispered together with suppressed +giggling. The man fed on without noticing them, except now and then to +utter a growl that silenced the whispering and giggling for a moment. +The Marches, from no positive evidence of any sense, decided that they +were Americans. + +"I don't know that I feel responsible for them as their fellow- +countryman; I should, once," he said. + +"It isn't that. It's the worry of trying to make out why they are just +what they are," his wife returned. + +The girls drew the man's attention to them and he looked at them for the +first time; then after a sort of hesitation he went on with his supper. +They had only begun theirs when he rose with the two girls, whom Mrs. +March now saw to be of the same size and dressed alike, and came heavily +toward them. + +"I thought you was in Carlsbad," he said bluntly to March, with a nod at +Mrs. March. He added, with a twist of his head toward the two girls, +"My daughters," and then left them to her, while he talked on with her +husband. "Come to see this foolery, I suppose. I'm on my way to the +woods for my after-cure; but I thought I might as well stop and give the +girls a chance; they got a week's vacation, anyway." Stoller glanced at +them with a sort of troubled tenderness in his strong dull face. + +"Oh, yes. I understood they were at school here," said March, and he +heard one of them saying, in a sweet, high pipe to his wife: + +"Ain't it just splendid? I ha'n't seen anything equal to it since the +Worrld's Fairr." She spoke with a strong contortion of the Western r, +and her sister hastened to put in: + +"I don't think it's to be compared with the Worrld's Fairr. But these +German girls, here, just think it's great. It just does me good to laff +at 'em, about it. I like to tell 'em about the electric fountain and the +Courrt of Iionorr when they get to talkin' about the illuminations +they're goun' to have. You goun' out to the parade? You better engage +your carriage right away if you arre. The carrs'll be a perfect jam. +Father's engaged ourrs; he had to pay sixty marrks forr it." + +They chattered on without shyness and on as easy terms with a woman of +three times their years as if she had been a girl of their own age; they +willingly took the whole talk to themselves, and had left her quite +outside of it before Stoller turned to her. + +"I been telling Mr. March here that you better both come to the parade +with us. I guess my twospanner will hold five; or if it won't, we'll +make it. I don't believe there's a carriage left in Wurzburg; and if you +go in the cars, you'll have to walk three or four miles before you get to +the parade-ground. You think it over," he said to March. "Nobody else +is going to have the places, anyway, and you can say yes at the last +minute just as well as now." + +He moved off with his girls, who looked over their shoulders at the +officers as they passed on through the adjoining room. + +"My dear!" cried Mrs. March. "Didn't you suppose he classed us with +Burnamy in that business? Why should he be polite to us?" + +"Perhaps he wants you to chaperon his daughters. He's probably heard of +your performance at the Kurhaus ball. But he knows that I thought +Burnamy in the wrong. This may be Stoller's way of wiping out an +obligation. Wouldn't you like to go with him?" + +"The mere thought of his being in the same town is prostrating. I'd far +rather he hated us; then he would avoid us." + +"Well, he doesn't own the town, and if it comes to the worst, perhaps we +can avoid him. Let us go out, anyway, and see if we can't." + +"No, no; I'm too tired; but you go. And get all the maps and guides you +can; there's so very little in Baedeker, and almost nothing in that great +hulking Bradshaw of yours; and I'm sure there must be the most +interesting history of Wurzburg. Isn't it strange that we haven't the +slightest association with the name?" + +"I've been rummaging in my mind, and I've got hold of an association at +last," said March. "It's beer; a sign in a Sixth Avenue saloon window +Wurzburger Hof-Brau." + +"No matter if it is beer. Find some sketch of the history, and we'll try +to get away from the Stollers in it. I pitied those wild girls, too. +What crazy images of the world must fill their empty minds! How their +ignorant thoughts must go whirling out into the unknown! I don't envy +their father. Do hurry back! I shall be thinking about them every +instant till you come." + +She said this, but in their own rooms it was so soothing to sit looking +through the long twilight at the lovely landscape that the sort of bruise +given by their encounter with the Stollers had left her consciousness +before March returned. She made him admire first the convent church on a +hill further up the river which exactly balanced the fortress in front of +them, and then she seized upon the little books he had brought, and set +him to exploring the labyrinths of their German, with a mounting +exultation in his discoveries. There was a general guide to the city, +and a special guide, with plans and personal details of the approaching +manoeuvres and the princes who were to figure in them; and there was a +sketch of the local history: a kind of thing that the Germans know how to +write particularly, well, with little gleams of pleasant humor blinking +through it. For the study of this, Mrs. March realized, more and more +passionately, that they were in the very most central and convenient +point, for the history of Wurzburg might be said to have begun with her +prince-bishops, whose rule had begun in the twelfth century, and who had +built, on a forgotten Roman work, the fortress of the Marienburg on that +vineyarded hill over against the Swan Inn. There had of course been +history before that, but 'nothing so clear, nothing so peculiarly swell, +nothing that so united the glory of this world and the next as that of +the prince-bishops. They had made the Marienburg their home, and kept it +against foreign and domestic foes for five hundred years. Shut within +its well-armed walls they had awed the often-turbulent city across the +Main; they had held it against the embattled farmers in the Peasants' +War, and had splendidly lost it to Gustavus Adolphus, and then got it +back again and held it till Napoleon took it from them. He gave it with +their flock to the Bavarians, who in turn briefly yielded it to the +Prussians in 1866, and were now in apparently final possession of it. + +Before the prince-bishops, Charlemagne and Barbarossa had come and gone, +and since the prince-bishops there had been visiting thrones and kingdoms +enough in the ancient city, which was soon to be illustrated by the +presence of imperial Germany, royal, Wirtemberg and Saxony, grand-ducal +Baden and Weimar, and a surfeit of all the minor potentates among those +who speak the beautiful language of the Ja. + +But none of these could dislodge the prince-bishops from that supreme +place which they had at once taken in Mrs. March's fancy. The potentates +were all going to be housed in the vast palace which the prince-bishops +had built themselves in Wurzburg as soon as they found it safe to come +down from their stronghold of Marienburg, and begin to adorn their city, +and to confirm it in its intense fidelity to the Church. Tiepolo had +come up out of Italy to fresco their palace, where he wrought year after +year, in that worldly taste which has somehow come to express the most +sovereign moment of ecclesiasticism. It prevailed so universally in +Wurzburg that it left her with the name of the Rococo City, intrenched in +a period of time equally remote from early Christianity and modern +Protestantism. Out of her sixty thousand souls, only ten thousand are +now of the reformed religion, and these bear about the same relation to +the Catholic spirit of the place that the Gothic architecture bears to +the baroque. + +As long as the prince-bishops lasted the Wurzburgers got on very well +with but one newspaper, and perhaps the smallest amount of merrymaking +known outside of the colony of Massachusetts Bay at the same epoch. The +prince-bishops had their finger in everybody's pie, and they portioned +out the cakes and ale, which were made according to formulas of their +own. The distractions were all of a religious character; churches, +convents, monasteries, abounded; ecclesiastical processions and +solemnities were the spectacles that edified if they did not amuse the +devout population. + +It seemed to March an ironical outcome of all this spiritual severity +that one of the greatest modern scientific discoveries should have been +made in Wurzburg, and that the Roentgen rays should now be giving her +name a splendor destined to eclipse the glories of her past. + +Mrs. March could not allow that they would do so; or at least that the +name of Roentgen would ever lend more lustre to his city than that of +Longfellow's Walther von der Vogelweide. She was no less surprised than +pleased to realize that this friend of the birds was a Wurzburger, and +she said that their first pilgrimage in the morning should be to the +church where he lies buried. + + + + +LIII. + +March went down to breakfast not quite so early as his wife had planned, +and left her to have her coffee in her room. He got a pleasant table in +the gallery overlooking the river, and he decided that the landscape, +though it now seemed to be rather too much studied from a drop-certain, +had certainly lost nothing of its charm in the clear morning light. The +waiter brought his breakfast, and after a little delay came back with a +card which he insisted was for March. It was not till he put on his +glasses and read the name of Mr. R. M. Kenby that he was able at all to +agree with the waiter, who stood passive at his elbow. + +"Well," he said, "why wasn't this card sent up last night?" + +The waiter explained that the gentleman had just, given him his card, +after asking March's nationality, and was then breakfasting in the next +room. March caught up his napkin and ran round the partition wall, and +Kenby rose with his napkin and hurried to meet him. + +"I thought it must be you," he called out, joyfully, as they struck their +extended hands together, "but so many people look alike, nowadays, that I +don't trust my eyes any more." + +Kenby said he had spent the time since they last met partly in Leipsic +and partly in Gotha, where he had amused himself in rubbing up his rusty +German. As soon as he realized that Wurzburg was so near he had slipped +down from Gotha for a glimpse of the manoeuvres. He added that he +supposed March was there to see them, and he asked with a quite +unembarrassed smile if they had met Mr. Adding in Carlsbad, and without +heeding March's answer, he laughed and added: "Of course, I know she must +have told Mrs. March all about it." + +March could not deny this; he laughed, too; though in his wife's absence +he felt bound to forbid himself anything more explicit. + +"I don't give it up, you know," Kenby went on, with perfect ease. "I'm +not a young fellow, if you call thirty-nine old." + +"At my age I don't," March put in, and they roared together, in men's +security from the encroachments of time. + +"But she happens to be the only woman I've ever really wanted to marry, +for more than a few days at a stretch. You know how it is with us." + +"Oh, yes, I know," said March, and they shouted again. + +"We're in love, and we're out of love, twenty times. But this isn't a +mere fancy; it's a conviction. And there's no reason why she shouldn't +marry me." + +March smiled gravely, and his smile was not lost upon Kenby. "You mean +the boy," he said. "Well, I like Rose," and now March really felt swept +from his feet. "She doesn't deny that she likes me, but she seems to +think that her marrying again will take her from him; the fact is, it +will only give me to him. As for devoting her whole life to him, she +couldn't do a worse thing for him. What the boy needs is a man's care, +and a man's will--Good heavens! You don't think I could ever be unkind +to the little soul?" Kenby threw himself forward over the table. + +"My dear fellow!" March protested. + +"I'd rather cut off my right hand! "Kenby pursued, excitedly, and then +he said, with a humorous drop: "The fact is, I don't believe I should +want her so much if I couldn't have Rose too. I want to have them both. +So far, I've only got no for an answer; but I'm not going to keep it. +I had a letter from Rose at Carlsbad, the other day; and--" + +The waiter came forward with a folded scrap of paper on his salver, which +March knew must be from his wife. "What is keeping you so?" she wrote. +"I am all ready." "It's from Mrs. March," he explained to Kenby. "I am +going out with her on some errands. I'm awfully glad to see you again. +We must talk it all over, and you must--you mustn't--Mrs. March will want +to see you later--I--Are you in the hotel?" + +"Oh yes. I'll see you at the one-o'clock table d'hote, I suppose." + +March went away with his head whirling in the question whether he should +tell his wife at once of Kenby's presence, or leave her free for the +pleasures of Wurzburg, till he could shape the fact into some safe and +acceptable form. She met him at the door with her guide-books, wraps and +umbrellas, and would hardly give him time to get on his hat and coat. + +"Now, I want you to avoid the Stollers as far as you can see them. This +is to be a real wedding-journey day, with no extraneous acquaintance to +bother; the more strangers the better. Wurzburg is richer than anything +I imagined. I've looked it all up; I've got the plan of the city, so +that we can easily find the way. We'll walk first, and take carriages +whenever we get tired. We'll go to the cathedral at once; I want a good +gulp of rococo to begin with; there wasn't half enough of it at Ansbach. +Isn't it strange how we've come round to it?" + +She referred to that passion for the Gothic which they had obediently +imbibed from Ruskin in the days of their early Italian travel and +courtship, when all the English-speaking world bowed down to him in +devout aversion from the renaissance, and pious abhorrence of the rococo. + +"What biddable little things we were!" she went on, while March was +struggling to keep Kenby in the background of his consciousness. +"The rococo must have always had a sneaking charm for us, when we were +pinning our faith to pointed arches; and yet I suppose we were perfectly +sincere. Oh, look at that divinely ridiculous Madonna!" They were now +making their way out of the crooked footway behind their hotel toward the +street leading to the cathedral, and she pointed to the Blessed Virgin +over the door of some religious house, her drapery billowing about her +feet; her body twisting to show the sculptor's mastery of anatomy, and +the halo held on her tossing head with the help of stout gilt rays. In +fact, the Virgin's whole figure was gilded, and so was that of the child +in her arms. "Isn't she delightful?" + +"I see what you mean," said March, with a dubious glance at the statue, +"but I'm not sure, now, that I wouldn't like something quieter in my +Madonnas." + +The thoroughfare which they emerged upon, with the cathedral ending the +prospective, was full of the holiday so near at hand. The narrow +sidewalks were thronged with people, both soldiers and civilians, and up +the middle of the street detachments of military came and went, halting +the little horse-cars and the huge beer-wagons which otherwise seemed to +have the sole right to the streets of Wurzburg; they came jingling or +thundering out of the aide streets and hurled themselves round the +corners reckless of the passers, who escaped alive by flattening +themselves like posters against the house walls. There were peasants, +men and women, in the costume which the unbroken course of their country +life had kept as quaint as it was a hundred years before; there were +citizens in the misfits of the latest German fashions; there were +soldiers of all arms in their vivid uniforms, and from time to time there +were pretty young girls in white dresses with low necks, and bare arms +gloved to the elbows, who were following a holiday custom of the place in +going about the streets in ball costume. The shop windows were filled +with portraits of the Emperor and the Empress, and the Prince-Regent and +the ladies of his family; the German and Bavarian colors draped the +facades of the houses and festooned the fantastic Madonnas posing above +so many portals. The modern patriotism included the ancient piety +without disturbing it; the rococo city remained ecclesiastical through +its new imperialism, and kept the stamp given it by the long rule of the +prince-bishops under the sovereignty of its King and the suzerainty of +its Kaiser. + +The Marches escaped from the present, when they entered the cathedral, as +wholly as if they had taken hold of the horns of the altar, though they +were far from literally doing this in an interior so grandiose. There +area few rococo churches in Italy, and perhaps more in Spain, which +approach the perfection achieved by the Wurzburg cathedral in the baroque +style. For once one sees what that style can do in architecture and +sculpture, and whatever one may say of the details, one cannot deny that +there is a prodigiously effective keeping in it all. This interior came +together, as the decorators say, with a harmony that the travellers had +felt nowhere in their earlier experience of the rococo. It was, +unimpeachably perfect in its way, "Just," March murmured to his wife, +"as the social and political and scientific scheme of the eighteenth +century was perfected in certain times and places. But the odd thing is +to find the apotheosis of the rococo away up here in Germany. I wonder +how much the prince-bishops really liked it. But they had become rococo, +too! Look at that row of their statues on both sides of the nave! What +magnificent swell! How they abash this poor plain Christ, here; he would +like to get behind the pillar; he knows that he could never lend himself +to the baroque style. It expresses the eighteenth century, though. But +how you long for some little hint of the thirteenth, or even the +nineteenth." + +"I don't," she whispered back. "I'm perfectly wild with Wurzburg. +I like to have a thing go as far as it can. At Nuremberg I wanted all +the Gothic I could get, and in Wurzburg I want all the baroque I can get. +I am consistent." + +She kept on praising herself to his disadvantage, as women do, all the +way to the Neumunster Church, where they were going to revere the tomb of +Walther yon der Vogelweide, not so much for his own sake as for +Longfellow's. The older poet lies buried within, but his monument is +outside the church, perhaps for the greater convenience of the sparrows, +which now represent the birds he loved. The cenotaph is surmounted by a +broad vase, and around this are thickly perched the effigies of the +Meistersinger's feathered friends, from whom the canons of the church, as +Mrs. March read aloud from her Baedeker, long ago directed his bequest to +themselves. In revenge for their lawless greed the defrauded +beneficiaries choose to burlesque the affair by looking like the four- +and-twenty blackbirds when the pie was opened. + +She consented to go for a moment to the Gothic Marienkapelle with her +husband in the revival of his mediaeval taste, and she was rewarded +amidst its thirteenth-century sincerity by his recantation. "You are +right! Baroque is the thing for Wurzburg; one can't enjoy Gothic here +any more than one could enjoy baroque in Nuremberg." + +Reconciled in the rococo, they now called a carriage, and went to visit +the palace of the prince-bishops who had so well known how to make the +heavenly take the image and superscription of the worldly; and they were +jointly indignant to find it shut against the public in preparation for +the imperialities and royalties coining to occupy it. They were in time +for the noon guard-mounting, however, and Mrs. March said that the way +the retiring squad kicked their legs out in the high martial step of the +German soldiers was a perfect expression of the insolent militarism of +their empire, and was of itself enough to make one thank Heaven that one +was an American and a republican. She softened a little toward their +system when it proved that the garden of the palace was still open, and +yet more when she sank down upon a bench between two marble groups +representing the Rape of Proserpine and the Rape of Europa. They stood +each in a gravelled plot, thickly overrun by a growth of ivy, and the +vine climbed the white naked limbs of the nymphs, who were present on a +pretence of gathering flowers, but really to pose at the spectators, and +clad them to the waist and shoulders with an effect of modesty never +meant by the sculptor, but not displeasing. There was an old fountain +near, its stone rim and centre of rock-work green with immemorial mould, +and its basin quivering between its water-plants under the soft fall of +spray. At a waft of fitful breeze some leaves of early autumn fell from +the trees overhead upon the elderly pair where they sat, and a little +company of sparrows came and hopped about their feet. Though the square +without was so all astir with festive expectation, there were few people +in the garden; three or four peasant women in densely fluted white skirts +and red aprons and shawls wandered by and stared at the Europa and at the +Proserpine. + +It was a precious moment in which the charm of the city's past seemed to +culminate, and they were loath to break it by speech. + +"Why didn't we have something like all this on our first wedding +journey?" she sighed at last. "To think of our battening from Boston to +Niagara and back! And how hard we tried to make something of Rochester +and Buffalo, of Montreal and Quebec!" + +"Niagara wasn't so bad," he said, "and I will never go back on Quebec." + +"Ah, but if we could have had Hamburg and Leipsic, and Carlsbad and +Nuremberg, and Ansbach and Wurzburg! Perhaps this is meant as a +compensation for our lost youth. But I can't enjoy it as I could when I +was young. It's wasted on my sere and yellow leaf. I wish Burnamy and +Miss Triscoe were here; I should like to try this garden on them." + +"They wouldn't care for it," he replied, and upon a daring impulse he +added, "Kenby and Mrs. Adding might." If she took this suggestion in +good part, he could tell her that Kenby was in Wurzburg. + +"Don't speak of them! They're in just that besotted early middle-age +when life has settled into a self-satisfied present, with no past and no +future; the most philistine, the most bourgeois, moment of existence. +Better be elderly at once, as far as appreciation of all this goes." +She rose and put her hand on his arm, and pushed him away in the +impulsive fashion of her youth, across alleys of old trees toward a +balustraded terrace in the background which had tempted her. + +"It isn't so bad, being elderly," he said. "By that time we have +accumulated enough past to sit down and really enjoy its associations. +We have got all sorts of perspectives and points of view. We know +where we are at." + +"I don't mind being elderly. The world's just as amusing as ever, and +lots of disagreeable things have dropped out. It's the getting more than +elderly; it's the getting old; and then--" + +They shrank a little closer together, and walked on in silence till he +said, "Perhaps there's something else, something better--somewhere." + +They had reached the balustraded terrace, and were pausing for pleasure +in the garden tops below, with the flowery spaces, and the statued +fountains all coming together. She put her hand on one of the fat little +urchin-groups on the stone coping. "I don't want cherubs, when I can +have these putti. And those old prince-bishops didn't, either!" + +"I don't suppose they kept a New England conscience," he said, with a +vague smile. "It would be difficult in the presence of the rococo." + +They left the garden through the beautiful gate which the old court +ironsmith Oegg hammered out in lovely forms of leaves and flowers, and +shaped laterally upward, as lightly as if with a waft of his hand, in +gracious Louis Quinze curves; and they looked back at it in the kind of +despair which any perfection inspires. They said how feminine it was, +how exotic, how expressive of a luxurious ideal of life which art had +purified and left eternally charming. They remembered their Ruskinian +youth, and the confidence with which they would once have condemned it; +and they had a sense of recreance in now admiring it; but they certainly +admired it, and it remained for them the supreme expression of that time- +soul, mundane, courtly, aristocratic, flattering, which once influenced +the art of the whole world, and which had here so curiously found its +apotheosis in a city remote from its native place and under a rule +sacerdotally vowed to austerity. The vast superb palace of the prince +bishops, which was now to house a whole troop of sovereigns, imperial, +royal, grand ducal and ducal, swelled aloft in superb amplitude; but it +did not realize their historic pride so effectively as this exquisite +work of the court ironsmith. It related itself in its aerial beauty to +that of the Tiepolo frescoes which the travellers knew were swimming and +soaring on the ceilings within, and from which it seemed to accent their +exclusion with a delicate irony, March said. "Or iron-mongery," he +corrected himself upon reflection. + + + + +LIV. + +He had forgotten Kenby in these aesthetic interests, but he remembered +him again when he called a carriage, and ordered it driven to their +hotel. It was the hour of the German mid-day table d'hote, and they +would be sure to meet him there. The question now was how March should +own his presence in time to prevent his wife from showing her ignorance +of it to Kenby himself, and he was still turning the question hopelessly +over in his mind when the sight of the hotel seemed to remind her of a +fact which she announced. + +"Now, my dear, I am tired to death, and I am not going to sit through a +long table d'hote. I want you to send me up a simple beefsteak and a cup +of tea to our rooms; and I don't want you to come near for hours; because +I intend to take a whole afternoon nap. You can keep all the maps and +plans, and guides, and you had better go and see what the Volksfest is +like; it will give you some notion of the part the people are really +taking in all this official celebration, and you know I don't care. +Don't come up after dinner to see how I am getting along; I shall get +along; and if you should happen to wake me after I had dropped off--" + +Kenby had seen them arrive from where he sat at the reading-room window, +waiting for the dinner hour, and had meant to rush out and greet Mrs. +March as they passed up the corridor. But she looked so tired that he +had decided to spare her till she came down to dinner; and as he sat with +March at their soup, he asked if she were not well. + +March explained, and he provisionally invented some regrets from her that +she should not see Kenby till supper. + +Kenby ordered a bottle of one of the famous Wurzburg wines for their +mutual consolation in her absence, and in the friendliness which its +promoted they agreed to spend the afternoon together. No man is so +inveterate a husband as not to take kindly an occasional release to +bachelor companionship, and before the dinner was over they agreed that +they would go to the Volksfest, and get some notion of the popular life +and amusements of Wurzburg, which was one of the few places where Kenby +had never been before; and they agreed that they would walk. + +Their way was partly up the quay of the Main, past a barrack full of +soldiers. They met detachments of soldiers everywhere, infantry, +artillery, cavalry. + +"This is going to be a great show," Kenby said, meaning the manoeuvres, +and he added, as if now he had kept away from the subject long enough and +had a right to recur to it, at least indirectly, "I should like to have +Rose see it, and get his impressions." + +"I've an idea he wouldn't approve of it. His mother says his mind is +turning more and more to philanthropy." + +Kenby could not forego such a chance to speak of Mrs. Adding. "It's one +of the prettiest things to see how she understands Rose. It's charming +to see them together. She wouldn't have half the attraction without +him." + +"Oh, yes," March assented. He had often wondered how a man wishing to +marry a widow managed with the idea of her children by another marriage; +but if Kenby was honest; it was much simpler than he had supposed. He +could not say this to him, however, and in a certain embarrassment he had +with the conjecture in his presence he attempted a diversion. "We're +promised something at the Volksfest which will be a great novelty to us +as Americans. Our driver told us this morning that one of the houses +there was built entirely of wood." + +When they reached the grounds of the Volksfest, this civil feature of the +great military event at hand, which the Marches had found largely set +forth in the programme of the parade, did not fully keep the glowing +promises made for it; in fact it could not easily have done so. It was +in a pleasant neighborhood of new villas such as form the modern quarter +of every German city, and the Volksfest was even more unfinished than its +environment. It was not yet enclosed by the fence which was to hide its +wonders from the non-paying public, but March and Kenby went in through +an archway where the gate-money was as effectually collected from them as +if they were barred every other entrance. + +The wooden building was easily distinguishable from the other edifices +because these were tents and booths still less substantial. They did not +make out its function, but of the others four sheltered merry-go-rounds, +four were beer-gardens, four were restaurants, and the rest were devoted +to amusements of the usual country-fair type. Apparently they had little +attraction for country people. The Americans met few peasants in the +grounds, and neither at the Edison kinematograph, where they refreshed +their patriotism with some scenes of their native life, nor at the little +theatre where they saw the sports of the arena revived, in the wrestle of +a woman with a bear, did any of the people except tradesmen and artisans +seem to be taking part in the festival expression of the popular +pleasure. + +The woman, who finally threw the bear, whether by slight, or by main +strength, or by a previous understanding with him, was a slender +creature, pathetically small and not altogether plain; and March as they +walked away lapsed into a pensive muse upon her strange employ. He +wondered how she came to take it up, and whether she began with the bear +when they were both very young, and she could easily throw him. + +"Well, women have a great deal more strength than we suppose," Kenby +began with a philosophical air that gave March the hope of some rational +conversation. Then his eye glazed with a far-off look, and a doting +smile came into his face. "When we went through the Dresden gallery +together, Rose and I were perfectly used up at the end of an hour, but +his mother kept on as long as there was anything to see, and came away as +fresh as a peach." + +Then March saw that it was useless to expect anything different from him, +and he let him talk on about Mrs. Adding all the rest of the way back to +the hotel. Kenby seemed only to have begun when they reached the door, +and wanted to continue the subject in the reading-room. + +March pleaded his wish to find how his wife had got through the +afternoon, and he escaped to her. He would have told her now that Kenby +was in the house, but he was really so sick of the fact himself that he +could not speak of it at once, and he let her go on celebrating all she +had seen from the window since she had waked from her long nap. She said +she could never be glad enough that they had come just at that time. +Soldiers had been going by the whole afternoon, and that made it so +feudal. + +Yes," he assented. "But aren't you coming up to the station with me to +see the Prince-Regent arrive? He's due at seven, you know." + +"I declare I had forgotten all about it. No, I'm not equal to it. You +must go; you can tell me everything; be sure to notice how the Princess +Maria looks; the last of the Stuarts, you know; and some people consider +her the rightful Queen of England; and I'll have the supper ordered, and +we can go down as soon as you've got back." + + + + +LV. + +March felt rather shabby stealing away without Kenby; but he had really +had as much of Mrs. Adding as he could stand, for one day, and he was +even beginning to get sick of Rose. Besides, he had not sent back a line +for 'Every Other Week' yet, and he had made up his mind to write a sketch +of the manoeuvres. To this end he wished to receive an impression of the +Prince-Regent's arrival which should not be blurred or clouded by other +interests. His wife knew the kind of thing he liked to see, and would +have helped him out with his observations, but Kenby would have got in +the way, and would have clogged the movement of his fancy in assigning +the facts to the parts he would like them to play in the sketch. + +At least he made some such excuses to himself as he hurried along toward +the Kaiserstrasse. The draught of universal interest in that direction +had left the other streets almost deserted, but as he approached the +thoroughfare he found all the ways blocked, and the horse-cars, +ordinarily so furiously headlong, arrested by the multiple ranks of +spectators on the sidewalks. The avenue leading from the railway station +to the palace was decorated with flags and garlands, and planted with the +stems of young firs and birches. The doorways were crowded, and the +windows dense with eager faces peering out of the draped bunting. The +carriageway was kept clear by mild policemen who now and then allowed one +of the crowd to cross it. + +The crowd was made up mostly of women and boys, and when March joined +them, they had already been waiting an hour for the sight of the princes +who were to bless them with a vision of the faery race which kings always +are to common men. He thought the people looked dull, and therefore able +to bear the strain of expectation with patience better than a livelier +race. They relieved it by no attempt at joking; here and there a dim +smile dawned on a weary face, but it seemed an effect of amiability +rather than humor. There was so little of this, or else it was so well +bridled by the solemnity of the occasion, that not a man, woman, or child +laughed when a bareheaded maid-servant broke through the lines and ran +down between them with a life-size plaster bust of the Emperor William in +her arms: she carried it like an overgrown infant, and in alarm at her +conspicuous part she cast frightened looks from side to side without +arousing any sort of notice. Undeterred by her failure, a young dog, +parted from his owner, and seeking him in the crowd, pursued his search +in a wild flight down the guarded roadway with an air of anxiety that in +America would have won him thunders of applause, and all sorts of kindly +encouragements to greater speed. But this German crowd witnessed his +progress apparently without interest, and without a sign of pleasure. +They were there to see the Prince-Regent arrive, and they did not suffer +themselves to be distracted by any preliminary excitement. Suddenly the +indefinable emotion which expresses the fulfilment of expectation in a +waiting crowd passed through the multitude, and before he realized it +March was looking into the friendly gray-bearded face of the Prince- +Regent, for the moment that his carriage allowed in passing. This came +first preceded by four outriders, and followed by other simple equipages +of Bavarian blue, full of highnesses of all grades. Beside the Regent +sat his daughter-in-law, the Princess Maria, her silvered hair framing a +face as plain and good as the Regent's, if not so intelligent. + +He, in virtue of having been born in Wurzburg, is officially supposed to +be specially beloved by his fellow townsmen; and they now testified their +affection as he whirled through their ranks, bowing right and left, by +what passes in Germany for a cheer. It is the word Hoch, groaned forth +from abdominal depths, and dismally prolonged in a hollow roar like that +which the mob makes behind the scenes at the theatre before bursting in +visible tumult on the stage. Then the crowd dispersed, and March came +away wondering why such a kindly-looking Prince-Regent should not have +given them a little longer sight of himself; after they had waited so +patiently for hours to see him. But doubtless in those countries, he +concluded, the art of keeping the sovereign precious by suffering him to +be rarely and briefly seen is wisely studied. + +On his way home he resolved to confess Kenby's presence; and he did so as +soon as he sat down to supper with his wife. "I ought to have told you +the first thing after breakfast. But when I found you in that mood of +having the place all to ourselves, I put it off." + +"You took terrible chances, my dear," she said, gravely. + +"And I have been terribly punished. You've no idea how much Kenby has +talked to me about Mrs. Adding!" + +She broke out laughing. "Well, perhaps you've suffered enough. But you +can see now, can't you, that it would have been awful if I had met him, +and let out that I didn't know he was here?" + +"Terrible. But if I had told, it would have spoiled the whole morning +for you; you couldn't have thought of anything else." + +"Oh, I don't know," she said, airily. "What should you think if I told +you I had known he was here ever since last night?" She went on in +delight at the start he gave. "I saw him come into the hotel while you +were gone for the guide-books, and I determined to keep it from you as +long as I could; I knew it would worry you. We've both been very nice; +and I forgive you," she hurried on, "because I've really got something to +tell you." + +"Don't tell me that Burnamy is here!" + +"Don't jump to conclusions! No, Burnamy isn't here, poor fellow! And +don't suppose that I'm guilty of concealment because I haven't told you +before. I was just thinking whether I wouldn't spare you till morning, +but now I shall let you take the brunt of it. Mrs. Adding and Rose are +here." She gave the fact time to sink in, and then she added, "And Miss +Triscoe and her father are here." + +"What is the matter with Major Eltwin and his wife being here, too? Are +they in our hotel?" + +"No, they are not. They came to look for rooms while you were off +waiting for the Prince-Regent, and I saw them. They intended to go to +Frankfort for the manoeuvres, but they heard that there was not even +standing-room there, and so the general telegraphed to the Spanischer +Hof, and they all came here. As it is, he will have to room with Rose, +and Agatha and Mrs. Adding will room together. I didn't think Agatha was +looking very well; she looked unhappy; I don't believe she's heard, from +Burnamy yet; I hadn't a chance to ask her. And there's something else +that I'm afraid will fairly make you sick." + +"Oh, no; go on. I don't think anything can do that, after an afternoon +of Kenby's confidences." + +"It's worse than Kenby," she said with a sigh. "You know I told you at +Carlsbad I thought that ridiculous old thing was making up to Mrs. +Adding." + +"Kenby? Why of co--" + +"Don't be stupid, my dear! No, not Kenby: General Triscoe. I wish you +could have been here to see him paying her all sort; of silly attentions, +and hear him making her compliments." + +"Thank you. I think I'm just as well without it. Did she pay him silly +attentions and compliments, too?" + +"That's the only thing that can make me forgive her for his wanting her. +She was keeping him at arm's-length the whole time, and she was doing it +so as not to make him contemptible before his daughter." + +"It must have been hard. And Rose?" + +"Rose didn't seem very well. He looks thin and pale; but he's sweeter +than ever. She's certainly commoner clay than Rose. No, I won't say +that! It's really nothing but General Triscoe's being an old goose about +her that makes her seem so, and it isn't fair." + +March went down to his coffee in the morning with the delicate duty of +telling Kenby that Mrs. Adding was in town. Kenby seemed to think it +quite natural she should wish to see the manoeuvres, and not at all +strange that she should come to them with General Triscoe and his +daughter. He asked if March would not go with him to call upon her after +breakfast, and as this was in the line of his own instructions from Mrs. +March, he went. + +They found Mrs. Adding with the Triscoes, and March saw nothing that was +not merely friendly, or at the most fatherly, in the general's behavior +toward her. If Mrs. Adding or Miss Triscoe saw more, they hid it in a +guise of sisterly affection for each other. At the most the general +showed a gayety which one would not have expected of him under any +conditions, and which the fact that he and Rose had kept each other awake +a good deal the night before seemed so little adapted to call out. He +joked with Rose about their room and their beds, and put on a comradery +with him that was not a perfect fit, and that suffered by contrast with +the pleasure of the boy and Kenby in meeting. There was a certain +question in the attitude of Mrs. Adding till March helped Kenby to +account for his presence; then she relaxed in an effect of security so +tacit that words overstate it, and began to make fun of Rose. + +March could not find that Miss Triscoe looked unhappy, as his wife had +said; he thought simply that she had grown plainer; but when he reported +this, she lost her patience with him. In a girl, she said, plainness was +unhappiness; and she wished to know when he would ever learn to look an +inch below the surface: She was sure that Agatha Triscoe had not heard +from Burnamy since the Emperor's birthday; that she was at swords'-points +with her father, and so desperate that she did not care what became of +her. + +He had left Kenby with the others, and now, after his wife had talked +herself tired of them all, he proposed going out again to look about the +city, where there was nothing for the moment to remind them of the +presence of their friends or even of their existence. She answered that +she was worrying about all those people, and trying to work out their +problem for them. He asked why she did not let them work it out +themselves as they would have to do, after all her worry, and she said +that where her sympathy had been excited she could not stop worrying, +whether it did any good or not, and she could not respect any one who +could drop things so completely out of his mind as he could; she had +never been able to respect that in him. + +"I know, my dear," he assented. "But I don't think it's a question of +moral responsibility; it's a question of mental structure, isn't it? +Your consciousness isn't built in thought-tight compartments, and one +emotion goes all through it, and sinks you; but I simply close the doors +and shut the emotion in, and keep on." + +The fancy pleased him so much that he worked it out in all its +implications, and could not, after their long experience of each other, +realize that she was not enjoying the joke too, till she said she saw +that he merely wished to tease. Then, too late, he tried to share her +worry; but she protested that she was not worrying at all; that she cared +nothing about those people: that she was nervous, she was tired; and she +wished he would leave her, and go out alone. + +He found himself in the street again, and he perceived that he must be +walking fast when a voice called him by name, and asked him what his +hurry was. The voice was Stoller's, who got into step with him and +followed the first with a second question. + +"Made up your mind to go to the manoeuvres with me?" + +His bluntness made it easy for March to answer: "I'm afraid my wife +couldn't stand the drive back and forth." + +"Come without her." + +"Thank you. It's very kind of yon. I'm not certain that I shall go at +all. If I do, I shall run out by train, and take my chances with the +crowd." + +Stoller insisted no further. He felt no offence at the refusal of his +offer, or chose to show none. He said, with the same uncouth abruptness +as before: "Heard anything of that fellow since he left Carlsbad?" + +"Burnamy?" + +"Mm." + +"No." + +"Know where he is?" + +"I don't in the least." + +Stoller let another silence elapse while they hurried on, before he said, +"I got to thinking what he done afterwards. He wasn't bound to look out +for me; he might suppose I knew what I was about." + +March turned his face and stared in Stoller's, which he was letting hang +forward as he stamped heavily on. Had the disaster proved less than he +had feared, and did he still want Burnamy's help in patching up the +broken pieces; or did he really wish to do Burnamy justice to his friend? + +In any case March's duty was clear. "I think Burnamy was bound to look +out for you; Mr. Stoller, and I am glad to know that he saw it in the +same light." + +"I know he did," said Stoker with a blaze as from a long-smouldering +fury, "and damn him, I'm not going to have it. I'm not going to, plead +the baby act with him, or with any man. You tell him so, when you get +the chance. You tell him I don't hold him accountable for anything I +made him do. That ain't business; I don't want him around me, any more; +but if he wants to go back to the paper he can have his place. You tell +him I stand by what I done; and it's all right between him and me. +I hain't done anything about it, the way I wanted him to help me to; I've +let it lay, and I'm a-going to. I guess it ain't going to do me any +harm, after all; our people hain't got very long memories; but if it is, +let it. You tell him it's all right." + +"I don't know where he is, Mr. Stoller, and I don't know that I care to +be the bearer of your message," said March. + +"Why not?" + +"Why, for one thing, I don't agree with you that it's all right. Your +choosing to stand by the consequences of Burnamy's wrong doesn't undo it. +As I understand, you don't pardon it--" + +Stoller gulped and did not answer at once. Then he said, "I stand by +what I done. I'm not going to let him say I turned him down for doing +what I told him to, because I hadn't the sense to know what I was about." + +"Ah, I don't think it's a thing he'll like to speak of in any case," said +March. + +Stoller left him, at the corner they had reached, as abruptly as he had +joined him, and March hurried back to his wife, and told her what had +just passed between him and Stoller. + +She broke out, "Well, I am surprised at you, my dear! You have always +accused me of suspecting people, and attributing bad motives; and here +you've refused even to give the poor man the benefit of the doubt. He +merely wanted to save his savage pride with you, and that's all he wants +to do with Burnamy. How could it hurt the poor boy to know that Stoller +doesn't blame him? Why should you refuse to give his message to Burnamy? +I don't want you to ridicule me for my conscience any more, Basil; you're +twice as bad as I ever was. Don't you think that a person can ever +expiate an offence? I've often heard you say that if any one owned his +fault, he put it from him, and it was the same as if it hadn't been; and +hasn't Burnamy owned up over and over again? I'm astonished at you, +dearest." + +March was in fact somewhat astonished at himself in the light of her +reasoning; but she went on with some sophistries that restored him to his +self-righteousness. + +"I suppose you think he has interfered with Stoller's political ambition, +and injured him in that way. Well, what if he has? Would it be a good +thing to have a man like that succeed in politics? You're always saying +that the low character of our politicians is the ruin of the country; and +I'm sure," she added, with a prodigious leap over all the sequences, +"that Mr. Stoller is acting nobly; and it's your duty to help him relieve +Burnamy's mind." At the laugh he broke into she hastened to say, "Or if +you won't, I hope you'll not object to my doing so, for I shall, anyway!" + +She rose as if she were going to begin at once, in spite of his laughing; +and in fact she had already a plan for coming to Stoller's assistance by +getting at Burnamy through Miss Triscoe, whom she suspected of knowing +where he was. There had been no chance for them to speak of him either +that morning or the evening before, and after a great deal of controversy +with herself in her husband's presence she decided to wait till they came +naturally together the next morning for the walk to the Capuchin Church +on the hill beyond the river, which they had agreed to take. She could +not keep from writing a note to Miss Triscoe begging her to be sure to +come, and hinting that she had something very important to speak of. + +She was not sure but she had been rather silly to do this, but when they +met the girl confessed that she had thought of giving up the walk, and +might not have come except for Mrs. March's note. She had come with +Rose, and had left him below with March; Mrs. Adding was coming later +with Kenby and General Triscoe. + +Mrs. March lost no time in telling her the great news; and if she had +been in doubt before of the girl's feeling for Burnamy she was now in +none. She had the pleasure of seeing her flush with hope, and then the +pain which was also a pleasure, of seeing her blanch with dismay. + +"I don't know where he is, Mrs. March. I haven't heard a word from him +since that night in Carlsbad. I expected--I didn't know but you--" + +Mrs. March shook her head. She treated the fact skillfully as something +to be regretted simply because it would be such a relief to Burnamy to +know how Mr. Stoller now felt. Of course they could reach him somehow; +you could always get letters to people in Europe, in the end; and, in +fact, it was altogether probable that he was that very instant in +Wurzburg; for if the New York-Paris Chronicle had wanted him to write up +the Wagner operas, it would certainly want him to write up the +manoeuvres. She established his presence in Wurzburg by such an +irrefragable chain of reasoning that, at a knock outside, she was just +able to kelp back a scream, while she ran to open the door. It was not +Burnamy, as in compliance with every nerve it ought to have been, but her +husband, who tried to justify his presence by saying that they were all +waiting for her and Miss Triscoe, and asked when they were coming. + +She frowned him silent, and then shut herself outside with him long +enough to whisper, "Say she's got a headache, or anything you please; +but don't stop talking here with me, or I shall go wild." She then shut +herself in again, with the effect of holding him accountable for the +whole affair. + + + + +LVI. + +General Triscoe could not keep his irritation, at hearing that his +daughter was not coming, out of the excuses he made to Mrs. Adding; +he said again and again that it must seem like a discourtesy to her. +She gayly disclaimed any such notion; she would not hear of putting off +their excursion to another day; it had been raining just long enough to +give them a reasonable hope of a few hours' drought, and they might not +have another dry spell for weeks. She slipped off her jacket after they +started, and gave it to Kenby, but she let General Triscoe hold her +umbrella over her, while he limped beside her. She seemed to March, as +he followed with Rose, to be playing the two men off against each other, +with an ease which he wished his wife could be there to see, and to judge +aright. + +They crossed by the Old Bridge, which is of the earliest years of the +seventh century, between rows of saints whose statues surmount the piers. +Some are bishops as well as saints; one must have been at Rome in his +day, for he wore his long thick beard in the fashion of Michelangelo's +Moses. He stretched out toward the passers two fingers of blessing and +was unaware of the sparrow which had lighted on them and was giving him +the effect of offering it to the public admiration. Squads of soldiers +tramping by turned to look and smile, and the dull faces of citizens +lighted up at the quaint sight. Some children stopped and remained very +quiet, not to scare away the bird; and a cold-faced, spiritual-looking +priest paused among them as if doubting whether to rescue the absent- +minded bishop from a situation derogatory to his dignity; but he passed +on, and then the sparrow suddenly flew off. + +Rose Adding had lingered for the incident with March, but they now pushed +on, and came up with the others at the end of the bridge, where they +found them in question whether they had not better take a carriage and +drive to the foot of the hill before they began their climb. March +thanked them, but said he was keeping up the terms of his cure, and was +getting in all the walking he could. Rose begged his mother not to +include him in the driving party; he protested that he was feeling so +well, and the walk was doing him good. His mother consented, if he would +promise not to get tired, and then she mounted into the two-spanner which +had driven instinctively up to their party when their parley began, and +General Triscoe took the place beside her, while Kenby, with smiling +patience, seated himself in front. + +Rose kept on talking with March about Wurzburg and its history, which it +seemed he had been reading the night before when he could not sleep. He +explained, "We get little histories of the places wherever we go. That's +what Mr. Kenby does, you know." + +"Oh, yes," said March. + +"I don't suppose I shall get a chance to read much here," Rose continued, +"with General Triscoe in the room. He doesn't like the light." + +"Well, well. He's rather old, you know. And you musn't read too much, +Rose. It isn't good for you." + +"I know, but if I don't read, I think, and that keeps me awake worse. Of +course, I respect General Triscoe for being in the war, and getting +wounded," the boy suggested. + +"A good many did it," March was tempted to say. + +The boy did not notice his insinuation. "I suppose there were some +things they did in the army, and then they couldn't get over the habit. +But General Grant says in his 'Life' that he never used a profane +expletive." + +"Does General Triscoe ?" + +Rose answered reluctantly, "If anything wakes him in the night, or if he +can't make these German beds over to suit him--" + +"I see." March turned his face to hide the smile which he would not have +let the boy detect. He thought best not to let Rose resume his +impressions of the general; and in talk of weightier matters they found +themselves at that point of the climb where the carriage was waiting for +them. From this point they followed an alley through ivied, garden +walls, till they reached the first of the balustraded terraces which +ascend to the crest of the hill where the church stands. Each terrace is +planted with sycamores, and the face of the terrace wall supports a bass- +relief commemorating with the drama of its lifesize figures the stations +of the cross. + +Monks and priests were coming and going, and dropped on the steps leading +from terrace to terrace were women and children on their knees in prayer. +It was all richly reminiscent of pilgrim scenes in other Catholic lands; +but here there was a touch of earnest in the Northern face of the +worshipers which the South had never imparted. Even in the beautiful +rococo interior of the church at the top of the hill there was a sense of +something deeper and truer than mere ecclesiasticism; and March came out +of it in a serious muse while the boy at his side did nothing to +interrupt. A vague regret filled his heart as he gazed silently out over +the prospect of river and city and vineyard, purpling together below the +top where he stood, and mixed with this regret was a vague resentment of +his wife's absence. She ought to have been there to share his pang and +his pleasure; they had so long enjoyed everything together that without +her he felt unable to get out of either emotion all there was in it. + +The forgotten boy stole silently down the terraces after the rest of the +party who had left him behind with March. At the last terrace they +stopped and waited; and after a delay that began to be long to Mrs. +Adding, she wondered aloud what could have become of them. + +Kenby promptly offered to go back and see, and she consented in seeming +to refuse: "It isn't worth while. Rose has probably got Mr. March into +some deep discussion, and they've forgotten all about us. But if you +will go, Mr. Kenby, you might just remind Rose of my existence." She let +him lay her jacket on her shoulders before he left her, and then she sat +down on one of the steps, which General Triscoe kept striking with the +point of her umbrella as he stood before her. + +"I really shall have to take it from you if you do that any more," she +said, laughing up in his face. "I'm serious." + +He stopped. "I wish I could believe you were serious, for a moment." + +"You may, if you think it will do you any good. But I don't see why." + +The general smiled, but with a kind of tremulous eagerness which might +have been pathetic to any one who liked him. "Do you know this is almost +the first time I have spoken alone with you?" + +"Really, I hadn't noticed," said Mrs. Adding. + +General Triscoe laughed in rather a ghastly way. "Well, that's +encouraging, at least, to a man who's had his doubts whether it wasn't +intended." + +"Intended? By whom? What do you mean, General Triscoe? Why in the +world shouldn't you have spoken alone with me before?" + +He was not, with all his eagerness, ready to say, and while she smiled +pleasantly she had the look in her eyes of being brought to bay and being +prepared, if it must come to that, to have the worst over, then and +there. She was not half his age, but he was aware of her having no +respect for his years; compared with her average American past as he +understood it, his social place was much higher, but, she was not in the +least awed by it; in spite of his war record she was making him behave +like a coward. He was in a false position, and if he had any one but +himself to blame he had not her. He read her equal knowledge of these +facts in the clear eyes that made him flush and turn his own away. + +Then he started with a quick "Hello!" and stood staring up at the steps +from the terrace above, where Rose Adding was staying himself weakly by a +clutch of Kenby on one side and March on the other. + +His mother looked round and caught herself up from where she sat and ran +toward him. "Oh, Rose!" + +"It's nothing, mother," he called to her, and as she dropped on her knees +before him he sank limply against her. "It was like what I had in +Carlsbad; that's all. Don't worry about me, please!" + +"I'm not worrying, Rose," she said with courage of the same texture as +his own. "You've been walking too much. You must go back in the +carriage with us. Can't you have it come here?" she asked Kenby. + +"There's no road, Mrs. Adding. But if Rose would let me carry him--" + +"I can walk," the boy protested, trying to lift himself from her neck. + +"No, no! you mustn't." She drew away and let him fall into the arms that +Kenby put round him. He raised the frail burden lightly to his shoulder, +and moved strongly away, followed by the eyes of the spectators who had +gathered about the little group, but who dispersed now, and went back to +their devotions. + +March hurried after Kenby with Mrs. Adding, whom he told he had just +missed Rose and was looking about for him, when Kenby came with her +message for them. They made sure that he was nowhere about the church, +and then started together down the terraces. At the second or third +station below they found the boy clinging to the barrier that protected +the bass-relief from the zeal of the devotees. He looked white and sick, +though he insisted that he was well, and when he turned to come away with +them he reeled and would have fallen if Kenby had not caught him. Kenby +wanted to carry him, but Rose would not let him, and had made his way +down between them. + +"Yea, he has such a spirit," she said, "and I've no doubt he's suffering +now more from Mr. Kenby's kindness than from his own sickness he had one +of these giddy turns in Carlsbad, though, and I shall certainly have a +doctor to see him." + +"I think I should, Mrs. Adding," said March, not too gravely, for it +seemed to him that it was not quite his business to alarm her further, +if she was herself taking the affair with that seriousness. +He questioned whether she was taking it quite seriously enough, +when she turned with a laugh, and called to General Triscoe, who was +limping down the steps of the last terrace behind them: + +"Oh, poor General Triscoe! I thought you had gone on ahead." + +General Triscoe could not enter into the joke of being forgotten, +apparently. He assisted with gravity at the disposition of the party for +the return, when they all reached the carriage. Rose had the place +beside his mother, and Kenby wished March to take his with the general +and let him sit with the driver; but he insisted that he would rather +walk home, and he did walk till they had driven out of eight. Then he +called a passing one-spanner, and drove to his hotel in comfort and +silence. + + + + +LVII. + +Kenby did not come to the Swan before supper; then he reported that the +doctor had said Rose was on the verge of a nervous collapse. He had +overworked at school, but the immediate trouble was the high, thin air, +which the doctor said he must be got out of at once, into a quiet place +at the sea-shore somewhere. He had suggested Ostend; or some point on +the French coast; Kenby had thought of Schevleningen, and the doctor had +said that would do admirably. + +"I understood from Mrs. Adding," he concluded, "that you were going. +there for your after-cure, Mr. March, and I didn't know but you might be +going soon." + +At the mention of Schevleningen the Marches had looked at each other with +a guilty alarm, which they both tried to give the cast of affectionate +sympathy but she dismissed her fear that he might be going to let his +compassion prevail with him to his hurt when he said: "Why, we ought to +have been there before this, but I've been taking my life in my hands in +trying to see a little of Germany, and I'm afraid now that Mrs. March has +her mind too firmly fixed on Berlin to let me think of going to +Schevleningen till we've been there." + +"It's too bad!" said Mrs. March, with real regret. "I wish we were +going." But she had not the least notion of gratifying her wish; and +they were all silent till Kenby broke out: + +"Look here! You know how I feel about Mrs Adding! I've been pretty +frank with Mr. March myself, and I've had my suspicions that she's been +frank with you, Mrs. March. There isn't any doubt about my wanting to +marry her, and up to this time there hasn't been any doubt about her not +wanting to marry me. But it isn't a question of her or of me, now. It's +a question of Rose. I love the boy," and Kenby's voice shook, and he +faltered a moment. "Pshaw! You understand." + +"Indeed I do, Mr. Kenby," said Mrs. March. "I perfectly understand +you." + +"Well, I don't think Mrs. Adding is fit to make the journey with him +alone, or to place herself in the best way after she gets to +Schevleningen. She's been badly shaken up; she broke down before the +doctor; she said she didn't know what to do; I suppose she's +frightened--" + +Kenby stopped again, and March asked, "When is she going?" + +"To-morrow," said Kenby, and he added, "And now the question is, why +shouldn't I go with her?" + +Mrs. March gave a little start, and looked at her husband, but he said +nothing, and Kenby seemed not to have supposed that he would say +anything. + +"I know it would be very American, and all that, but I happen to be an +American, and it wouldn't be out of character for me. I suppose," he +appealed to Mrs. March, "that it's something I might offer to do if it +were from New York to Florida--and I happened to be going there? And I +did happen to be going to Holland." + +"Why, of course, Mr. Kenby," she responded, with such solemnity that +March gave way in an outrageous laugh. + +Kenby laughed, and Mrs. March laughed too, but with an inner note of +protest. + +"Well," Kenby continued, still addressing her, "what I want you to do is +to stand by me when I propose it." + +Mrs. March gathered strength to say, "No, Mr. Kenby, it's your own +affair, and you must take the responsibility." + +"Do you disapprove?" + +"It isn't the same as it would be at home. You see that yourself." + +"Well," said Kenby, rising, "I have to arrange about their getting away +to-morrow. It won't be easy in this hurly-burly that's coming off." + +"Give Rose our love; and tell Mrs. Adding that I'll come round and see +her to-morrow before she starts." + +"Oh! I'm afraid you can't, Mrs. March. They're to start at six in the +morning." + +"They are! Then we must go and see them tonight. We'll be there almost +as soon as you are." + +March went up to their rooms with, his wife, and she began on the stairs: + +"Well, my dear, I hope you realize that your laughing so gave us +completely away. And what was there to keep grinning about, all +through?" + +"Nothing but the disingenuous, hypocritical passion of love. It's always +the most amusing thing in the world; but to see it trying to pass itself +off in poor old Kenby as duty and humanity, and disinterested affection +for Rose, was more than I could stand. I don't apologize for laughing; +I wanted to yell." + +His effrontery and his philosophy both helped to save him; and she said +from the point where he had side-tracked her mind: "I don't call it +disingenuous. He was brutally frank. He's made it impossible to treat +the affair with dignity. I want you to leave the whole thing to me, from +this out. Now, will you?" + +On their way to the Spanischer Hof she arranged in her own mind for Mrs. +Adding to get a maid, and for the doctor to send an assistant with her on +the journey, but she was in such despair with her scheme that she had not +the courage to right herself when Mrs. Adding met her with the appeal: + +"Oh, Mrs. March, I'm so glad you approve of Mr. Kenby's plan. It does +seem the only thing to do. I can't trust myself alone with Rose, and Mr. +Kenby's intending to go to Schevleningen a few days later anyway. Though +it's too bad to let him give up the manoeuvres." + +"I'm sure he won't mind that," Mrs. March's voice said mechanically, +while her thought was busy with the question whether this scandalous +duplicity was altogether Kenby's, and whether Mrs. Adding was as +guiltless of any share in it as she looked. She looked pitifully +distracted; she might not have understood his report; or Kenby might +really have mistaken Mrs. March's sympathy for favor. + +"No, he only lives to do good," Mrs. Adding returned. "He's with Rose; +won't you come in and see them?" + +Rose was lying back on the pillows of a sofa, from which they would not +let him get up. He was full of the trip to Holland, and had already +pushed Kenby, as Kenby owned, beyond the bounds of his very general +knowledge of the Dutch language, which Rose had plans for taking up after +they were settled in Schevleningen. The boy scoffed at the notion that +he was not perfectly well, and he wished to talk with March on the points +where he had found Kenby wanting. + +"Kenby is an encyclopaedia compared with me, Rose," the editor protested, +and he amplified his ignorance for the boy's good to an extent which Rose +saw was a joke. He left Holland to talk about other things which his +mother thought quite as bad for him. He wished to know if March did not +think that the statue of the bishop with the sparrow on its finger was a +subject for a poem; and March said gayly that if Rose would write it he +would print it in 'Every Other Week'. + +The boy flushed with pleasure at his banter. "No, I couldn't do it. +But I wish Mr. Burnamy had seen it. He could. Will you tell him about +it?" He wanted to know if March had heard from Burnamy lately, and in +the midst of his vivid interest he gave a weary sigh. + +His mother said that now he had talked enough, and bade him say good-by +to the Marches, who were coming so soon to Holland, anyway. Mrs. March +put her arms round him to kiss him, and when she let him sink back her +eyes were dim. + +"You see how frail he is?" said Mrs. Adding. "I shall not let him out of +my sight, after this, till he's well again." + +She had a kind of authority in sending Kenby away with them which was not +lost upon the witnesses. He asked them to come into the reading-room a +moment with him, and Mrs. March wondered if he were going to make some +excuse to her for himself; but he said: "I don't know how we're to manage +about the Triscoes. The general will have a room to himself, but if Mrs. +Adding takes Rose in with her, it leaves Miss Triscoe out, and there +isn't a room to be had in this house for love or money. Do you think," +he appealed directly to Mrs. March, "that it would do to offer her my +room at the Swan?" + +"Why, yes," she assented, with a reluctance rather for the complicity in +which he had already involved her, and for which he was still unpunished, +than for what he was now proposing. "Or she could come in with me, and +Mr. March could take it." + +"Whichever you think," said Kenby so submissively that she relented, to +ask: + +"And what will you do?" + +He laughed. "Well, people have been known to sleep in a chair. I shall +manage somehow." + +"You might offer to go in with the general," March suggested, and the men +apparently thought this was a joke. Mrs. March did not laugh in her +feminine worry about ways and means. + +"Where is Miss Triscoe?" she asked. "We haven't seen them." + +"Didn't Mrs. Adding tell you? They went to supper at a restaurant; the +general doesn't like the cooking here. They ought to have been back +before this." + +He looked up at the clock on the wall, and she said, "I suppose you would +like us to wait." + +"It would be very kind of you." + +"Oh, it's quite essential," she returned with an airy freshness which +Kenby did not seem to feel as painfully as he ought. + +They all sat down, and the Triscoes came in after a few minutes, and a +cloud on the general's face lifted at the proposition Kenby left Mrs. +March to make. + +"I thought that child ought to be in his mother's charge," he said. With +his own comfort provided for, he made no objections to Mrs. March's plan; +and Agatha went to take leave of Rose and his mother. "By-the-way," the +general turned to March, "I found Stoller at the restaurant where we +supped. He offered me a place in his carriage for the manoeuvres. How +are you going?" + +"I think I shall go by train. I don't fancy the long drive." + +"Well, I don't know that it's worse than the long walk after you leave +the train," said the general from the offence which any difference of +taste was apt to give him. "Are you going by train, too?" he asked Kenby +with indifference. + +"I'm not going at all," said Kenby. "I'm leaving Wurzburg in the +morning." + +"Oh, indeed," said the general. + +Mrs. March could not make out whether he knew that Kenby was going with +Rose and Mrs. Adding, but she felt that there must be a full and open +recognition of the fact among them. "Yes," she said, "isn't it fortunate +that Mr. Kenby should be going to Holland, too! I should have been so +unhappy about them if Mrs. Adding had been obliged to make that long +journey with poor little Rose alone." + +"Yes, yes; very fortunate, certainly," said the general colorlessly. + +Her husband gave her a glance of intelligent appreciation; but Kenby was +too simply, too densely content with the situation to know the value of +what she had done. She thought he must certainly explain, as he walked +back with her to the Swan, whether he had misrepresented her to Mrs. +Adding, or Mrs. Adding had misunderstood him. Somewhere there had been +an error, or a duplicity which it was now useless to punish; and Kenby +was so apparently unconscious of it that she had not the heart to be +cross with him. She heard Miss Triscoe behind her with March laughing in +the gayety which the escape from her father seemed to inspire in her. +She was promising March to go with him in the morning to see the Emperor +and Empress of Germany arrive at the station, and he was warning her that +if she laughed there, like that, she would subject him to fine and +imprisonment. She pretended that she would like to see him led off +between two gendarmes, but consented to be a little careful when he asked +her how she expected to get back to her hotel without him, if such a +thing happened. + + + + +LVIII. + +After all, Miss Triscoe did not go with March; she preferred to sleep. +The imperial party was to arrive at half past seven, but at six the crowd +was already dense before the station, and all along the street leading to +the Residenz. It was a brilliant day, with the promise of sunshine, +through which a chilly wind blew, for the manoeuvres. The colors of all +the German states flapped in this breeze from the poles wreathed with +evergreen which encircled the square; the workmen putting the last +touches on the bronzed allegory hurried madly to be done, and they had, +scarcely finished their labors when two troops of dragoons rode into the +place and formed before the station, and waited as motionlessly as their +horses would allow. + +These animals were not so conscious as lions at the approach of princes; +they tossed and stamped impatiently in the long interval before the +Regent and his daughter-in-law came to welcome their guests. All the +human beings, both those who were in charge and those who were under +charge, were in a quiver of anxiety to play their parts well, as if there +were some heavy penalty for failure in the least point. The policemen +keeping the people, in line behind the ropes which restrained them +trembled with eagerness; the faces of some of the troopers twitched. +An involuntary sigh went up from the crowd as the Regent's carriage +appeared, heralded by outriders, and followed by other plain carriages of +Bavarian blue with liveries of blue and silver. Then the whistle of the +Kaiser's train sounded; a trumpeter advanced and began to blow his +trumpet as they do in the theatre; and exactly at the appointed moment +the Emperor and Empress came out of the station through the brilliant +human alley leading from it, mounted their carriages, with the stage +trumpeter always blowing, and whirled swiftly round half the square and +flashed into the corner toward the Residenz out of sight. The same +hollow groans of Ho-o-o-ch greeted and followed them from the spectators +as had welcomed the Regent when he first arrived among his fellow- +townsmen, with the same effect of being the conventional cries of a stage +mob behind the scenes. + +The Emperor was like most of his innumerable pictures, with a swarthy +face from which his blue eyes glanced pleasantly; he looked good-humored +if not good-natured; the Empress smiled amiably beneath her deeply +fringed white parasol, and they both bowed right and left in +acknowledgment of those hollow groans; but again it seemed, to March that +sovereignty, gave the popular curiosity, not to call it devotion, a +scantier return than it merited. He had perhaps been insensibly working +toward some such perception as now came to him that the great difference +between Europe and America was that in Europe life is histrionic and +dramatized, and that in America, except when it is trying to be European, +it is direct and sincere. He wondered whether the innate conviction of +equality, the deep, underlying sense of a common humanity transcending +all social and civic pretences, was what gave their theatrical effect to +the shows of deference from low to high, and of condescension from high +to low. If in such encounters of sovereigns and subjects, the prince did +not play his part so well as the people, it might be that he had a harder +part to play, and that to support his dignity at all, to keep from being +found out the sham that he essentially was, he had to hurry across the +stage amidst the distracting thunders of the orchestra. If the star +staid to be scrutinized by the soldiers, citizens, and so forth, even the +poor supernumeraries and scene-shifters might see that he was a tallow +candle like themselves. + +In the censorious mood induced by the reflection that he had waited an +hour and a half for half a minute's glimpse of the imperial party, March +now decided not to go to the manoeuvres, where he might be subjected to +still greater humiliation and disappointment. He had certainly come to +Wurzburg for the manoeuvres, but Wurzburg had been richly repaying in +itself; and why should he stifle half an hour in an overcrowded train, +and struggle for three miles on foot against that harsh wind, to see a +multitude of men give proofs of their fitness to do manifold murder? +He was, in fact, not the least curious for the sight, and the only thing +that really troubled him was the question of how he should justify his +recreance to his wife. This did alloy the pleasure with which he began, +after an excellent breakfast at a neighboring cafe, to stroll about the +streets, though he had them almost to himself, so many citizens had +followed the soldiers to the manoeuvres. + +It was not till the soldiers began returning from the manoeuvres, dusty- +footed, and in white canvas overalls drawn over their trousers to save +them, that he went back to Mrs. March and Miss Triscoe at the Swan. He +had given them time enough to imagine him at the review, and to wonder +whether he had seen General Triscoe and the Stollers there, and they met +him with such confident inquiries that he would not undeceive them at +once. He let them divine from his inventive answers that he had not gone +to the manoeuvres, which put them in the best humor with themselves, and +the girl said it was so cold and rough that she wished her father had not +gone, either. The general appeared just before dinner and frankly avowed +the same wish. He was rasping and wheezing from the dust which filled +his lungs; he looked blown and red, and he was too angry with the company +he had been in to have any comments on the manoeuvres. He referred to +the military chiefly in relation to the Miss Stollers' ineffectual +flirtations, which he declared had been outrageous. Their father had +apparently no control over them whatever, or else was too ignorant to +know that they were misbehaving. They were without respect or reverence +for any one; they had talked to General Triscoe as if he were a boy of +their own age, or a dotard whom nobody need mind; they had not only kept +up their foolish babble before him, they had laughed and giggled, they +had broken into snatches of American song, they had all but whistled and +danced. They made loud comments in Illinois English--on the cuteness of +the officers whom they admired, and they had at one time actually got out +their handkerchiefs. He supposed they meant to wave them at the +officers, but at the look he gave them they merely put their hats +together and snickered in derision of him. They were American girls of +the worst type; they conformed to no standard of behavior; their conduct +was personal. They ought to be taken home. + +Mrs. March said she saw what he meant, and she agreed with him that they +were altogether unformed, and were the effect of their own ignorant +caprices. Probably, however, it was too late to amend them by taking +them away. + +"It would hide them, at any rate," he answered. "They would sink back +into the great mass of our vulgarity, and not be noticed. We behave like +a parcel of peasants with our women. We think that if no harm is meant +or thought, we may risk any sort of appearance, and we do things that are +scandalously improper simply because they are innocent. That may be all +very well at home, but people who prefer that sort of thing had better +stay there, where our peasant manners won't make them conspicuous." + +As their train ran northward out of Wurzburg that afternoon, Mrs. March +recurred to the general's closing words. "That was a slap at Mrs. Adding +for letting Kenby go off with her." + +She took up the history of the past twenty-four hours, from the time +March had left her with Miss Triscoe when he went with her father and the +Addings and Kenby to see that church. She had had no chance to bring up +these arrears until now, and she atoned to herself for the delay by +making the history very full, and going back and adding touches at any +point where she thought she had scanted it. After all, it consisted +mainly of fragmentary intimations from Miss Triscoe and of half-uttered +questions which her own art now built into a coherent statement. + +March could not find that the general had much resented Burnamy's +clandestine visit to Carlsbad when his daughter told him of it, or that +he had done more than make her promise that she would not keep up the +acquaintance upon any terms unknown to him. + +"Probably," Mrs. March said, "as long as he had any hopes of Mrs. Adding, +he was a little too self-conscious to be very up and down about Burnamy." + +"Then you think he was really serious about her?" + +"Now my dear! He was so serious that I suppose he was never so +completely taken aback in his life as when he met Kenby in Wurzburg and +saw how she received him. Of course, that put an end to the fight." + +"The fight?" + +"Yes--that Mrs. Adding and Agatha were keeping up to prevent his offering +himself." + +"Oh! And how do you know that they were keeping up the fight together?" + +"How do I? Didn't you see yourself what friends they were? Did you tell +him what Stoller had, said about Burnamy?" + +"I had no chance. I don't know that I should have done it, anyway. It +wasn't my affair." + +"Well, then, I think you might. It would have been everything for that +poor child; it would have completely justified her in her own eyes." + +"Perhaps your telling her will serve the same purpose." + +"Yes, I did tell her, and I am glad of it. She had a right to know it." + +"Did she think Stoller's willingness to overlook Burnamy's performance +had anything to do with its moral quality?" + +Mrs. March was daunted for the moment, but she said, "I told her you +thought that if a person owned to a fault they disowned it, and put it +away from them just as if it had never been committed; and that if a +person had taken their punishment for a wrong they had done, they had +expiated it so far as anybody else was concerned. And hasn't poor +Burnamy done both?" + +As a moralist March was flattered to be hoist with his own petard, but as +a husband he was not going to come down at once. "I thought probably you +had told her that. You had it pat from having just been over it with me. +When has she heard from him?" + +"Why, that's the strangest thing about it. She hasn't heard at all. She +doesn't know where he is. She thought we must know. She was terribly +broken up." + +"How did she show it?" + +"She didn't show it. Either you want to tease, or you've forgotten how +such things are with young people--or at least girls." + +"Yes, it's all a long time ago with me, and I never was a girl. Besides, +the frank and direct behavior of Kenby and Mrs. Adding has been very +obliterating to my early impressions of love-making." + +"It certainly hasn't been ideal," said Mrs. March with a sigh. + +"Why hasn't it been ideal?" he asked. "Kenby is tremendously in love +with her; and I believe she's had a fancy for him from the beginning. +If it hadn't been for Rose she would have accepted him at once; and now +he's essential to them both in their helplessness. As for Papa Triscoe +and his Europeanized scruples, if they have any reality at all they're +the residuum of his personal resentment, and Kenby and Mrs. Adding have +nothing to do with their unreality. His being in love with her is no +reason why he shouldn't be helpful to her when she needs him, and every +reason why he should. I call it a poem, such as very few people have the +luck to live out together." + +Mrs. March listened with mounting fervor, and when he stopped, she cried +out, "Well, my dear, I do believe you are right! It is ideal, as you +say; it's a perfect poem. And I shall always say--" + +She stopped at the mocking light which she caught in his look, and +perceived that he had been amusing himself with her perennial enthusiasm +for all sorts of love-affairs. But she averred that she did not care; +what he had said was true, and she should always hold him to it. + +They were again in the wedding-journey sentiment in which they had left +Carlsbad, when they found themselves alone together after their escape +from the pressure of others' interests. The tide of travel was towards +Frankfort, where the grand parade was to take place some days later. +They were going to Weimar, which was so few hours out of their way that +they simply must not miss it; and all the way to the old literary capital +they were alone in their compartment, with not even a stranger, much less +a friend to molest them. The flying landscape without was of their own +early autumnal mood, and when the vineyards of Wurzburg ceased to purple +it, the heavy after-math of hay and clover, which men, women, and +children were loading on heavy wains, and driving from the meadows +everywhere, offered a pastoral and pleasing change. It was always the +German landscape; sometimes flat and fertile, sometimes hilly and poor; +often clothed with dense woods, but always charming, with castled tops in +ruin or repair, and with levels where Gothic villages drowsed within +their walls, and dreamed of the mediaeval past, silent, without apparent +life, except for some little goose-girl driving her flock before her as +she sallied out into the nineteenth century in search of fresh pasturage. + +As their train mounted among the Thuringian uplands they were aware of a +finer, cooler air through their open window. The torrents foamed white +out of the black forests of fir and pine, and brawled along the valleys, +where the hamlets roused themselves in momentary curiosity as the train +roared into them from the many tunnels. The afternoon sunshine had the +glister of mountain sunshine everywhere, and the travellers had a +pleasant bewilderment in which their memories of Switzerland and the +White Mountains mixed with long-dormant emotions from Adirondack +sojourns. They chose this place and that in the lovely region where they +lamented that they had not come at once for the after-cure, and they +appointed enough returns to it in future years to consume all the summers +they had left to live. + + + +LIX. + +It was falling night when they reached Weimar, where they found at the +station a provision of omnibuses far beyond the hotel accommodations. +They drove first to the Crown-Prince, which was in a promising state of +reparation, but which for the present could only welcome them to an +apartment where a canvas curtain cut them off from a freshly plastered +wall. The landlord deplored the fact, and sent hospitably out to try and +place them at the Elephant. But the Elephant was full, and the Russian +Court was full too. Then the landlord of the Crown-Prince bethought +himself of a new hotel, of the second class, indeed, but very nice, where +they might get rooms, and after the delay of an hour, they got a carriage +and drove away from the Crown-Prince, where the landlord continued to the +last as benevolent as if they had been a profit instead of a loss to him. + +The streets of the town at nine o'clock were empty and quiet, and they +instantly felt the academic quality of the place. Through the pale night +they could see that the architecture was of the classic sentiment which +they were destined to feel more and more; at one point they caught a +fleeting glimpse of two figures with clasped hands and half embraced, +which they knew for the statues of Goethe and Schiller; and when they +mounted to their rooms at the Grand-Duke of Saxe-Weimar, they passed +under a fresco representing Goethe and four other world-famous poets, +Shakspere, Milton, Tasso, and Schiller. The poets all looked like +Germans, as was just, and Goethe was naturally chief among them; he +marshalled the immortals on their way, and Schiller brought up the rear +and kept them from going astray in an Elysium where they did not speak +the language. For the rest, the hotel was brand-new, of a quite American +freshness, and was pervaded by a sweet smell as of straw matting, and +provided with steam-radiators. In the sense of its homelikeness the +Marches boasted that they were never going away from it. + +In the morning they discovered that their windows looked out on the +grand-ducal museum, with a gardened space before and below its +classicistic bulk, where, in a whim of the weather, the gay flowers were +full of sun. In a pleasant illusion of taking it unawares, March +strolled up through the town; but Weimar was as much awake at that hour +as at any of the twenty-four, and the tranquillity of its streets, where +he encountered a few passers several blocks apart, was their habitual +mood. He came promptly upon two objects which he would willingly have +shunned: a 'denkmal' of the Franco-German war, not so furiously bad as +most German monuments, but antipathetic and uninteresting, as all +patriotic monuments are; and a woman-and-dog team. In the shock from +this he was sensible that he had not seen any woman-and-dog teams for +some time, and he wondered by what civic or ethnic influences their +distribution was so controlled that they should have abounded in Hamburg, +Leipsic, and Carlsbad, and wholly ceased in Nuremberg, Ansbach, and +Wurzburg, to reappear again in Weimar, though they seemed as +characteristic of all Germany as the ugly denkmals to her victories over +France. + +The Goethe and Schiller monument which he had glimpsed the night before +was characteristic too, but less offensively so. German statues at the +best are conscious; and the poet-pair, as the inscription calls them, +have the air of showily confronting posterity with their clasped hands, +and of being only partially rapt from the spectators. But they were more +unconscious than any other German statues that March had seen, and he +quelled a desire to ask Goethe, as he stood with his hand on Schiller's +shoulder, and looked serenely into space far above one of the typical +equipages of his country, what he thought of that sort of thing. But +upon reflection he did not know why Goethe should be held personally +responsible for the existence of the woman-and-dog team. He felt that he +might more reasonably attribute to his taste the prevalence of classic +profiles which he began to note in the Weimar populace. This could be a +sympathetic effect of that passion for the antique which the poet brought +back with him from his sojourn in Italy; though many of the people, +especially the children, were bow-legged. Perhaps the antique had: begun +in their faces, and had not yet got down to their legs; in any case they +were charming children, and as a test of their culture, he had a mind to +ask a little girl if she could tell him where the statue of Herder was, +which he thought he might as well take in on his ramble, and so be done +with as many statues as he could. She answered with a pretty regret in +her tender voice, "That I truly cannot," and he was more satisfied than +if she could, for he thought it better to be a child and honest, than to +know where any German statue was. + +He easily found it for himself in the place which is called the Herder +Platz after it. He went into the Peter and Paul Church there; where +Herder used to preach sermons, sometimes not at all liked by the nobility +and gentry for their revolutionary tendency; the sovereign was shielded +from the worst effects of his doctrine by worshipping apart from other +sinners in a glazed gallery. Herder is buried in the church, and when +you ask where, the sacristan lifts a wooden trap-door in the pavement, +and you think you are going down into the crypt, but you are only to see +Herder's monumental stone, which is kept covered so to save it from +passing feet. Here also is the greatest picture of that great soul Luke +Kranach, who had sincerity enough in his paining to atone for all the +swelling German sculptures in the world. It is a crucifixion, and the +cross is of a white birch log, such as might have been cut out of the +Weimar woods, shaved smooth on the sides, with the bark showing at the +edges. Kranach has put himself among the spectators, and a stream of +blood from the side of the Savior falls in baptism upon the painter's +head. He is in the company of John the Baptist and Martin Luther; Luther +stands with his Bible open, and his finger on the line, "The blood of +Jesus cleanseth us." + +Partly because he felt guilty at doing all these things without his wife, +and partly because he was now very hungry, March turned from them and got +back to his hotel, where she was looking out for him from their open +window. She had the air of being long domesticated there, as she laughed +down at seeing him come; and the continued brilliancy of the weather +added to the illusion of home. + +It was like a day of late spring in Italy or America; the sun in that +gardened hollow before the museum was already hot enough to make him glad +of the shelter of the hotel. The summer seemed to have come back to +oblige them, and when they learned that they were to see Weimar in a +festive mood because this was Sedan Day, their curiosity, if not their +sympathy, accepted the chance gratefully. But they were almost moved to +wish that the war had gone otherwise when they learned that all the +public carriages were engaged, and they must have one from a stable if +they wished to drive after breakfast. Still it was offered them for such +a modest number of marks, and their driver proved so friendly and +conversable, that they assented to the course of history, and were more +and more reconciled as they bowled along through the grand-ducal park +beside the waters of the classic Ilm. + +The waters of the classic Ilm are sluggish and slimy in places, and in +places clear and brooklike, but always a dull dark green in color. They +flow in the shadow of pensive trees, and by the brinks of sunny meadows, +where the after-math wanders in heavy windrows, and the children sport +joyously over the smooth-mown surfaces in all the freedom that there is +in Germany. At last, after immemorial appropriation the owners of the +earth are everywhere expropriated, and the people come into the pleasure +if not the profit of it. At last, the prince, the knight, the noble +finds, as in his turn the plutocrat will find, that his property is not +for him, but for all; and that the nation is to enjoy what he takes from +it and vainly thinks to keep from it. Parks, pleasaunces, gardens, set +apart for kings, are the play-grounds of the landless poor in the Old +World, and perhaps yield the sweetest joy of privilege to some state-sick +ruler, some world-weary princess, some lonely child born to the solitude +of sovereignty, as they each look down from their palace windows upon the +leisure of overwork taking its little holiday amidst beauty vainly +created for the perpetual festival of their empty lives. + +March smiled to think that in this very Weimar, where sovereignty had +graced and ennobled itself as nowhere else in the world by the +companionship of letters and the arts, they still were not hurrying first +to see the palace of a prince, but were involuntarily making it second to +the cottage of a poet. But in fact it is Goethe who is forever the +prince in Weimar. His greatness blots out its history, his name fills +the city; the thought of him is its chiefest imitation and largest +hospitality. The travellers remembered, above all other facts of the +grand-ducal park, that it was there he first met Christiane Vulpius, +beautiful and young, when he too was beautiful and young, and took her +home to be his love, to the just and lasting displeasure of Fran von +Stein, who was even less reconciled when, after eighteen years of due +reflection, the love of Goethe and Christiane became their marriage. +They, wondered just where it was he saw the young girl coming to meet him +as the Grand-Duke's minister with an office-seeking petition from her +brother, Goethe's brother author, long famed and long forgotten for his +romantic tale of "Rinaldo Rinaldini." + +They had indeed no great mind, in their American respectability, for that +rather matter-of-fact and deliberate liaison, and little as their +sympathy was for the passionless intellectual intrigue with the Frau von +Stein, it cast no halo of sentiment about the Goethe cottage to suppose +that there his love-life with Christiane began. Mrs. March even resented +the fact, and when she learned later that it was not the fact at all, she +removed it from her associations with the pretty place almost +indignantly. + +In spite of our facile and multiple divorces we Americans are worshipers +of marriage, and if a great poet, the minister of a prince, is going to +marry a poor girl, we think he had better not wait till their son is +almost of age. Mrs. March would not accept as extenuating circumstances +the Grand-Duke's godfatherhood, or Goethe's open constancy to Christiane, +or the tardy consecration of their union after the French sack of, +Weimar, when the girl's devotion had saved him from the rudeness of the +marauding soldiers. For her New England soul there were no degrees in +such guilt; and, perhaps there are really not so many as people have +tried to think, in their deference to Goethe's greatness. But certainly +the affair was not so simple for a grand-ducal minister of world-wide +renown, and he might well have felt its difficulties, for he could not +have been proof against the censorious public opinion of Weimar, or the +yet more censorious private opinion of Fran von Stein. + +On that lovely Italo-American morning no ghost of these old dead +embarrassments lingered within or without the Goethe garden-house. +The trees which the poet himself planted flung a sun-shot shadow upon it, +and about its feet basked a garden of simple flowers, from which the +sweet lame girl who limped through the rooms and showed them, gathered a +parting nosegay for her visitors. The few small livingrooms were above +the ground-floor, with kitchen and offices below in the Italian fashion; +in one of the little chambers was the camp-bed which Goethe carried with +him on his journeys through Italy; and in the larger room at the front +stood the desk where he wrote, with the chair before it from which he +might just have risen. + +All was much more livingly conscious of the great man gone than the proud +little palace in the town, which so abounds with relics and memorials of +him. His library, his study, his study table, with everything on it just +as he left it when + + "Cadde la stanca mana." + +are there, and there is the death-chair facing the window, from which he +gasped for "more light" at last. The handsome, well-arranged rooms are +full of souvenirs of his travel, and of that passion for Italy which he +did so much to impart to all German hearts, and whose modern waning +leaves its records here of an interest pathetically, almost amusingly, +faded. They intimate the classic temper to which his mind tended more +and more, and amidst the multitude of sculptures, pictures, prints, +drawings, gems, medals, autographs, there is the sense of the many- +mindedness, the universal taste, for which he found room in little +Weimar, but not in his contemporaneous Germany. But it is all less +keenly personal, less intimate than the simple garden-house, or else, +with the great troop of people going through it, and the custodians +lecturing in various voices and languages to the attendant groups, the +Marches had it less to themselves, and so imagined him less in it. + + + + +LX. + +All palaces have a character of tiresome unlivableness which is common to +them everywhere, and very probably if one could meet their proprietors in +them one would as little remember them apart afterwards as the palaces +themselves. It will not do to lift either houses or men far out of the +average; they become spectacles, ceremonies; they cease to have charm, to +have character, which belong to the levels of life, where alone there are +ease and comfort, and human nature may be itself, with all the little +delightful differences repressed in those who represent and typify. + +As they followed the custodian through the grand-ducal Residenz at +Weimar, March felt everywhere the strong wish of the prince who was +Goethe's friend to ally himself with literature, and to be human at least +in the humanities. He came honestly by his passion for poets; his mother +had known it in her time, and Weimar was the home of Wieland and of +Herder before the young Grand-Duke came back from his travels bringing +Goethe with him, and afterwards attracting Schiller. The story of that +great epoch is all there in the Residenz, told as articulately as a +palace can. + +There are certain Poets' Rooms, frescoed with illustrations of Goethe, +Schiller, and Wieland; there is the room where Goethe and the Grand-Duke +used to play chess together; there is the conservatory opening from it +where they liked to sit and chat; everywhere in the pictures and +sculptures, the engraving and intaglios, are the witnesses of the tastes +they shared, the love they both had for Italy, and for beautiful Italian +things. The prince was not so great a prince but that he could very +nearly be a man; the court was perhaps the most human court that ever +was; the Grand-Duke and the grand poet were first boon companions, and +then monarch and minister working together for the good of the country; +they were always friends, and yet, as the American saw in the light of +the New World, which he carried with him, how far from friends! At best +it was make-believe, the make-believe of superiority and inferiority, the +make-believe of master and man, which could only be the more painful and +ghastly for the endeavor of two generous spirits to reach and rescue each +other through the asphyxiating unreality; but they kept up the show of +equality faithfully to the end. Goethe was born citizen of a free +republic, and his youth was nurtured in the traditions of liberty; he was +one of the greatest souls of any time, and he must have known the +impossibility of the thing they pretended; but he died and made no sign, +and the poet's friendship with the prince has passed smoothly into +history as one of the things that might really be. They worked and +played together; they dined and danced, they picnicked and poetized, each +on his own side of the impassable gulf; with an air of its not being +there which probably did not deceive their contemporaries so much as +posterity. + +A part of the palace was of course undergoing repair; and in the gallery +beyond the conservatory a company of workmen were sitting at a table +where they had spread their luncheon. They were somewhat subdued by the +consciousness of their august environment; but the sight of them was +charming; they gave a kindly interest to the place which it had wanted +before; and which the Marches felt again in another palace where the +custodian showed them the little tin dishes and saucepans which the +German Empress Augusta and her sisters played with when they were +children. The sight of these was more affecting even than the withered +wreaths which they had left on the death-bed of their mother, and which +are still mouldering there. + +This was in the Belvedere, the country house on the height overlooking +Weimar, where the grand-ducal family spend the month of May, and where +the stranger finds himself amid overwhelming associations of Goethe, +although the place is so full of relics and memorials of the owners. +It seemed in fact to be a storehouse for the wedding-presents of the +whole connection, which were on show in every room; Mrs. March hardly +knew whether they heightened the domestic effect or took from it; but +they enabled her to verify with the custodian's help certain royal +intermarriages which she had been in doubt about before. + +Her zeal for these made such favor with him that he did not spare them a +portrait of all those which March hoped to escape; he passed them over, +scarcely able to stand, to the gardener, who was to show them the open- +air theatre where Goethe used to take part in the plays. + +The Natur-Theater was of a classic ideal, realized in the trained vines +and clipped trees which formed the coulisses. There was a grassy space +for the chorus and the commoner audience, and then a few semicircular +gradines cut in the turf, one alcove another, where the more honored +spectators sat. Behind the seats were plinths bearing the busts of +Goethe, Schiller, Wieland, and Herder. It was all very pretty, and if +ever the weather in Weimar was dry enough to permit a performance, it +must have been charming to see a play in that open day to which the drama +is native, though in the late hours it now keeps in the thick air of +modern theatres it has long forgotten the fact. It would be difficult to +be Greek under a German sky, even when it was not actually raining, but +March held that with Goethe's help it might have been done at Weimar, and +his wife and he proved themselves such enthusiasts for the Natur-Theater +that the walnut-faced old gardener who showed it put together a sheaf of +the flowers that grew nearest it and gave them to Mrs. March for a +souvenir. + +They went for a cup of tea to the cafe which looks, as from another +eyebrow of the hill, out over lovely little Weimar in the plain below. +In a moment of sunshine the prospect was very smiling; but their spirits +sank over their tea when it came; they were at least sorry they had not +asked for coffee. Most of the people about them were taking beer, +including the pretty girls of a young ladies' school, who were there with +their books and needle-work, in the care of one of the teachers, +apparently for the afternoon. + +Mrs. March perceived that they were not so much engaged with their books +or their needle-work but they had eyes for other things, and she followed +the glances of the girls till they rested upon the people at a table +somewhat obliquely to the left. These were apparently a mother and +daughter, and they were listening to a young man who sat with his back to +Mrs. March, and leaned low over the table talking to them. They were +both smiling radiantly, and as the girl smiled she kept turning herself +from the waist up, and slanting her face from this side to that, as if to +make sure that every one saw her smiling. + +Mrs. March felt her husband's gaze following her own, and she had just +time to press her finger firmly on his arm and reduce his cry of +astonishment to the hoarse whisper in which he gasped, "Good gracious! +It's the pivotal girl!" + +At the same moment the girl rose with her mother, and with the young man, +who had risen too, came directly toward the Marches on their way out of +the place without noticing them, though Burnamy passed so near that Mrs. +March could almost have touched him. + +She had just strength to say, "Well, my dear! That was the cut direct." + +She said this in order to have her husband reassure her. "Nonsense! He +never saw us. Why didn't you speak to him?" + +"Speak to him? I never shall speak to him again. No! This is the last +of Mr. Burnamy for me. I shouldn't have minded his not recognizing us, +for, as you say, I don't believe he saw us; but if he could go back to +such a girl as that, and flirt with her, after Miss Triscoe, that's all I +wish to know of him. Don't you try to look him up, Basil! I'm glad- +yes, I'm glad he doesn't know how Stoller has come to feel about him; he +deserves to suffer, and I hope he'll keep on suffering: You were quite +right, my dear--and it shows how true your instinct is in such things (I +don't call it more than instinct)--not to tell him what Stoller said, and +I don't want you ever should." + +She had risen in her excitement, and was making off in such haste that +she would hardly give him time to pay for their tea, as she pulled him +impatiently to their carriage. + +At last he got a chance to say, "I don't think I can quite promise that; +my mind's been veering round in the other direction. I think I shall +tell him." + +"What! After you've seen him flirting with that girl? Very well, then, +you won't, my dear; that's all! He's behaving very basely to Agatha." + +"What's his flirtation with all the girls in the universe to do with my +duty to him? He has a right to know what Stoller thinks. And as to his +behaving badly toward Miss Triscoe, how has he done it? So far as you +know, there is nothing whatever between them. She either refused him +outright, that last night in Carlsbad, or else she made impossible +conditions with him. Burnamy is simply consoling himself, and I don't +blame him." + +"Consoling himself with a pivotal girl!" cried Mrs. March. + +"Yes, with a pivotal girl. Her pivotality may be a nervous idiosyncrasy, +or it may be the effect of tight lacing; perhaps she has to keep turning +and twisting that way to get breath. But attribute the worst motive: say +it is to make people look at her! Well, Burnamy has a right to look with +the rest; and I am not going to renounce him because he takes refuge with +one pretty girl from another. It's what men have been doing from the +beginning of time." + +"Oh, I dare say!" + +"Men," he went on, "are very delicately constituted; very peculiarly. +They have been known to seek the society of girls in general, of any +girl, because some girl has made them happy; and when some girl has made +them unhappy, they are still more susceptible. Burnamy may be merely +amusing himself, or he may be consoling himself; but in either case I +think the pivotal girl has as much right to him as Miss Triscoe. She had +him first; and I'm all for her." + + + + +LXI. + +Burnamy came away from seeing the pivotal girl and her mother off on the +train which they were taking that evening for Frankfort and Hombourg, and +strolled back through the Weimar streets little at ease with himself. +While he was with the girl and near her he had felt the attraction by +which youth impersonally draws youth, the charm which mere maid has for +mere man; but once beyond the range of this he felt sick at heart and +ashamed. He was aware of having used her folly as an anodyne for the +pain which was always gnawing at him, and he had managed to forget it in +her folly, but now it came back, and the sense that he had been reckless +of her rights came with it. He had done his best to make her think him +in love with her, by everything but words; he wondered how he could be +such an ass, such a wicked ass, as to try making her promise to write to +him from Frankfort; he wished never to see her again, and he wished still +less to hear from her. It was some comfort to reflect that she had not +promised, but it was not comfort enough to restore him to such +fragmentary self-respect as he had been enjoying since he parted with +Agatha Triscoe in Carlsbad; he could not even get back to the resentment +with which he had been staying himself somewhat before the pivotal girl +unexpectedly appeared with her mother in Weimar. + +It was Sedan Day, but there was apparently no official observance of the +holiday, perhaps because the Grand-Duke was away at the manoeuvres, with +all the other German princes. Burnamy had hoped for some voluntary +excitement among the people, at least enough to warrant him in making a +paper about Sedan Day in Weimar, which he could sell somewhere; but the +night was falling, and there was still no sign of popular rejoicing over +the French humiliation twenty-eight years before, except in the multitude +of Japanese lanterns which the children were everywhere carrying at the +ends of sticks. Babies had them in their carriages, and the effect of +the floating lights in the winding, up-and-down-hill streets was charming +even to Burnamy's lack-lustre eyes. He went by his hotel and on to a +cafe with a garden, where there was a patriotic, concert promised; he +supped there, and then sat dreamily behind his beer, while the music +banged and brayed round him unheeded. + +Presently he heard a voice of friendly banter saying in English, "May I +sit at your table?" and he saw an ironical face looking down on him. +"There doesn't seem any other place." + +"Why, Mr. March!" Burnamy sprang up and wrung the hand held out to him, +but he choked with his words of recognition; it was so good to see this +faithful friend again, though he saw him now as he had seen him last, +just when he had so little reason to be proud of himself. + +March settled his person in the chair facing Burnamy, and then glanced +round at the joyful jam of people eating and drinking, under a firmament +of lanterns. "This is pretty," he said, "mighty pretty. I shall make +Mrs. March sorry for not coming, when I go back." + +"Is Mrs. March--she is--with you--in Weimar?" Burnamy asked stupidly. + +March forbore to take advantage of him. "Oh, yes. We saw you out at +Belvedere this afternoon. Mrs. March thought for a moment that you meant +not to see us. A woman likes to exercise her imagination in those little +flights." + +"I never dreamed of your being there--I never saw--" Burnamy began. + +"Of course not. Neither did Mrs. Etkins, nor Miss Etkins; she was +looking very pretty. Have you been here some time?" + +"Not long. A week or so. I've been at the parade at Wurzburg." + +"At Wurzburg! Ah, how little the world is, or how large Wurzburg is! +We were there nearly a week, and we pervaded the place. But there was a +great crowd for you to hide in from us. What had I better take?" +A waiter had come up, and was standing at March's elbow. "I suppose I +mustn't sit here without ordering something?" + +"White wine and selters," said Burnamy vaguely. + +"The very thing! Why didn't I think of it? It's a divine drink: it +satisfies without filling. I had it a night or two before we left home, +in the Madison Square Roof Garden. Have you seen 'Every Other Week' +lately?" + +"No," said Burnamy, with more spirit than he had yet shown. + +"We've just got our mail from Nuremberg. The last number has a poem in +it that I rather like." March laughed to see the young fellow's face +light up with joyful consciousness. "Come round to my hotel, after +you're tired here, and I'll let you see it. There's no hurry. Did you +notice the little children with their lanterns, as you came along? It's +the gentlest effect that a warlike memory ever came to. The French +themselves couldn't have minded those innocents carrying those soft +lights on the day of their disaster. You ought to get something out of +that, and I've got a subject in trust for you from Rose Adding. He and +his mother were at Wurzburg; I'm sorry to say the poor little chap didn't +seem very well. They've gone to Holland for the sea air." March had +been talking for quantity in compassion of the embarrassment in which +Burnamy seemed bound; but he questioned how far he ought to bring comfort +to the young fellow merely because he liked him. So far as he could make +out, Burnamy had been doing rather less than nothing to retrieve himself +since they had met; and it was by an impulse that he could not have +logically defended to Mrs. March that he resumed. "We found another +friend of yours in Wurzburg: Mr. Stoller." + +"Mr. Stoller?" Burnamy faintly echoed. + +"Yes; he was there to give his daughters a holiday during the manoeuvres; +and they made the most of it. He wanted us to go to the parade with his +family but we declined. The twins were pretty nearly the death of +General Triscoe." + +Again Burnamy echoed him. "General Triscoe?" + +"Ah, yes: I didn't tell you. General Triscoe and his daughter had come +on with Mrs. Adding and Rose. Kenby--you remember Kenby, On the +Norumbia?--Kenby happened to be there, too; we were quite a family party; +and Stoller got the general to drive out to the manoeuvres with him and +his girls." + +Now that he was launched, March rather enjoyed letting himself go. He +did not know what he should say to Mrs. March when he came to confess +having told Burnamy everything before she got a chance at him; he pushed +on recklessly, upon the principle, which probably will not hold in +morals, that one may as well be hung for a sheep as a lamb. "I have a +message for you from Mr. Stoller." + +"For me?" Burnamy gasped. + +"I've been wondering how I should put it, for I hadn't expected to see +you. But it's simply this: he wants you to know--and he seemed to want +me to know--that he doesn't hold you accountable in the way he did. He's +thought it all over, and he's decided that he had no right to expect you +to save him from his own ignorance where he was making a show of +knowledge. As he said, he doesn't choose to plead the baby act. He says +that you're all right, and your place on the paper is open to you." + +Burnamy had not been very prompt before, but now he seemed braced for +instant response. "I think he's wrong," he said, so harshly that the +people at the next table looked round. "His feeling as he does has +nothing to do with the fact, and it doesn't let me out." + +March would have liked to take him in his arms; he merely said, "I think +you're quite right, as to that. But there's such a thing as forgiveness, +you know. It doesn't change the nature of what you've done; but as far +as the sufferer from it is concerned, it annuls it." + +"Yes, I understand that. But I can't accept his forgiveness if I hate +him." + +"But perhaps you won't always hate him. Some day you may have a chance +to do him a good turn. It's rather banale; but there doesn't seem any +other way. Well, I have given you his message. Are you going with me to +get that poem?" + +When March had given Burnamy the paper at his hotel, and Burnamy had put +it in his pocket, the young man said he thought he would take some +coffee, and he asked March to join him in the dining-room where they had +stood talking. + +"No, thank you," said the elder, "I don't propose sitting up all night, +and you'll excuse me if I go to bed now. It's a little informal to leave +a guest--" + +"You're not leaving a guest! I'm at home here. I'm staying in this +hotel too." + +March said, "Oh!" and then he added abruptly, "Good-night," and went up +stairs under the fresco of the five poets. + +"Whom were you talking with below?" asked Mrs. March through the door +opening into his room from hers. + +"Burnamy," he answered from within. "He's staying in this house. He let +me know just as I was going to turn him out for the night. It's one of +those little uncandors of his that throw suspicion on his honesty in +great things." + +"Oh! Then you've been telling him," she said, with a mental bound high +above and far beyond the point. + +"Everything." + +"About Stoller, too?" + +"About Stoller and his daughters, and Mrs. Adding and Rose and Kenby and +General Triscoe--and Agatha." + +"Very well. That's what I call shabby. Don't ever talk to me again +about the inconsistencies of women. But now there's something perfectly +fearful." + +"What is it?" + +"A letter from Miss Triscoe came after you were gone, asking us to find +rooms in some hotel for her and her father to-morrow. He isn't well, and +they're coming. And I've telegraphed them to come here. Now what do you +say?" + + + + +LXII. + +They could see no way out of the trouble, and Mrs. March could not resign +herself to it till her husband suggested that she should consider it +providential. This touched the lingering superstition in which she had +been ancestrally taught to regard herself as a means, when in a very +tight place, and to leave the responsibility with the moral government of +the universe. As she now perceived, it had been the same as ordered that +they should see Burnamy under such conditions in the afternoon that they +could not speak to him, and hear where he was staying; and in an inferior +degree it had been the same as ordered that March should see him in the +evening and tell him everything, so that she should know just how to act +when she saw him in the morning. If he could plausibly account for the +renewal of his flirtation with Miss Elkins, or if he seemed generally +worthy apart from that, she could forgive him. + +It was so pleasant when he came in at breakfast with his well-remembered +smile, that she did not require from him any explicit defence. While +they talked she was righting herself in an undercurrent of drama with +Miss Triscoe, and explaining to her that they could not possibly wait +over for her and her father in Weimar, but must be off that day for +Berlin, as they had made all their plans. It was not easy, even in drama +where one has everything one's own way, to prove that she could not +without impiety so far interfere with the course of Providence as to +prevent Miss Triscoe's coming with her father to the same hotel where +Burnamy was staying. She contrived, indeed, to persuade her that she had +not known he was staying there when she telegraphed them where to come, +and that in the absence of any open confidence from Miss Triscoe she was +not obliged to suppose that his presence would be embarrassing. + +March proposed leaving her with Burnamy while he went up into the town +and interviewed the house of Schiller, which he had not done yet; and as +soon as he got himself away she came to business, breaking altogether +from the inner drama with Miss Triscoe and devoting herself to Burnamy. +They had already got so far as to have mentioned the meeting with the +Triscoes in Wurzburg, and she said: "Did Mr. March tell you they were +coming here? Or, no! We hadn't heard then. Yes, they are coming to- +morrow. They may be going to stay some time. She talked of Weimar when +we first spoke of Germany on the ship." Burnamy said nothing, and she +suddenly added, with a sharp glance, "They wanted us to get them rooms, +and we advised their coming to this house." He started very +satisfactorily, and "Do you think they would be comfortable, here?" she +pursued. + +"Oh, yes, very. They can have my room; it's southeast; I shall be going +into other quarters." She did not say anything; and "Mrs. March," he +began again, "what is the use of my beating about the bush? You must +know what I went back to Carlsbad for, that night--" + +"No one ever told--" + +"Well, you must have made a pretty good guess. But it was a failure. I +ought to have failed, and I did. She said that unless her father liked +it--And apparently he hasn't liked it." Burnamy smiled ruefully. + +"How do you know? She didn't know where you were!" + +"She could have got word to me if she had had good news for me. They've +forwarded other letters from Pupp's. But it's all right; I had no +business to go back to Carlsbad. Of course you didn't know I was in this +house when you told them to come; and I must clear out. I had better +clear out of Weimar, too." + +"No, I don't think so; I have no right to pry into your affairs, but--" + +"Oh, they're wide enough open!" + +"And you may have changed your mind. I thought you might, when I saw you +yesterday at Belvedere--" + +"I was only trying to make bad worse." + +"Then I think the situation has changed entirely through what Mr. Stoller +said to Mr. March." + +"I can't see how it has. I committed an act of shabby treachery, and I'm +as much to blame as if he still wanted to punish me for it." + +"Did Mr. March say that to you?" + +"No; I said that to Mr. March; and he couldn't answer it, and you can't. +You're very good, and very kind, but you can't answer it." + +"I can answer it very well," she boasted, but she could find nothing +better to say than, "It's your duty to her to see her and let her know." + +"Doesn't she know already?" + +"She has a right to know it from you. I think you are morbid, Mr. +Burnamy. You know very well I didn't like your doing that to Mr. +Stoller. I didn't say so at the time, because you seemed to feel it +enough yourself. But I did like your owning up to it," and here Mrs. +March thought it time to trot out her borrowed battle-horse again. "My +husband always says that if a person owns up to an error, fully and +faithfully, as you've always done, they make it the same in its +consequences to them as if it had never been done." + +"Does Mr. March say that?" asked Burnamy with a relenting smile. + +"Indeed he does!" + +Burnamy hesitated; then he asked, gloomily again: + +"And what about the consequences to the, other fellow?" + +"A woman," said Mrs. March, "has no concern with them. And besides, I +think you've done all you could to save Mr. Stoller from the +consequences." + +"I haven't done anything." + +"No matter. You would if you could. I wonder," she broke off, to +prevent his persistence at a point where her nerves were beginning to +give way, "what can be keeping Mr. March?" + +Nothing much more important, it appeared later, than the pleasure of +sauntering through the streets on the way to the house of Schiller, and +looking at the pretty children going to school, with books under their +arms. It was the day for the schools to open after the long summer +vacation, and there was a freshness of expectation in the shining faces +which, if it could not light up his own graybeard visage, could at least +touch his heart: + +When he reached the Schiller house he found that it was really not the +Schiller house, but the Schiller flat, of three or four rooms, one flight +up, whose windows look out upon the street named after the poet. The +whole place is bare and clean; in one corner of the large room fronting +the street stands Schiller's writing-table, with his chair before it; +with the foot extending toward this there stands, in another corner, the +narrow bed on which he died; some withered wreaths on the pillow frame a +picture of his deathmask, which at first glance is like his dead face +lying there. It is all rather tasteless, and all rather touching, and +the place with its meagre appointments, as compared with the rich Goethe +house, suggests that personal competition with Goethe in which Schiller +is always falling into the second place. Whether it will be finally so +with him in literature it is too early to ask of time, and upon other +points eternity will not be interrogated. "The great, Goethe and the +good Schiller," they remain; and yet, March reasoned, there was something +good in Goethe and something great, in Schiller. + +He was so full of the pathos of their inequality before the world that he +did not heed the warning on the door of the pastry-shop near the Schiller +house, and on opening it he bedaubed his hand with the fresh paint on it. +He was then in such a state, that he could not bring his mind to bear +upon the question of which cakes his wife would probably prefer, and he +stood helplessly holding up his hand till the good woman behind the +counter discovered his plight, and uttered a loud cry of compassion. +She ran and got a wet napkin, which she rubbed with soap, and then she +instructed him by word and gesture to rub his hand upon it, and she did +not leave him till his rescue was complete. He let her choose a variety +of the cakes for him, and came away with a gay paper bag full of them, +and with the feeling that he had been in more intimate relations with the +life of Weimar than travellers are often privileged to be. He argued +from the instant and intelligent sympathy of the pastry woman a high +grade of culture in all classes; and he conceived the notion of +pretending to Mrs. March that he had got these cakes from, a descendant +of Schiller. + +His deceit availed with her for the brief moment in which she always, +after so many years' experience of his duplicity, believed anything he +told her. They dined merrily together at their hotel, and then Burnamy +came down to the station with them and was very comfortable to March in +helping him to get their tickets and their baggage registered. The train +which was to take them to Halle, where they were to change for Berlin, +was rather late, and they had but ten minutes after it came in before it +would start again. Mrs. March was watching impatiently at the window of +the waiting-room for the dismounting passengers to clear the platform and +allow the doors to be opened; suddenly she gave a cry, and turned and ran +into the passage by which the new arrivals were pouring out toward the +superabundant omnibuses. March and Burnamy, who had been talking apart, +mechanically rushed after her and found her kissing Miss Triscoe and +shaking hands with the general amidst a tempest of questions and answers, +from which it appeared that the Triscoes had got tired of staying in +Wurzburg, and had simply come on to Weimar a day sooner than they had +intended. + +The, general was rather much bundled up for a day which was mild for a +German summer day, and he coughed out an explanation that he had taken an +abominable cold at that ridiculous parade, and had not shaken it off yet. +He had a notion that change of air would be better for him; it could not +be worse. + +He seemed a little vague as to Burnamy, rather than inimical. While the +ladies were still talking eagerly together in proffer and acceptance of +Mrs. March's lamentations that she should be going away just as Miss +Triscoe was coming, he asked if the omnibus for their hotel was there. +He by no means resented Burnamy's assurance that it was, and he did not +refuse to let him order their baggage, little and large, loaded upon it. +By the time this was done, Mrs. March and Miss Triscoe had so far +detached themselves from each other that they could separate after one +more formal expression of regret and forgiveness. With a lament into +which she poured a world of inarticulate emotions, Mrs. March wrenched +herself from the place, and suffered herself, to be pushed toward her +train. But with the last long look which she cast over her shoulder, +before she vanished into the waiting-room, she saw Miss Triscoe and +Burnamy transacting the elaborate politenesses of amiable strangers with +regard to the very small bag which the girl had in her hand. He +succeeded in relieving her of it; and then he led the way out of the +station on the left of the general, while Miss Triscoe brought up the +rear. + + + + +LXIII. + +From the window of the train as it drew out Mrs. March tried for a +glimpse of the omnibus in which her proteges were now rolling away +together. As they were quite out of sight in the omnibus, which was +itself out of sight, she failed, but as she fell back against her seat +she treated the recent incident with a complexity and simultaneity of +which no report can give an idea. At the end one fatal conviction +remained: that in everything she had said she had failed to explain to +Miss Triscoe how Burnamy happened to be in Weimar and how he happened to +be there with them in the station. She required March to say how she had +overlooked the very things which she ought to have mentioned first, and +which she had on the point of her tongue the whole time. She went over +the entire ground again to see if she could discover the reason why she +had made such an unaccountable break, and it appeared that she was led to +it by his rushing after her with Burnamy before she had had a chance to +say a word about him; of course she could not say anything in his +presence. This gave her some comfort, and there was consolation in the +fact that she had left them together without the least intention or +connivance, and now, no matter what happened, she could not accuse +herself, and he could not accuse her of match-making. + +He said that his own sense of guilt was so great that he should not dream +of accusing her of anything except of regret that now she could never +claim the credit of bringing the lovers together under circumstances so +favorable. As soon as they were engaged they could join in renouncing +her with a good conscience, and they would probably make this the basis +of their efforts to propitiate the general. + +She said she did not care, and with the mere removal of the lovers in +space, her interest in them began to abate. They began to be of a minor +importance in the anxieties of the change of trains at Halle, and in the +excitement of settling into the express from Frankfort there were moments +when they were altogether forgotten. The car was of almost American +length, and it ran with almost American smoothness; when the conductor +came and collected an extra fare for their seats, the Marches felt that +if the charge had been two dollars instead of two marks they would have +had every advantage of American travel. + +On the way to Berlin the country was now fertile and flat, and now +sterile and flat; near the capital the level sandy waste spread almost to +its gates. The train ran quickly through the narrow fringe of suburbs, +and then they were in one of those vast Continental stations which put +our outdated depots to shame. The good 'traeger' who took possession of +them and their hand-bags, put their boxes on a baggage-bearing drosky, +and then got them another drosky for their personal transportation. This +was a drosky of the first-class, but they would not have thought it so, +either from the vehicle itself, or from the appearance of the driver and +his horses. The public carriages of Germany are the shabbiest in the +world; at Berlin the horses look like old hair trunks and the drivers +like their moth-eaten contents. + +The Marches got no splendor for the two prices they paid, and their +approach to their hotel on Unter den Linden was as unimpressive as the +ignoble avenue itself. It was a moist, cold evening, and the mean, +tiresome street, slopped and splashed under its two rows of small trees, +to which the thinning leaves clung like wet rags, between long lines of +shops and hotels which had neither the grace of Paris nor the grandiosity +of New York. March quoted in bitter derision: + + "Bees, bees, was it your hydromel, + Under the Lindens?" + +and his wife said that if Commonwealth Avenue in Boston could be imagined +with its trees and without their beauty, flanked by the architecture of +Sixth Avenue, with dashes of the west side of Union Square, that would be +the famous Unter den Linden, where she had so resolutely decided that +they would stay while in Berlin. + +They had agreed upon the hotel, and neither could blame the other because +it proved second-rate in everything but its charges. They ate a poorish +table d'hote dinner in such low spirits that March had no heart to get a +rise from his wife by calling her notice to the mouse which fed upon the +crumbs about their feet while they dined. Their English-speaking waiter +said that it was a very warm evening, and they never knew whether this +was because he was a humorist, or because he was lonely and wished to +talk, or because it really was a warm evening, for Berlin. When they had +finished, they went out and drove about the greater part of the evening +looking for another hotel, whose first requisite should be that it was +not on Unter den Linden. What mainly determined Mrs. March in favor of +the large, handsome, impersonal place they fixed upon was the fact that +it was equipped for steam-heating; what determined March was the fact +that it had a passenger-office where when he wished to leave, he could +buy his railroad tickets and have his baggage checked without the +maddening anxiety, of doing it at the station. But it was precisely in +these points that the hotel which admirably fulfilled its other functions +fell short. The weather made a succession of efforts throughout their +stay to clear up cold; it merely grew colder without clearing up, but +this seemed to offer no suggestion of steam for heating their bleak +apartment and the chilly corridors to the management. With the help of a +large lamp which they kept burning night and day they got the temperature +of their rooms up to sixty; there was neither stove nor fireplace, the +cold electric bulbs diffused a frosty glare; and in the vast, stately +dining-room with its vaulted roof, there was nothing to warm them but +their plates, and the handles of their knives and forks, which, by a +mysterious inspiration, were always hot. When they were ready to go, +March experienced from the apathy of the baggage clerk and the reluctance +of the porters a more piercing distress than any he had known at the +railroad stations; and one luckless valise which he ordered sent after +him by express reached his bankers in Paris a fortnight overdue, with an +accumulation of charges upon it outvaluing the books which it contained. + +But these were minor defects in an establishment which had many merits, +and was mainly of the temperament and intention of the large English +railroad hotels. They looked from their windows down into a gardened +square, peopled with a full share of the superabounding statues of Berlin +and frequented by babies and nurse maids who seemed not to mind the cold +any more than the stone kings and generals. The aspect of this square, +like the excellent cooking of the hotel and the architecture of the +imperial capital, suggested the superior civilization of Paris. Even the +rows of gray houses and private palaces of Berlin are in the French +taste, which is the only taste there is in Berlin. The suggestion of +Paris is constant, but it is of Paris in exile, and without the chic +which the city wears in its native air. The crowd lacks this as much as +the architecture and the sculpture; there is no distinction among the men +except for now and then a military figure, and among the women no style +such as relieves the commonplace rash of the New York streets. The +Berliners are plain and ill dressed, both men and women, and even the +little children are plain. Every one is ill dressed, but no one is +ragged, and among the undersized homely folk of the lower classes there +is no such poverty-stricken shabbiness as shocks and insults the sight in +New York. That which distinctly recalls our metropolis is the lofty +passage of the elevated trains intersecting the prospectives of many +streets; but in Berlin the elevated road is carried on massive brick +archways and not lifted upon gay, crazy iron ladders like ours. + +When you look away from this, and regard Berlin on its aesthetic, side +you are again in that banished Paris, whose captive art-soul is made to +serve, so far as it may be enslaved to such an effect, in the celebration +of the German triumph over France. Berlin has never the presence of a +great capital, however, in spite of its perpetual monumental insistence. +There is no streaming movement in broad vistas; the dull looking +population moves sluggishly; there is no show of fine equipages. The +prevailing tone of the city and the sky is gray; but under the cloudy +heaven there is no responsive Gothic solemnity in the architecture. +There are hints of the older German cities in some of the remote and +observe streets, but otherwise all is as new as Boston, which in fact the +actual Berlin hardly antedates. + +There are easily more statues in Berlin than in any other city in the +world, but they only unite in failing to give Berlin an artistic air. +They stand in long rows on the cornices; they crowd the pediments; they +poise on one leg above domes and arches; they shelter themselves in +niches; they ride about on horseback; they sit or lounge on street +corners or in garden walks; all with a mediocrity in the older sort which +fails of any impression. If they were only furiously baroque they would +be something, and it may be from a sense of this that there is a self- +assertion in the recent sculptures, which are always patriotic, more +noisy and bragging than anything else in perennial brass. This offensive +art is the modern Prussian avatar of the old German romantic spirit, and +bears the same relation to it that modern romanticism in literature bears +to romance. It finds its apotheosis in the monument to Kaiser Wilhelm +I., a vast incoherent group of swelling and swaggering bronze, +commemorating the victory of the first Prussian Emperor in the war with +the last French Emperor, and avenging the vanquished upon the victors by +its ugliness. The ungainly and irrelevant assemblage of men and animals +backs away from the imperial palace, and saves itself too soon from +plunging over the border of a canal behind it, not far from Rauch's great +statue of the great Frederic. To come to it from the simplicity and +quiet of that noble work is like passing from some exquisite masterpiece +of naturalistic acting to the rant and uproar of melodrama; and the +Marches stood stunned and bewildered by its wild explosions. + +When they could escape they found themselves so convenient to the +imperial palace that they judged best to discharge at once the obligation +to visit it which must otherwise weigh upon them. They entered the court +without opposition from the sentinel, and joined other strangers +straggling instinctively toward a waiting-room in one corner of the +building, where after they had increased to some thirty, a custodian took +charge of them, and led them up a series of inclined plains of brick to +the state apartments. In the antechamber they found a provision of +immense felt over-shoes which they were expected to put on for their +passage over the waxed marquetry of the halls. These roomy slippers were +designed for the accommodation of the native boots; and upon the mixed +company of foreigners the effect was in the last degree humiliating. The +women's skirts some what hid their disgrace, but the men were openly put +to shame, and they shuffled forward with their bodies at a convenient +incline like a company of snow-shoers. In the depths of his own +abasement March heard a female voice behind him sighing in American +accents, "To think I should be polishing up these imperial floors with my +republican feet!" + +The protest expressed the rebellion which he felt mounting in his own +heart as they advanced through the heavily splendid rooms, in the +historical order of the family portraits recording the rise of the +Prussian sovereigns from Margraves to Emperors. He began to realize here +the fact which grew open him more and more that imperial Germany is not +the effect of a popular impulse but of a dynastic propensity. There is +nothing original in the imperial palace, nothing national; it embodies +and proclaims a powerful personal will, and in its adaptations of French +art it appeals to no emotion in the German witness nobler than his pride +in the German triumph over the French in war. March found it tiresome +beyond the tiresome wont of palaces, and he gladly shook off the sense of +it with his felt shoes. "Well," he confided to his wife when they were +fairly out-of-doors, "if Prussia rose in the strength of silence, as +Carlyle wants us to believe, she is taking it out in talk now, and tall +talk." + +"Yes, isn't she!" Mrs. March assented, and with a passionate desire for +excess in a bad thing, which we all know at times, she looked eagerly +about her for proofs of that odious militarism of the empire, which ought +to have been conspicuous in the imperial capital; but possibly because +the troops were nearly all away at the manoeuvres, there were hardly more +in the streets than she had sometimes seen in Washington. Again the +German officers signally failed to offer her any rudeness when she met +them on the side-walks. There were scarcely any of them, and perhaps +that might have been the reason why they were not more aggressive; but a +whole company of soldiers marching carelessly up to the palace from the +Brandenburg gate, without music, or so much style as our own militia +often puts on, regarded her with inoffensive eyes so far as they looked +at her. She declared that personally there was nothing against the +Prussians; even when in uniform they were kindly and modest-looking men; +it was when they got up on pedestals, in bronze or marble, that they, +began to bully and to brag. + + + + +LXIV. + +The dinner which the Marches got at a restaurant on Unter den Linden +almost redeemed the avenue from the disgrace it had fallen into with +them. It was, the best meal they had yet eaten in Europe, and as to fact +and form was a sort of compromise between a French dinner and an English +dinner which they did not hesitate to pronounce Prussian. The waiter who +served it was a friendly spirit, very sensible of their intelligent +appreciation of the dinner; and from him they formed a more respectful +opinion of Berlin civilization than they had yet held. After the manner +of strangers everywhere they judged the country they were visiting from +such of its inhabitants as chance brought them in contact with; and it +would really be a good thing for nations that wish to stand well with the +world at large to look carefully to the behavior of its cabmen and car +conductors, its hotel clerks and waiters, its theatre-ticket sellers and +ushers, its policemen and sacristans, its landlords and salesmen; for by +these rather than by its society women and its statesmen and divines, is +it really judged in the books of travellers; some attention also should +be paid to the weather, if the climate is to be praised. In the railroad +cafe at Potsdam there was a waiter so rude to the Marches that if they +had not been people of great strength of character he would have undone +the favorable impression the soldiers and civilians of Berlin generally +had been at such pains to produce in them; and throughout the week of +early September which they passed there, it rained so much and so +bitterly, it was so wet and so cold, that they might have come away +thinking it's the worst climate in the world, if it had not been for a +man whom they saw in one of the public gardens pouring a heavy stream +from his garden hose upon the shrubbery already soaked and shuddering in +the cold. But this convinced them that they were suffering from weather +and not from the climate, which must really be hot and dry; and they went +home to their hotel and sat contentedly down in a temperature of sixty +degrees. The weather, was not always so bad; one day it was dry cold +instead of wet cold, with rough, rusty clouds breaking a blue sky; +another day, up to eleven in the forenoon, it was like Indian summer; +then it changed to a harsh November air; and then it relented and ended +so mildly, that they hired chairs in the place before the imperial palace +for five pfennigs each, and sat watching the life before them. Motherly +women-folk were there knitting; two American girls in chairs near them +chatted together; some fine equipages, the only ones they saw in Berlin, +went by; a dog and a man (the wife who ought to have been in harness was +probably sick, and the poor fellow was forced to take her place)passed +dragging a cart; some schoolboys who had hung their satchels upon the low +railing were playing about the base of the statue of King William III. +in the joyous freedom of German childhood. + +They seemed the gayer for the brief moments of sunshine, but to the +Americans, who were Southern by virtue of their sky, the brightness had a +sense of lurking winter in it, such as they remembered feeling on a sunny +day in Quebec. The blue heaven looked sad; but they agreed that it fitly +roofed the bit of old feudal Berlin which forms the most ancient wing of +the Schloss. This was time-blackened and rude, but at least it did not +try to be French, and it overhung the Spree which winds through the city +and gives it the greatest charm it has. In fact Berlin, which is +otherwise so grandiose without grandeur and so severe without +impressiveness, is sympathetic wherever the Spree opens it to the sky. +The stream is spanned by many bridges, and bridges cannot well be +unpicturesque, especially if they have statues to help them out. The +Spree abounds in bridges, and it has a charming habit of slow hay-laden +barges; at the landings of the little passenger-steamers which ply upon +it there are cafes and summer-gardens, and these even in the inclement +air of September suggested a friendly gayety. + +The Marches saw it best in the tour of the elevated road in Berlin which +they made in an impassioned memory of the elevated road in New York. The +brick viaducts which carry this arch the Spree again and again in their +course through and around the city, but with never quite such spectacular +effects as our spidery tressels, achieve. The stations are pleasant, +sometimes with lunch-counters and news-stands, but have not the comic- +opera-chalet prettiness of ours, and are not so frequent. The road is +not so smooth, the cars not so smooth-running or so swift. On the other +hand they are comfortably cushioned, and they are never overcrowded. The +line is at times above, at times below the houses, and at times on a +level with them, alike in city and in suburbs. The train whirled out of +thickly built districts, past the backs of the old houses, into outskirts +thinly populated, with new houses springing up without order or +continuity among the meadows and vegetable-gardens, and along the ready- +made, elm-planted avenues, where wooden fences divided the vacant lots. +Everywhere the city was growing out over the country, in blocks and +detached edifices of limestone, sandstone, red and yellow brick, larger +or smaller, of no more uniformity than our suburban dwellings, but never +of their ugliness or lawless offensiveness. + +In an effort for the intimate life of the country March went two +successive mornings for his breakfast to the Cafe Bauer, which has some +admirable wall-printings, and is the chief cafe on Unter den Linden; but +on both days there were more people in the paintings than out of them. +The second morning the waiter who took his order recognized him and +asked, "Wie gestern?" and from this he argued an affectionate constancy +in the Berliners, and a hospitable observance of the tastes of strangers. +At his bankers, on the other hand, the cashier scrutinized his signature +and remarked that it did not look like the signature in his letter of +credit, and then he inferred a suspicious mind in the moneyed classes of +Prussia; as he had not been treated with such unkind doubt by Hebrew +bankers anywhere, he made a mental note that the Jews were politer than +the Christians in Germany. In starting for Potsdam he asked a traeger +where the Potsdam train was and the man said, "Dat train dare," and in +coming back he helped a fat old lady out of the car, and she thanked him +in English. From these incidents, both occurring the same day in the +same place, the inference of a widespread knowledge of our language in +all classes of the population was inevitable. + +In this obvious and easy manner he studied contemporary civilization in +the capital. He even carried his researches farther, and went one rainy +afternoon to an exhibition of modern pictures in a pavilion of the +Thiergarten, where from the small attendance he inferred an indifference +to the arts which he would not ascribe to the weather. One evening at a +summer theatre where they gave the pantomime of the 'Puppenfee' and the +operetta of 'Hansel and Gretel', he observed that the greater part of the +audience was composed of nice plain young girls and children, and he +noted that there was no sort of evening dress; from the large number of +Americans present he imagined a numerous colony in Berlin, where they +mast have an instinctive sense of their co-nationality, since one of them +in the stress of getting his hat and overcoat when they all came out, +confidently addressed him in English. But he took stock of his +impressions with his wife, and they seemed to him so few, after all, that +he could not resist a painful sense of isolation in the midst of the +environment. + +They made a Sunday excursion to the Zoological Gardens in the +Thiergarten, with a large crowd of the lower classes, but though they had +a great deal of trouble in getting there by the various kinds of +horsecars and electric cars, they did not feel that they had got near to +the popular life. They endeavored for some sense of Berlin society by +driving home in a drosky, and on the way they passed rows of beautiful +houses, in French and Italian taste, fronting the deep, damp green park +from the Thiergartenstrasse, in which they were confident cultivated and +delightful people lived; but they remained to the last with nothing but +their unsupported conjecture. + + + + +LXV. + +Their excursion to Potsdam was the cream of their sojourn in Berlin. +They chose for it the first fair morning, and they ran out over the flat +sandy plains surrounding the capital, and among the low hills surrounding +Potsdam before it actually began to rain. + +They wished immediately to see Sans Souci for the great Frederick's sake, +and they drove through a lively shower to the palace, where they waited +with a horde of twenty-five other tourists in a gusty colonnade before +they were led through Voltaire's room and Frederick's death chamber. + +The French philosopher comes before the Prussian prince at Sans Souci +even in the palatial villa which expresses the wilful caprice of the +great Frederick as few edifices have embodied the whims or tastes of +their owners. The whole affair is eighteenth-century French, as the +Germans conceived it. The gardened terrace from which the low, one-story +building, thickly crusted with baroque sculptures, looks down into a +many-colored parterre, was luxuriantly French, and sentimentally French +the colonnaded front opening to a perspective of artificial ruins, with +broken pillars lifting a conscious fragment of architrave against the +sky. Within, all again was French in the design, the decoration and the +furnishing. At that time there, was in fact no other taste, and +Frederick, who despised and disused his native tongue, was resolved upon +French taste even in his intimate companionship. The droll story of his +coquetry with the terrible free spirit which he got from France to be his +guest is vividly reanimated at Sans Souci, where one breathes the very +air in which the strangely assorted companions lived, and in which they +parted so soon to pursue each other with brutal annoyance on one side, +and with merciless mockery on the other. Voltaire was long ago revenged +upon his host for all the indignities he suffered from him in their +comedy; he left deeply graven upon Frederick's fame the trace of those +lacerating talons which he could strike to the quick; and it is the +singular effect of this scene of their brief friendship that one feels +there the pre-eminence of the wit in whatever was most important to +mankind. + +The rain had lifted a little and the sun shone out on the bloom of the +lovely parterre where the Marches profited by a smiling moment to wander +among the statues and the roses heavy with the shower. Then they walked +back to their carriage and drove to the New Palace, which expresses in +differing architectural terms the same subjection to an alien ideal of +beauty. It is thronged without by delightfully preposterous rococco +statues, and within it is rich in all those curiosities and memorials of +royalty with which palaces so well know how to fatigue the flesh and +spirit of their visitors. + +The Marches escaped from it all with sighs and groans of relief, and +before they drove off to see the great fountain of the Orangeries, they +dedicated a moment of pathos to the Temple of Friendship which Frederick +built in memory of unhappy Wilhelmina of Beyreuth, the sister he loved in +the common sorrow of their wretched home, and neglected when he came to +his kingdom. It is beautiful in its rococco way, swept up to on its +terrace by most noble staircases, and swaggered over by baroque +allegories of all sorts: Everywhere the statues outnumbered the visitors, +who may have been kept away by the rain; the statues naturally did not +mind it. + +Sometime in the midst of their sight-seeing the Marches had dinner in a +mildewed restaurant, where a compatriotic accent caught their ear in a +voice saying to the waiter, "We are in a hurry." They looked round and +saw that it proceeded from the pretty nose of a young American girl, who +sat with a party of young American girls at a neighboring table. Then +they perceived that all the people in that restaurant were Americans, +mostly young girls, who all looked as if they were in a hurry. But +neither their beauty nor their impatience had the least effect with the +waiter, who prolonged the dinner at his pleasure, and alarmed the Marches +with the misgiving that they should not have time for the final palace on +their list. + +This was the palace where the father of Frederick, the mad old Frederick +William, brought up his children with that severity which Solomon urged +but probably did not practise. It is a vast place, but they had time for +it all, though the custodian made the most of them as the latest comers +of the day, and led them through it with a prolixity as great as their +waiter's. He was a most friendly custodian, and when he found that they +had some little notion of what they wanted to see, he mixed zeal with his +patronage, and in a manner made them his honored guests. They saw +everything but the doorway where the faithful royal father used to lie in +wait for his children and beat them, princes and princesses alike, with +his knobby cane as they came through. They might have seen this doorway +without knowing it; but from the window overlooking the parade-ground +where his family watched the manoeuvres of his gigantic grenadiers, they +made sure of just such puddles as Frederick William forced his family to +sit with their feet in, while they dined alfresco on pork and cabbage; +and they visited the room of the Smoking Parliament where he ruled his +convives with a rod of iron, and made them the victims of his bad jokes. +The measuring-board against which he took the stature of his tall +grenadiers is there, and one room is devoted to those masterpieces which +he used to paint in the agonies of gout. His chef d'oeuvre contains a +figure with two left feet, and there seemed no reason why it might not. +have had three. In another room is a small statue of Carlyle, who did so +much to rehabilitate the house which the daughter of it, Wilhelmina, did +so much to demolish in the regard of men. + +The palace is now mostly kept for guests, and there is a chamber where +Napoleon slept, which is not likely to be occupied soon by any other +self-invited guest of his nation. It is perhaps to keep the princes of +Europe humble that hardly a palace on the Continent is without the +chamber of this adventurer, who, till he stooped to be like them, was +easily their master. Another democracy had here recorded its invasion in +the American stoves which the custodian pointed out in the corridor when +Mrs, March, with as little delay as possible, had proclaimed their +country. The custodian professed an added respect for them from the +fact, and if he did not feel it, no doubt he merited the drink money +which they lavished on him at parting. + +Their driver also was a congenial spirit, and when he let them out of his +carriage at the station, he excused the rainy day to them. He was a +merry fellow beyond the wont of his nation, and he-laughed at the bad +weather, as if it had been a good joke on them. + +His gayety, and the red sunset light, which shone on the stems of the +pines on the way back to Berlin, contributed to the content in which they +reviewed their visit to Potsdam. They agreed that the place was +perfectly charming, and that it was incomparably expressive of kingly +will and pride. These had done there on the grand scale what all the +German princes and princelings had tried to do in imitation and emulation +of French splendor. In Potsdam the grandeur, was not a historical growth +as at Versailles, but was the effect of family genius, in which there was +often the curious fascination of insanity. + +They felt this strongly again amidst the futile monuments of the +Hohenzollern Museum, in Berlin, where all the portraits, effigies, +personal belongings and memorials of that gifted, eccentric race are +gathered and historically disposed. The princes of the mighty line who +stand out from the rest are Frederick the Great and his infuriate. +father; and in the waxen likeness of the son, a small thin figure, +terribly spry, and a face pitilessly alert, appears something of the +madness which showed in the life of the sire. + +They went through many rooms in which the memorials of the kings and +queens, the emperors and empresses were carefully ordered, and felt no +kindness except before the relics relating to the Emperor Frederick and +his mother. In the presence of the greatest of the dynasty they +experienced a kind of terror which March expressed, when they were safely +away, in the confession of his joy that those people were dead. + + + + + +LXVI. + +The rough weather which made Berlin almost uninhabitable to Mrs. March +had such an effect with General Triscoe at Weimar that under the orders +of an English-speaking doctor he retreated from it altogether and went to +bed. Here he escaped the bronchitis which had attacked him, and his +convalesence left him so little to complain of that he could not always +keep his temper. In the absence of actual offence, either from his +daughter or from Burnamy, his sense of injury took a retroactive form; it +centred first in Stoller and the twins; then it diverged toward Rose +Adding, his mother and Kenby, and finally involved the Marches in the +same measure of inculpation; for they had each and all had part, directly +or indirectly, in the chances that brought on his cold. + +He owed to Burnamy the comfort of the best room in the hotel, and he was +constantly dependent upon his kindness; but he made it evident that he +did not over-value Burnamy's sacrifice and devotion, and that it was not +an unmixed pleasure, however great a convenience, to have him about. In +giving up his room, Burnamy had proposed going out of the hotel +altogether; but General Triscoe heard of this with almost as great +vexation as he had accepted the room. He besought him not to go, but so +ungraciously that his daughter was ashamed, and tried to atone for his +manner by the kindness of her own. + +Perhaps General Triscoe would not have been without excuse if he were not +eager to have her share with destitute merit the fortune which she had +hitherto shared only with him. He was old, and certain luxuries had +become habits if not necessaries with him. Of course he did not say this +to himself; and still less did he say it to her. But he let her see that +he did not enjoy the chance which had thrown them again in such close +relations with Burnamy, and he did pot hide his belief that the Marches +were somehow to blame for it. This made it impossible for her to write +at once to Mrs. March as she had promised; but she was determined that it +should not make her unjust to Burnamy. She would not avoid him; she +would not let anything that had happened keep her from showing that she +felt his kindness and was glad of his help. + +Of course they knew no one else in Weimar, and his presence merely as a +fellow-countryman would have been precious. He got them a doctor, +against General Triscoe's will; he went for his medicines; he lent him +books and papers; he sat with him and tried to amuse him. But with the +girl he attempted no return to the situation at Carlsbad; there is +nothing like the delicate pride of a young man who resolves to forego +unfair advantage in love. + +The day after their arrival, when her father was making up for the sleep +he had lost by night, she found herself alone in the little reading-room +of the hotel with Burnamy for the first time, and she said: "I suppose +you must have been all over Weimar by this time." + +"Well, I've been here, off and on, almost a month. It's an interesting +place. There's a good deal of the old literary quality left." + +"And you enjoy that! I saw"--she added this with a little unnecessary +flush--"your poem in the paper you lent papa." + +"I suppose I ought to have kept that back. But I couldn't." He laughed, +and she said: + +"You must find a great deal of inspiration in such a literary place." + +"It isn't lying about loose, exactly." Even in the serious and +perplexing situation in which he found himself he could not help being +amused with her unliterary notions of literature, her conventional and +commonplace conceptions of it. They had their value with him as those of +a more fashionable world than his own, which he believed was somehow a +greater world. At the same time he believed that she was now interposing +them between the present and the past, and forbidding with them any +return to the mood of their last meeting in Carlsbad. He looked at her +ladylike composure and unconsciousness, and wondered if she could be the +same person and the same person as they who lost themselves in the crowd +that night and heard and said words palpitant with fate. Perhaps there +had been no such words; perhaps it was all a hallucination. He must +leave her to recognize that it was reality; till she did so, he felt +bitterly that there was nothing for him but submission and patience; if +she never did so, there was nothing for him but acquiescence. + +In this talk and in the talks they had afterwards she seemed willing +enough to speak of what had happened since: of coming on to Wurzburg with +the Addings and of finding the Marches there; of Rose's collapse, and of +his mother's flight seaward with him in the care of Kenby, who was so +fortunately going to Holland, too. He on his side told her of going to +Wurzburg for the manoeuvres, and they agreed that it was very strange +they had not met. + +She did not try to keep their relations from taking the domestic +character which was inevitable, and it seemed to him that this in itself +was significant of a determination on her part that was fatal to his +hopes. With a lover's indefinite power of blinding himself to what is +before his eyes, he believed that if she had been more diffident of him, +more uneasy in his presence, he should have had more courage; but for her +to breakfast unafraid with him, to meet him at lunch and dinner in the +little dining-room where they were often the only guests, and always the +only English-speaking guests, was nothing less than prohibitive. + +In the hotel service there was one of those men who are porters in this +world, but will be angels in the next, unless the perfect goodness of +their looks, the constant kindness of their acts, belies them. The +Marches had known and loved the man in their brief stay, and he had been +the fast friend of Burnamy from the moment they first saw each other at +the station. He had tenderly taken possession of General Triscoe on his +arrival, and had constituted himself the nurse and keeper of the +irascible invalid, in the intervals of going to the trains, with a zeal +that often relieved his daughter and Burnamy. The general in fact +preferred him to either, and a tacit custom grew up by which when August +knocked at his door, and offered himself in his few words of serviceable +English, that one of them who happened to be sitting with the general +gave way, and left him in charge. The retiring watcher was then apt to +encounter the other watcher on the stairs, or in the reading-room, or in +the tiny, white-pebbled door-yard at a little table in the shade of the +wooden-tubbed evergreens. From the habit of doing this they one day +suddenly formed the habit of going across the street to that gardened +hollow before and below the Grand-Ducal Museum. There was here a bench +in the shelter of some late-flowering bush which the few other +frequenters of the place soon recognized as belonging to the young +strangers, so that they would silently rise and leave it to them when +they saw them coming. Apparently they yielded not only to their right, +but to a certain authority which resides in lovers, and which all other +men, and especially all other women, like to acknowledge and respect. + +In the absence of any civic documents bearing upon the affair it is +difficult to establish the fact that this was the character in which +Agatha and Burnamy were commonly regarded by the inhabitants of Weimar. +But whatever their own notion of their relation was, if it was not that +of a Brant and a Brautigam, the people of Weimar would have been puzzled +to say what it was. It was known that the gracious young lady's father, +who would naturally have accompanied them, was sick, and in the fact that +they were Americans much extenuation was found for whatever was +phenomenal in their unencumbered enjoyment of each other's society. + +If their free American association was indistinguishably like the peasant +informality which General Triscoe despised in the relations of Kenby and +Mrs. Adding, it is to be said in his excuse that he could not be fully +cognizant of it, in the circumstances, and so could do nothing to prevent +it. His pessimism extended to his health; from the first he believed +himself worse than the doctor thought him, and he would have had some +other physician if he had not found consolation in their difference of +opinion and the consequent contempt which he was enabled to cherish for +the doctor in view of the man's complete ignorance of the case. In proof +of his own better understanding of it, he remained in bed some time after +the doctor said he might get up. + +Nearly ten days had passed before he left his room, and it was not till +then that he clearly saw how far affairs had gone with his daughter and +Burnamy, though even then his observance seemed to have anticipated +theirs. He found them in a quiet acceptance of the fortune which had +brought them together, so contented that they appeared to ask nothing +more of it. The divine patience and confidence of their youth might +sometimes have had almost the effect of indifference to a witness who had +seen its evolution from the moods of the first few days of their reunion +in Weimar. To General Triscoe, however, it looked like an understanding +which had been made without reference to his wishes, and had not been +directly brought to his knowledge. + +"Agatha," he said, after due note of a gay contest between her and +Burnamy over the pleasure and privilege of ordering his supper sent to +his room when he had gone back to it from his first afternoon in the open +air, "how long is that young man going to stay in Weimar?" + +"Why, I don't know!" she answered, startled from her work of beating the +sofa pillows into shape, and pausing with one of them in her hand. +"I never asked him." She looked down candidly into his face where he sat +in an easy-chair waiting for her arrangement of the sofa. "What makes +you ask?" + +He answered with another question. "Does he know that we had thought of +staying here?" + +"Why, we've always talked of that, haven't we? Yes, he knows it. Didn't +you want him to know it, papa? You ought to have begun on the ship, +then. Of course I've asked him what sort of place it was. I'm sorry if +you didn't want me to." + +"Have I said that? It's perfectly easy to push on to Paris. Unless--" + +"Unless what?" Agatha dropped the pillow, and listened respectfully. But +in spite of her filial attitude she could not keep her youth and strength +and courage from quelling the forces of the elderly man. + +He said querulously, "I don't see why you take that tone with me. You +certainly know what I mean. But if you don't care to deal openly with +me, I won't ask you." He dropped his eyes from her face, and at the same +time a deep blush began to tinge it, growing up from her neck to her +forehead. "You must know--you're not a child," he continued, still with +averted eyes, "that this sort of thing can't go on... It must be +something else, or it mustn't be anything at all. I don't ask you for +your confidence, and you know that I've never sought to control you." + +This was not the least true, but Agatha answered, either absently or +provisionally, "No." + +"And I don't seek to do so now. If you have nothing that you wish to +tell me--" + +He waited, and after what seemed a long time, she asked as if she had not +heard him, "Will you lie down a little before your supper, papa?" + +"I will lie down when I feel like it," he answered. "Send August with +the supper; he can look after me." + +His resentful tone, even more than his words, dismissed her, but she left +him without apparent grievance, saying quietly, "I will send August." + + + + +LXVII. + +Agatha did not come down to supper with Burnamy. She asked August, when +she gave him her father's order, to have a cup of tea sent to her room, +where, when it came, she remained thinking so long that it was rather +tepid by the time she drank it. + +Then she went to her window, and looked out, first above and next below. +Above, the moon was hanging over the gardened hollow before the Museum +with the airy lightness of an American moon. Below was Burnamy behind +the tubbed evergreens, sitting tilted in his chair against the house +wall, with the spark of his cigar fainting and flashing like an American +firefly. Agatha went down to the door, after a little delay, and seemed +surprised to find him there; at least she said, "Oh!" in a tone of +surprise. + +Burnamy stood up, and answered, "Nice night." + +"Beautiful!" she breathed. "I didn't suppose the sky in Germany could +ever be so clear." + +"It seems to be doing its best." + +"The flowers over there look like ghosts in the light," she said +dreamily. + +"They're not. Don't you want to get your hat and wrap, and go over and +expose the fraud?" + +"Oh," she answered, as if it were merely a question of the hat and wrap, +"I have them." + +They sauntered through the garden walks for a while, long enough to have +ascertained that there was not a veridical phantom among the flowers, if +they had been looking, and then when they came to their accustomed seat, +they sat down, and she said, "I don't know that I've seen the moon so +clear since we left Carlsbad." At the last word his heart gave a jump +that seemed to lodge it in his throat and kept him from speaking, so that +she could resume without interruption, "I've got something of yours, that +you left at the Posthof. The girl that broke the dishes found it, and +Lili gave it to Mrs. March for you." This did not account for Agatha's +having the thing, whatever it was; but when she took a handkerchief from +her belt, and put out her hand with it toward him, he seemed to find that +her having it had necessarily followed. He tried to take it from her, +but his own hand trembled so that it clung to hers, and he gasped, "Can't +you say now, what you wouldn't say then?" + +The logical sequence was no more obvious than be fore; but she apparently +felt it in her turn as he had felt it in his. She whispered back, "Yes," +and then she could not get out anything more till she entreated in a +half-stifled voice, "Oh, don't!" ` + +"No, no!" he panted. "I won't--I oughtn't to have done it--I beg your +pardon--I oughtn't to have spoken,--even--I--" + +She returned in a far less breathless and tremulous fashion, but still +between laughing and crying, "I meant to make you. And now, if you're +ever sorry, or I'm ever too topping about anything, you can be perfectly +free to say that you'd never have spoken if you hadn't seen that I wanted +you to." + +"But I didn't see any such thing," he protested. "I spoke because I +couldn't help it any longer." + +She laughed triumphantly. "Of course you think so! And that shows that +you are only a man after all; in spite of your finessing. But I am going +to have the credit of it. I knew that you were holding back because you +were too proud, or thought you hadn't the right, or something. Weren't +you?" She startled him with the sudden vehemence of her challenge: "If +you pretend, that you weren't I shall never forgive you!" + +"But I was! Of course I was. I was afraid--" + +"Isn't that what I said?" She triumphed over him with another laugh, and +cowered a little closer to him, if that could be. + +They were standing, without knowing how they had got to their feet; and +now without any purpose of the kind, they began to stroll again among the +garden paths, and to ask and to answer questions, which touched every +point of their common history, and yet left it a mine of inexhaustible +knowledge for all future time. Out of the sweet and dear delight of this +encyclopedian reserve two or three facts appeared with a present +distinctness. One of these was that Burnamy had regarded her refusal to +be definite at Carlsbad as definite refusal, and had meant never to see +her again, and certainly never to speak again of love to her. Another +point was that she had not resented his coming back that last night, but +had been proud and happy in it as proof of his love, and had always meant +somehow to let him know that she was torched by his trusting her enough +to come back while be was still under that cloud with Mr. Stoller. With +further logic, purely of the heart, she acquitted him altogether of wrong +in that affair, and alleged in proof, what Mr. Stoller had said of it to +Mr. March. Burnamy owned that he knew what Stoller had said, but even in +his present condition he could not accept fully her reading of that +obscure passage of his life. He preferred to put the question by, and +perhaps neither of them cared anything about it except as it related to +the fact that they were now each other's forever. + +They agreed that they must write to Mr. and Mrs. March at once; or at +least, Agatha said, as soon as she had spoken to her father. At her +mention of her father she was aware of a doubt, a fear, in Burnamy which +expressed itself by scarcely more than a spiritual consciousness from his +arm to the hands which she had clasped within it. "He has always +appreciated you," she said courageously, "and I know he will see it in +the right light." + +She probably meant no more than to affirm her faith in her own ability +finally to bring her father to a just mind concerning it; but Burnamy +accepted her assurance with buoyant hopefulness, and said he would see +General Triscoe the first thing in the morning. + +"No, I will see him," she said, "I wish to see him first; he will expect +it of me. We had better go in, now," she added, but neither made any +motion for the present to do so. On the contrary, they walked in the +other direction, and it was an hour after Agatha declared their duty in +the matter before they tried to fulfil it. + +Then, indeed, after they returned to the hotel, she lost no time in going +to her father beyond that which must be given to a long hand-pressure +under the fresco of the five poets on the stairs landing, where her ways +and Burnamy's parted. She went into her own room, and softly opened the +door into her father's and listened. + +"Well?" he said in a sort of challenging voice. + +"Have you been asleep?" she asked. + +"I've just blown out my light. What has kept you?" + +She did not reply categorically. Standing there in the sheltering dark, +she said, "Papa, I wasn't very candid with you, this afternoon. I am +engaged to Mr. Burnamy." + +"Light the candle," said her father. "Or no," he added before she could +do so. "Is it quite settled?" + +"Quite," she answered in a voice that admitted of no doubt. "That is, as +far as it can be, without you." + +"Don't be a hypocrite, Agatha," said the general. "And let me try to get +to sleep. You know I don't like it, and you know I can't help it." + +"Yes," the girl assented. + +"Then go to bed," said the general concisely. + +Agatha did not obey her father. She thought she ought to kiss him, but +she decided that she had better postpone this; so she merely gave him a +tender goodnight, to which he made no response, and shut herself into her +own room, where she remained sitting and staring out into the moonlight, +with a smile that never left her lips. + +When the moon sank below the horizon, the sky was pale with the coming +day, but before it was fairly dawn, she saw something white, not much +greater than some moths, moving before her window. She pulled the valves +open and found it a bit of paper attached to a thread dangling from +above. She broke it loose and in the morning twilight she read the great +central truth of the universe: + +"I love you. L. J. B." + +She wrote under the tremendous inspiration: + +"So do I. Don't be silly. A. T." + +She fastened the paper to the thread again, and gave it a little twitch. +She waited for the low note of laughter which did not fail to flutter +down from above; then she threw herself upon the bed, and fell asleep. + +It was not so late as she thought when she woke, and it seemed, at +breakfast, that Burnamy had been up still earlier. Of the three involved +in the anxiety of the night before General Triscoe was still respited +from it by sleep, but he woke much more haggard than either of the young +people. They, in fact, were not at all haggard; the worst was over, if +bringing their engagement to his knowledge was the worst; the formality +of asking his consent which Burnamy still had to go through was +unpleasant, but after all it was a formality. Agatha told him everything +that had passed between herself and her father, and if it had not that +cordiality on his part which they could have wished it was certainly not +hopelessly discouraging. + +They agreed at breakfast that Burnamy had better have it over as quickly +as possible, and he waited only till August came down with the general's +tray before going up to his room. The young fellow did not feel more at +his ease than the elder meant he should in taking the chair to which the +general waved him from where he lay in bed; and there was no talk wasted +upon the weather between them. + +"I suppose I know what you have come for, Mr. Burnamy," said General +Triscoe in a tone which was rather judicial than otherwise, "and I +suppose you know why you have come." The words certainly opened the way +for Burnamy, but he hesitated so long to take it that the general had +abundant time to add, "I don't pretend that this event is unexpected, but +I should like to know what reason you have for thinking I should wish you +to marry my daughter. I take it for granted that you are attached to +each other, and we won't waste time on that point. Not to beat about the +bush, on the next point, let me ask at once what your means of supporting +her are. How much did you earn on that newspaper in Chicago?" + +"Fifteen hundred dollars," Burnamy answered, promptly enough. + +"Did you earn anything more, say within the last year?" + +"I got three hundred dollars advance copyright for a book I sold to a +publisher." The glory had not yet faded from the fact in Burnamy's mind. + +"Eighteen hundred. What did you get for your poem in March's book?" + +"That's a very trifling matter: fifteen dollars." + +"And your salary as private secretary to that man Stoller?" + +"Thirty dollars a week, and my expenses. But I wouldn't take that, +General Triscoe," said Burnamy. + +General Triscoe, from his 'lit de justice', passed this point in silence. +"Have you any one dependent on you?" + +"My mother; I take care of my mother," answered Burnamy, proudly. + +"Since you have broken with Stoller, what are your prospects?" + +"I have none." + +"Then you don't expect to support my daughter; you expect to live upon +her means." + +"I expect to do nothing of the kind!" cried Burnamy. "I should be +ashamed--I should feel disgraced--I should--I don't ask you--I don't ask +her till I have the means to support her--" + +"If you were very fortunate," continued the general, unmoved by the young +fellow's pain, and unperturbed by the fact that he had himself lived upon +his wife's means as long as she lived, and then upon his daughter's, "if +you went back to Stoller--" + +"I wouldn't go back to him. I don't say he's knowingly a rascal, but +he's ignorantly a rascal, and he proposed a rascally thing to me. I +behaved badly to him, and I'd give anything to undo the wrong I let him +do himself; but I'll never go back to him." + +"If you went back, on your old salary," the general persisted pitilessly, +"you would be very fortunate if you brought your earnings up to twenty- +five hundred a year." + +"Yes--" + +"And how far do you think that would go in supporting my daughter on the +scale she is used to? I don't speak of your mother, who has the first +claim upon you." + +Burnamy sat dumb; and his head which he had lifted indignantly when the +question was of Stoller, began to sink. + +The general went on. "You ask me to give you my daughter when you +haven't money enough to keep her in gowns; you ask me to give her to a +stranger--" + +"Not quite a stranger, General Triscoe," Burnamy protested. "You have +known me for three months at least, and any one who knows me in Chicago +will tell you--" + +"A stranger, and worse than a stranger," the general continued, so +pleased with the logical perfection of his position that he almost +smiled, and certainly softened toward Burnamy. "It isn't a question of +liking you, Mr. Burnamy, but of knowing you; my daughter likes you; so do +the Marches; so does everybody who has met you. I like you myself. +You've done me personally a thousand kindnesses. But I know very little +of you, in spite of our three months' acquaintance; and that little is-- +But you shall judge for yourself! You were in the confidential employ of +a man who trusted you, and you let him betray himself." + +"I did. I don't excuse it. The thought of it burns like fire. But it +wasn't done maliciously; it wasn't done falsely; it was done +inconsiderately; and when it was done, it seemed irrevocable. But it +wasn't; I could have prevented, I could have stooped the mischief; and I +didn't! I can never outlive that." + +"I know," said the general relentlessly, "that you have never attempted +any defence. That has been to your credit with me. It inclined me to +overlook your unwarranted course in writing to my daughter, when you told +her you would never see her again. What did you expect me to think, +after that, of your coming back to see her? Or didn't you expect me to +know it?" + +"I expected you to know it; I knew she would tell you. But I don't +excuse that, either. It was acting a lie to come back. All I can say is +that I had to see her again for one last time." + +"And to make sure that it was to be the last time, you offered yourself +to her." + +"I couldn't help doing that." + +"I don't say you could. I don't judge the facts at all. I leave them +altogether to you; and you shall say what a man in my position ought to +say to such a man as you have shown yourself." + +"No, I will say." The door into the adjoining room was flung open, and +Agatha flashed in from it. + +Her father looked coldly at her impassioned face. "Have you been +listening?" he asked. + +"I have been hearing--" + +"Oh!" As nearly as a man could, in bed, General Triscoe shrugged. + +"I suppose I had, a right to be in my own room. I couldn't help hearing; +and I was perfectly astonished at you, papa, the cruel way you went on, +after all you've said about Mr. Stoller, and his getting no more than he +deserved." + +"That doesn't justify me," Burnamy began, but she cut him short almost as +severely as she--had dealt with her father. + +"Yes, it does! It justifies you perfectly! And his wanting you to +falsify the whole thing afterwards, more than justifies you." + +Neither of the men attempted anything in reply to her casuistry; they +both looked equally posed by it, for different reasons; and Agatha went +on as vehemently as before, addressing herself now to one and now to the +other. + +"And besides, if it didn't justify you, what you have done yourself +would; and your never denying it, or trying to excuse it, makes it the +same as if you hadn't done it, as far as you are concerned; and that is +all I care for." Burnamy started, as if with the sense of having heard +something like this before, and with surprise at hearing it now; and she +flushed a little as she added tremulously, "And I should never, never +blame you for it, after that; it's only trying to wriggle out of things +which I despise, and you've never done that. And he simply had to come +back," she turned to her father, "and tell me himself just how it was. +And you said yourself, papa--or the same as said--that he had no right to +suppose I was interested in his affairs unless he--unless--And I should +never have forgiven him, if he hadn't told me then that he that he had +come back because he--felt the way he did. I consider that that +exonerated him for breaking his word, completely. If he hadn't broken +his word I should have thought he had acted very cruelly and--and +strangely. And ever since then, he has behaved so nobly, so honorably, +so delicately, that I don't believe he would ever have said anything +again--if I hadn't fairly forced him. Yes! Yes, I did!" she cried at a +movement of remonstrance from Burnamy. "And I shall always be proud of +you for it." Her father stared steadfastly at her, and he only lifted +his eyebrows, for change of expression, when she went over to where +Burnamy stood, and put her hand in his with a certain childlike +impetuosity. "And as for the rest," she declared, "everything I have is +his; just as everything of his would be mine if I had nothing. Or if he +wishes to take me without anything, then he can have me so, and I sha'n't +be afraid but we can get along somehow." She added, "I have managed +without a maid, ever since I left home, and poverty has no terrors for +me!" + + + + +LXVIII. + +General Triscoe submitted to defeat with the patience which soldiers +learn. He did not submit amiably; that would have been out of character, +and perhaps out of reason; but Burnamy and Agatha were both so amiable +that they supplied good-humor for all. They flaunted their rapture in +her father's face as little as they could, but he may have found their +serene satisfaction, their settled confidence in their fate, as hard to +bear as a more boisterous happiness would have been. + +It was agreed among them all that they were to return soon to America, +and Burnamy was to find some sort of literary or journalistic employment +in New York. She was much surer than he that this could be done with +perfect ease; but they were of an equal mind that General Triscoe was not +to be disturbed in any of his habits, or vexed in the tenor of his +living; and until Burnamy was at least self-supporting there must be no +talk of their being married. + +The talk of their being engaged was quite enough for the time. It +included complete and minute auto-biographies on both sides, reciprocal +analyses of character, a scientifically exhaustive comparison of tastes, +ideas and opinions; a profound study of their respective chins, noses, +eyes, hands, heights, complexions, moles and freckles, with some account +of their several friends. + +In this occupation, which was profitably varied by the confession of what +they had each thought and felt and dreamt concerning the other at every +instant since they met, they passed rapidly the days which the persistent +anxiety of General Triscoe interposed before the date of their leaving +Weimar for Paris, where it was arranged that they should spend a month +before sailing for New York. Burnamy had a notion, which Agatha +approved, of trying for something there on the New York-Paris Chronicle; +and if he got it they might not go home at once. His gains from that +paper had eked out his copyright from his book, and had almost paid his +expenses in getting the material which he had contributed to it. They +were not so great, however, but that his gold reserve was reduced to less +than a hundred dollars, counting the silver coinages which had remained +to him in crossing and recrossing frontiers. He was at times dimly +conscious of his finances, but he buoyantly disregarded the facts, as +incompatible with his status as Agatha's betrothed, if not unworthy of +his character as a lover in the abstract. + +The afternoon before they were to leave Weimar, they spent mostly in the +garden before the Grand-Ducal Museum, in a conference so important that +when it came on to rain, at one moment, they put up Burnamy's umbrella, +and continued to sit under it rather than interrupt the proceedings even +to let Agatha go back to the hotel and look after her father's packing. +Her own had been finished before dinner, so as to leave her the whole +afternoon for their conference, and to allow her father to remain in +undisturbed possession of his room as long as possible. + +What chiefly remained to be put into the general's trunk were his coats +and trousers, hanging in the closet, and August took these down, and +carefully folded and packed them. Then, to make sure that nothing had +been forgotten, Agatha put a chair into the closet when she came in, and +stood on it to examine the shelf which stretched above the hooks. + +There seemed at first to be nothing on it, and then there seemed to be +something in the further corner, which when it was tiptoed for, proved to +be a bouquet of flowers, not so faded as to seem very old; the blue satin +ribbon which they were tied up with, and which hung down half a yard, was +of entire freshness except far the dust of the shelf where it had lain. + +Agatha backed out into the room with her find in her hand, and examined +it near to, and then at arm's length. August stood by with a pair of the +general's trousers lying across his outstretched hands, and as Agatha +absently looked round at him, she caught a light of intelligence in his +eyes which changed her whole psychological relation to the withered +bouquet. Till then it had been a lifeless, meaningless bunch of flowers, +which some one, for no motive, had tossed up on that dusty shelf in the +closet. At August's smile it became something else. Still she asked +lightly enough, "Was ist loss, August?" + +His smile deepened and broadened. "Fur die Andere," he explained. + +Agatha demanded in English, "What do you mean by feardy ondery?" + +"Oddaw lehdy." + +"Other lady?" August nodded, rejoicing in big success, and Agatha closed +the door into her own room, where the general had been put for the time +so as to be spared the annoyance of the packing; then she sat down with +her hands in her lap, and the bouquet in her hands. "Now, August," she +said very calmly, "I want you to tell me-ich wunsche Sie zu mir sagen-- +what other lady--wass andere Dame--these flowers belonged to--diese +Blumen gehorte zu. Verstehen Sie?" + +August nodded brightly, and with German carefully adjusted to Agatha's +capacity, and with now and then a word or phrase of English, he conveyed +that before she and her Herr Father had appeared, there had been in +Weimar another American Fraulein with her Frau Mother; they had not +indeed staid in that hotel, but had several times supped there with the +young Herr Bornahmee, who was occupying that room before her Herr Father. +The young Herr had been much about with these American Damen, driving and +walking with them, and sometimes dining or supping with them at their +hotel, The Elephant. August had sometimes carried notes to them from the +young Herr, and he had gone for the bouquet which the gracious Fraulein +was holding, on the morning of the day that the American Damen left by +the train for Hanover. + +August was much helped and encouraged throughout by the friendly +intelligence of the gracious Fraulein, who smiled radiantly in clearing +up one dim point after another, and who now and then supplied the English +analogues which he sought in his effort to render his German more +luminous. + +At the end she returned to the work of packing, in which she directed +him, and sometimes assisted him with her own hands, having put the +bouquet on the mantel to leave herself free. She took it up again and +carried it into her own room, when she went with August to summon her +father back to his. She bade August say to the young Herr, if he saw +him, that she was going to sup with her father, and August gave her +message to Burnamy, whom he met on the stairs coming down as he was going +up with their tray. + +Agatha usually supped with her father, but that evening Burnamy was less +able than usual to bear her absence in the hotel dining-room, and he went +up to a cafe in the town for his supper. He did not stay long, and when +he returned his heart gave a joyful lift at sight of Agatha looking out +from her balcony, as if she were looking for him. He made her a gay +flourishing bow, lifting his hat high, and she came down to meet him at +the hotel door. She had her hat on and jacket over one arm and she +joined him at once for the farewell walk he proposed in what they had +agreed to call their garden. + +She moved a little ahead of him, and when they reached the place where +they always sat, she shifted her jacket to the other arm and uncovered +the hand in which she had been carrying the withered bouquet. "Here is +something I found in your closet, when I was getting papa's things out." + +"Why, what is it?" he asked innocently, as he took it from her. + +"A bouquet, apparently," she answered, as he drew the long ribbons +through his fingers, and looked at the flowers curiously, with his head +aslant. + +"Where did you get it?" + +"On the shelf." + +It seemed a long time before Burnamy said with a long sigh, as of final +recollection, "Oh, yes," and then he said nothing; and they did not sit +down, but stood looking at each other. + +"Was it something you got for me, and forgot to give me?" she asked in a +voice which would not have misled a woman, but which did its work with +the young man. + +He laughed and said, "Well, hardly! The general has been in the room +ever since you came." + +"Oh, yes. Then perhaps somebody left it there before you had the room?" + +Burnamy was silent again, but at last he said, "No, I flung it up there I +had forgotten all about it." + +"And you wish me to forget about it, too?" Agatha asked in a gayety of +tone that still deceived him. + +"It would only be fair. You made me," he rejoined, and there was +something so charming in his words and way, that she would have been glad +to do it. + +But she governed herself against the temptation and said, "Women are not +good at forgetting, at least till they know what." + +"Oh, I'll tell you, if you want to know," he said with a laugh, and at +the words she--sank provisionally in their accustomed seat. He sat down +beside her, but not so near as usual, and he waited so long before he +began that it seemed as if he had forgotten again. "Why, it's nothing. +Miss Etkins and her mother were here before you came, and this is a +bouquet that I meant to give her at the train when she left. But I +decided I wouldn't, and I threw it onto the shelf in the closet." + +"May I ask why you thought of taking a bouquet to her at the train?" + +"Well, she and her mother--I had been with them a good deal, and I +thought it would be civil." + +"And why did you decide not to be civil?" + +"I didn't want it to look like more than civility." + +"Were they here long?" + +"About a week. They left just after the Marches came." + +Agatha seemed not to heed the answer she had exacted. She sat reclined +in the corner of the seat, with her head drooping. After an interval +which was long to Burnamy she began to pull at a ring on the third finger +of her left hand, absently, as if she did not know what she was doing; +but when she had got it off she held it towards Burnamy and said quietly, +"I think you had better have this again," and then she rose and moved +slowly and weakly away. + +He had taken the ring mechanically from her, and he stood a moment +bewildered; then he pressed after her. + +"Agatha, do you--you don't mean--" + +"Yes," she said, without looking round at his face, which she knew was +close to her shoulder. "It's over. It isn't what you've done. It's +what you are. I believed in you, in spite of what you did to that man-- +and your coming back when you said you wouldn't--and--But I see now that +what you did was you; it was your nature; and I can't believe in you any +more." + +"Agatha!" he implored. "You're not going to be so unjust! There was +nothing between you and me when that girl was here! I had a right to--" + +"Not if you really cared for me! Do you think I would have flirted with +any one so soon, if I had cared for you as you pretended you did for me +that night in Carlsbad? Oh, I don't say you're false. But you're +fickle--" + +"But I'm not fickle! From the first moment I saw you, I never cared for +any one but you!" + +"You have strange ways of showing your devotion. Well, say you are not +fickle. Say, that I'm fickle. I am. I have changed my mind. I see +that it would never do. I leave you free to follow all the turning and +twisting of your fancy." She spoke rapidly, almost breathlessly, and she +gave him no chance to get out the words that seemed to choke him. She +began to run, but at the door of the hotel she stopped and waited till he +came stupidly up. "I have a favor to ask, Mr. Burnamy. I beg you will +not see me again, if you can help it before we go to-morrow. My father +and I are indebted to you for too many kindnesses, and you mustn't take +any more trouble on our account. August can see us off in the morning." + +She nodded quickly, and was gone in-doors while he was yet struggling +with his doubt of the reality of what had all so swiftly happened. + +General Triscoe was still ignorant of any change in the status to which +he had reconciled himself with so much difficulty, when he came down to +get into the omnibus for the train. Till then he had been too proud to +ask what had become of Burnamy, though he had wondered, but now he looked +about and said impatiently, "I hope that young man isn't going to keep us +waiting." + +Agatha was pale and worn with sleeplessness, but she said firmly, "He +isn't going, papa. I will tell you in the train. August will see to the +tickets and the baggage." + +August conspired with the traeger to get them a first-class compartment +to themselves. But even with the advantages of this seclusion Agatha's +confidences to her father were not full. She told her father that her +engagement was broken for reasons that did not mean anything very wrong +in Mr. Burnamy but that convinced her they could never be happy together. +As she did not give the reasons, he found a natural difficulty in +accepting them, and there was something in the situation which appealed +strongly to his contrary-mindedness. Partly from this, partly from his +sense of injury in being obliged so soon to adjust himself to new +conditions, and partly from his comfortable feeling of security from an +engagement to which his assent had been forced, he said, "I hope you're +not making a mistake." + +"Oh, no," she answered, and she attested her conviction by a burst of +sobbing that lasted well on the way to the first stop of the train. + + + + +LXIX. + +It would have been always twice as easy to go direct from Berlin to the +Hague through Hanover; but the Marches decided to go by Frankfort and the +Rhine, because they wished to revisit the famous river, which they +remembered from their youth, and because they wished to stop at +Dusseldorf, where Heinrich Heine was born. Without this Mrs. March, who +kept her husband up to his early passion for the poet with a feeling that +she was defending him from age in it, said that their silver wedding +journey would not be complete; and he began himself to think that it +would be interesting. + +They took a sleeping-car for Frankfort and they woke early as people do +in sleeping-cars everywhere. March dressed and went out for a cup of the +same coffee of which sleeping-car buffets have the awful secret in Europe +as well as America, and for a glimpse of the twilight landscape. One +gray little town, towered and steepled and red-roofed within its +mediaeval walls, looked as if it would have been warmer in something +more. There was a heavy dew, if not a light frost, over all, and in +places a pale fog began to lift from the low hills. Then the sun rose +without dispersing the cold, which was afterwards so severe in their room +at the Russischer Hof in Frankfort that in spite of the steam-radiators +they sat shivering in all their wraps till breakfast-time. + +There was no steam on in the radiators, of course; when they implored the +portier for at least a lamp to warm their hands by he turned on all the +electric lights without raising the temperature in the slightest degree. +Amidst these modern comforts they were so miserable that they vowed each +other to shun, as long as they were in Germany, or at least while the +summer lasted, all hotels which were steam-heated and electric-lighted. +They heated themselves somewhat with their wrath, and over their +breakfast they relented so far as to suffer themselves a certain interest +in the troops of all arms beginning to pass the hotel. They were +fragments of the great parade, which had ended the day before, and they +were now drifting back to their several quarters of the empire. Many of +them were very picturesque, and they had for the boys and girls running +before and beside them, the charm which armies and circus processions +have for children everywhere. But their passage filled with cruel +anxiety a large old dog whom his master had left harnessed to a milk-cart +before the hotel door; from time to time he lifted up his voice, and +called to the absentee with hoarse, deep barks that almost shook him from +his feet. + +The day continued blue and bright and cold, and the Marches gave the +morning to a rapid survey of the city, glad that it was at least not wet. +What afterwards chiefly remained to them was the impression of an old +town as quaint almost and as Gothic as old Hamburg, and a new town, +handsome and regular, and, in the sudden arrest of some streets, +apparently overbuilt. The modern architectural taste was of course +Parisian; there is no other taste for the Germans; but in the prevailing +absence of statues there was a relief from the most oppressive +characteristic of the imperial capital which was a positive delight. +Some sort of monument to the national victory over France there must have +been; but it must have been unusually inoffensive, for it left no record +of itself in the travellers' consciousness. They were aware of gardened +squares and avenues, bordered by stately dwellings, of dignified civic +edifices, and of a vast arid splendid railroad station, such as the state +builds even in minor European cities, but such as our paternal +corporations have not yet given us anywhere in America. They went to the +Zoological Garden, where they heard the customary Kalmucks at their +public prayers behind a high board fence; and as pilgrims from the most +plutrocratic country in the world March insisted that they must pay their +devoirs at the shrine of the Rothschilds, whose natal banking-house they +revered from the outside. + +It was a pity, he said, that the Rothschilds were not on his letter of +credit; he would have been willing to pay tribute to the Genius of +Finance in the percentage on at least ten pounds. But he consoled +himself by reflecting that he did not need the money; and he consoled +Mrs. March for their failure to penetrate to the interior of the +Rothschilds' birthplace by taking her to see the house where Goethe was +born. The public is apparently much more expected there, and in the +friendly place they were no doubt much more welcome than they would have +been in the Rothschild house. Under that roof they renewed a happy +moment of Weimar, which after the lapse of a week seemed already so +remote. They wondered, as they mounted the stairs from the basement +opening into a clean little court, how Burnamy was getting on, and +whether it had yet come to that understanding between him and Agatha, +which Mrs. March, at least, had meant to be inevitable. Then they became +part of some such sight-seeing retinue as followed the custodian about in +the Goethe horse in Weimar, and of an emotion indistinguishable from that +of their fellow sight-seers. They could make sure, afterwards, of a +personal pleasure in a certain prescient classicism of the house. It +somehow recalled both the Goethe houses at Weimar, and it somehow +recalled Italy. It is a separate house of two floors above the entrance, +which opens to a little court or yard, and gives access by a decent +stairway to the living-rooms. The chief of these is a sufficiently +dignified parlor or salon, and the most important is the little chamber +in the third story where the poet first opened his eyes to the light +which he rejoiced in for so long a life, and which, dying, he implored to +be with him more. It is as large as his death-chamber in Weimar, where +he breathed this prayer, and it looks down into the Italian-looking +court, where probably he noticed the world for the first time, and +thought it a paved enclosure thirty or forty feet square. In the birth- +room they keep his puppet theatre, and the place is fairly suggestive of +his childhood; later, in his youth, he could look from the parlor windows +and see the house where his earliest love dwelt. So much remains of +Goethe in the place where he was born, and as such things go, it is not a +little. The house is that of a prosperous and well-placed citizen, and +speaks of the senatorial quality in his family which Heine says he was +fond of recalling, rather than the sartorial quality of the ancestor who, +again as Heine says, mended the Republic's breeches. + +From the Goethe house, one drives by the Goethe monument to the Romer, +the famous town-hall of the old free imperial city which Frankfort once +was; and by this route the Marches drove to it, agreeing with their +coachman that he was to keep as much in the sun as possible. It was +still so cold that when they reached the Romer, and he stopped in a broad +blaze of the only means of heating that they have in Frankfort in the +summer, the travellers were loath to leave it for the chill interior, +where the German emperors were elected for so many centuries. As soon as +an emperor was chosen, in the great hall effigied round with the +portraits of his predecessors, he hurried out in the balcony, ostensibly +to show himself to the people, but really, March contended, to warm up a +little in the sun. The balcony was undergoing repairs that day, and the +travellers could not go out on it; but under the spell of the historic +interest of the beautiful old Gothic place, they lingered in the interior +till they were half-torpid with the cold. Then she abandoned to him the +joint duty of viewing the cathedral, and hurried to their carriage where +she basked in the sun till he came to her. He returned shivering, after +a half-hour's absence, and pretended that she had missed the greatest +thing in the world, but as he could never be got to say just what she had +lost, and under the closest cross-examination could not prove that this +cathedral was memorably different from hundreds of other fourteenth- +century cathedrals, she remained in a lasting content with the easier +part she had chosen. His only definite impression at the cathedral +seemed to be confined to a Bostonian of gloomily correct type, whom he +had seen doing it with his Baedeker, and not letting an object of +interest escape; and his account of her fellow-townsman reconciled Mrs. +March more and more to not having gone. + +As it was warmer out-doors than in-doors at Frankfort, and as the breadth +of sunshine increased with the approach of noon they gave the rest of the +morning to driving about and ignorantly enjoying the outside of many +Gothic churches, whose names even they did not trouble themselves to +learn. They liked the river Main whenever they came to it, because it +was so lately from Wurzburg, and because it was so beautiful with its +bridges, old and new, and its boats of many patterns. They liked the +market-place in front of the Romer not only because it was full of +fascinating bargains in curious crockery and wooden-ware, but because +there was scarcely any shade at all in it. They read from their Baedeker +that until the end of the last century no Jew was suffered to enter the +marketplace, and they rejoiced to find from all appearances that the Jews +had been making up for their unjust exclusion ever since. They were +almost as numerous there as the Anglo-Saxons were everywhere else in +Frankfort. These, both of the English and American branches of the race, +prevailed in the hotel diningroom, where the Marches had a mid-day dinner +so good that it almost made amends for the steam-heating and electric- +lighting. + +As soon as possible after dinner they took the train for Mayence, and ran +Rhinewards through a pretty country into what seemed a milder climate. +It grew so much milder, apparently, that a lady in their compartment to +whom March offered his forward-looking seat, ordered the window down when +the guard came, without asking their leave. Then the climate proved much +colder, and Mrs. March cowered under her shawls the rest of the way, and +would not be entreated to look at the pleasant level landscape near, or +the hills far off. He proposed to put up the window as peremptorily as +it had been put down, but she stayed him with a hoarse whisper, "She may +be another Baroness!" At first he did not know what she meant, then he +remembered the lady whose claims to rank her presence had so poorly +enforced on the way to Wurzburg, and he perceived that his wife was +practising a wise forbearance with their fellow-passengers, and giving +her a chance to turn out any sort of highhote she chose. She failed to +profit by the opportunity; she remained simply a selfish, disagreeable +woman, of no more perceptible distinction than their other fellow- +passenger, a little commercial traveller from Vienna (they resolved from +his appearance and the lettering on his valise that he was no other), who +slept with a sort of passionate intensity all the way to Mayence. + + + + +LXX. + +The Main widened and swam fuller as they approached the Rhine, and +flooded the low-lying fields in-places with a pleasant effect under a wet +sunset. When they reached the station in Mayence they drove interminably +to the hotel they had chosen on the river-shore, through a city handsomer +and cleaner than any American city they could think of, and great part of +the way by a street of dwellings nobler, Mrs. March owned, than even +Commonwealth Avenue in Boston. It was planted, like that, with double +rows of trees, but lacked its green lawns; and at times the sign of +Weinhandlung at a corner, betrayed that there was no such restriction +against shops as keeps the Boston street so sacred. Otherwise they had +to confess once more that any inferior city of Germany is of a more +proper and dignified presence than the most parse-proud metropolis in +America. To be sure, they said, the German towns had generally a +thousand years' start; but all the same the fact galled them. + +It was very bleak, though very beautiful when they stopped before their +hotel on the Rhine, where all their impalpable memories of their visit to +Mayence thirty years earlier precipitated themselves into something +tangible. There were the reaches of the storied and fabled stream with +its boats and bridges and wooded shores and islands; there were the +spires and towers and roofs of the town on either bank crowding to the +river's brink; and there within-doors was the stately portier in gold +braid, and the smiling, bowing, hand-rubbing landlord, alluring them to +his most expensive rooms, which so late in the season he would fain have +had them take. But in a little elevator, that mounted slowly, very +slowly, in the curve of the stairs, they went higher to something lower, +and the landlord retired baked, and left them to the ministrations of the +serving-men who arrived with their large and small baggage. All these +retired in turn when they asked to have a fire lighted in the stove, +without which Mrs. March would never have taken the fine stately rooms, +and sent back a pretty young girl to do it. She came indignant, not +because she had come lugging a heavy hod of coal and a great arm-load of +wood, but because her sense of fitness was outraged by the strange +demand. + +"What!" she cried. "A fire in September!" + +"Yes," March returned, inspired to miraculous aptness in his German by +the exigency, "yes, if September is cold." + +The girl looked at him, and then, either because she thought him mad, or +liked him merry, burst into a loud laugh, and kindled the fire without a +word more. + +He lighted all the reluctant gas-jets in the vast gilt chandelier, and in +less than half an hour the temperature of the place rose to at least +sixty-five Fahrenheit, with every promise of going higher. Mrs. March +made herself comfortable in a deep chair before the stove, and said she +would have her supper there; and she bade him send her just such a supper +of chicken and honey and tea as they had all had in Mayence when they +supped in her aunt's parlor there all those years ago. He wished to +compute the years, but she drove him out with an imploring cry, and he +went down to a very gusty dining-room on the ground-floor, where he found +himself alone with a young English couple and their little boy. They +were friendly, intelligent people, and would have been conversable, +apparently, but for the terrible cold of the husband, which he said he +had contracted at the manoeuvres in Hombourg. March said he was going to +Holland, and the Englishman was doubtful of the warmth which March +expected to find there. He seemed to be suffering from a suspense of +faith as to the warmth anywhere; from time to time the door of the +dining-room self-opened in a silent, ghostly fashion into the court +without, and let in a chilling draught about the legs of all, till the +little English boy got down from his place and shut it. + +He alone continued cheerful, for March's spirits certainly did not rise +when some mumbling Americans came in and muttered over their meat at +another table. He hated to own it, but he had to own that wherever he +had met the two branches of the Anglo-Saxon race together in Europe, the +elder had shown, by a superior chirpiness, to the disadvantage of the +younger. The cast clothes of the old-fashioned British offishness seemed +to have fallen to the American travellers who were trying to be correct +and exemplary; and he would almost rather have had back the old-style +bragging Americans whom he no longer saw. He asked of an agreeable +fellow-countryman whom he found later in the reading-room, what had +become of these; and this compatriot said he had travelled with one only +the day before, who had posed before their whole compartment in his scorn +of the German landscape, the German weather, the German government, the +German railway management, and then turned out an American of German +birth! March found his wife in great bodily comfort when he went back to +her, but in trouble of mind about a clock which she had discovered +standing on the lacquered iron top of the stove. It was a French clock, +of architectural pretensions, in the taste of the first Empire, and it +looked as if it had not been going since Napoleon occupied Mayence early +in the century. But Mrs. March now had it sorely on her conscience +where, in its danger from the heat of the stove, it rested with the +weight of the Pantheon, whose classic form it recalled. She wondered +that no one had noticed it before the fire was kindled, and she required +her husband to remove it at once from the top of the stove to the mantel +under the mirror, which was the natural habitat of such a clock. He said +nothing could be simpler, but when he lifted it, it began to fall all +apart, like a clock in the house of the Hoodoo. Its marble base +dropped-off; its pillars tottered; its pediment swayed to one side. +While Mrs. March lamented her hard fate, and implored him to hurry it +together before any one came, he contrived to reconstruct it in its new +place. Then they both breathed freer, and returned to sit down before +the stove. But at the same moment they both saw, ineffaceably outlined +on the lacquered top, the basal form of the clock. The chambermaid would +see it in the morning; she would notice the removal of the clock, and +would make a merit of reporting its ruin by the heat to the landlord, and +in the end they would be mulcted of its value. Rather than suffer this +wrong they agreed to restore it to its place, and, let it go to +destruction upon its own terms. March painfully rebuilt it where he had +found it, and they went to bed with a bad conscience to worse dreams. + +He remembered, before he slept, the hour of his youth when he was in +Mayence before, and was so care free that he had heard with impersonal +joy two young American voices speaking English in the street under his +window. One of them broke from the common talk with a gay burlesque of +pathos in the line: + + "Oh heavens! she cried, my Heeding country save!" + +and then with a laughing good-night these unseen, unknown spirits of +youth parted and departed. Who were they, and in what different places, +with what cares or ills, had their joyous voices grown old, or fallen +silent for evermore? It was a moonlight night, March remembered, and he +remembered how he wished he were out in it with those merry fellows. + +He nursed the memory and the wonder in his dreaming thought, and he woke +early to other voices under his window. But now the voices, though +young, were many and were German, and the march of feet and the stamp of +hooves kept time with their singing. He drew his curtain and saw the +street filled with broken squads of men, some afoot and some on +horseback, some in uniform and some in civil dress with students' caps, +loosely straggling on and roaring forth that song whose words he could +not make out. At breakfast he asked the waiter what it all meant, and he +said that these were conscripts whose service had expired with the late +manoeuvres, and who were now going home. He promised March a translation +of the song, but he never gave it; and perhaps the sense of their joyful +home-going remained the more poetic with him because its utterance +remained inarticulate. + +March spent the rainy Sunday, on which they had fallen, in wandering +about the little city alone. His wife said she was tired and would sit +by the fire, and hear about Mayence when he came in. He went to the +cathedral, which has its renown for beauty and antiquity, and he there +added to his stock of useful information the fact that the people of +Mayence seemed very Catholic and very devout. They proved it by +preferring to any of the divine old Gothic shrines in the cathedral, an +ugly baroque altar, which was everywhere hung about with votive +offerings. A fashionably dressed young man and young girl sprinkled +themselves with holy water as reverently as if they had been old and +ragged. Some tourists strolled up and down the aisles with their red +guide-books, and studied the objects of interest. A resplendent beadle +in a cocked hat, and with along staff of authority posed before his own +ecclesiastical consciousness in blue and silver. At the high altar a +priest was saying mass, and March wondered whether his consciousness was +as wholly ecclesiastical as the beadle's, or whether somewhere in it he +felt the historical majesty, the long human consecration of the place. + +He wandered at random in the town through streets German and quaint and +old, and streets French and fine and new, and got back to the river, +which he crossed on one of the several handsome bridges. The rough river +looked chill under a sky of windy clouds, and he felt out of season, both +as to the summer travel, and as to the journey he was making. The summer +of life as well as the summer of that year was past. Better return to +his own radiator in his flat on Stuyvesant Square; to the great ugly +brutal town which, if it was not home to him, was as much home to him as +to any one. A longing for New York welled up his heart, which was +perhaps really a wish to be at work again. He said he must keep this +from his wife, who seemed not very well, and whom he must try to cheer up +when he returned to the hotel. + +But they had not a very joyous afternoon, and the evening was no gayer. +They said that if they had not ordered their letters sent to Dusseldorf +they believed they should push on to Holland without stopping; and March +would have liked to ask, Why not push on to America? But he forbore, and +he was afterwards glad that he had done so. + +In the morning their spirits rose with the sun, though the sun got up +behind clouds as usual; and they were further animated by the imposition +which the landlord practised upon them. After a distinct and repeated +agreement as to the price of their rooms he charged them twice as much, +and then made a merit of throwing off two marks out of the twenty he had +plundered them of. + +"Now I see," said Mrs. March, on their way down to the boat, "how +fortunate it was that we baked his clock. You may laugh, but I believe +we were the instruments of justice." + +"Do you suppose that clock was never baked before?" asked her husband. +"The landlord has his own arrangement with justice. When he overcharges +his parting guests he says to his conscience, Well, they baked my clock." + + + + +LXXI. + +The morning was raw, but it was something not to have it rainy; and the +clouds that hung upon the hills and hid their tops were at least as fine +as the long board signs advertising chocolate on the river banks. The +smoke rising from the chimneys of the manufactories of Mayence was not so +bad, either, when one got them in the distance a little; and March liked +the way the river swam to the stems of the trees on the low grassy +shores. It was like the Mississippi between St. Louis and Cairo in that, +and it was yellow and thick, like the Mississippi, though he thought he +remembered it blue and clear. A friendly German, of those who began to +come aboard more and more at all the landings after leaving Mayence, +assured him that be was right, and that the Rhine was unusually turbid +from the unusual rains. March had his own belief that whatever the color +of the Rhine might be the rains were not unusual, but he could not +gainsay the friendly German. + +Most of the passengers at starting were English and American; but they +showed no prescience of the international affinition which has since +realized itself, in their behavior toward one another. They held +silently apart, and mingled only in the effect of one young man who kept +the Marches in perpetual question whether he was a Bostonian or an +Englishman. His look was Bostonian, but his accent was English; and was +he a Bostonian who had been in England long enough to get the accent, or +was he an Englishman who had been in Boston long enough to get the look? +He wore a belated straw hat, and a thin sack-coat; and in the rush of the +boat through the raw air they fancied him very cold, and longed to offer +him one of their superabundant wraps. At times March actually lifted a +shawl from his knees, feeling sure that the stranger was English and that +he might make so bold with him; then at some glacial glint in the young +man's eye, or at some petrific expression of his delicate face, he felt +that he was a Bostonian, and lost courage and let the shawl sink again. +March tried to forget him in the wonder of seeing the Germans begin to +eat and drink, as soon as they came on boards either from the baskets +they had brought with them, or from the boat's provision. But he +prevailed, with his smile that was like a sneer, through all the events +of the voyage; and took March's mind off the scenery with a sudden wrench +when he came unexpectedly into view after a momentary disappearance. At +the table d'hote, which was served when the landscape began to be less +interesting, the guests were expected to hand their plates across the +table to the stewards but to keep their knives and forks throughout the +different courses, and at each of these partial changes March felt the +young man's chilly eyes upon him, inculpating him for the semi- +civilization of the management. At such times he knew that he was a +Bostonian. + +The weather cleared, as they descended the river, and under a sky at last +cloudless, the Marches had moments of swift reversion to their former +Rhine journey, when they were young and the purple light of love mantled +the vineyarded hills along the shore, and flushed the castled steeps. +The scene had lost nothing of the beauty they dimly remembered; there +were certain features of it which seemed even fairer and grander than +they remembered. The town of Bingen, where everybody who knows the poem +was more or less born, was beautiful in spite of its factory chimneys, +though there were no compensating castles near it; and the castles seemed +as good as those of the theatre. Here and there some of them had been +restored and were occupied, probably by robber barons who had gone into +trade. Others were still ruinous, and there was now and then such a mere +gray snag that March, at sight of it, involuntarily put his tongue to the +broken tooth which he was keeping for the skill of the first American +dentist. + +For natural sublimity the Rhine scenery, as they recognized once more, +does not compare with the Hudson scenery; and they recalled one point on +the American river where the Central Road tunnels a jutting cliff, which +might very well pass for the rock of the Loreley, where she dreams + + 'Solo sitting by the shores of old romance.' + +and the trains run in and out under her knees unheeded. "Still, still +you know," March argued, "this is the Loreley on the Rhine, and not the +Loreley on the Hudson; and I suppose that makes all the difference. +Besides, the Rhine doesn't set up to be sublime; it only means to be +storied and dreamy and romantic and it does it. And then we have really +got no Mouse Tower; we might build one, to be sure." + +"Well, we have got no denkmal, either," said his wife, meaning the +national monument to the German reconquest of the Rhine, which they had +just passed, "and that is something in our favor." + +"It was too far off for us to see how ugly it was," he returned. + +"The denkmal at Coblenz was so near that the bronze Emperor almost rode +aboard the boat." + +He could not answer such a piece of logic as that. He yielded, and began +to praise the orcharded levels which now replaced the vine-purpled slopes +of the upper river. He said they put him in mind of orchards that he had +known in his boyhood; and they, agreed that the supreme charm of travel, +after all, was not in seeing something new and strange, but in finding +something familiar and dear in the heart of the strangeness. + +At Cologne they found this in the tumult of getting ashore with their +baggage and driving from the steamboat landing to the railroad station, +where they were to get their train for Dusseldorf an hour later. The +station swarmed with travellers eating and drinking and smoking; but they +escaped from it for a precious half of their golden hour, and gave the +time to the great cathedral, which was built, a thousand years ago, just +round the corner from the station, and is therefore very handy to it. +Since they saw the cathedral last it had been finished, and now under a +cloudless evening sky, it soared and swept upward like a pale flame. +Within it was a bit over-clean, a bit bare, but without it was one of the +great memories of the race, the record of a faith which wrought miracles +of beauty, at least, if not piety. + +The train gave the Marches another, and last, view of it as they slowly +drew out of the city, and began to run through a level country walled +with far-off hills; past fields of buckwheat showing their stems like +coral under their black tops; past peasant houses changing their wonted +shape to taller and narrower forms; past sluggish streams from which the +mist rose and hung over the meadows, under a red sunset, glassy clear +till the manifold factory chimneys of Dusseldorf stained it with their +dun smoke. + +This industrial greeting seemed odd from the town where Heinrich Heine +was born; but when they had eaten their supper in the capital little +hotel they found there, and went out for a stroll, they found nothing to +remind them of the factories, and much to make them think of the poet. +The moon, beautiful and perfect as a stage moon, came up over the +shoulder of a church as they passed down a long street which they had all +to themselves. Everybody seemed to have gone to bed, but at a certain +corner a girl opened a window above them, and looked out at the moon. + +When they returned to their hotel they found a highwalled garden facing +it, full of black depths of foliage. In the night March woke and saw the +moon standing over the garden, and silvering its leafy tops. This was +really as it should be in the town where the idolized poet of his youth +was born; the poet whom of all others he had adored, and who had once +seemed like a living friend; who had been witness of his first love, and +had helped him to speak it. His wife used to laugh at him for his Heine- +worship in those days; but she had since come to share it, and she, +even more than he, had insisted upon this pilgrimage. He thought long +thoughts of the past, as he looked into the garden across the way, with +an ache for his perished self and the dead companionship of his youth, +all ghosts together in the silvered shadow. The trees shuddered in the +night breeze, and its chill penetrated to him where he stood. + +His wife called to him from her room, "What are you doing?" + +"Oh, sentimentalizing," he answered boldly. + +"Well, you will be sick," she said, and he crept back into bed again. + +They had sat up late, talking in a glad excitement. But he woke early, +as an elderly man is apt to do after broken slumbers, and left his wife +still sleeping. He was not so eager for the poetic interests of the town +as he had been the night before; he even deferred his curiosity for +Heine's birth-house to the instructive conference which he had with his +waiter at breakfast. After all, was not it more important to know +something of the actual life of a simple common class of men than to +indulge a faded fancy for the memory of a genius, which no amount of +associations could feed again to its former bloom? The waiter said he +was a Nuremberger, and had learned English in London where he had served +a year for nothing. Afterwards, when he could speak three languages he +got a pound a week, which seemed low for so many, though not so low as +the one mark a day which he now received in Dusseldorf; in Berlin he paid +the hotel two marks a day. March confided to him his secret trouble as +to tips, and they tried vainly to enlighten each other as to what a just +tip was. + +He went to his banker's, and when he came back he found his wife with her +breakfast eaten, and so eager for the exploration of Heine's birthplace +that she heard with indifference of his failure to get any letters. It +was too soon to expect them, she said, and then she showed him her plan, +which she had been working out ever since she woke. It contained every +place which Heine had mentioned, and she was determined not one should +escape them. She examined him sharply upon his condition, accusing him +of having taken cold when he got up in the night, and acquitting him with +difficulty. She herself was perfectly well, but a little fagged, and +they must have a carriage. + +They set out in a lordly two-spanner, which took up half the little +Bolkerstrasse where Heine was born, when they stopped across the way from +his birthhouse, so that she might first take it all in from the outside +before they entered it. It is a simple street, and not the cleanest of +the streets in a town where most of them are rather dirty. Below the +houses are shops, and the first story of Heine's house is a butcher shop, +with sides of pork and mutton hanging in the windows; above, where the +Heine family must once have lived, a gold-beater and a frame-maker +displayed their signs. + +But did the Heine family really once live there? The house looked so +fresh and new that in spite of the tablet in its front affirming it the +poet's birthplace, they doubted; and they were not reassured by the +people who half halted as they passed, and stared at the strangers, so +anomalously interested in the place. They dismounted, and crossed to the +butcher shop where the provision man corroborated the tablet, but could +not understand their wish to go up stairs. He did not try to prevent +them, however, and they climbed to the first floor above, where a placard +on the door declared it private and implored them not to knock. Was this +the outcome of the inmate's despair from the intrusion of other pilgrims +who had wised to see the Heine dwelling-rooms? They durst not knock and +ask so much, and they sadly descended to the ground-floor, where they +found a butcher boy of much greater apparent intelligence than the +butcher himself, who told them that the building in front was as new as +it looked, and the house where Heine was really born was the old house in +the rear. He showed them this house, across a little court patched with +mangy grass and lilac-bushes; and when they wished to visit it he led the +way. The place was strewn both underfoot and overhead with feathers; it +had once been all a garden out to the street, the boy said, but from +these feathers, as well as the odor which prevailed, and the anxious +behavior of a few hens left in the high coop at one side, it was plain +that what remained of the garden was now a chicken slaughteryard. There +was one well-grown tree, and the boy said it was of the poet's time; but +when he let them into the house, he became vague as to the room where +Heine was born; it was certain only that it was somewhere upstairs and +that it could not be seen. The room where they stood was the frame- +maker's shop, and they bought of him a small frame for a memorial. They +bought of the butcher's boy, not so commercially, a branch of lilac; and +they came away, thinking how much amused Heine himself would have been +with their visit; how sadly, how merrily he would have mocked at their +effort to revere his birthplace. + +They were too old if not too wise to be daunted by their defeat, and they +drove next to the old court garden beside the Rhine where the poet says +he used to play with the little Veronika, and probably did not. At any +rate, the garden is gone; the Schloss was burned down long ago; and +nothing remains but a detached tower in which the good Elector Jan +Wilhelm, of Heine's time, amused himself with his many mechanical +inventions. The tower seemed to be in process of demolition, but an +intelligent workman who came down out of it, was interested in the +strangers' curiosity, and directed them to a place behind the Historical +Museum where they could find a bit of the old garden. It consisted of +two or three low trees, and under them the statue of the Elector by which +Heine sat with the little Veronika, if he really did. Afresh gale +blowing through the trees stirred the bushes that backed the statue, but +not the laurel wreathing the Elector's head, and meeting in a neat point +over his forehead. The laurel wreath is stone, like the rest of the +Elector, who stands there smirking in marble ermine and armor, and +resting his baton on the nose of a very small lion, who, in the +exigencies of foreshortening, obligingly goes to nothing but a tail under +the Elector's robe. + +This was a prince who loved himself in effigy so much that he raised an +equestrian statue to his own renown in the market-place, though he +modestly refused the credit of it, and ascribed its erection to the +affection of his subjects. You see him therein a full-bottomed wig, +mounted on a rampant charger with a tail as big round as a barrel, and +heavy enough to keep him from coming down on his fore legs as long as he +likes to hold them up. It was to this horse's back that Heine clambered +when a small boy, to see the French take formal possession of Dusseldorf; +and he clung to the waist of the bronze Elector, who had just abdicated, +while the burgomaster made a long speech, from the balcony of the +Rathhaus, and the Electoral arms were taken down from its doorway. + +The Rathhaus is a salad-dressing of German gothic and French rococo as to +its architectural style, and is charming in its way, but the Marches were +in the market-place for the sake of that moment of Heine's boyhood. They +felt that he might have been the boy who stopped as he ran before them, +and smacked the stomach of a large pumpkin lying at the feet of an old +market-woman, and then dashed away before she could frame a protest +against the indignity. From this incident they philosophized that the +boys of Dusseldorf are as mischievous at the end of the century as they +were at the beginning; and they felt the fascination that such a +bounteous, unkempt old marketplace must have for the boys of any period. +There were magnificent vegetables of all sorts in it, and if the fruits +were meagre that was the fault of the rainy summer, perhaps. The market- +place was very dirty, and so was the narrow street leading down from it +to the Rhine, which ran swift as a mountain torrent along a slatternly +quay. A bridge of boats crossing the stream shook in the rapid current, +and a long procession of market carts passed slowly over, while a cluster +of scows waited in picturesque patience for the draw to open. + +They saw what a beautiful town that was for a boy to grow up in, and how +many privileges it offered, how many dangers, how many chances for +hairbreadth escapes. They chose that Heine must often have rushed +shrieking joyfully down that foul alley to the Rhine with other boys; and +they easily found a leaf-strewn stretch of the sluggish Dussel, in the +Public Garden, where his playmate, the little Wilhelm, lost his life and +saved the kitten's. They were not so sure of the avenue through which +the poet saw the Emperor Napoleon come riding on his small white horse +when he took possession of the Elector's dominions. But if it was that +where the statue of the Kaiser Wilhelm I. comes riding on a horse led by +two Victories, both poet and hero are avenged there on the accomplished +fact. Defeated and humiliated France triumphs in the badness of that +foolish denkmal (one of the worst in all denkmal-ridden Germany), and the +memory of the singer whom the Hohenzollern family pride forbids honor in +his native place, is immortal in its presence. + +On the way back to their hotel, March made some reflections upon the open +neglect, throughout Germany, of the greatest German lyrist, by which the +poet might have profited if he had been present. He contended that it +was not altogether an effect of Hohenzollern pride, which could not +suffer a joke or two from the arch-humorist; but that Heine had said +things of Germany herself which Germans might well have found +unpardonable. He concluded that it would not do to be perfectly frank +with one's own country. Though, to be sure, there would always be the +question whether the Jew-born Heine had even a step-fatherland in the +Germany he loved so tenderly and mocked so pitilessly. He had to own +that if he were a negro poet he would not feel bound to measure terms in +speaking of America, and he would not feel that his fame was in her +keeping. + +Upon the whole he blamed Heine less than Germany and he accused her of +taking a shabby revenge, in trying to forget him; in the heat of his +resentment that there should be no record of Heine in the city where he +was born, March came near ignoring himself the fact that the poet +Freiligrath was also born there. As for the famous Dusseldorf school of +painting, which once filled the world with the worst art, he rejoiced +that it was now so dead, and he grudged the glance which the beauty of +the new Art Academy extorted from him. It is in the French taste, and is +so far a monument to the continuance in one sort of that French +supremacy, of which in another sort another denkmal celebrates the +overthrow. Dusseldorf is not content with the denkmal of the Kaiser on +horseback, with the two Victories for grooms; there is a second, which +the Marches found when they strolled out again late in the afternoon. It +is in the lovely park which lies in the heart of the city, and they felt +in its presence the only emotion of sympathy which the many patriotic +monuments of Germany awakened in them. It had dignity and repose, which +these never had elsewhere; but it was perhaps not so much for the dying +warrior and the pitying lion of the sculpture that their hearts were +moved as for the gentle and mournful humanity of the inscription, which +dropped into equivalent English verse in March's note-book: + + Fame was enough for the Victors, and glory and verdurous laurel; + Tears by their mothers wept founded this image of stone. + +To this they could forgive the vaunting record, on the reverse, of the +German soldiers who died heroes in the war with France, the war with +Austria, and even the war with poor little Denmark! + +The morning had been bright and warm, and it was just that the afternoon +should be dim and cold, with a pale sun looking through a September mist, +which seemed to deepen the seclusion and silence of the forest reaches; +for the park was really a forest of the German sort, as parks are apt to +be in Germany. But it was beautiful, and they strayed through it, and +sometimes sat down on the benches in its damp shadows, and said how much +seemed to be done in Germany for the people's comfort and pleasure. In +what was their own explicitly, as well as what was tacitly theirs, they +were not so restricted as we were at home, and especially the children +seemed made fondly and lovingly free of all public things. The Marches +met troops of them in the forest, as they strolled slowly back by the +winding Dussel to the gardened avenue leading to the park, and they found +them everywhere gay and joyful. But their elders seemed subdued, and +were silent. The strangers heard no sound of laughter in the streets of +Dusseldorf, and they saw no smiling except on the part of a very old +couple, whose meeting they witnessed and who grinned and cackled at each +other like two children as they shook hands. Perhaps they were indeed +children of that sad second childhood which one would rather not blossom +back into. + +In America, life is yet a joke with us, even when it is grotesque and +shameful, as it so often is; for we think we can make it right when we +choose. But there is no joking in Germany, between the first and second +childhoods, unless behind closed doors. Even there, people do not joke +above their breath about kings and emperors. If they joke about them in +print, they take out their laugh in jail, for the press laws are severely +enforced, and the prisons are full of able editors, serious as well as +comic. Lese-majesty is a crime that searches sinners out in every walk +of life, and it is said that in family jars a husband sometimes has the +last word of his wife by accusing her of blaspheming the sovereign, and +so having her silenced for three months at least behind penitential bars. + +"Think," said March, "how simply I could adjust any differences of +opinion between us in Dusseldorf." + +"Don't!" his wife implored with a burst of feeling which surprised him. +"I want to go home!" + +They had been talking over their day, and planning their journey to +Holland for the morrow, when it came to this outburst from her in the +last half-hour before bed which they sat prolonging beside their stove. + +"What! And not go to Holland? What is to become of my after-cure?" + +"Oh, it's too late for that, now. We've used up the month running about, +and tiring ourselves to death. I should like to rest a week--to get into +my berth on the Norumbia and rest!" + +"I guess the September gales would have something to say about that." + +"I would risk the September gales." + + + + +LXXII. + +In the morning March came home from his bankers gay with the day's +provisional sunshine in his heart, and joyously expectant of his wife's +pleasure in the letters he was bringing. There was one from each of +their children, and there was one from Fulkerson, which March opened and +read on the street, so as to intercept any unpleasant news there might be +in them; there were two letters for Mrs. March which he knew without +opening were from Miss Triscoe and Mrs. Adding respectively; Mrs. +Adding's, from the postmarks, seemed to have been following them about +for some time. + +"They're all right at home," he said. "Do see what those people have +been doing." + +"I believe," she said, taking a knife from the breakfast tray beside her +bed to cut the envelopes, "that you've really cared more about them all +along than I have." + +"No, I've only been anxious to be done with them." + +She got the letters open, and holding one of them up in each hand she +read them impartially and simultaneously; then she flung them both down, +and turned her face into her pillow with an impulse of her inalienable +girlishness. "Well, it is too silly." + +March felt authorized to take them up and read them consecutively; when +he had done, so he did not differ from his wife. In one case, Agatha had +written to her dear Mrs. March that she and Burnamy had just that evening +become engaged; Mrs. Adding, on her part owned a farther step, and +announced her marriage to Mr. Kenby. Following immemorial usage in such +matters Kenby had added a postscript affirming his happiness in unsparing +terms, and in Agatha's letter there was an avowal of like effect from +Burnamy. Agatha hinted her belief that her father would soon come to +regard Burnamy as she did; and Mrs. Adding professed a certain +humiliation in having realized that, after all her misgiving about him, +Rose seemed rather relieved than otherwise, as if he were glad to have +her off his hands. + +"Well," said March, "with these troublesome affairs settled, I don't see +what there is to keep us in Europe any longer, unless it's the consensus +of opinion in Tom, Bella, and Fulkerson, that we ought to stay the +winter." + +"Stay the winter!" Mrs. March rose from her pillow, and clutched the +home letters to her from the abeyance in which they had fallen on the +coverlet while she was dealing with the others. "What do you mean?" + +"It seems to have been prompted by a hint you let drop, which Tom has +passed to Bella and Fulkerson." + +"Oh, but that was before we left Carlsbad!" she protested, while she +devoured the letters with her eyes, and continued to denounce the +absurdity of the writers. Her son and daughter both urged that now their +father and mother were over there, they had better stay as long as they +enjoyed it, and that they certainly ought not to come home without going +to Italy, where they had first met, and revisiting the places which they +had seen together when they were young engaged people: without that their +silver wedding journey would not be complete. Her son said that +everything was going well with 'Every Other Week', and both himself and +Mr. Fulkerson thought his father ought to spend the winter in Italy, and +get a thorough rest. "Make a job of it, March," Fulkerson wrote, "and +have a Sabbatical year while you're at it. You may not get another." + +"Well, I can tell them," said Mrs. March indignantly, "we shall not do +anything of the kind." + +"Then you didn't mean it?" + +"Mean it!" She stopped herself with a look at her husband, and asked +gently, "Do you want to stay?" + +"Well, I don't know," he answered vaguely. The fact was, he was sick of +travel and of leisure; he was longing to be at home and at work again. +But if there was to be any self-sacrifice which could be had, as it were, +at a bargain; which could be fairly divided between them, and leave him +the self and her the sacrifice, he was too experienced a husband not to +see the advantage of it, or to refuse the merit. "I thought you wished +to stay." + +"Yes," she sighed, "I did. It has been very, very pleasant, and, if +anything, I have over-enjoyed myself. We have gone romping through it +like two young people, haven't we?" + +"You have," he assented. "I have always felt the weight of my years in +getting the baggage registered; they have made the baggage weigh more +every time." + +"And I've forgotten mine. Yes, I have. But the years haven't forgotten +me, Basil, and now I remember them. I'm tired. It doesn't seem as if I +could ever get up. But I dare say it's only a mood; it may be only a +cold; and if you wish to stay, why--we will think it over." + +"No, we won't, my dear," he said, with a generous shame for his hypocrisy +if not with a pure generosity. "I've got all the good out of it that +there was in it, for me, and I shouldn't go home any better six months +hence than I should now. Italy will keep for another time, and so, for +the matter of that, will Holland." + +"No, no!" she interposed. "We won't give up Holland, whatever we do. +I couldn't go home feeling that I had kept you out of your after-cure; +and when we get there, no doubt the sea air will bring me up so that I +shall want to go to Italy, too, again. Though it seems so far off, now! +But go and see when the afternoon train for the Hague leaves, and I shall +be ready. My mind's quite made up on that point." + +"What a bundle of energy!" said her husband laughing down at her. + +He went and asked about the train to the Hague, but only to satisfy a +superficial conscience; for now he knew that they were both of one mind +about going home. He also looked up the trains for London, and found +that they could get there by way of Ostend in fourteen hours. Then he +went back to the banker's, and with the help of the Paris-New York +Chronicle which he found there, he got the sailings of the first steamers +home. After that he strolled about the streets for a last impression of +Dusseldorf, but it was rather blurred by the constantly recurring pull of +his thoughts toward America, and he ended by turning abruptly at a +certain corner, and going to his hotel. + +He found his wife dressed, but fallen again on her bed, beside which her +breakfast stood still untasted; her smile responded wanly to his +brightness. "I'm not well, my dear," she said. "I don't believe I could +get off to the Hague this afternoon." + +"Could you to Liverpool?" he returned. + +"To Liverpool?" she gasped. "What do you mean?" + +"Merely that the Cupania is sailing on the twentieth, and I've +telegraphed to know if we can get a room. I'm afraid it won't be a good +one, but she's the first boat out, and--" + +"No, indeed, we won't go to Liverpool, and we will never go home till +you've had your after-cure in Holland." She was very firm in this, but +she added, "We will stay another night, here, and go to the Hague +tomorrow. Sit down, and let us talk it over. Where were we?" + +She lay down on the sofa, and he put a shawl over her. "We were just +starting for Liverpool." + +"No, no we weren't! Don't say such things, dearest! I want you to help +me sum it all, up. You think it's been a success, don't you?" + +"As a cure?" + +"No, as a silver wedding journey?" + +"Perfectly howling." + +"I do think we've had a good time. I never expected to enjoy myself so +much again in the world. I didn't suppose I should ever take so much +interest in anything. It shows that when we choose to get out of our rut +we shall always find life as fresh and delightful as ever. There is +nothing to prevent our coming any year, now that Tom's shown himself so +capable, and having another silver wedding journey. I don't like to +think of it's being confined to Germany quite." + +"Oh, I don't know. We can always talk of it as our German-Silver Wedding +Journey." + +"That's true. But nobody would understand nowadays what you meant by +German-silver; it's perfectly gone out. How ugly it was! A sort of +greasy yellowish stuff, always getting worn through; I believe it was +made worn through. Aunt Mary had a castor of it, that I can remember +when I was a child; it went into the kitchen long before I grew up. +Would a joke like that console you for the loss of Italy?" + +"It would go far to do it. And as a German-Silver Wedding Journey, it's +certainly been very complete." + +"What do you mean?" + +"It's given us a representative variety of German cities. First we had +Hamburg, you know, a great modern commercial centre." + +"Yes! Go on!" + +"Then we had Leipsic, the academic." + +"Yes!" + +"Then Carlsbad, the supreme type of a German health resort; then +Nuremberg, the mediaeval; then Anspach, the extinct princely capital; +then Wurzburg, the ecclesiastical rococo; then Weimar, for the literature +of a great epoch; then imperial Berlin; then Frankfort, the memory of the +old free city; then Dusseldorf, the centre of the most poignant personal +interest in the world--I don't see how we could have done better, if we'd +planned it all, and not acted from successive impulses." + +"It's been grand; it's been perfect! As German-Silver Wedding Journey +it's perfect--it seems as if it had been ordered! But I will never let +you give up Holland! No, we will go this afternoon, and when I get to +Schevleningen, I'll go to bed, and stay there, till you've completed your +after-cure." + +"Do you think that will be wildly gay for the convalescent?" + +She suddenly began to cry. "Oh, dearest, what shall we do? I feel +perfectly broken down. I'm afraid I'm going to be sick--and away from +home! How could you ever let me overdo, so?" She put her handkerchief to +her eyes, and turned her face into the sofa pillow. + +This was rather hard upon him, whom her vivid energy and inextinguishable +interest had not permitted a moment's respite from pleasure since they +left Carlsbad. But he had been married, too long not to understand that +her blame of him was only a form of self-reproach for her own self- +forgetfulness. She had not remembered that she was no longer young till +she had come to what he saw was a nervous collapse. The fact had its +pathos and its poetry which no one could have felt more keenly than he. +If it also had its inconvenience and its danger he realized these too. + +"Isabel," he said, "we are going home." + +"Very well, then it will be your doing." + +"Quite. Do you think you could stand it as far as Cologne? We get the +sleeping-car there, and you can lie down the rest of the way to Ostend." + +"This afternoon? Why I'm perfectly strong; it's merely my nerves that +are gone." She sat up, and wiped her eyes. "But Basil! If you're doing +this for me--" + +"I'm doing it for myself," said March, as he went out of the room. + +She stood the journey perfectly well, and in the passage to Dover she +suffered so little from the rough weather that she was an example to many +robust matrons who filled the ladies' cabin with the noise of their +anguish during the night. She would have insisted upon taking the first +train up to London, if March had not represented that this would not +expedite the sailing of the Cupania, and that she might as well stay the +forenoon at the convenient railway hotel, and rest. It was not quite his +ideal of repose that the first people they saw in the coffee-room when +they went to breakfast should be Kenby and Rose Adding, who were having +their tea and toast and eggs together in the greatest apparent good- +fellowship. He saw his wife shrink back involuntarily from the +encounter, but this was only to gather force for it; and the next moment +she was upon them in all the joy of the surprise. Then March allowed +himself to be as glad as the others both seemed, and he shook hands with +Kenby while his wife kissed Rose; and they all talked at once. In the +confusion of tongues it was presently intelligible that Mrs. Kenby was +going to be down in a few minutes; and Kenby took March into his +confidence with a smile which was, almost a wink in explaining that he +knew how it was with the ladies. He said that Rose and he usually got +down to breakfast first, and when he had listened inattentively to Mrs. +March's apology for being on her way home, he told her that she was lucky +not to have gone to Schevleningen, where she and March would have frozen +to death. He said that they were going to spend September at a little +place on the English coast, near by, where he had been the day before +with Rose to look at lodgings, and where you could bathe all through the +month. He was not surprised that the Marches were going home, and said, +Well, that was their original plan, wasn't it? + +Mrs. Kenby, appearing upon this, pretended to know better, after the +outburst of joyful greeting with the Marches; and intelligently reminded +Kenby that he knew the Marches had intended to pass the winter in Paris. +She was looking extremely pretty, but she wished only to make them see +how well Rose was looking, and she put her arm round his shoulders as she +spoke, Schevleningen had done wonders for him, but it was fearfully cold +there, and now they were expecting everything from Westgate, where she +advised March to come, too, for his after-cure: she recollected in time +to say, She forgot they were on their way home. She added that she did +not know when she should return; she was merely a passenger, now; she +left everything to the men of the family. She had, in fact, the air of +having thrown off every responsibility, but in supremacy, not submission. +She was always ordering Kenby about; she sent him for her handkerchief, +and her rings which she had left either in the tray of her trunk, or on +the pin-cushion, or on the wash-stand or somewhere, and forbade him to +come back without them. He asked for her keys, and then with a joyful +scream she owned that she had left the door-key in the door and the whole +bunch of trunk-keys in her trunk; and Kenby treated it all as the +greatest joke; Rose, too, seemed to think that Kenby would make +everything come right, and he had lost that look of anxiety which he used +to have; at the most he showed a friendly sympathy for Kenby, for whose +sake he seemed mortified at her. He was unable to regard his mother as +the delightful joke which she appeared to Kenby, but that was merely +temperamental; and he was never distressed except when she behaved with +unreasonable caprice at Kenby's cost. + +As for Kenby himself he betrayed no dissatisfaction with his fate to +March. He perhaps no longer regarded his wife as that strong character +which he had sometimes wearied March by celebrating; but she was still +the most brilliant intelligence, and her charm seemed only to have grown +with his perception of its wilful limitations. He did not want to talk +about her so much; he wanted rather to talk about Rose, his health, his +education, his nature, and what was best to do for him. The two were on +terms of a confidence and affection which perpetually amused Mrs. Kenby, +but which left the sympathetic witness nothing to desire in their +relation. + +They all came to the train when the Marches started up to London, and +stood waving to them as they pulled out of the station. "Well, I can't +see but that's all right," he said as he sank back in his seat with a +sigh of relief. "I never supposed we should get out of their marriage +half so well, and I don't feel that you quite made the match either, my +dear." + +She was forced to agree with him that the Kenbys seemed happy together, +and that there was nothing to fear for Rose in their happiness. He would +be as tenderly cared for by Kenby as he could have been by his mother, +and far more judiciously. She owned that she had trembled for him till +she had seen them all together; and now she should never tremble again. + +"Well?" March prompted, at a certain inconclusiveness in her tone rather +than her words. + +"Well, you can see that it, isn't ideal." + +"Why isn't it ideal? I suppose you think that the marriage of Burnamy +and Agatha Triscoe will be ideal, with their ignorances and inexperiences +and illusions." + +"Yes! It's the illusions: no marriage can be perfect without them, and at +their age the Kenbys can't have them." + +"Kenby is a solid mass of illusion. And I believe that people can go and +get as many new illusions as they want, whenever they've lost their old +ones." + +"Yes, but the new illusions won't wear so well; and in marriage you want +illusions that will last. No; you needn't talk to me. It's all very +well, but it isn't ideal." + +March laughed. "Ideal! What is ideal?" + +"Going home!" she said with such passion that he had not the heart to +point out that they were merely returning to their old duties, cares and +pains, with the worn-out illusion that these would be altogether +different when they took them up again. + + + + +LXXIII. + +In fulfilment of another ideal Mrs. March took straightway to her berth +when she got on board the Cupania, and to her husband's admiration she +remained there till the day before they reached New York. Her theory was +that the complete rest would do more than anything else to calm her +shaken nerves; and she did not admit into her calculations the chances of +adverse weather which March would not suggest as probable in the last +week in September. The event justified her unconscious faith. The +ship's run was of unparalled swiftness, even for the Cupania, and of +unparalled smoothness. For days the sea was as sleek as oil; the racks +were never on the tables once; the voyage was of the sort which those who +make it no more believe in at the time than those whom they afterwards +weary in boasting of it. + +The ship was very full, but Mrs. March did not show the slightest +curiosity to know who her fellow-passengers were. She said that she +wished to be let perfectly alone, even by her own emotions, and for this +reason she forbade March to bring her a list of the passengers till after +they had left Queenstown lest it should be too exciting. He did not take +the trouble to look it up, therefore; and the first night out he saw no +one whom he knew at dinner; but the next morning at breakfast he found +himself to his great satisfaction at the same table with the Eltwins. +They were so much at ease with him that even Mrs. Eltwin took part in the +talk, and told him how they had spent the time of her husband's rigorous +after-cure in Switzerland, and now he was going home much better than +they had expected. She said they had rather thought of spending the +winter in Europe, but had given it up because they were both a little +homesick. March confessed that this was exactly the case with his wife +and himself; and he had to add that Mrs. March was not very well +otherwise, and he should be glad to be at home on her account. The +recurrence of the word home seemed to deepen Eltwin's habitual gloom, +and Mrs. Eltwin hastened to leave the subject of their return for inquiry +into Mrs. March's condition; her interest did not so far overcome her +shyness that she ventured to propose a visit to her; and March found that +the fact of the Eltwins' presence on board did not agitate his wife. +It seemed rather to comfort her, and she said she hoped he would see all +he could of the poor old things. She asked if he had met any one else he +knew, and he was able to tell her that there seemed to be a good many +swells on board, and this cheered her very much, though he did not know +them; she liked to be near the rose, though it was not a flower that she +really cared for. + +She did not ask who the swells were, and March took no trouble to find +out. He took no trouble to get a passenger-list, and he had the more +trouble when he tried at last; the lists seemed to have all vanished, as +they have a habit of doing, after the first day; the one that he made +interest for with the head steward was a second-hand copy, and had no one +he knew in it but the Eltwins. The social solitude, however, was rather +favorable to certain other impressions. There seemed even more elderly +people than there were on the Norumbia; the human atmosphere was gray and +sober; there was nothing of the gay expansion of the outward voyage; +there was little talking or laughing among those autumnal men who were +going seriously and anxiously home, with faces fiercely set for the +coming grapple; or necks meekly bowed for the yoke. They had eaten their +cake, and it had been good, but there remained a discomfort in the +digestion. They sat about in silence, and March fancied that the flown +summer was as dreamlike to each of them as it now was to him. He hated +to be of their dreary company, but spiritually he knew that he was of it; +and he vainly turned to cheer himself with the younger passengers. Some +matrons who went about clad in furs amused him, for they must have been +unpleasantly warm in their jackets and boas; nothing but the hope of +being able to tell the customs inspector with a good conscience that the +things had been worn, would have sustained one lady draped from head to +foot in Astrakhan. + +They were all getting themselves ready for the fray or the play of the +coming winter; but there seemed nothing joyous in the preparation. There +were many young girls, as there always are everywhere, but there were not +many young men, and such as there were kept to the smoking-room. There +was no sign of flirtation among them; he would have given much for a +moment of the pivotal girl, to see whether she could have brightened +those gloomy surfaces with her impartial lamp. March wished that he +could have brought some report from the outer world to cheer his wife, +as he descended to their state-room. They had taken what they could get +at the eleventh hour, and they had got no such ideal room as they had in +the Norumbia. It was, as Mrs. March graphically said, a basement room. +It was on the north side of the ship, which is a cold exposure, and if +there had been any sun it could not have got into their window, which was +half the time under water. The green waves, laced with foam, hissed as +they ran across the port; and the electric fan in the corridor moaned +like the wind in a gable. + +He felt a sinking of the heart as he pushed the state-room door open, and +looked at his wife lying with her face turned to the wall; and he was +going to withdraw, thinking her asleep, when she said quietly, "Are we +going down?" + +"Not that I know of," he answered with a gayety he did not feel. "But +I'll ask the head steward." + +She put out her hand behind her for him to take, and clutched his fingers +convulsively. "If I'm never any better, you will always remember this +happy, summer, won't you? Oh, it's been such a happy summer! It has +been one long joy, one continued triumph! But it was too late; we were +too old; and it's broken me." + +The time had been when he would have attempted comfort; when he would +have tried mocking; but that time was long past; he could only pray +inwardly for some sort of diversion, but what it was to be in their +barren circumstance he was obliged to leave altogether to Providence. +He ventured, pending an answer to his prayers upon the question, "Don't +you think I'd better see the doctor, and get you some sort of tonic?" + +She suddenly turned and faced him. "The doctor! Why, I'm not sick, +Basil! If you can see the purser and get our rooms changed, or do +something to stop those waves from slapping against that horrible +blinking one-eyed window, you can save my life; but no tonic is going to +help me." + +She turned her face from him again, and buried it in the bedclothes, +while he looked desperately at the racing waves, and the port that seemed +to open and shut like a weary eye. + +"Oh, go away!" she implored. "I shall be better presently, but if you +stand there like that--Go and see if you can't get some other room, +where I needn't feel as if I were drowning, all the way over." + +He obeyed, so far as to go away at once, and having once started, he did +not stop short of the purser's office. He made an excuse of getting +greenbacks for some English bank-notes, and then he said casually that he +supposed there would be no chance of having his room on the lower deck +changed for something a little less intimate with the sea. The purser +was not there to take the humorous view, but he conceived that March +wanted something higher up, and he was able to offer him a room of those +on the promenade where he had seen swells going in and out, for six +hundred dollars. March did not blench, but said he would get his wife to +look at it with him, and then he went out somewhat dizzily to take +counsel with himself how he should put the matter to her. She would be +sure to ask what the price of the new room would be, and he debated +whether to take it and tell her some kindly lie about it, or trust to the +bracing effect of the sum named in helping restore the lost balance of +her nerves. He was not so rich that he could throw six hundred dollars +away, but there might be worse things; and he walked up and down +thinking. All at once it flashed upon him that he had better see the +doctor, anyway, and find out whether there were not some last hope in +medicine before he took the desperate step before him. He turned in half +his course, and ran into a lady who had just emerged from the door of the +promenade laden with wraps, and who dropped them all and clutched him to +save herself from falling. + +"Why, Mr. March!" she shrieked. + +"Miss Triscoe!" he returned, in the astonishment which he shared with her +to the extent of letting the shawls he had knocked from her hold lie +between them till she began to pick them up herself. Then he joined her +and in the relief of their common occupation they contrived to possess +each other of the reason of their presence on, the same boat. She had +sorrowed over Mrs. March's sad state, and he had grieved to hear that her +father was going home because he was not at all well, before they found +the general stretched out in his steamer-chair, and waiting with a grim +impatience for his daughter. + +"But how is it you're not in the passenger-list?" he inquired of them +both, and Miss Triscoe explained that they had taken their passage at the +last moment, too late, she supposed, to get into the list. They were in +London, and had run down to Liverpool on the chance of getting berths. +Beyond this she was not definite, and there was an absence of Burnamy not +only from her company but from her conversation which mystified March +through all his selfish preoccupations with his wife. She was a girl who +had her reserves, but for a girl who had so lately and rapturously +written them of her engagement, there was a silence concerning her +betrothed that had almost positive quality. With his longing to try Miss +Triscoe upon Mrs. March's malady as a remedial agent, he had now the +desire to try Mrs. March upon Miss Triscoe's mystery as a solvent. She +stood talking to him, and refusing to sit down and be wrapped up in the +chair next her father. She said that if he were going to ask Mrs. March +to let her come to her, it would not be worth while to sit down; and he +hurried below. + +"Did you get it?" asked his wife, without looking round, but not so +apathetically as before. + +"Oh, yes. That's all right. But now, Isabel, there's something I've got +to tell you. You'd find it out, and you'd better know it at once." + +She turned her face, and asked sternly, "What is it?" + +Then he said, with, an almost equal severity, "Miss Triscoe is on board. +Miss Triscoe-and-her-father. She wishes to come down and see you." + +Mrs. March sat up and began to twist her hair into shape. "And Burnamy?" + +"There is no Burnamy physically, or so far as I can make out, +spiritually. She didn't mention him, and I talked at least five minutes +with her." + +"Hand me my dressing-sack," said Mrs. March, "and poke those things on +the sofa under the berth. Shut up that wash-stand, and pull the curtain +across that hideous window. Stop! Throw those towels into your berth. +Put my shoes, and your slippers into the shoe-bag on the door. Slip the +brushes into that other bag. Beat the dent out of the sofa cushion that +your head has made. Now!" + +"Then--then yon will see her?" + +"See her!" + +Her voice was so terrible that he fled before it, and he returned with +Miss Triscoe in a dreamlike simultaneity. He remembered, as he led the +way into his corridor, to apologize for bringing her down into a basement +room. + +"Oh, we're in the basement, too; it was all we could get," she said in +words that ended within the state-room he opened to her. Then he went +back and took her chair and wraps beside her father. + +He let the general himself lead the way up to his health, which he was +not slow in reaching, and was not quick in leaving. He reminded March of +the state he had seen him in at Wurzburg, and he said it had gone from +bad to worse with him. At Weimar he had taken to his bed and merely +escaped from it with his life. Then they had tried Schevleningen for a +week, where, he said in a tone of some injury, they had rather thought +they might find them, the Marches. The air had been poison to him, and +they had come over to England with some notion of Bournemouth; but the +doctor in London had thought not, and urged their going home. "All +Europe is damp, you know, and dark as a pocket in winter," he ended. + +There had been nothing about Burnamy, and March decided that he must wait +to see his wife if he wished to know anything, when the general, who had +been silent, twisted his head towards him, and said without regard to the +context, "It was complicated, at Weimar, by that young man in the most +devilish way. Did my daughter write to Mrs. March about--Well it came +to nothing, after all; and I don't understand how, to this day. I doubt +if they do. It was some sort of quarrel, I suppose. I wasn't consulted +in the matter either way. It appears that parents are not consulted in +these trifling affairs, nowadays." He had married his daughter's mother +in open defiance of her father; but in the glare of his daughter's +wilfulness this fact had whitened into pious obedience. "I dare say I +shall be told, by-and-by, and shall be expected to approve of the +result." + +A fancy possessed March that by operation of temperamental laws General +Triscoe was no more satisfied with Burnamy's final rejection than with +his acceptance. If the engagement was ever to be renewed, it might be +another thing; but as it stood, March divined a certain favor for the +young man in the general's attitude. But the affair was altogether too +delicate for comment; the general's aristocratic frankness in dealing +with it might have gone farther if his knowledge had been greater; but in +any case March did not see how he could touch it. He could only say, He +had always liked Burnamy, himself. + +He had his good qualities, the general owned. He did not profess to +understand the young men of our time; but certainly the fellow had the +instincts of a gentleman. He had nothing to say against him, unless in +that business with that man--what was his name? + +"Stoller?" March prompted. "I don't excuse him in that, but I don't +blame him so much, either. If punishment means atonement, he had the +opportunity of making that right very suddenly, and if pardon means +expunction, then I don't see why that offence hasn't been pretty well +wiped out. + +"Those things are not so simple as they used to seem," said the general, +with a seriousness beyond his wont in things that did not immediately +concern his own comfort or advantage. + + + + +LXXVI. + +In the mean time Mrs. March and Miss Triscoe were discussing another +offence of Burnamy's. + +"It wasn't," said the girl, excitedly, after a plunge through all the +minor facts to the heart of the matter, "that he hadn't a perfect right +to do it, if he thought I didn't care for him. I had refused him at +Carlsbad, and I had forbidden him to speak to me about--on the subject. +But that was merely temporary, and he ought to have known it. He ought to +have known that I couldn't accept him, on the spur of the moment, that +way; and when he had come back, after going away in disgrace, before he +had done anything to justify himself. I couldn't have kept my self- +respect; and as it was I had the greatest difficulty; and he ought to +have seen it. Of course he said afterwards that he didn't see it. But +when--when I found out that SHE had been in Weimar, and all that time, +while I had been suffering in Carlsbad and Wurzburg, and longing to see +him--let him know how I was really feeling--he was flirting with that-- +that girl, then I saw that he was a false nature, and I determined to put +an end to everything. And that is what I did; and I shall always think +I--did right--and--" + +The rest was lost in Agatha's handkerchief, which she put up to her eyes. +Mrs. March watched her from her pillow keeping the girl's unoccupied hand +in her own, and softly pressing it till the storm was past sufficiently +to allow her to be heard. + +Then she said, "Men are very strange--the best of them. And from the +very fact that he was disappointed, he would be all the more apt to rush +into a flirtation with somebody else." + +Miss Triscoe took down her handkerchief from a face that had certainly +not been beautified by grief. "I didn't blame him for the flirting; or +not so much. It was his keeping it from me afterwards. He ought to have +told me the very first instant we were engaged. But he didn't. He let +it go on, and if I hadn't happened on that bouquet I might never have +known anything about it. That is what I mean by--a false nature. +I wouldn't have minded his deceiving me; but to let me deceive myself-- +Oh, it was too much!" + +Agatha hid her face in her handkerchief again. She was perching on the +edge of the berth, and Mrs. March said, with a glance, which she did not +see, toward the sofa, "I'm afraid that's rather a hard seat for you. + +"Oh, no, thank you! I'm perfectly comfortable--I like it--if you don't +mind?" + +Mrs. March pressed her hand for answer, and after another little delay, +sighed and said, "They are not like us, and we cannot help it. They are +more temporizing." + +"How do you mean?" Agatha unmasked again. + +"They can bear to keep things better than we can, and they trust to time +to bring them right, or to come right of themselves." + +"I don't think Mr. March would trust things to come right of themselves!" +said Agatha in indignant accusal of Mrs. March's sincerity. + +"Ah, that's just what he would do, my dear, and has done, all along; and +I don't believe we could have lived through without it: we should have +quarrelled ourselves into the grave!" + +"Mrs. March!" + +"Yes, indeed. I don't mean that he would ever deceive me. But he would +let things go on, and hope that somehow they would come right without any +fuss." + +"Do you mean that he would let anybody deceive themselves?" + +"I'm afraid he would--if he thought it would come right. It used to be a +terrible trial to me; and it is yet, at times when I don't remember that +he means nothing but good and kindness by it. Only the other day in +Ansbach--how long ago it seems!--he let a poor old woman give him her +son's address in Jersey City, and allowed her to believe he would look +him up when we got back and tell him we had seen her. I don't believe, +unless I keep right round after him, as we say in New England, that he'll +ever go near the man." + +Agatha looked daunted, but she said, "That is a very different thing." + +"It isn't a different kind of thing. And it shows what men are,--the +sweetest and best of them, that is. They are terribly apt to be +--easy-going." + +"Then you think I was all wrong?" the girl asked in a tremor. + +"No, indeed! You were right, because you really expected perfection of +him. You expected the ideal. And that's what makes all the trouble, in +married life: we expect too much of each other--we each expect more of +the other than we are willing to give or can give. If I had to begin +over again, I should not expect anything at all, and then I should be +sure of being radiantly happy. But all this talking and all this writing +about love seems to turn our brains; we know that men are not perfect, +even at our craziest, because women are not, but we expect perfection of +them; and they seem to expect it of us, poor things! If we could keep on +after we are in love just as we were before we were in love, and take +nice things as favors and surprises, as we did in the beginning! But we +get more and more greedy and exacting--" + +"Do you think I was too exacting in wanting him to tell me everything +after we were engaged?" + +"No, I don't say that. But suppose he had put it off till you were +married?" Agatha blushed a little, but not painfully, "Would it have +been so bad? Then you might have thought that his flirting up to the +last moment in his desperation was a very good joke. You would have +understood better just how it was, and it might even have made you fonder +of him. You might have seen that he had flirted with some one else +because he was so heart-broken about you." + +"Then you believe that if I could have waited till--till--but when I had +found out, don't you see I couldn't wait? It would have been all very +well if I hadn't known it till then. But as I did know it. Don't you +see?" + +"Yes, that certainly complicated it," Mrs. March admitted. "But I don't +think, if he'd been a false nature, he'd have owned up as he did. You +see, he didn't try to deny it; and that's a great point gained." + +"Yes, that is true," said Agatha, with conviction. "I saw that +afterwards. But you don't think, Mrs. March, that I was unjust or--or +hasty?" + +"No, indeed! You couldn't have done differently under the circumstances. +You may be sure he felt that--he is so unselfish and generous--" Agatha +began to weep into her handkerchief again; Mrs. March caressed her hand. +"And it will certainly come right if you feel as you do." + +"No," the girl protested. "He can never forgive me; it's all over, +everything is over. It would make very little difference to me, what +happened now--if the steamer broke her shaft, or anything. But if I can +only believe I wasn't unjust--" + +Mrs. March assured her once more that she had behaved with absolute +impartiality; and she proved to her by a process of reasoning quite +irrefragable that it was only a question of time, with which place had +nothing to do, when she and Burnamy should come together again, and all +should be made right between them. The fact that she did not know where +he was, any more than Mrs. March herself, had nothing to do with the +result; that was a mere detail, which would settle itself. She clinched +her argument by confessing that her own engagement had been broken off, +and that it had simply renewed itself. All you had to do was to keep +willing it, and waiting. There was something very mysterious in it. + +"And how long was it till--" Agatha faltered. + +"Well, in our ease it was two years." + +"Oh!" said the girl, but Mrs. March hastened to reassure her. + +"But our case was very peculiar. I could see afterwards that it needn't +have been two months, if I had been willing to acknowledge at once that I +was in the wrong. I waited till we met." + +"If I felt that I was in the wrong, I should write," said Agatha. +"I shouldn't care what he thought of my doing it." + +"Yes, the great thing is to make sure that you were wrong." + +They remained talking so long, that March and the general had exhausted +all the topics of common interest, and had even gone through those they +did not care for. At last the general said, "I'm afraid my daughter will +tire Mrs. March." + +"Oh, I don't think she'll tire my wife. But do you want her?" + +"Well, when you're going down." + +"I think I'll take a turn about the deck, and start my circulation," said +March, and he did so before he went below. + +He found his wife up and dressed, and waiting provisionally on the sofa. +"I thought I might as well go to lunch," she said, and then she told him +about Agatha and Burnamy, and the means she had employed to comfort and +encourage the girl. "And now, dearest, I want you to find out where +Burnamy is, and give him a hint. You will, won't you! If you could have +seen how unhappy she was!" + +"I don't think I should have cared, and I'm certainly not going to +meddle. I think Burnamy has got no more than he deserved, and that he's +well rid of her. I can't imagine a broken engagement that would more +completely meet my approval. As the case stands, they have my blessing." + +"Don't say that, dearest! You know you don't mean it." + +"I do; and I advise you to keep your hands off. You've done all and more +than you ought to propitiate Miss Triscoe. You've offered yourself up, +and you've offered me up--" + +"No, no, Basil! I merely used you as an illustration of what men were-- +the best of them." + +"And I can't observe," he continued, "that any one else has been +considered in the matter. Is Miss Triscoe the sole sufferer by Burnamy's +flirtation? What is the matter with a little compassion for the pivotal +girl?" + +"Now, you know you're not serious," said his wife; and though he would +not admit this, he could not be seriously sorry for the new interest +which she took in the affair. There was no longer any question of +changing their state-room. Under the tonic influence of the excitement +she did not go back to her berth after lunch, and she was up later after +dinner than he could have advised. She was absorbed in Agatha, but in +her liberation from her hypochondria, she began also to make a +comparative study of the American swells, in the light of her late +experience with the German highhotes. It is true that none of the swells +gave her the opportunity of examining them at close range, as the +highhotes had done. They kept to their, state-rooms mostly, where, after +he thought she could bear it, March told her how near he had come to +making her their equal by an outlay of six hundred dollars. She now +shuddered at the thought; but she contended that in their magnificent +exclusiveness they could give points to European princes; and that this +showed again how when Americans did try to do a thing, they beat the +world. Agatha Triscoe knew who they were, but she did not know them; +they belonged to another kind of set; she spoke of them as "rich people," +and she seemed content to keep away from them with Mrs. March and with +the shy, silent old wife of Major Eltwin, to whom March sometimes found +her talking. + +He never found her father talking with Major Eltwin. General Triscoe had +his own friends in the smoking-room, where he held forth in a certain +corner on the chances of the approaching election in New York, and mocked +their incredulity when he prophesied the success of Tammany and the +return of the King. March himself much preferred Major Eltwin to the +general and his friends; he lived back in the talk of the Ohioan into his +own younger years in Indiana, and he was amused and touched to find how +much the mid-Western life seemed still the same as he had known. The +conditions had changed, but not so much as they had changed in the East +and the farther West. The picture that the major drew of them in his own +region was alluring; it made March homesick; though he knew that he +should never go back to his native section. There was the comfort of +kind in the major; and he had a vein of philosophy, spare but sweet, +which March liked; he liked also the meekness which had come through +sorrow upon a spirit which had once been proud. + +They had both the elderly man's habit of early rising, and they usually +found themselves together waiting impatiently for the cup of coffee, +ingenuously bad, which they served on the Cupania not earlier than half +past six, in strict observance of a rule of the line discouraging to +people of their habits. March admired the vileness of the decoction, +which he said could not be got anywhere out of the British Empire, and he +asked Eltwin the first morning if he had noticed how instantly on the +Channel boat they had dropped to it and to the sour, heavy, sodden +British bread, from the spirited and airy Continental tradition of coffee +and rolls. + +The major confessed that he was no great hand to notice such things, and +he said he supposed that if the line had never lost a passenger, and got +you to New York in six days it had a right to feed you as it pleased; he +surmised that if they could get their airing outside before they took +their coffee, it would give the coffee a chance to taste better; and this +was what they afterwards did. They met, well buttoned and well mined up, +on the promenade when it was yet so early that they were not at once sure +of each other in the twilight, and watched the morning planets pale east +and west before the sun rose. Sometimes there were no paling planets and +no rising sun, and a black sea, ridged with white, tossed under a low +dark sky with dim rifts. + +One morning, they saw the sun rise with a serenity and majesty which it +rarely has outside of the theatre. The dawn began over that sea which +was like the rumpled canvas imitations of the sea on the stage, under +long mauve clouds bathed in solemn light. Above these, in the pale +tender sky, two silver stars hung, and the steamer's smoke drifted across +them like a thin dusky veil. To the right a bank of dun cloud began to +burn crimson, and to burn brighter till it was like a low hill-side full +of gorgeous rugosities fleeced with a dense dwarfish growth of autumnal +shrubs. The whole eastern heaven softened and flushed through diaphanous +mists; the west remained a livid mystery. The eastern masses and flakes +of cloud began to kindle keenly; but the stars shone clearly, and then +one star, till the tawny pink hid it. All the zenith reddened, but still +the sun did not show except in the color of the brilliant clouds. At +last the lurid horizon began to burn like a flame-shot smoke, and a +fiercely bright disc edge pierced its level, and swiftly defined itself +as the sun's orb. + +Many thoughts went through March's mind; some of them were sad, but in +some there was a touch of hopefulness. It might have been that beauty +which consoled him for his years; somehow he felt himself, if no longer +young, a part of the young immortal frame of things. His state was +indefinable, but he longed to hint at it to his companion. + +"Yes," said Eltwin, with a long deep sigh. "I feel as if I could walk +out through that brightness and find her. I reckon that such hopes +wouldn't be allowed to lie to us; that so many ages of men couldn't have +fooled themselves so. I'm glad I've seen this." He was silent and they +both remained watching the rising sun till they could not bear its +splendor. "Now," said the major, "it must be time for that mud, as you +call it." Over their coffee and crackers at the end of the table which +they had to themselves, he resumed. "I was thinking all the time-- +we seem to think half a dozen things at once, and this was one of them-- +about a piece of business I've got to settle when I reach home; and +perhaps you can advise me about it; you're an editor. I've got a +newspaper on my hands; I reckon it would be a pretty good thing, if it +had a chance; but I don't know what to do with it: I got it in trade with +a fellow who has to go West for his lungs, but he's staying till I get +back. What's become of that young chap--what's his name?--that went out +with us?" + +"Burnamy?" prompted March, rather breathlessly. + +"Yes. Couldn't he take hold of it? I rather liked him. He's smart, +isn't he?" + +"Very," said March. "But I don't know where he is. I don't know that he +would go into the country--. But he might, if--" + +They entered provisionally into the case, and for argument's sake +supposed that Burnamy would take hold of the major's paper if he could be +got at. It really looked to March like a good chance for him, on +Eltwin's showing; but he was not confident of Burnamy's turning up very +soon, and he gave the major a pretty clear notion why, by entering into +the young fellow's history for the last three months. + +"Isn't it the very irony of fate?" he said to his wife when he found her +in their room with a cup of the same mud he had been drinking, and +reported the facts to her. + +"Irony?" she said, with all the excitement he could have imagined or +desired. "Nothing of the kind. It's a leading, if ever there was one. +It will be the easiest thing in the world to find Burnamy. And out there +she can sit on her steps!" + +He slowly groped his way to her meaning, through the hypothesis of +Burnamy's reconciliation and marriage with Agatha Triscoe, and their +settlement in Major Eltwin's town under social conditions that implied a +habit of spending the summer evenings on their front porch. While he was +doing this she showered him with questions and conjectures and +requisitions in which nothing but the impossibility of going ashore saved +him from the instant devotion of all his energies to a world-wide, +inquiry into Burnamy's whereabouts. + +The next morning he was up before Major Eltwin got out, and found the +second-cabin passengers free of the first-cabin promenade at an hour when +their superiors were not using it. As he watched these inferiors, +decent-looking, well-clad men and women, enjoying their privilege with a +furtive air, and with stolen glances at him, he asked himself in what +sort he was their superior, till the inquiry grew painful. Then he rose +from his chair, and made his way to the place where the material barrier +between them was lifted, and interested himself in a few of them who +seemed too proud to avail themselves of his society on the terms made. +A figure seized his attention with a sudden fascination of conjecture and +rejection: the figure of a tall young man who came out on the promenade +and without looking round, walked swiftly away to the bow of the ship, +and stood there, looking down at the water in an attitude which was +bewilderingly familiar. His movement, his posture, his dress, even, was +that of Burnamy, and March, after a first flush of pleasure, felt a +sickening repulsion in the notion of his presence. It would have been +such a cheap performance on the part of life, which has all sorts of +chances at command, and need not descend to the poor tricks of second- +rate fiction; and he accused Burnamy of a complicity in the bad taste of +the affair, though he realized, when he reflected, that if it were really +Burnamy he must have sailed in as much unconsciousness of the Triscoes as +he himself had done. He had probably got out of money and had hurried +home while he had still enough to pay the second-cabin fare on the first +boat back. Clearly he was not to blame, but life was to blame for such a +shabby device; and March felt this so keenly that he wished to turn from +the situation, and have nothing to do with it. He kept moving toward +him, drawn by the fatal attraction, and at a few paces' distance the +young man whirled about and showed him the face of a stranger. + +March made some witless remark on the rapid course of the ship as it cut +its way through the water of the bow; the stranger answered with a strong +Lancashire accent; and in the talk which followed, he said he was going +out to see the cotton-mills at Fall River and New Bedford, and he seemed +hopeful of some advice or information from March; then he said he must go +and try to get his Missus out; March understood him to mean his wife, and +he hurried down to his own, to whom he related his hair-breadth escape +from Burnamy. + +"I don't call it an escape at all!" she declared. "I call it the +greatest possible misfortune. If it had been Burnamy we could have +brought them together at once, just when she has seen so clearly that she +was in the wrong, and is feeling all broken up. There wouldn't have been +any difficulty about his being in the second-cabin. We could have +contrived to have them meet somehow. If the worst came to the worst you +could have lent him money to pay the difference, and got him into the +first-cabin." + +"I could have taken that six-hundred-dollar room for him," said March, +"and then he could have eaten with the swells." + +She answered that now he was teasing; that he was fundamentally incapable +of taking anything seriously; and in the end he retired before the +stewardess bringing her first coffee, with a well-merited feeling that if +it had not been for his triviality the young Lancashireman would really +have been Burnamy. + + + + +LXXV. + +Except for the first day and night out from Queenstown, when the ship +rolled and pitched with straining and squeaking noises, and a thumping of +the lifted screws, there was no rough weather, and at last the ocean was +livid and oily, with a long swell, on which she swayed with no +perceptible motion save from her machinery. + +Most of the seamanship seemed to be done after dark, or in those early +hours when March found the stewards cleaning the stairs, and the sailors +scouring the promenades. He made little acquaintance with his fellow- +passengers. One morning he almost spoke with an old Quaker lady whom he +joined in looking at the Niagara flood which poured from the churning +screws; but he did not quite get the words out. On the contrary he +talked freely with an American who, bred horses on a farm near Boulogne, +and was going home to the Horse Show; he had been thirty-five years out +of the country, but he had preserved his Yankee accent in all its purity, +and was the most typical-looking American on board. Now and then March +walked up and down with a blond Mexican whom he found of the usual well- +ordered Latin intelligence, but rather flavorless; at times he sat beside +a nice Jew, who talked agreeably, but only about business; and he +philosophized the race as so tiresome often because it seemed so often +without philosophy. He made desperate attempts at times to interest +himself in the pool-selling in the smoking-room where the betting on the +ship's wonderful run was continual. + +He thought that people talked less and less as they drew nearer home; but +on the last day out there was a sudden expansion, and some whom he had +not spoken with voluntarily addressed him. The sweet, soft air was like +midsummer the water rippled gently, without a swell, blue under the clear +sky, and the ship left a wide track that was silver in the sun. There +were more sail; the first and second class baggage was got up and piled +along the steerage deck. + +Some people dressed a little more than usual for the last dinner which +was earlier than usual, so as to be out of the way against the arrival +which had been variously predicted at from five to seven-thirty. An +indescribable nervousness culminated with the appearance of the customs +officers on board, who spread their papers on cleared spaces of the +dining-tables, and summoned the passengers to declare that they had +nothing to declare, as a preliminary to being searched like thieves at +the dock. + +This ceremony proceeded while the Cupania made her way up the Narrows, +and into the North River, where the flare of lights from the crazy steeps +and cliffs of architecture on the New York shore seemed a persistence of +the last Fourth of July pyrotechnics. March blushed for the grotesque +splendor of the spectacle, and was confounded to find some Englishmen +admiring it, till he remembered that aesthetics were not the strong point +of our race. His wife sat hand in hand with Miss Triscoe, and from time +to time made him count the pieces of small baggage in the keeping of +their steward; while General Triscoe held aloof in a sarcastic calm. + +The steamer groped into her dock; the gangways were lifted to her side; +the passengers fumbled and stumbled down their incline, and at the bottom +the Marches found themselves respectively in the arms of their son and +daughter. They all began talking at once, and ignoring and trying to +remember the Triscoes to whom the young Marches were presented. Bella +did her best to be polite to Agatha, and Tom offered to get an inspector +for the general at the same time as for his father. Then March, +remorsefully remembered the Eltwins, and looked about for them, so that +his son might get them an inspector too. He found the major already in +the hands of an inspector, who was passing all his pieces after +carelessly looking into one: the official who received the declarations +on board had noted a Grand Army button like his own in the major's lapel, +and had marked his fellow-veteran's paper with the mystic sign which +procures for the bearer the honor of being promptly treated as a +smuggler, while the less favored have to wait longer for this indignity +at the hands of their government. When March's own inspector came he was +as civil and lenient as our hateful law allows; when he had finished +March tried to put a bank-note in his hand, and was brought to a just +shame by his refusal of it. The bed-room steward keeping guard over the +baggage helped put-it together after the search, and protested that March +had feed him so handsomely that he would stay there with it as long as +they wished. This partly restored March's self-respect, and he could +share in General Triscoe's indignation with the Treasury ruling which +obliged him to pay duty on his own purchases in excess of the hundred- +dollar limit, though his daughter had brought nothing, and they jointly +came far within the limit for two. + +He found that the Triscoes were going to a quiet old hotel on the way to +Stuyvesant Square, quite in his own neighborhood, and he quickly arranged +for all the ladies and the general to drive together while he was to +follow with his son on foot and by car. They got away from the scene of +the customs' havoc while the steamer shed, with its vast darkness dimly +lit by its many lamps, still showed like a battle-field where the +inspectors groped among the scattered baggage like details from the +victorious army searching for the wounded. His son clapped him on the +shoulder when he suggested this notion, and said he was the same old +father; and they got home as gayly together as the dispiriting influences +of the New York ugliness would permit. It was still in those good and +decent times, now so remote, when the city got something for the money +paid out to keep its streets clean, and those they passed through were +not foul but merely mean. + +The ignoble effect culminated when they came into Broadway, and found its +sidewalks, at an hour when those of any European metropolis would have +been brilliant with life, as unpeopled as those of a minor country town, +while long processions of cable-cars carted heaps of men and women up and +down the thoroughfare amidst the deformities of the architecture. + +The next morning the March family breakfasted late after an evening +prolonged beyond midnight in spite of half-hourly agreements that now +they must really all go to bed. The children had both to recognize again +and again how well their parents were looking; Tom had to tell his father +about the condition of 'Every Other Week'; Bella had to explain to her +mother how sorry her husband was that he could not come on to meet them +with her, but was coming a week later to take her home, and then she +would know the reason why they could not all, go back to Chicago with +him: it was just the place for her father to live, for everybody to live. +At breakfast she renewed the reasoning with which she had maintained her +position the night before; the travellers entered into a full expression +of their joy at being home again; March asked what had become of that +stray parrot which they had left in the tree-top the morning they +started; and Mrs. March declared that this was the last Silver Wedding +Journey she ever wished to take, and tried to convince them all that she +had been on the verge of nervous collapse when she reached the ship. +They sat at table till she discovered that it was very nearly eleven +o'clock, and said it was disgraceful. + +Before they rose, there was a ring at the door, and a card was brought in +to Tom. He glanced at it, and said to his father, "Oh, yes! This man +has been haunting the office for the last three days. He's got to leave +to-day, and as it seemed to be rather a case of life and death with him, +I said he'd probably find you here this morning. But if you don't want +to see him, I can put him off till afternoon, I suppose." + +He tossed the card to his father, who looked at it quietly, and then gave +it to his wife. "Perhaps I'd as well see him?" + +"See him!" she returned in accents in which all the intensity of her soul +was centred. By an effort of self-control which no words can convey a +just sense of she remained with her children, while her husband with a +laugh more teasing than can be imagined went into the drawing-room to +meet Burnamy. + +The poor fellow was in an effect of belated summer as to clothes, and he +looked not merely haggard but shabby. He made an effort for dignity as +well as gayety, however, in stating himself to March, with many apologies +for his persistency. But, he said, he was on his way West, and he was +anxious to know whether there was any chance of his 'Kasper Hauler' paper +being taken if he finished it up. March would have been a far harder- +hearted editor than he was, if he could have discouraged the suppliant +before him. He said he would take the Kasper Hauler paper and add a band +of music to the usual rate of ten dollars a thousand words. Then +Burnamy's dignity gave way, if not his gayety; he began to laugh, and +suddenly he broke down and confessed that he had come home in the +steerage; and was at his last cent, beyond his fare to Chicago. His +straw hat looked like a withered leaf in the light of his sad facts; his +thin overcoat affected March's imagination as something like the +diaphanous cast shell of a locust, hopelessly resumed for comfort at the +approach of autumn. He made Burnamy sit down, after he had once risen, +and he told him of Major Eltwin's wish to see him; and he promised to go +round with him to the major's hotel before the Eltwins left town that +afternoon. + +While he prolonged the interview in this way, Mrs. March was kept from +breaking in upon them only by the psychical experiment which she was +making with the help and sympathy of her daughter at the window of the +dining-room which looked up Sixteenth Street. At the first hint she gave +of the emotional situation which Burnamy was a main part of, her son; +with the brutal contempt of young men for other young men's love affairs, +said he must go to the office; he bade his mother tell his father there +was no need of his coming down that day, and he left the two women +together. This gave the mother a chance to develop the whole fact to the +daughter with telegrammic rapidity and brevity, and then to enrich the +first-outline with innumerable details, while they both remained at the +window, and Mrs. March said at two-minutely intervals, with no sense of +iteration for either of them, "I told her to come in the morning, if she +felt like it, and I know she will. But if she doesn't, I shall say there +is nothing in fate, or Providence either. At any rate I'm going to stay +here and keep longing for her, and we'll see whether there's anything in +that silly theory of your father's. I don't believe there is," she said, +to be on the safe side. + +Even when she saw Agatha Triscoe enter the park gate on Rutherford Place, +she saved herself from disappointment by declaring that she was not +coming across to their house. As the girl persisted in coming and +coming, and at last came so near that she caught sight of Mrs. March at +the window and nodded, the mother turned ungratefully upon her daughter, +and drove her away to her own room, so that no society detail should +hinder the divine chance. She went to the door herself when Agatha rang, +and then she was going to open the way into the parlor where March was +still closeted with Burnamy, and pretend that she had not known they were +there. But a soberer second thought than this prevailed, and she told +the girl who it was that was within and explained the accident of his +presence. "I think," she said nobly, "that you ought to have the chance +of going away if you don't wish to meet him." + +The girl, with that heroic precipitation which Mrs. March had noted in +her from the first with regard to what she wanted to do, when Burnamy was +in question, answered, "But I do wish to meet him, Mrs. March." + +While they stood looking at each other, March came out to ask his wife if +she would see Burnamy, and she permitted herself so much stratagem as to +substitute Agatha, after catching her husband aside and subduing his +proposed greeting of the girl to a hasty handshake. + +Half an hour later she thought it time to join the young people, urged +largely by the frantic interest of her daughter. But she returned from +the half-open door without entering. "I couldn't bring myself to break +in on the poor things. They are standing at the window together looking +over at St. George's." + +Bella silently clasped her hands. March gave cynical laugh, and said, +"Well we are in for it, my dear." Then he added, "I hope they'll take us +with them on their Silver Wedding Journey." + + + + +ETEXT EDITOR'S BOOKMARKS: + +Declare that they had nothing to declare +Despair which any perfection inspires +Disingenuous, hypocritical passion of love +Fundamentally incapable of taking anything seriously +Held aloof in a sarcastic calm +Illusions: no marriage can be perfect without them +Married life: we expect too much of each other +Not do to be perfectly frank with one's own country +Offence which any difference of taste was apt to give him +Passionate desire for excess in a bad thing +Puddles of the paths were drying up with the haste +Race seemed so often without philosophy +Self-sacrifice which could be had, as it were, at a bargain +She always came to his defence when he accused himself + + + + +End of this Project Gutenberg Etext of Their Silver Wedding Journey, v3 +by William Dean Howells + diff --git a/old/wh3sw11.zip b/old/wh3sw11.zip Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..ec07701 --- /dev/null +++ b/old/wh3sw11.zip |