diff options
Diffstat (limited to '5784-8.txt')
| -rw-r--r-- | 5784-8.txt | 2631 |
1 files changed, 2631 insertions, 0 deletions
diff --git a/5784-8.txt b/5784-8.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..2f89379 --- /dev/null +++ b/5784-8.txt @@ -0,0 +1,2631 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of A Tramp Abroad, by Mark Twain (Samuel Clemens) + +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: A Tramp Abroad + Part 3 + +Author: Mark Twain (Samuel Clemens) + +Release Date: March 1994 [EBook #5784] +Posting Date: June 3, 2009 + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK A TRAMP ABROAD *** + + + + +Produced by Anonymous Volunteers, John Greenman and David Widger + + + + + +A TRAMP ABROAD, Part 3. + +By Mark Twain + +(Samuel L. Clemens) + +First published in 1880 + +Illustrations taken from an 1880 First Edition + + * * * * * * + + + +ILLUSTRATIONS: + + 1. PORTRAIT OF THE AUTHOR + 2. TITIAN'S MOSES + 3. THE AUTHOR'S MEMORIES + 73. A DEEP AND TRANQUIL ECSTACY + 74. "WHICH ANSWERED JUST AS WELL" + 75. LIFE ON A RAFT + 76. LADY GERTRUDE + 77. MOUTH OF THE CAVERN + 78. A FATAL MISTAKE + 79. TAIL PIECE + 80. RAFTING ON THE NECKAR + 81. THE LORELEI + 82. THE LOVER's FATE + 84. THE UNKNOWN KNIGHT + 85. THE EMBRACE + 86. PERILOUS POSTTION + 87. THE RAFT IN A STORM + 88. ALL SAFE ON SHORE + 89. "IT WAS THE CAT" + 90. TAILPIECE + 91. BREAKFAST IN THE GARDEN 162 + 92. EASILY UNDERSTOOD + 93. EXPERIMENTING THROUGH HARRIS + 94. AT THE BALL ROOM DOOR + 95. THE TOWN OF DILSBERG + 96. OUR ADVANCE ON DILSBERG + 97. INSIDE THE TOWN + 95. THE OLD WELL + 99. SEND HITHER THE LORD ULRICH + 100. LEAD ME TO HER GRAVE + 102. AN EXCELLENT PILOT, ONCE + 103. SCATTERATION + 104. THE RIVER BATH + 101. ETRUSCAN TEAR JUG + 106. HENRI II. PLATE + l07. OLD BLUE CHINA + 108. A REAL ANTIQUE + 109. BRIC-A-BRAC SHOP + 110. "PUT IT THERE" + 111. THE PARSON CAPTURED + 112. TAIL PIECE + 113. A COMPREHENSIVE YAWN + 114. TESTING THE COIN + 115. BEAUTY AT THE BATH + 116. IN THE BATH + 117. JERSEY INDIANS + 118. NOT PARTICULARLY SOCIABLE + + + +CONTENTS: + +CHAPTER XV Down the River--German Women's Duties--Bathing as We Went--A +Handsome Picture: Girls in the Willows--We Sight a Tug--Steamers on the +Neckar--Dinner on Board--Legend "Cave of the Spectre "--Lady Gertrude +the Heiress--The Crusader--The Lady in the Cave--A Tragedy + +CHAPTER XVI An Ancient Legend of the Rhine--"The Lorelei"--Count +Hermann--Falling in Love--A Sight of the Enchantress--Sad Effect +on Count Hermann--An Evening visit--A Sad Mistake--Count Hermann +Drowned--The Song and Music--Different Trans lations--Curiosities in +Titles + +CHAPTER XVII Another Legend--The Unconquered Monster--The Unknown Knight +--His Queer Shaped Knapsack--The Knight Pitied and Advised--He Attacks +the Monster--Victory for the Fire Extinguisher--The Knight rewarded--His +Strange Request----Spectacles Made Popular--Danger to the Raft--Blasting +Rocks--An Inglorious Death in View--Escaped--A Storm Overtakes +us--GreatDanger--Man Overboard--Breakers Ahead--Springing a Leak--Ashore +Safe--A General Embracing--A Tramp in the Dark--The Naturalist Tavern--A +Night's Troubles--"It is the Cat" + +CHAPTER XVIII Breakfast in a Garden--The Old Raven--Castle of +Hirschhorn--Attempt to Hire a Boat--High Dutch--What You Can Find out +by Enquiring--What I Found out about the Students--A good German +Custom--Harris Practices It--AnEmbarrassing Position--A Nice Party--At a +Ball--Stopped at the Door--Assistance at Hand and Rendered--Worthy to be +an Empress + +CHAPTER XIX Arrive at Neckarsteinach--Castle of Dilsberg--A Walled +Town--On a Hill--Exclusiveness of the People--A Queer Old Place--An +Ancient Well--An Outlet Proved--Legend of Dilsberg Castle--The +Haunted Chamber--The Betrothed's request--The Knight's Slumbers +and Awakening--Horror of the Lover--The Wicked Jest--The Lover a +Maniac--Under the Linden--Turning Pilot--Accident to the Raft--Fearful +Disaster + +CHAPTER XX Good News--"Slow Freight"--Keramics--My Collection of Bric-a- +brac--My Tear Jug--Henri II. Plate--Specimen of Blue China--Indifference +to the Laugh of the World--I Discover an Antique En-route to +Baden--Baden--Meeting an Old Acquaintance--A young American--Embryo +Horse Doctor--An American, Sure--A Minister Captured + +CHAPTER XXI Baden--Baden--Energetic Girls--A Comprehensive Yawn--A +Beggar's Trick--Cool Impudence--The Bath Woman--Insolence of Shop +Keepers--Taking a Bath--Early and Late Hours--Popular Belief Regarding +Indians--An Old Cemetery--A Pious Hag--Curious Table Companions + + + +CHAPTER XV + +[Charming Waterside Pictures] + + +Men and women and cattle were at work in the dewy fields by this time. +The people often stepped aboard the raft, as we glided along the grassy +shores, and gossiped with us and with the crew for a hundred yards or +so, then stepped ashore again, refreshed by the ride. + +Only the men did this; the women were too busy. The women do all kinds +of work on the continent. They dig, they hoe, they reap, they sow, they +bear monstrous burdens on their backs, they shove similar ones long +distances on wheelbarrows, they drag the cart when there is no dog or +lean cow to drag it--and when there is, they assist the dog or cow. Age +is no matter--the older the woman the stronger she is, apparently. +On the farm a woman's duties are not defined--she does a little of +everything; but in the towns it is different, there she only does +certain things, the men do the rest. For instance, a hotel chambermaid +has nothing to do but make beds and fires in fifty or sixty rooms, bring +towels and candles, and fetch several tons of water up several flights +of stairs, a hundred pounds at a time, in prodigious metal pitchers. She +does not have to work more than eighteen or twenty hours a day, and +she can always get down on her knees and scrub the floors of halls and +closets when she is tired and needs a rest. + +As the morning advanced and the weather grew hot, we took off our +outside clothing and sat in a row along the edge of the raft and enjoyed +the scenery, with our sun-umbrellas over our heads and our legs dangling +in the water. + + + +Every now and then we plunged in and had a swim. Every projecting grassy +cape had its joyous group of naked children, the boys to themselves and +the girls to themselves, the latter usually in care of some motherly +dame who sat in the shade of a tree with her knitting. The little boys +swam out to us, sometimes, but the little maids stood knee-deep in the +water and stopped their splashing and frolicking to inspect the raft +with their innocent eyes as it drifted by. Once we turned a corner +suddenly and surprised a slender girl of twelve years or upward, just +stepping into the water. She had not time to run, but she did what +answered just as well; she promptly drew a lithe young willow bough +athwart her white body with one hand, and then contemplated us with a +simple and untroubled interest. Thus she stood while we glided by. She +was a pretty creature, and she and her willow bough made a very +pretty picture, and one which could not offend the modesty of the most +fastidious spectator. Her white skin had a low bank of fresh green +willows for background and effective contrast--for she stood against +them--and above and out of them projected the eager faces and white +shoulders of two smaller girls. + + + +Toward noon we heard the inspiriting cry,-- + +"Sail ho!" + +"Where away?" shouted the captain. + +"Three points off the weather bow!" + +We ran forward to see the vessel. It proved to be a steamboat--for they +had begun to run a steamer up the Neckar, for the first time in May. +She was a tug, and one of a very peculiar build and aspect. I had often +watched her from the hotel, and wondered how she propelled herself, for +apparently she had no propeller or paddles. She came churning along, +now, making a deal of noise of one kind or another, and aggravating it +every now and then by blowing a hoarse whistle. She had nine keel-boats +hitched on behind and following after her in a long, slender rank. We +met her in a narrow place, between dikes, and there was hardly room for +us both in the cramped passage. As she went grinding and groaning by, we +perceived the secret of her moving impulse. She did not drive herself up +the river with paddles or propeller, she pulled herself by hauling on +a great chain. This chain is laid in the bed of the river and is only +fastened at the two ends. It is seventy miles long. It comes in over the +boat's bow, passes around a drum, and is payed out astern. She pulls +on that chain, and so drags herself up the river or down it. She has +neither bow or stern, strictly speaking, for she has a long-bladed +rudder on each end and she never turns around. She uses both rudders +all the time, and they are powerful enough to enable her to turn to +the right or the left and steer around curves, in spite of the strong +resistance of the chain. I would not have believed that that impossible +thing could be done; but I saw it done, and therefore I know that there +is one impossible thing which CAN be done. What miracle will man attempt +next? + +We met many big keel-boats on their way up, using sails, mule power, and +profanity--a tedious and laborious business. A wire rope led from the +foretopmast to the file of mules on the tow-path a hundred yards ahead, +and by dint of much banging and swearing and urging, the detachment of +drivers managed to get a speed of two or three miles an hour out of the +mules against the stiff current. The Neckar has always been used as a +canal, and thus has given employment to a great many men and animals; +but now that this steamboat is able, with a small crew and a bushel or +so of coal, to take nine keel-boats farther up the river in one hour +than thirty men and thirty mules can do it in two, it is believed +that the old-fashioned towing industry is on its death-bed. A second +steamboat began work in the Neckar three months after the first one was +put in service. [Figure 4] + +At noon we stepped ashore and bought some bottled beer and got some +chickens cooked, while the raft waited; then we immediately put to sea +again, and had our dinner while the beer was cold and the chickens hot. +There is no pleasanter place for such a meal than a raft that is +gliding down the winding Neckar past green meadows and wooded hills, and +slumbering villages, and craggy heights graced with crumbling towers and +battlements. + + + +In one place we saw a nicely dressed German gentleman without any +spectacles. Before I could come to anchor he had got underway. It was a +great pity. I so wanted to make a sketch of him. The captain comforted +me for my loss, however, by saying that the man was without any doubt a +fraud who had spectacles, but kept them in his pocket in order to make +himself conspicuous. + +Below Hassmersheim we passed Hornberg, Goetz von Berlichingen's old +castle. It stands on a bold elevation two hundred feet above the surface +of the river; it has high vine-clad walls enclosing trees, and a peaked +tower about seventy-five feet high. The steep hillside, from the castle +clear down to the water's edge, is terraced, and clothed thick with +grape vines. This is like farming a mansard roof. All the steeps along +that part of the river which furnish the proper exposure, are given +up to the grape. That region is a great producer of Rhine wines. The +Germans are exceedingly fond of Rhine wines; they are put up in tall, +slender bottles, and are considered a pleasant beverage. One tells them +from vinegar by the label. + +The Hornberg hill is to be tunneled, and the new railway will pass under +the castle. THE CAVE OF THE SPECTER Two miles below Hornberg castle is +a cave in a low cliff, which the captain of the raft said had once been +occupied by a beautiful heiress of Hornberg--the Lady Gertrude--in the +old times. It was seven hundred years ago. She had a number of rich and +noble lovers and one poor and obscure one, Sir Wendel Lobenfeld. With +the native chuckleheadedness of the heroine of romance, she preferred +the poor and obscure lover. + + + +With the native sound judgment of the father of a heroine of romance, +the von Berlichingen of that day shut his daughter up in his donjon +keep, or his oubliette, or his culverin, or some such place, and +resolved that she should stay there until she selected a husband from +among her rich and noble lovers. The latter visited her and persecuted +her with their supplications, but without effect, for her heart was +true to her poor despised Crusader, who was fighting in the Holy Land. +Finally, she resolved that she would endure the attentions of the rich +lovers no longer; so one stormy night she escaped and went down +the river and hid herself in the cave on the other side. Her father +ransacked the country for her, but found not a trace of her. As the +days went by, and still no tidings of her came, his conscience began to +torture him, and he caused proclamation to be made that if she were yet +living and would return, he would oppose her no longer, she might marry +whom she would. The months dragged on, all hope forsook the old man, he +ceased from his customary pursuits and pleasures, he devoted himself to +pious works, and longed for the deliverance of death. + +Now just at midnight, every night, the lost heiress stood in the mouth +of her cave, arrayed in white robes, and sang a little love ballad which +her Crusader had made for her. She judged that if he came home alive the +superstitious peasants would tell him about the ghost that sang in the +cave, and that as soon as they described the ballad he would know that +none but he and she knew that song, therefore he would suspect that she +was alive, and would come and find her. As time went on, the people of +the region became sorely distressed about the Specter of the Haunted +Cave. It was said that ill luck of one kind or another always overtook +any one who had the misfortune to hear that song. Eventually, every +calamity that happened thereabouts was laid at the door of that music. +Consequently, no boatmen would consent to pass the cave at night; the +peasants shunned the place, even in the daytime. + + + +But the faithful girl sang on, night after night, month after month, and +patiently waited; her reward must come at last. Five years dragged by, +and still, every night at midnight, the plaintive tones floated out over +the silent land, while the distant boatmen and peasants thrust their +fingers into their ears and shuddered out a prayer. + +And now came the Crusader home, bronzed and battle-scarred, but bringing +a great and splendid fame to lay at the feet of his bride. The old lord +of Hornberg received him as his son, and wanted him to stay by him +and be the comfort and blessing of his age; but the tale of that young +girl's devotion to him and its pathetic consequences made a changed +man of the knight. He could not enjoy his well-earned rest. He said his +heart was broken, he would give the remnant of his life to high deeds in +the cause of humanity, and so find a worthy death and a blessed reunion +with the brave true heart whose love had more honored him than all his +victories in war. + +When the people heard this resolve of his, they came and told him there +was a pitiless dragon in human disguise in the Haunted Cave, a dread +creature which no knight had yet been bold enough to face, and begged +him to rid the land of its desolating presence. He said he would do it. +They told him about the song, and when he asked what song it was, they +said the memory of it was gone, for nobody had been hardy enough to +listen to it for the past four years and more. + +Toward midnight the Crusader came floating down the river in a boat, +with his trusty cross-bow in his hands. He drifted silently through the +dim reflections of the crags and trees, with his intent eyes fixed upon +the low cliff which he was approaching. As he drew nearer, he discerned +the black mouth of the cave. Now--is that a white figure? Yes. The +plaintive song begins to well forth and float away over meadow and +river--the cross-bow is slowly raised to position, a steady aim is +taken, the bolt flies straight to the mark--the figure sinks down, still +singing, the knight takes the wool out of his ears, and recognizes the +old ballad--too late! Ah, if he had only not put the wool in his ears! + + + +The Crusader went away to the wars again, and presently fell in battle, +fighting for the Cross. Tradition says that during several centuries the +spirit of the unfortunate girl sang nightly from the cave at midnight, +but the music carried no curse with it; and although many listened for +the mysterious sounds, few were favored, since only those could hear +them who had never failed in a trust. It is believed that the singing +still continues, but it is known that nobody has heard it during the +present century. + + + +CHAPTER XVI + +An Ancient Legend of the Rhine [The Lorelei] + + +The last legend reminds one of the "Lorelei"--a legend of the Rhine. +There is a song called "The Lorelei." + +Germany is rich in folk-songs, and the words and airs of several of them +are peculiarly beautiful--but "The Lorelei" is the people's favorite. I +could not endure it at first, but by and by it began to take hold of me, +and now there is no tune which I like so well. + +It is not possible that it is much known in America, else I should have +heard it there. The fact that I never heard it there, is evidence that +there are others in my country who have fared likewise; therefore, for +the sake of these, I mean to print the words and music in this chapter. +And I will refresh the reader's memory by printing the legend of the +Lorelei, too. I have it by me in the LEGENDS OF THE RHINE, done into +English by the wildly gifted Garnham, Bachelor of Arts. I print the +legend partly to refresh my own memory, too, for I have never read it +before. THE LEGEND Lore (two syllables) was a water nymph who used to +sit on a high rock called the Ley or Lei (pronounced like our word LIE) +in the Rhine, and lure boatmen to destruction in a furious rapid +which marred the channel at that spot. She so bewitched them with her +plaintive songs and her wonderful beauty that they forgot everything +else to gaze up at her, and so they presently drifted among the broken +reefs and were lost. + +In those old, old times, the Count Bruno lived in a great castle near +there with his son, the Count Hermann, a youth of twenty. Hermann had +heard a great deal about the beautiful Lore, and had finally fallen very +deeply in love with her without having seen her. So he used to wander to +the neighborhood of the Lei, evenings, with his Zither and "Express his +Longing in low Singing," as Garnham says. On one of these occasions, +"suddenly there hovered around the top of the rock a brightness of +unequaled clearness and color, which, in increasingly smaller circles +thickened, was the enchanting figure of the beautiful Lore. + + + +"An unintentional cry of Joy escaped the Youth, he let his Zither fall, +and with extended arms he called out the name of the enigmatical Being, +who seemed to stoop lovingly to him and beckon to him in a friendly +manner; indeed, if his ear did not deceive him, she called his name with +unutterable sweet Whispers, proper to love. Beside himself with delight +the youth lost his Senses and sank senseless to the earth." + +After that he was a changed person. He went dreaming about, thinking +only of his fairy and caring for naught else in the world. "The old +count saw with affliction this changement in his son," whose cause he +could not divine, and tried to divert his mind into cheerful channels, +but to no purpose. Then the old count used authority. He commanded the +youth to betake himself to the camp. Obedience was promised. Garnham +says: + +"It was on the evening before his departure, as he wished still once to +visit the Lei and offer to the Nymph of the Rhine his Sighs, the +tones of his Zither, and his Songs. He went, in his boat, this time +accompanied by a faithful squire, down the stream. The moon shed her +silvery light over the whole country; the steep bank mountains appeared +in the most fantastical shapes, and the high oaks on either side bowed +their Branches on Hermann's passing. As soon as he approached the +Lei, and was aware of the surf-waves, his attendant was seized with an +inexpressible Anxiety and he begged permission to land; but the Knight +swept the strings of his Guitar and sang: + + "Once I saw thee in dark night, + In supernatural Beauty bright; + Of Light-rays, was the Figure wove, + To share its light, locked-hair strove. + + + "Thy Garment color wave-dove + By thy hand the sign of love, + Thy eyes sweet enchantment, + Raying to me, oh! enchantment. + + + "O, wert thou but my sweetheart, + How willingly thy love to part! + With delight I should be bound + To thy rocky house in deep ground." + +That Hermann should have gone to that place at all, was not wise; that +he should have gone with such a song as that in his mouth was a most +serious mistake. The Lorelei did not "call his name in unutterable +sweet Whispers" this time. No, that song naturally worked an instant +and thorough "changement" in her; and not only that, but it stirred the +bowels of the whole afflicted region around about there--for-- + +"Scarcely had these tones sounded, everywhere there began tumult and +sound, as if voices above and below the water. On the Lei rose flames, +the Fairy stood above, at that time, and beckoned with her right hand +clearly and urgently to the infatuated Knight, while with a staff in +her left hand she called the waves to her service. They began to mount +heavenward; the boat was upset, mocking every exertion; the waves rose +to the gunwale, and splitting on the hard stones, the Boat broke into +Pieces. The youth sank into the depths, but the squire was thrown on +shore by a powerful wave." + + + +The bitterest things have been said about the Lorelei during many +centuries, but surely her conduct upon this occasion entitles her to our +respect. One feels drawn tenderly toward her and is moved to forget her +many crimes and remember only the good deed that crowned and closed her +career. + +"The Fairy was never more seen; but her enchanting tones have often been +heard. In the beautiful, refreshing, still nights of spring, when the +moon pours her silver light over the Country, the listening shipper +hears from the rushing of the waves, the echoing Clang of a wonderfully +charming voice, which sings a song from the crystal castle, and with +sorrow and fear he thinks on the young Count Hermann, seduced by the +Nymph." + +Here is the music, and the German words by Heinrich Heine. This song has +been a favorite in Germany for forty years, and will remain a favorite +always, maybe. [Figure 5] + +I have a prejudice against people who print things in a foreign language +and add no translation. When I am the reader, and the author considers +me able to do the translating myself, he pays me quite a nice +compliment--but if he would do the translating for me I would try to get +along without the compliment. + +If I were at home, no doubt I could get a translation of this poem, but +I am abroad and can't; therefore I will make a translation myself. It +may not be a good one, for poetry is out of my line, but it will serve +my purpose--which is, to give the unGerman young girl a jingle of words +to hang the tune on until she can get hold of a good version, made by +some one who is a poet and knows how to convey a poetical thought from +one language to another. + + THE LORELEI + + + I cannot divine what it meaneth, + This haunting nameless pain: + A tale of the bygone ages + Keeps brooding through my brain: + + + The faint air cools in the glooming, + And peaceful flows the Rhine, + The thirsty summits are drinking + The sunset's flooding wine; + + + The loveliest maiden is sitting + High-throned in yon blue air, + Her golden jewels are shining, + She combs her golden hair; + + + She combs with a comb that is golden, + And sings a weird refrain + That steeps in a deadly enchantment + The list'ner's ravished brain: + + + The doomed in his drifting shallop, + Is tranced with the sad sweet tone, + He sees not the yawning breakers, + He sees but the maid alone: + + + The pitiless billows engulf him!-- + So perish sailor and bark; + And this, with her baleful singing, + Is the Lorelei's gruesome work. + +I have a translation by Garnham, Bachelor of Arts, in the LEGENDS OF THE +RHINE, but it would not answer the purpose I mentioned above, because +the measure is too nobly irregular; it don't fit the tune snugly enough; +in places it hangs over at the ends too far, and in other places one +runs out of words before he gets to the end of a bar. Still, Garnham's +translation has high merits, and I am not dreaming of leaving it out of +my book. I believe this poet is wholly unknown in America and England; I +take peculiar pleasure in bringing him forward because I consider that I +discovered him: + + THE LORELEI + + Translated by L. W. Garnham, B.A. + + I do not know what it signifies. + That I am so sorrowful? + A fable of old Times so terrifies, + Leaves my heart so thoughtful. + + + The air is cool and it darkens, + And calmly flows the Rhine; + The summit of the mountain hearkens + In evening sunshine line. + + + The most beautiful Maiden entrances + Above wonderfully there, + Her beautiful golden attire glances, + She combs her golden hair. + + + With golden comb so lustrous, + And thereby a song sings, + It has a tone so wondrous, + That powerful melody rings. + + + The shipper in the little ship + It effects with woe sad might; + He does not see the rocky slip, + He only regards dreaded height. + + + I believe the turbulent waves + Swallow the last shipper and boat; + She with her singing craves + All to visit hermagic moat. + +No translation could be closer. He has got in all the facts; and in +their regular order, too. There is not a statistic wanting. It is as +succinct as an invoice. That is what a translation ought to be; it +should exactly reflect the thought of the original. You can't SING +"Above wonderfully there," because it simply won't go to the tune, +without damaging the singer; but it is a most clingingly exact +translation of DORT OBEN WUNDERBAR--fits it like a blister. Mr. +Garnham's reproduction has other merits--a hundred of them--but it is +not necessary to point them out. They will be detected. + +No one with a specialty can hope to have a monopoly of it. Even Garnham +has a rival. Mr. X had a small pamphlet with him which he had bought +while on a visit to Munich. It was entitled A CATALOGUE OF PICTURES IN +THE OLD PINACOTEK, and was written in a peculiar kind of English. Here +are a few extracts: + +"It is not permitted to make use of the work in question to a +publication of the same contents as well as to the pirated edition of +it." + +"An evening landscape. In the foreground near a pond and a group of +white beeches is leading a footpath animated by travelers." + +"A learned man in a cynical and torn dress holding an open book in his +hand." + +"St. Bartholomew and the Executioner with the knife to fulfil the +martyr." + +"Portrait of a young man. A long while this picture was thought to be +Bindi Altoviti's portrait; now somebody will again have it to be the +self-portrait of Raphael." + +"Susan bathing, surprised by the two old man. In the background the +lapidation of the condemned." + +("Lapidation" is good; it is much more elegant than "stoning.") + +"St. Rochus sitting in a landscape with an angel who looks at his +plague-sore, whilst the dog the bread in his mouth attents him." + +"Spring. The Goddess Flora, sitting. Behind her a fertile valley +perfused by a river." + +"A beautiful bouquet animated by May-bugs, etc." + +"A warrior in armor with a gypseous pipe in his hand leans against a +table and blows the smoke far away of himself." + +"A Dutch landscape along a navigable river which perfuses it till to the +background." + +"Some peasants singing in a cottage. A woman lets drink a child out of a +cup." + +"St. John's head as a boy--painted in fresco on a brick." (Meaning a +tile.) + +"A young man of the Riccio family, his hair cut off right at the end, +dressed in black with the same cap. Attributed to Raphael, but the +signation is false." + +"The Virgin holding the Infant. It is very painted in the manner of +Sassoferrato." + +"A Larder with greens and dead game animated by a cook-maid and two +kitchen-boys." + +However, the English of this catalogue is at least as happy as that +which distinguishes an inscription upon a certain picture in Rome--to +wit: + +"Revelations-View. St. John in Patterson's Island." + +But meanwhile the raft is moving on. + + + +CHAPTER XVII + +[Why Germans Wear Spectacles] + + +A mile or two above Eberbach we saw a peculiar ruin projecting above the +foliage which clothed the peak of a high and very steep hill. This ruin +consisted of merely a couple of crumbling masses of masonry which bore +a rude resemblance to human faces; they leaned forward and touched +foreheads, and had the look of being absorbed in conversation. This +ruin had nothing very imposing or picturesque about it, and there was no +great deal of it, yet it was called the "Spectacular Ruin." + +LEGEND OF THE "SPECTACULAR RUIN" The captain of the raft, who was as +full of history as he could stick, said that in the Middle Ages a most +prodigious fire-breathing dragon used to live in that region, and made +more trouble than a tax-collector. He was as long as a railway-train, +and had the customary impenetrable green scales all over him. His breath +bred pestilence and conflagration, and his appetite bred famine. He ate +men and cattle impartially, and was exceedingly unpopular. The German +emperor of that day made the usual offer: he would grant to the +destroyer of the dragon, any one solitary thing he might ask for; for he +had a surplusage of daughters, and it was customary for dragon-killers +to take a daughter for pay. + +So the most renowned knights came from the four corners of the earth and +retired down the dragon's throat one after the other. A panic arose and +spread. Heroes grew cautious. The procession ceased. The dragon became +more destructive than ever. The people lost all hope of succor, and fled +to the mountains for refuge. + +At last Sir Wissenschaft, a poor and obscure knight, out of a far +country, arrived to do battle with the monster. A pitiable object he +was, with his armor hanging in rags about him, and his strange-shaped +knapsack strapped upon his back. Everybody turned up their noses at him, +and some openly jeered him. But he was calm. He simply inquired if +the emperor's offer was still in force. The emperor said it was--but +charitably advised him to go and hunt hares and not endanger so precious +a life as his in an attempt which had brought death to so many of the +world's most illustrious heroes. + + + +But this tramp only asked--"Were any of these heroes men of science?" +This raised a laugh, of course, for science was despised in those days. +But the tramp was not in the least ruffled. He said he might be a little +in advance of his age, but no matter--science would come to be honored, +some time or other. He said he would march against the dragon in the +morning. Out of compassion, then, a decent spear was offered him, but +he declined, and said, "spears were useless to men of science." They +allowed him to sup in the servants' hall, and gave him a bed in the +stables. + +When he started forth in the morning, thousands were gathered to see. +The emperor said: + +"Do not be rash, take a spear, and leave off your knapsack." + +But the tramp said: + +"It is not a knapsack," and moved straight on. + +The dragon was waiting and ready. He was breathing forth vast volumes +of sulphurous smoke and lurid blasts of flame. The ragged knight +stole warily to a good position, then he unslung his cylindrical +knapsack--which was simply the common fire-extinguisher known to modern +times--and the first chance he got he turned on his hose and shot the +dragon square in the center of his cavernous mouth. Out went the fires +in an instant, and the dragon curled up and died. + + + +This man had brought brains to his aid. He had reared dragons from the +egg, in his laboratory, he had watched over them like a mother, and +patiently studied them and experimented upon them while they grew. Thus +he had found out that fire was the life principle of a dragon; put out +the dragon's fires and it could make steam no longer, and must die. +He could not put out a fire with a spear, therefore he invented the +extinguisher. The dragon being dead, the emperor fell on the hero's neck +and said: + +"Deliverer, name your request," at the same time beckoning out behind +with his heel for a detachment of his daughters to form and advance. But +the tramp gave them no observance. He simply said: + +"My request is, that upon me be conferred the monopoly of the +manufacture and sale of spectacles in Germany." + +The emperor sprang aside and exclaimed: + +"This transcends all the impudence I ever heard! A modest demand, by my +halidome! Why didn't you ask for the imperial revenues at once, and be +done with it?" + +But the monarch had given his word, and he kept it. To everybody's +surprise, the unselfish monopolist immediately reduced the price of +spectacles to such a degree that a great and crushing burden was removed +from the nation. The emperor, to commemorate this generous act, and to +testify his appreciation of it, issued a decree commanding everybody to +buy this benefactor's spectacles and wear them, whether they needed them +or not. + +So originated the wide-spread custom of wearing spectacles in Germany; +and as a custom once established in these old lands is imperishable, +this one remains universal in the empire to this day. Such is the legend +of the monopolist's once stately and sumptuous castle, now called the +"Spectacular Ruin." + +On the right bank, two or three miles below the Spectacular Ruin, we +passed by a noble pile of castellated buildings overlooking the water +from the crest of a lofty elevation. A stretch of two hundred yards of +the high front wall was heavily draped with ivy, and out of the mass +of buildings within rose three picturesque old towers. The place was in +fine order, and was inhabited by a family of princely rank. This castle +had its legend, too, but I should not feel justified in repeating it +because I doubted the truth of some of its minor details. + +Along in this region a multitude of Italian laborers were blasting away +the frontage of the hills to make room for the new railway. They were +fifty or a hundred feet above the river. As we turned a sharp corner +they began to wave signals and shout warnings to us to look out for the +explosions. It was all very well to warn us, but what could WE do? You +can't back a raft upstream, you can't hurry it downstream, you can't +scatter out to one side when you haven't any room to speak of, you won't +take to the perpendicular cliffs on the other shore when they appear to +be blasting there, too. Your resources are limited, you see. There is +simply nothing for it but to watch and pray. + +For some hours we had been making three and a half or four miles an hour +and we were still making that. We had been dancing right along until +those men began to shout; then for the next ten minutes it seemed to me +that I had never seen a raft go so slowly. When the first blast went +off we raised our sun-umbrellas and waited for the result. No harm +done; none of the stones fell in the water. Another blast followed, and +another and another. Some of the rubbish fell in the water just astern +of us. + + + +We ran that whole battery of nine blasts in a row, and it was certainly +one of the most exciting and uncomfortable weeks I ever spent, either +aship or ashore. Of course we frequently manned the poles and shoved +earnestly for a second or so, but every time one of those spurts of dust +and debris shot aloft every man dropped his pole and looked up to get +the bearings of his share of it. It was very busy times along there for +a while. It appeared certain that we must perish, but even that was +not the bitterest thought; no, the abjectly unheroic nature of the +death--that was the sting--that and the bizarre wording of the resulting +obituary: "SHOT WITH A ROCK, ON A RAFT." There would be no poetry +written about it. None COULD be written about it. Example: + +NOT by war's shock, or war's shaft,--SHOT, with a rock, on a raft. + +No poet who valued his reputation would touch such a theme as that. I +should be distinguished as the only "distinguished dead" who went down +to the grave unsonneted, in 1878. + +But we escaped, and I have never regretted it. The last blast was a +peculiarly strong one, and after the small rubbish was done raining +around us and we were just going to shake hands over our deliverance, a +later and larger stone came down amongst our little group of pedestrians +and wrecked an umbrella. It did no other harm, but we took to the water +just the same. + +It seems that the heavy work in the quarries and the new railway +gradings is done mainly by Italians. That was a revelation. We have +the notion in our country that Italians never do heavy work at all, but +confine themselves to the lighter arts, like organ-grinding, operatic +singing, and assassination. We have blundered, that is plain. + +All along the river, near every village, we saw little station-houses +for the future railway. They were finished and waiting for the rails and +business. They were as trim and snug and pretty as they could be. They +were always of brick or stone; they were of graceful shape, they had +vines and flowers about them already, and around them the grass was +bright and green, and showed that it was carefully looked after. They +were a decoration to the beautiful landscape, not an offense. Wherever +one saw a pile of gravel or a pile of broken stone, it was always heaped +as trimly and exactly as a new grave or a stack of cannon-balls; nothing +about those stations or along the railroad or the wagon-road was +allowed to look shabby or be unornamental. The keeping a country in such +beautiful order as Germany exhibits, has a wise practical side to +it, too, for it keeps thousands of people in work and bread who would +otherwise be idle and mischievous. + +As the night shut down, the captain wanted to tie up, but I thought +maybe we might make Hirschhorn, so we went on. Presently the sky became +overcast, and the captain came aft looking uneasy. He cast his eye +aloft, then shook his head, and said it was coming on to blow. My party +wanted to land at once--therefore I wanted to go on. The captain said we +ought to shorten sail anyway, out of common prudence. Consequently, the +larboard watch was ordered to lay in his pole. It grew quite dark, now, +and the wind began to rise. It wailed through the swaying branches of +the trees, and swept our decks in fitful gusts. Things were taking on an +ugly look. The captain shouted to the steersman on the forward log: + +"How's she landing?" + +The answer came faint and hoarse from far forward: + +"Nor'-east-and-by-nor'--east-by-east, half-east, sir." + +"Let her go off a point!" + +"Aye-aye, sir!" + +"What water have you got?" + +"Shoal, sir. Two foot large, on the stabboard, two and a half scant on +the labboard!" + +"Let her go off another point!" + +"Aye-aye, sir!" + +"Forward, men, all of you! Lively, now! Stand by to crowd her round the +weather corner!" + +"Aye-aye, sir!" + + + +Then followed a wild running and trampling and hoarse shouting, but the +forms of the men were lost in the darkness and the sounds were distorted +and confused by the roaring of the wind through the shingle-bundles. By +this time the sea was running inches high, and threatening every moment +to engulf the frail bark. Now came the mate, hurrying aft, and said, +close to the captain's ear, in a low, agitated voice: + +"Prepare for the worst, sir--we have sprung a leak!" + +"Heavens! where?" + +"Right aft the second row of logs." + +"Nothing but a miracle can save us! Don't let the men know, or there +will be a panic and mutiny! Lay her in shore and stand by to jump with +the stern-line the moment she touches. Gentlemen, I must look to you to +second my endeavors in this hour of peril. You have hats--go forward and +bail for your lives!" + +Down swept another mighty blast of wind, clothed in spray and thick +darkness. At such a moment as this, came from away forward that most +appalling of all cries that are ever heard at sea: + +"MAN OVERBOARD!" + +The captain shouted: + +"Hard a-port! Never mind the man! Let him climb aboard or wade ashore!" + +Another cry came down the wind: + +"Breakers ahead!" + +"Where away?" + +"Not a log's length off her port fore-foot!" + +We had groped our slippery way forward, and were now bailing with the +frenzy of despair, when we heard the mate's terrified cry, from far aft: + +"Stop that dashed bailing, or we shall be aground!" + +But this was immediately followed by the glad shout: + +"Land aboard the starboard transom!" + +"Saved!" cried the captain. "Jump ashore and take a turn around a tree +and pass the bight aboard!" + +The next moment we were all on shore weeping and embracing for joy, +while the rain poured down in torrents. The captain said he had been a +mariner for forty years on the Neckar, and in that time had seen storms +to make a man's cheek blanch and his pulses stop, but he had never, +never seen a storm that even approached this one. How familiar that +sounded! For I have been at sea a good deal and have heard that remark +from captains with a frequency accordingly. + + + +We framed in our minds the usual resolution of thanks and admiration +and gratitude, and took the first opportunity to vote it, and put it +in writing and present it to the captain, with the customary speech. We +tramped through the darkness and the drenching summer rain full three +miles, and reached "The Naturalist Tavern" in the village of Hirschhorn +just an hour before midnight, almost exhausted from hardship, fatigue, +and terror. I can never forget that night. + +The landlord was rich, and therefore could afford to be crusty and +disobliging; he did not at all like being turned out of his warm bed to +open his house for us. But no matter, his household got up and cooked +a quick supper for us, and we brewed a hot punch for ourselves, to keep +off consumption. After supper and punch we had an hour's soothing smoke +while we fought the naval battle over again and voted the resolutions; +then we retired to exceedingly neat and pretty chambers upstairs that +had clean, comfortable beds in them with heirloom pillowcases most +elaborately and tastefully embroidered by hand. + +Such rooms and beds and embroidered linen are as frequent in German +village inns as they are rare in ours. Our villages are superior +to German villages in more merits, excellences, conveniences, and +privileges than I can enumerate, but the hotels do not belong in the +list. + +"The Naturalist Tavern" was not a meaningless name; for all the halls +and all the rooms were lined with large glass cases which were filled +with all sorts of birds and animals, glass-eyed, ably stuffed, and set +up in the most natural eloquent and dramatic attitudes. The moment we +were abed, the rain cleared away and the moon came out. I dozed off to +sleep while contemplating a great white stuffed owl which was looking +intently down on me from a high perch with the air of a person who +thought he had met me before, but could not make out for certain. + + + +But young Z did not get off so easily. He said that as he was sinking +deliciously to sleep, the moon lifted away the shadows and developed +a huge cat, on a bracket, dead and stuffed, but crouching, with every +muscle tense, for a spring, and with its glittering glass eyes aimed +straight at him. It made Z uncomfortable. He tried closing his own eyes, +but that did not answer, for a natural instinct kept making him open +them again to see if the cat was still getting ready to launch at +him--which she always was. He tried turning his back, but that was a +failure; he knew the sinister eyes were on him still. So at last he had +to get up, after an hour or two of worry and experiment, and set the cat +out in the hall. So he won, that time. + + + +CHAPTER XVIII + +[The Kindly Courtesy of Germans] + + +In the morning we took breakfast in the garden, under the trees, in the +delightful German summer fashion. The air was filled with the fragrance +of flowers and wild animals; the living portion of the menagerie of the +"Naturalist Tavern" was all about us. There were great cages populous +with fluttering and chattering foreign birds, and other great cages and +greater wire pens, populous with quadrupeds, both native and foreign. +There were some free creatures, too, and quite sociable ones they were. +White rabbits went loping about the place, and occasionally came and +sniffed at our shoes and shins; a fawn, with a red ribbon on its neck, +walked up and examined us fearlessly; rare breeds of chickens and doves +begged for crumbs, and a poor old tailless raven hopped about with +a humble, shamefaced mein which said, "Please do not notice my +exposure--think how you would feel in my circumstances, and be +charitable." If he was observed too much, he would retire behind +something and stay there until he judged the party's interest had found +another object. I never have seen another dumb creature that was +so morbidly sensitive. Bayard Taylor, who could interpret the dim +reasonings of animals, and understood their moral natures better than +most men, would have found some way to make this poor old chap forget +his troubles for a while, but we have not his kindly art, and so had to +leave the raven to his griefs. + + + +After breakfast we climbed the hill and visited the ancient castle of +Hirschhorn, and the ruined church near it. There were some curious old +bas-reliefs leaning against the inner walls of the church--sculptured +lords of Hirschhorn in complete armor, and ladies of Hirschhorn in +the picturesque court costumes of the Middle Ages. These things are +suffering damage and passing to decay, for the last Hirschhorn has been +dead two hundred years, and there is nobody now who cares to preserve +the family relics. In the chancel was a twisted stone column, and the +captain told us a legend about it, of course, for in the matter of +legends he could not seem to restrain himself; but I do not repeat his +tale because there was nothing plausible about it except that the Hero +wrenched this column into its present screw-shape with his hands --just +one single wrench. All the rest of the legend was doubtful. + +But Hirschhorn is best seen from a distance, down the river. Then +the clustered brown towers perched on the green hilltop, and the old +battlemented stone wall, stretching up and over the grassy ridge and +disappearing in the leafy sea beyond, make a picture whose grace and +beauty entirely satisfy the eye. + +We descended from the church by steep stone stairways which curved this +way and that down narrow alleys between the packed and dirty tenements +of the village. It was a quarter well stocked with deformed, leering, +unkempt and uncombed idiots, who held out hands or caps and begged +piteously. The people of the quarter were not all idiots, of course, but +all that begged seemed to be, and were said to be. + +I was thinking of going by skiff to the next town, Necharsteinach; so I +ran to the riverside in advance of the party and asked a man there if +he had a boat to hire. I suppose I must have spoken High German--Court +German--I intended it for that, anyway--so he did not understand me. I +turned and twisted my question around and about, trying to strike that +man's average, but failed. He could not make out what I wanted. Now Mr. +X arrived, faced this same man, looked him in the eye, and emptied this +sentence on him, in the most glib and confident way: "Can man boat get +here?" + +The mariner promptly understood and promptly answered. I can comprehend +why he was able to understand that particular sentence, because by mere +accident all the words in it except "get" have the same sound and the +same meaning in German that they have in English; but how he managed to +understand Mr. X's next remark puzzled me. I will insert it, presently. +X turned away a moment, and I asked the mariner if he could not find +a board, and so construct an additional seat. I spoke in the purest +German, but I might as well have spoken in the purest Choctaw for all +the good it did. The man tried his best to understand me; he tried, and +kept on trying, harder and harder, until I saw it was really of no use, +and said: + +"There, don't strain yourself--it is of no consequence." + +Then X turned to him and crisply said: + +"MACHEN SIE a flat board." + +I wish my epitaph may tell the truth about me if the man did not answer +up at once, and say he would go and borrow a board as soon as he had lit +the pipe which he was filling. + + + +We changed our mind about taking a boat, so we did not have to go. I +have given Mr. X's two remarks just as he made them. Four of the five +words in the first one were English, and that they were also German was +only accidental, not intentional; three out of the five words in the +second remark were English, and English only, and the two German ones +did not mean anything in particular, in such a connection. + +X always spoke English to Germans, but his plan was to turn the sentence +wrong end first and upside down, according to German construction, and +sprinkle in a German word without any essential meaning to it, here and +there, by way of flavor. Yet he always made himself understood. He could +make those dialect-speaking raftsmen understand him, sometimes, when +even young Z had failed with them; and young Z was a pretty good German +scholar. For one thing, X always spoke with such confidence--perhaps +that helped. And possibly the raftsmen's dialect was what is called +PLATT-DEUTSCH, and so they found his English more familiar to their ears +than another man's German. Quite indifferent students of German can read +Fritz Reuter's charming platt-Deutch tales with some little facility +because many of the words are English. I suppose this is the tongue +which our Saxon ancestors carried to England with them. By and by I will +inquire of some other philologist. + +However, in the mean time it had transpired that the men employed to +calk the raft had found that the leak was not a leak at all, but only +a crack between the logs--a crack that belonged there, and was not +dangerous, but had been magnified into a leak by the disordered +imagination of the mate. Therefore we went aboard again with a good +degree of confidence, and presently got to sea without accident. As we +swam smoothly along between the enchanting shores, we fell to swapping +notes about manners and customs in Germany and elsewhere. + +As I write, now, many months later, I perceive that each of us, by +observing and noting and inquiring, diligently and day by day, had +managed to lay in a most varied and opulent stock of misinformation. But +this is not surprising; it is very difficult to get accurate details in +any country. For example, I had the idea once, in Heidelberg, to find +out all about those five student-corps. I started with the White Cap +corps. I began to inquire of this and that and the other citizen, and +here is what I found out: + +1. It is called the Prussian Corps, because none but Prussians are +admitted to it. + +2. It is called the Prussian Corps for no particular reason. It has +simply pleased each corps to name itself after some German state. + +3. It is not named the Prussian Corps at all, but only the White Cap +Corps. + +4. Any student can belong to it who is a German by birth. + +5. Any student can belong to it who is European by birth. + +6. Any European-born student can belong to it, except he be a Frenchman. + +7. Any student can belong to it, no matter where he was born. + +8. No student can belong to it who is not of noble blood. + +9. No student can belong to it who cannot show three full generations of +noble descent. + +10. Nobility is not a necessary qualification. + +11. No moneyless student can belong to it. + +12. Money qualification is nonsense--such a thing has never been thought +of. + +I got some of this information from students themselves--students who +did not belong to the corps. + +I finally went to headquarters--to the White Caps--where I would +have gone in the first place if I had been acquainted. But even at +headquarters I found difficulties; I perceived that there were things +about the White Cap Corps which one member knew and another one didn't. +It was natural; for very few members of any organization know ALL that +can be known about it. I doubt there is a man or a woman in Heidelberg +who would not answer promptly and confidently three out of every five +questions about the White Cap Corps which a stranger might ask; yet +it is a very safe bet that two of the three answers would be incorrect +every time. + +There is one German custom which is universal--the bowing courteously +to strangers when sitting down at table or rising up from it. This +bow startles a stranger out of his self-possession, the first time +it occurs, and he is likely to fall over a chair or something, in his +embarrassment, but it pleases him, nevertheless. One soon learns to +expect this bow and be on the lookout and ready to return it; but to +learn to lead off and make the initial bow one's self is a difficult +matter for a diffident man. One thinks, "If I rise to go, and tender my +bow, and these ladies and gentlemen take it into their heads to ignore +the custom of their nation, and not return it, how shall I feel, in case +I survive to feel anything." Therefore he is afraid to venture. He sits +out the dinner, and makes the strangers rise first and originate the +bowing. A table d'hôte dinner is a tedious affair for a man who seldom +touches anything after the three first courses; therefore I used to do +some pretty dreary waiting because of my fears. It took me months to +assure myself that those fears were groundless, but I did assure myself +at last by experimenting diligently through my agent. I made Harris get +up and bow and leave; invariably his bow was returned, then I got up and +bowed myself and retired. + + + +Thus my education proceeded easily and comfortably for me, but not for +Harris. Three courses of a table d'hôte dinner were enough for me, but +Harris preferred thirteen. + +Even after I had acquired full confidence, and no longer needed the +agent's help, I sometimes encountered difficulties. Once at Baden-Baden +I nearly lost a train because I could not be sure that three young +ladies opposite me at table were Germans, since I had not heard them +speak; they might be American, they might be English, it was not safe +to venture a bow; but just as I had got that far with my thought, one of +them began a German remark, to my great relief and gratitude; and before +she got out her third word, our bows had been delivered and graciously +returned, and we were off. + +There is a friendly something about the German character which is very +winning. When Harris and I were making a pedestrian tour through the +Black Forest, we stopped at a little country inn for dinner one day; +two young ladies and a young gentleman entered and sat down opposite us. +They were pedestrians, too. Our knapsacks were strapped upon our backs, +but they had a sturdy youth along to carry theirs for them. All parties +were hungry, so there was no talking. By and by the usual bows were +exchanged, and we separated. + +As we sat at a late breakfast in the hotel at Allerheiligen, next +morning, these young people entered and took places near us without +observing us; but presently they saw us and at once bowed and smiled; +not ceremoniously, but with the gratified look of people who have found +acquaintances where they were expecting strangers. Then they spoke of +the weather and the roads. We also spoke of the weather and the roads. +Next, they said they had had an enjoyable walk, notwithstanding the +weather. We said that that had been our case, too. Then they said they +had walked thirty English miles the day before, and asked how many we +had walked. I could not lie, so I told Harris to do it. Harris told +them we had made thirty English miles, too. That was true; we had "made" +them, though we had had a little assistance here and there. + +After breakfast they found us trying to blast some information out +of the dumb hotel clerk about routes, and observing that we were not +succeeding pretty well, they went and got their maps and things, and +pointed out and explained our course so clearly that even a New York +detective could have followed it. And when we started they spoke out a +hearty good-by and wished us a pleasant journey. Perhaps they were more +generous with us than they might have been with native wayfarers because +we were a forlorn lot and in a strange land; I don't know; I only know +it was lovely to be treated so. + +Very well, I took an American young lady to one of the fine balls in +Baden-Baden, one night, and at the entrance-door upstairs we were halted +by an official--something about Miss Jones's dress was not according to +rule; I don't remember what it was, now; something was wanting--her back +hair, or a shawl, or a fan, or a shovel, or something. The official was +ever so polite, and ever so sorry, but the rule was strict, and he could +not let us in. It was very embarrassing, for many eyes were on us. But +now a richly dressed girl stepped out of the ballroom, inquired into the +trouble, and said she could fix it in a moment. She took Miss Jones to +the robing-room, and soon brought her back in regulation trim, and then +we entered the ballroom with this benefactress unchallenged. + + + +Being safe, now, I began to puzzle through my sincere but ungrammatical +thanks, when there was a sudden mutual recognition --the benefactress +and I had met at Allerheiligen. Two weeks had not altered her good face, +and plainly her heart was in the right place yet, but there was such +a difference between these clothes and the clothes I had seen her in +before, when she was walking thirty miles a day in the Black Forest, +that it was quite natural that I had failed to recognize her sooner. I +had on MY other suit, too, but my German would betray me to a person who +had heard it once, anyway. She brought her brother and sister, and they +made our way smooth for that evening. + +Well--months afterward, I was driving through the streets of Munich in a +cab with a German lady, one day, when she said: + +"There, that is Prince Ludwig and his wife, walking along there." + +Everybody was bowing to them--cabmen, little children, and everybody +else--and they were returning all the bows and overlooking nobody, when +a young lady met them and made a deep courtesy. + +"That is probably one of the ladies of the court," said my German +friend. + +I said: + +"She is an honor to it, then. I know her. I don't know her name, but I +know HER. I have known her at Allerheiligen and Baden-Baden. She ought +to be an Empress, but she may be only a Duchess; it is the way things go +in this way." + +If one asks a German a civil question, he will be quite sure to get a +civil answer. If you stop a German in the street and ask him to direct +you to a certain place, he shows no sign of feeling offended. If the +place be difficult to find, ten to one the man will drop his own matters +and go with you and show you. + +In London, too, many a time, strangers have walked several blocks with +me to show me my way. + +There is something very real about this sort of politeness. Quite often, +in Germany, shopkeepers who could not furnish me the article I wanted +have sent one of their employees with me to show me a place where it +could be had. + + + +CHAPTER XIX + +[The Deadly Jest of Dilsberg] + + +However, I wander from the raft. We made the port of Necharsteinach in +good season, and went to the hotel and ordered a trout dinner, the same +to be ready against our return from a two-hour pedestrian excursion to +the village and castle of Dilsberg, a mile distant, on the other side +of the river. I do not mean that we proposed to be two hours making two +miles--no, we meant to employ most of the time in inspecting Dilsberg. + +For Dilsberg is a quaint place. It is most quaintly and picturesquely +situated, too. Imagine the beautiful river before you; then a few rods +of brilliant green sward on its opposite shore; then a sudden hill--no +preparatory gently rising slopes, but a sort of instantaneous hill--a +hill two hundred and fifty or three hundred feet high, as round as a +bowl, with the same taper upward that an inverted bowl has, and with +about the same relation of height to diameter that distinguishes a +bowl of good honest depth--a hill which is thickly clothed with green +bushes--a comely, shapely hill, rising abruptly out of the dead level +of the surrounding green plains, visible from a great distance down the +bends of the river, and with just exactly room on the top of its head +for its steepled and turreted and roof-clustered cap of architecture, +which same is tightly jammed and compacted within the perfectly round +hoop of the ancient village wall. + +There is no house outside the wall on the whole hill, or any vestige of +a former house; all the houses are inside the wall, but there isn't room +for another one. It is really a finished town, and has been finished a +very long time. There is no space between the wall and the first circle +of buildings; no, the village wall is itself the rear wall of the first +circle of buildings, and the roofs jut a little over the wall and +thus furnish it with eaves. The general level of the massed roofs is +gracefully broken and relieved by the dominating towers of the ruined +castle and the tall spires of a couple of churches; so, from a distance +Dilsberg has rather more the look of a king's crown than a cap. That +lofty green eminence and its quaint coronet form quite a striking +picture, you may be sure, in the flush of the evening sun. + + + +We crossed over in a boat and began the ascent by a narrow, steep path +which plunged us at once into the leafy deeps of the bushes. But they +were not cool deeps by any means, for the sun's rays were weltering hot +and there was little or no breeze to temper them. As we panted up the +sharp ascent, we met brown, bareheaded and barefooted boys and girls, +occasionally, and sometimes men; they came upon us without warning, they +gave us good day, flashed out of sight in the bushes, and were gone +as suddenly and mysteriously as they had come. They were bound for the +other side of the river to work. This path had been traveled by many +generations of these people. They have always gone down to the valley to +earn their bread, but they have always climbed their hill again to eat +it, and to sleep in their snug town. + + + +It is said that the Dilsbergers do not emigrate much; they find that +living up there above the world, in their peaceful nest, is pleasanter +than living down in the troublous world. The seven hundred inhabitants +are all blood-kin to each other, too; they have always been blood-kin to +each other for fifteen hundred years; they are simply one large family, +and they like the home folks better than they like strangers, hence they +persistently stay at home. It has been said that for ages Dilsberg +has been merely a thriving and diligent idiot-factory. I saw no idiots +there, but the captain said, "Because of late years the government has +taken to lugging them off to asylums and otherwheres; and government +wants to cripple the factory, too, and is trying to get these +Dilsbergers to marry out of the family, but they don't like to." + +The captain probably imagined all this, as modern science denies that +the intermarrying of relatives deteriorates the stock. + +Arrived within the wall, we found the usual village sights and life. We +moved along a narrow, crooked lane which had been paved in the Middle +Ages. A strapping, ruddy girl was beating flax or some such stuff in +a little bit of a good-box of a barn, and she swung her flail with a +will--if it was a flail; I was not farmer enough to know what she was +at; a frowsy, barelegged girl was herding half a dozen geese with +a stick--driving them along the lane and keeping them out of the +dwellings; a cooper was at work in a shop which I know he did not make +so large a thing as a hogshead in, for there was not room. In the front +rooms of dwellings girls and women were cooking or spinning, and ducks +and chickens were waddling in and out, over the threshold, picking up +chance crumbs and holding pleasant converse; a very old and wrinkled +man sat asleep before his door, with his chin upon his breast and his +extinguished pipe in his lap; soiled children were playing in the dirt +everywhere along the lane, unmindful of the sun. + + + +Except the sleeping old man, everybody was at work, but the place was +very still and peaceful, nevertheless; so still that the distant +cackle of the successful hen smote upon the ear but little dulled +by intervening sounds. That commonest of village sights was lacking +here--the public pump, with its great stone tank or trough of limpid +water, and its group of gossiping pitcher-bearers; for there is no well +or fountain or spring on this tall hill; cisterns of rain-water are +used. + +Our alpenstocks and muslin tails compelled attention, and as we moved +through the village we gathered a considerable procession of little boys +and girls, and so went in some state to the castle. It proved to be an +extensive pile of crumbling walls, arches, and towers, massive, properly +grouped for picturesque effect, weedy, grass-grown, and satisfactory. +The children acted as guides; they walked us along the top of the +highest walls, then took us up into a high tower and showed us a wide +and beautiful landscape, made up of wavy distances of woody hills, and +a nearer prospect of undulating expanses of green lowlands, on the one +hand, and castle-graced crags and ridges on the other, with the shining +curves of the Neckar flowing between. But the principal show, the chief +pride of the children, was the ancient and empty well in the grass-grown +court of the castle. Its massive stone curb stands up three or four feet +above-ground, and is whole and uninjured. The children said that in the +Middle Ages this well was four hundred feet deep, and furnished all the +village with an abundant supply of water, in war and peace. They said +that in the old day its bottom was below the level of the Neckar, hence +the water-supply was inexhaustible. + +But there were some who believed it had never been a well at all, and +was never deeper than it is now--eighty feet; that at that depth a +subterranean passage branched from it and descended gradually to a +remote place in the valley, where it opened into somebody's cellar or +other hidden recess, and that the secret of this locality is now lost. +Those who hold this belief say that herein lies the explanation that +Dilsberg, besieged by Tilly and many a soldier before him, was +never taken: after the longest and closest sieges the besiegers were +astonished to perceive that the besieged were as fat and hearty as ever, +and were well furnished with munitions of war--therefore it must be +that the Dilsbergers had been bringing these things in through the +subterranean passage all the time. + +The children said that there was in truth a subterranean outlet down +there, and they would prove it. So they set a great truss of straw on +fire and threw it down the well, while we leaned on the curb and watched +the glowing mass descend. It struck bottom and gradually burned out. No +smoke came up. The children clapped their hands and said: + +"You see! Nothing makes so much smoke as burning straw--now where did +the smoke go to, if there is no subterranean outlet?" + + + +So it seemed quite evident that the subterranean outlet indeed existed. +But the finest thing within the ruin's limits was a noble linden, which +the children said was four hundred years old, and no doubt it was. It +had a mighty trunk and a mighty spread of limb and foliage. The limbs +near the ground were nearly the thickness of a barrel. + +That tree had witnessed the assaults of men in mail--how remote such a +time seems, and how ungraspable is the fact that real men ever did fight +in real armor!--and it had seen the time when these broken arches and +crumbling battlements were a trim and strong and stately fortress, +fluttering its gay banners in the sun, and peopled with vigorous +humanity--how impossibly long ago that seems!--and here it stands yet, +and possibly may still be standing here, sunning itself and dreaming its +historical dreams, when today shall have been joined to the days called +"ancient." + +Well, we sat down under the tree to smoke, and the captain delivered +himself of his legend: THE LEGEND OF DILSBERG CASTLE It was to this +effect. In the old times there was once a great company assembled at the +castle, and festivity ran high. Of course there was a haunted chamber +in the castle, and one day the talk fell upon that. It was said that +whoever slept in it would not wake again for fifty years. Now when a +young knight named Conrad von Geisberg heard this, he said that if the +castle were his he would destroy that chamber, so that no foolish person +might have the chance to bring so dreadful a misfortune upon himself +and afflict such as loved him with the memory of it. Straightway, the +company privately laid their heads together to contrive some way to get +this superstitious young man to sleep in that chamber. + +And they succeeded--in this way. They persuaded his betrothed, a lovely +mischievous young creature, niece of the lord of the castle, to help +them in their plot. She presently took him aside and had speech with +him. She used all her persuasions, but could not shake him; he said his +belief was firm, that if he should sleep there he would wake no more for +fifty years, and it made him shudder to think of it. Catharina began to +weep. This was a better argument; Conrad could not hold out against it. +He yielded and said she should have her wish if she would only smile and +be happy again. She flung her arms about his neck, and the kisses she +gave him showed that her thankfulness and her pleasure were very real. +Then she flew to tell the company her success, and the applause she +received made her glad and proud she had undertaken her mission, since +all alone she had accomplished what the multitude had failed in. + +At midnight, that night, after the usual feasting, Conrad was taken to +the haunted chamber and left there. He fell asleep, by and by. + +When he awoke again and looked about him, his heart stood still with +horror! The whole aspect of the chamber was changed. The walls were +moldy and hung with ancient cobwebs; the curtains and beddings were +rotten; the furniture was rickety and ready to fall to pieces. He sprang +out of bed, but his quaking knees sunk under him and he fell to the +floor. + +"This is the weakness of age," he said. + +He rose and sought his clothing. It was clothing no longer. The colors +were gone, the garments gave way in many places while he was putting +them on. He fled, shuddering, into the corridor, and along it to +the great hall. Here he was met by a middle-aged stranger of a kind +countenance, who stopped and gazed at him with surprise. Conrad said: + +"Good sir, will you send hither the lord Ulrich?" + +The stranger looked puzzled a moment, then said: + +"The lord Ulrich?" + +"Yes--if you will be so good." + + + +The stranger called--"Wilhelm!" A young serving-man came, and the +stranger said to him: + +"Is there a lord Ulrich among the guests?" + +"I know none of the name, so please your honor." + +Conrad said, hesitatingly: + +"I did not mean a guest, but the lord of the castle, sir." + +The stranger and the servant exchanged wondering glances. Then the +former said: + +"I am the lord of the castle." + +"Since when, sir?" + +"Since the death of my father, the good lord Ulrich more than forty +years ago." + +Conrad sank upon a bench and covered his face with his hands while he +rocked his body to and fro and moaned. The stranger said in a low voice +to the servant: + +"I fear me this poor old creature is mad. Call some one." + +In a moment several people came, and grouped themselves about, talking +in whispers. Conrad looked up and scanned the faces about him wistfully. + +Then he shook his head and said, in a grieved voice: + +"No, there is none among ye that I know. I am old and alone in the +world. They are dead and gone these many years that cared for me. But +sure, some of these aged ones I see about me can tell me some little +word or two concerning them." + +Several bent and tottering men and women came nearer and answered his +questions about each former friend as he mentioned the names. This one +they said had been dead ten years, that one twenty, another thirty. Each +succeeding blow struck heavier and heavier. At last the sufferer said: + +"There is one more, but I have not the courage to--O my lost Catharina!" + +One of the old dames said: + +"Ah, I knew her well, poor soul. A misfortune overtook her lover, and +she died of sorrow nearly fifty years ago. She lieth under the linden +tree without the court." + +Conrad bowed his head and said: + +"Ah, why did I ever wake! And so she died of grief for me, poor child. +So young, so sweet, so good! She never wittingly did a hurtful thing in +all the little summer of her life. Her loving debt shall be repaid--for +I will die of grief for her." + +His head drooped upon his breast. In the moment there was a wild burst +of joyous laughter, a pair of round young arms were flung about Conrad's +neck and a sweet voice cried: + +"There, Conrad mine, thy kind words kill me--the farce shall go no +further! Look up, and laugh with us--'twas all a jest!" + +And he did look up, and gazed, in a dazed wonderment--for the disguises +were stripped away, and the aged men and women were bright and young and +gay again. Catharina's happy tongue ran on: + +"'Twas a marvelous jest, and bravely carried out. They gave you a heavy +sleeping-draught before you went to bed, and in the night they bore you +to a ruined chamber where all had fallen to decay, and placed these rags +of clothing by you. And when your sleep was spent and you came forth, +two strangers, well instructed in their parts, were here to meet you; +and all we, your friends, in our disguises, were close at hand, to see +and hear, you may be sure. Ah, 'twas a gallant jest! Come, now, and make +thee ready for the pleasures of the day. How real was thy misery for the +moment, thou poor lad! Look up and have thy laugh, now!" + +He looked up, searched the merry faces about him in a dreamy way, then +sighed and said: + + + +"I am aweary, good strangers, I pray you lead me to her grave." + +All the smile vanished away, every cheek blanched, Catharina sunk to the +ground in a swoon. + +All day the people went about the castle with troubled faces, and +communed together in undertones. A painful hush pervaded the place which +had lately been so full of cheery life. Each in his turn tried to arouse +Conrad out of his hallucination and bring him to himself; but all the +answer any got was a meek, bewildered stare, and then the words: + +"Good stranger, I have no friends, all are at rest these many years; +ye speak me fair, ye mean me well, but I know ye not; I am alone and +forlorn in the world--prithee lead me to her grave." + +During two years Conrad spent his days, from the early morning till the +night, under the linden tree, mourning over the imaginary grave of his +Catharina. Catharina was the only company of the harmless madman. He was +very friendly toward her because, as he said, in some ways she reminded +him of his Catharina whom he had lost "fifty years ago." He often said: + +"She was so gay, so happy-hearted--but you never smile; and always when +you think I am not looking, you cry." + +When Conrad died, they buried him under the linden, according to his +directions, so that he might rest "near his poor Catharina." Then +Catharina sat under the linden alone, every day and all day long, a +great many years, speaking to no one, and never smiling; and at last her +long repentance was rewarded with death, and she was buried by Conrad's +side. + +Harris pleased the captain by saying it was good legend; and pleased him +further by adding: + +"Now that I have seen this mighty tree, vigorous with its four hundred +years, I feel a desire to believe the legend for ITS sake; so I will +humor the desire, and consider that the tree really watches over those +poor hearts and feels a sort of human tenderness for them." + +We returned to Necharsteinach, plunged our hot heads into the trough at +the town pump, and then went to the hotel and ate our trout dinner in +leisurely comfort, in the garden, with the beautiful Neckar flowing at +our feet, the quaint Dilsberg looming beyond, and the graceful towers +and battlements of a couple of medieval castles (called the "Swallow's +Nest" [1] and "The Brothers.") assisting the rugged scenery of a bend +of the river down to our right. We got to sea in season to make the +eight-mile run to Heidelberg before the night shut down. We sailed by +the hotel in the mellow glow of sunset, and came slashing down with +the mad current into the narrow passage between the dikes. I believed I +could shoot the bridge myself, and I went to the forward triplet of logs +and relieved the pilot of his pole and his responsibility. + + 1. The seeker after information is referred to Appendix E + for our captain's legend of the "Swallow's Nest" and + "The Brothers." + + + +We went tearing along in a most exhilarating way, and I performed the +delicate duties of my office very well indeed for a first attempt; +but perceiving, presently, that I really was going to shoot the bridge +itself instead of the archway under it, I judiciously stepped ashore. +The next moment I had my long-coveted desire: I saw a raft wrecked. It +hit the pier in the center and went all to smash and scatteration like a +box of matches struck by lightning. + + + +I was the only one of our party who saw this grand sight; the others +were attitudinizing, for the benefit of the long rank of young ladies +who were promenading on the bank, and so they lost it. But I helped to +fish them out of the river, down below the bridge, and then described it +to them as well as I could. + +They were not interested, though. They said they were wet and felt +ridiculous and did not care anything for descriptions of scenery. The +young ladies, and other people, crowded around and showed a great deal +of sympathy, but that did not help matters; for my friends said they did +not want sympathy, they wanted a back alley and solitude. + + + +CHAPTER XX + +[My Precious, Priceless Tear-Jug] + + +Next morning brought good news--our trunks had arrived from Hamburg +at last. Let this be a warning to the reader. The Germans are very +conscientious, and this trait makes them very particular. Therefore if +you tell a German you want a thing done immediately, he takes you +at your word; he thinks you mean what you say; so he does that thing +immediately--according to his idea of immediately--which is about a +week; that is, it is a week if it refers to the building of a garment, +or it is an hour and a half if it refers to the cooking of a trout. Very +well; if you tell a German to send your trunk to you by "slow freight," +he takes you at your word; he sends it by "slow freight," and you +cannot imagine how long you will go on enlarging your admiration of the +expressiveness of that phrase in the German tongue, before you get that +trunk. The hair on my trunk was soft and thick and youthful, when I +got it ready for shipment in Hamburg; it was baldheaded when it reached +Heidelberg. However, it was still sound, that was a comfort, it was +not battered in the least; the baggagemen seemed to be conscientiously +careful, in Germany, of the baggage entrusted to their hands. There +was nothing now in the way of our departure, therefore we set about our +preparations. + +Naturally my chief solicitude was about my collection of Ceramics. Of +course I could not take it with me, that would be inconvenient, and +dangerous besides. I took advice, but the best brick-a-brackers were +divided as to the wisest course to pursue; some said pack the collection +and warehouse it; others said try to get it into the Grand Ducal Museum +at Mannheim for safe keeping. So I divided the collection, and followed +the advice of both parties. I set aside, for the Museum, those articles +which were the most frail and precious. + +Among these was my Etruscan tear-jug. I have made a little sketch of +it here; that thing creeping up the side is not a bug, it is a hole. +I bought this tear-jug of a dealer in antiquities for four hundred and +fifty dollars. It is very rare. The man said the Etruscans used to keep +tears or something in these things, and that it was very hard to get +hold of a broken one, now. + + + +I also set aside my Henri II. plate. See sketch from my pencil; it is +in the main correct, though I think I have foreshortened one end of it +a little too much, perhaps. This is very fine and rare; the shape is +exceedingly beautiful and unusual. It has wonderful decorations on it, +but I am not able to reproduce them. It cost more than the tear-jug, as +the dealer said there was not another plate just like it in the +world. He said there was much false Henri II ware around, but that the +genuineness of this piece was unquestionable. + + + +He showed me its pedigree, or its history, if you please; it was a +document which traced this plate's movements all the way down from its +birth--showed who bought it, from whom, and what he paid for it--from +the first buyer down to me, whereby I saw that it had gone steadily up +from thirty-five cents to seven hundred dollars. He said that the whole +Ceramic world would be informed that it was now in my possession and +would make a note of it, with the price paid. [Figure 8] + +There were Masters in those days, but, alas--it is not so now. Of course +the main preciousness of this piece lies in its color; it is that old +sensuous, pervading, ramifying, interpolating, transboreal blue which is +the despair of modern art. The little sketch which I have made of this +gem cannot and does not do it justice, since I have been obliged to +leave out the color. But I've got the expression, though. + + + +However, I must not be frittering away the reader's time with these +details. I did not intend to go into any detail at all, at first, but +it is the failing of the true ceramiker, or the true devotee in any +department of brick-a-brackery, that once he gets his tongue or his pen +started on his darling theme, he cannot well stop until he drops from +exhaustion. He has no more sense of the flight of time than has any +other lover when talking of his sweetheart. The very "marks" on the +bottom of a piece of rare crockery are able to throw me into a gibbering +ecstasy; and I could forsake a drowning relative to help dispute about +whether the stopple of a departed Buon Retiro scent-bottle was genuine +or spurious. + + + +Many people say that for a male person, bric-a-brac hunting is about as +robust a business as making doll-clothes, or decorating Japanese pots +with decalcomania butterflies would be, and these people fling mud at +the elegant Englishman, Byng, who wrote a book called THE BRIC-A-BRAC +HUNTER, and make fun of him for chasing around after what they choose to +call "his despicable trifles"; and for "gushing" over these trifles; +and for exhibiting his "deep infantile delight" in what they call his +"tuppenny collection of beggarly trivialities"; and for beginning his +book with a picture of himself seated, in a "sappy, self-complacent +attitude, in the midst of his poor little ridiculous bric-a-brac junk +shop." + +It is easy to say these things; it is easy to revile us, easy to despise +us; therefore, let these people rail on; they cannot feel as Byng and +I feel--it is their loss, not ours. For my part I am content to be a +brick-a-bracker and a ceramiker--more, I am proud to be so named. I am +proud to know that I lose my reason as immediately in the presence of a +rare jug with an illustrious mark on the bottom of it, as if I had +just emptied that jug. Very well; I packed and stored a part of my +collection, and the rest of it I placed in the care of the Grand Ducal +Museum in Mannheim, by permission. My Old Blue China Cat remains there +yet. I presented it to that excellent institution. + + + +I had but one misfortune with my things. An egg which I had kept back +from breakfast that morning, was broken in packing. It was a great pity. +I had shown it to the best connoisseurs in Heidelberg, and they all said +it was an antique. We spent a day or two in farewell visits, and then +left for Baden-Baden. We had a pleasant trip to it, for the Rhine valley +is always lovely. The only trouble was that the trip was too short. If +I remember rightly it only occupied a couple of hours, therefore I judge +that the distance was very little, if any, over fifty miles. We +quitted the train at Oos, and walked the entire remaining distance to +Baden-Baden, with the exception of a lift of less than an hour which +we got on a passing wagon, the weather being exhaustingly warm. We came +into town on foot. + +One of the first persons we encountered, as we walked up the street, +was the Rev. Mr. ------, an old friend from America--a lucky encounter, +indeed, for his is a most gentle, refined, and sensitive nature, and his +company and companionship are a genuine refreshment. We knew he had been +in Europe some time, but were not at all expecting to run across him. +Both parties burst forth into loving enthusiasms, and Rev. Mr. ------ +said: + +"I have got a brimful reservoir of talk to pour out on you, and an empty +one ready and thirsting to receive what you have got; we will sit up +till midnight and have a good satisfying interchange, for I leave here +early in the morning." We agreed to that, of course. + +I had been vaguely conscious, for a while, of a person who was walking +in the street abreast of us; I had glanced furtively at him once or +twice, and noticed that he was a fine, large, vigorous young fellow, +with an open, independent countenance, faintly shaded with a pale and +even almost imperceptible crop of early down, and that he was clothed +from head to heel in cool and enviable snow-white linen. I thought I had +also noticed that his head had a sort of listening tilt to it. Now about +this time the Rev. Mr. ------ said: + +"The sidewalk is hardly wide enough for three, so I will walk behind; +but keep the talk going, keep the talk going, there's no time to lose, +and you may be sure I will do my share." He ranged himself behind us, +and straightway that stately snow-white young fellow closed up to the +sidewalk alongside him, fetched him a cordial slap on the shoulder with +his broad palm, and sung out with a hearty cheeriness: + +"AMERICANS for two-and-a-half and the money up! HEY?" + +The Reverend winced, but said mildly: + +"Yes--we are Americans." + +"Lord love you, you can just bet that's what _I_ am, every time! Put it +there!" + + + +He held out his Sahara of his palm, and the Reverend laid his diminutive +hand in it, and got so cordial a shake that we heard his glove burst +under it. + +"Say, didn't I put you up right?" + +"Oh, yes." + +"Sho! I spotted you for MY kind the minute I heard your clack. You been +over here long?" + +"About four months. Have you been over long?" + +"LONG? Well, I should say so! Going on two YEARS, by geeminy! Say, are +you homesick?" + +"No, I can't say that I am. Are you?" + +"Oh, HELL, yes!" This with immense enthusiasm. + +The Reverend shrunk a little, in his clothes, and we were aware, rather +by instinct than otherwise, that he was throwing out signals of distress +to us; but we did not interfere or try to succor him, for we were quite +happy. + +The young fellow hooked his arm into the Reverend's, now, with the +confiding and grateful air of a waif who has been longing for a friend, +and a sympathetic ear, and a chance to lisp once more the sweet accents +of the mother-tongue--and then he limbered up the muscles of his mouth +and turned himself loose--and with such a relish! Some of his words were +not Sunday-school words, so I am obliged to put blanks where they occur. + +"Yes indeedy! If _I_ ain't an American there AIN'T any Americans, that's +all. And when I heard you fellows gassing away in the good old American +language, I'm ------ if it wasn't all I could do to keep from hugging +you! My tongue's all warped with trying to curl it around these ------ +forsaken wind-galled nine-jointed German words here; now I TELL you it's +awful good to lay it over a Christian word once more and kind of let the +old taste soak it. I'm from western New York. My name is Cholley Adams. +I'm a student, you know. Been here going on two years. I'm learning to +be a horse-doctor! I LIKE that part of it, you know, but ------these +people, they won't learn a fellow in his own language, they make him +learn in German; so before I could tackle the horse-doctoring I had to +tackle this miserable language. + +"First off, I thought it would certainly give me the botts, but I don't +mind now. I've got it where the hair's short, I think; and dontchuknow, +they made me learn Latin, too. Now between you and me, I wouldn't give a +------for all the Latin that was ever jabbered; and the first thing _I_ +calculate to do when I get through, is to just sit down and forget it. +'Twon't take me long, and I don't mind the time, anyway. And I tell +you what! the difference between school-teaching over yonder and +school-teaching over here--sho! WE don't know anything about it! Here +you've got to peg and peg and peg and there just ain't any let-up--and +what you learn here, you've got to KNOW, dontchuknow --or else you'll +have one of these ------ spavined, spectacles, ring-boned, knock-kneed +old professors in your hair. I've been here long ENOUGH, and I'm getting +blessed tired of it, mind I TELL you. The old man wrote me that he was +coming over in June, and said he'd take me home in August, whether I was +done with my education or not, but durn him, he didn't come; never said +why; just sent me a hamper of Sunday-school books, and told me to +be good, and hold on a while. I don't take to Sunday-school books, +dontchuknow--I don't hanker after them when I can get pie--but I READ +them, anyway, because whatever the old man tells me to do, that's the +thing that I'm a-going to DO, or tear something, you know. I buckled +in and read all those books, because he wanted me to; but that kind of +thing don't excite ME, I like something HEARTY. But I'm awful homesick. +I'm homesick from ear-socket to crupper, and from crupper to hock-joint; +but it ain't any use, I've got to stay here, till the old man drops the +rag and give the word--yes, SIR, right here in this ------ country +I've got to linger till the old man says COME!--and you bet your bottom +dollar, Johnny, it AIN'T just as easy as it is for a cat to have twins!" + +At the end of this profane and cordial explosion he fetched a prodigious +"WHOOSH!" to relieve his lungs and make recognition of the heat, and +then he straightway dived into his narrative again for "Johnny's" +benefit, beginning, "Well, ------it ain't any use talking, some of those +old American words DO have a kind of a bully swing to them; a man +can EXPRESS himself with 'em--a man can get at what he wants to SAY, +dontchuknow." + + + +When we reached our hotel and it seemed that he was about to lose the +Reverend, he showed so much sorrow, and begged so hard and so earnestly +that the Reverend's heart was not hard enough to hold out against the +pleadings--so he went away with the parent-honoring student, like a +right Christian, and took supper with him in his lodgings, and sat in +the surf-beat of his slang and profanity till near midnight, and then +left him--left him pretty well talked out, but grateful "clear down +to his frogs," as he expressed it. The Reverend said it had transpired +during the interview that "Cholley" Adams's father was an extensive +dealer in horses in western New York; this accounted for Cholley's +choice of a profession. The Reverend brought away a pretty high opinion +of Cholley as a manly young fellow, with stuff in him for a useful +citizen; he considered him rather a rough gem, but a gem, nevertheless. + + + +CHAPTER XXI + +[Insolent Shopkeepers and Gabbling Americans] + + +Baden-Baden sits in the lap of the hills, and the natural and artificial +beauties of the surroundings are combined effectively and charmingly. +The level strip of ground which stretches through and beyond the town is +laid out in handsome pleasure grounds, shaded by noble trees and adorned +at intervals with lofty and sparkling fountain-jets. Thrice a day a fine +band makes music in the public promenade before the Conversation +House, and in the afternoon and evening that locality is populous with +fashionably dressed people of both sexes, who march back and forth past +the great music-stand and look very much bored, though they make a +show of feeling otherwise. It seems like a rather aimless and stupid +existence. A good many of these people are there for a real purpose, +however; they are racked with rheumatism, and they are there to stew it +out in the hot baths. These invalids looked melancholy enough, limping +about on their canes and crutches, and apparently brooding over all +sorts of cheerless things. People say that Germany, with her damp stone +houses, is the home of rheumatism. If that is so, Providence must have +foreseen that it would be so, and therefore filled the land with the +healing baths. Perhaps no other country is so generously supplied with +medicinal springs as Germany. Some of these baths are good for one +ailment, some for another; and again, peculiar ailments are conquered +by combining the individual virtues of several different baths. For +instance, for some forms of disease, the patient drinks the native hot +water of Baden-Baden, with a spoonful of salt from the Carlsbad springs +dissolved in it. That is not a dose to be forgotten right away. + +They don't SELL this hot water; no, you go into the great Trinkhalle, +and stand around, first on one foot and then on the other, while two or +three young girls sit pottering at some sort of ladylike sewing-work +in your neighborhood and can't seem to see you --polite as three-dollar +clerks in government offices. + + + +By and by one of these rises painfully, and "stretches"--stretches fists +and body heavenward till she raises her heels from the floor, at the +same time refreshing herself with a yawn of such comprehensiveness that +the bulk of her face disappears behind her upper lip and one is able to +see how she is constructed inside--then she slowly closes her +cavern, brings down her fists and her heels, comes languidly forward, +contemplates you contemptuously, draws you a glass of hot water and sets +it down where you can get it by reaching for it. You take it and say: + +"How much?"--and she returns you, with elaborate indifference, a +beggar's answer: + +"NACH BELIEBE" (what you please.) + +This thing of using the common beggar's trick and the common beggar's +shibboleth to put you on your liberality when you were expecting a +simple straightforward commercial transaction, adds a little to your +prospering sense of irritation. You ignore her reply, and ask again: + +"How much?" + +--and she calmly, indifferently, repeats: + +"NACH BELIEBE." + +You are getting angry, but you are trying not to show it; you resolve +to keep on asking your question till she changes her answer, or at least +her annoyingly indifferent manner. Therefore, if your case be like mine, +you two fools stand there, and without perceptible emotion of any kind, +or any emphasis on any syllable, you look blandly into each other's +eyes, and hold the following idiotic conversation: + +"How much?" + +"NACH BELIEBE." + +"How much?" + +"NACH BELIEBE." + +"How much?" + +"NACH BELIEBE." + +"How much?" + +"NACH BELIEBE." + +"How much?" + +"NACH BELIEBE." + +"How much?" + +"NACH BELIEBE." + +I do not know what another person would have done, but at this point I +gave up; that cast-iron indifference, that tranquil contemptuousness, +conquered me, and I struck my colors. Now I knew she was used to +receiving about a penny from manly people who care nothing about the +opinions of scullery-maids, and about tuppence from moral cowards; but +I laid a silver twenty-five cent piece within her reach and tried to +shrivel her up with this sarcastic speech: + +"If it isn't enough, will you stoop sufficiently from your official +dignity to say so?" + +She did not shrivel. Without deigning to look at me at all, she +languidly lifted the coin and bit it!--to see if it was good. Then she +turned her back and placidly waddled to her former roost again, tossing +the money into an open till as she went along. She was victor to the +last, you see. + + + +I have enlarged upon the ways of this girl because they are typical; +her manners are the manners of a goodly number of the Baden-Baden +shopkeepers. The shopkeeper there swindles you if he can, and insults +you whether he succeeds in swindling you or not. The keepers of baths +also take great and patient pains to insult you. The frowsy woman who +sat at the desk in the lobby of the great Friederichsbad and sold bath +tickets, not only insulted me twice every day, with rigid fidelity +to her great trust, but she took trouble enough to cheat me out of a +shilling, one day, to have fairly entitled her to ten. Baden-Baden's +splendid gamblers are gone, only her microscopic knaves remain. + + + +An English gentleman who had been living there several years, said: + +"If you could disguise your nationality, you would not find any +insolence here. These shopkeepers detest the English and despise the +Americans; they are rude to both, more especially to ladies of your +nationality and mine. If these go shopping without a gentleman or +a man-servant, they are tolerably sure to be subjected to petty +insolences--insolences of manner and tone, rather than word, though +words that are hard to bear are not always wanting. I know of an +instance where a shopkeeper tossed a coin back to an American lady with +the remark, snappishly uttered, 'We don't take French money here.' And +I know of a case where an English lady said to one of these shopkeepers, +'Don't you think you ask too much for this article?' and he replied with +the question, 'Do you think you are obliged to buy it?' However, these +people are not impolite to Russians or Germans. And as to rank, they +worship that, for they have long been used to generals and nobles. If +you wish to see what abysses servility can descend, present yourself +before a Baden-Baden shopkeeper in the character of a Russian prince." + +It is an inane town, filled with sham, and petty fraud, and snobbery, +but the baths are good. I spoke with many people, and they were all +agreed in that. I had the twinges of rheumatism unceasingly during three +years, but the last one departed after a fortnight's bathing there, +and I have never had one since. I fully believe I left my rheumatism in +Baden-Baden. Baden-Baden is welcome to it. It was little, but it was +all I had to give. I would have preferred to leave something that was +catching, but it was not in my power. + +There are several hot springs there, and during two thousand years they +have poured forth a never-diminishing abundance of the healing water. +This water is conducted in pipe to the numerous bath-houses, and is +reduced to an endurable temperature by the addition of cold water. The +new Friederichsbad is a very large and beautiful building, and in it one +may have any sort of bath that has ever been invented, and with all +the additions of herbs and drugs that his ailment may need or that the +physician of the establishment may consider a useful thing to put into +the water. You go there, enter the great door, get a bow graduated to +your style and clothes from the gorgeous portier, and a bath ticket and +an insult from the frowsy woman for a quarter; she strikes a bell and +a serving-man conducts you down a long hall and shuts you into a +commodious room which has a washstand, a mirror, a bootjack, and a sofa +in it, and there you undress at your leisure. + + + +The room is divided by a great curtain; you draw this curtain aside, and +find a large white marble bathtub, with its rim sunk to the level of the +floor, and with three white marble steps leading down to it. This tub +is full of water which is as clear as crystal, and is tempered to 28 +degrees Re'aumur (about 95 degrees Fahrenheit). Sunk into the floor, by +the tub, is a covered copper box which contains some warm towels and a +sheet. You look fully as white as an angel when you are stretched out +in that limpid bath. You remain in it ten minutes, the first time, +and afterward increase the duration from day to day, till you reach +twenty-five or thirty minutes. There you stop. The appointments of the +place are so luxurious, the benefit so marked, the price so moderate, +and the insults so sure, that you very soon find yourself adoring the +Friederichsbad and infesting it. + +We had a plain, simple, unpretending, good hotel, in Baden-Baden--the +Hôtel de France--and alongside my room I had a giggling, cackling, +chattering family who always went to bed just two hours after me and +always got up two hours ahead of me. But this is common in German +hotels; the people generally go to bed long after eleven and get up +long before eight. The partitions convey sound like a drum-head, and +everybody knows it; but no matter, a German family who are all kindness +and consideration in the daytime make apparently no effort to moderate +their noises for your benefit at night. They will sing, laugh, and talk +loudly, and bang furniture around in a most pitiless way. If you knock +on your wall appealingly, they will quiet down and discuss the matter +softly among themselves for a moment--then, like the mice, they fall to +persecuting you again, and as vigorously as before. They keep cruelly +late and early hours, for such noisy folk. + +Of course, when one begins to find fault with foreign people's ways, he +is very likely to get a reminder to look nearer home, before he gets far +with it. I open my note-book to see if I can find some more information +of a valuable nature about Baden-Baden, and the first thing I fall upon +is this: + +"BADEN-BADEN (no date). Lot of vociferous Americans at breakfast +this morning. Talking AT everybody, while pretending to talk among +themselves. On their first travels, manifestly. Showing off. The usual +signs--airy, easy-going references to grand distances and foreign +places. 'Well GOOD-by, old fellow--if I don't run across you in Italy, +you hunt me up in London before you sail.'" + +The next item which I find in my note-book is this one: + +"The fact that a band of 6,000 Indians are now murdering our +frontiersmen at their impudent leisure, and that we are only able +to send 1,200 soldiers against them, is utilized here to discourage +emigration to America. The common people think the Indians are in New +Jersey." + + + +This is a new and peculiar argument against keeping our army down to a +ridiculous figure in the matter of numbers. It is rather a striking +one, too. I have not distorted the truth in saying that the facts in +the above item, about the army and the Indians, are made use of to +discourage emigration to America. That the common people should be +rather foggy in their geography, and foggy as to the location of the +Indians, is a matter for amusement, maybe, but not of surprise. + +There is an interesting old cemetery in Baden-Baden, and we spent +several pleasant hours in wandering through it and spelling out the +inscriptions on the aged tombstones. Apparently after a man has laid +there a century or two, and has had a good many people buried on top +of him, it is considered that his tombstone is not needed by him any +longer. I judge so from the fact that hundreds of old gravestones have +been removed from the graves and placed against the inner walls of the +cemetery. What artists they had in the old times! They chiseled angels +and cherubs and devils and skeletons on the tombstones in the most +lavish and generous way--as to supply--but curiously grotesque and +outlandish as to form. It is not always easy to tell which of the +figures belong among the blest and which of them among the opposite +party. But there was an inscription, in French, on one of those old +stones, which was quaint and pretty, and was plainly not the work of any +other than a poet. It was to this effect: + +Here Reposes in God, Caroline de Clery, a Religieuse of St. Denis aged +83 years--and blind. The light was restored to her in Baden the 5th of +January, 1839 + +We made several excursions on foot to the neighboring villages, over +winding and beautiful roads and through enchanting woodland scenery. +The woods and roads were similar to those at Heidelberg, but not +so bewitching. I suppose that roads and woods which are up to the +Heidelberg mark are rare in the world. + +Once we wandered clear away to La Favorita Palace, which is several +miles from Baden-Baden. The grounds about the palace were fine; the +palace was a curiosity. It was built by a Margravine in 1725, and +remains as she left it at her death. We wandered through a great many +of its rooms, and they all had striking peculiarities of decoration. +For instance, the walls of one room were pretty completely covered +with small pictures of the Margravine in all conceivable varieties of +fanciful costumes, some of them male. + +The walls of another room were covered with grotesquely and elaborately +figured hand-wrought tapestry. The musty ancient beds remained in the +chambers, and their quilts and curtains and canopies were decorated with +curious handwork, and the walls and ceilings frescoed with historical +and mythological scenes in glaring colors. There was enough crazy and +rotten rubbish in the building to make a true brick-a-bracker green with +envy. A painting in the dining-hall verged upon the indelicate--but then +the Margravine was herself a trifle indelicate. + +It is in every way a wildly and picturesquely decorated house, and +brimful of interest as a reflection of the character and tastes of that +rude bygone time. + +In the grounds, a few rods from the palace, stands the Margravine's +chapel, just as she left it--a coarse wooden structure, wholly barren +of ornament. It is said that the Margravine would give herself up to +debauchery and exceedingly fast living for several months at a time, +and then retire to this miserable wooden den and spend a few months in +repenting and getting ready for another good time. She was a devoted +Catholic, and was perhaps quite a model sort of a Christian as +Christians went then, in high life. + +Tradition says she spent the last two years of her life in the strange +den I have been speaking of, after having indulged herself in one final, +triumphant, and satisfying spree. She shut herself up there, without +company, and without even a servant, and so abjured and forsook the +world. In her little bit of a kitchen she did her own cooking; she wore +a hair shirt next the skin, and castigated herself with whips--these +aids to grace are exhibited there yet. She prayed and told her beads, +in another little room, before a waxen Virgin niched in a little box +against the wall; she bedded herself like a slave. + +In another small room is an unpainted wooden table, and behind it sit +half-life-size waxen figures of the Holy Family, made by the very worst +artist that ever lived, perhaps, and clothed in gaudy, flimsy drapery. +[1] The margravine used to bring her meals to this table and DINE WITH +THE HOLY FAMILY. What an idea that was! What a grisly spectacle it must +have been! Imagine it: Those rigid, shock-headed figures, with corpsy +complexions and fish glass eyes, occupying one side of the table in the +constrained attitudes and dead fixedness that distinguish all men that +are born of wax, and this wrinkled, smoldering old fire-eater occupying +the other side, mumbling her prayers and munching her sausages in the +ghostly stillness and shadowy indistinctness of a winter twilight. It +makes one feel crawly even to think of it. + + [1] The Savior was represented as a lad of about fifteen + years of age. This figure had lost one eye. + + + +In this sordid place, and clothed, bedded, and fed like a pauper, this +strange princess lived and worshiped during two years, and in it she +died. Two or three hundred years ago, this would have made the poor den +holy ground; and the church would have set up a miracle-factory there +and made plenty of money out of it. The den could be moved into some +portions of France and made a good property even now. + + + + + +End of Project Gutenberg's A Tramp Abroad, by Mark Twain (Samuel Clemens) + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK A TRAMP ABROAD *** + +***** This file should be named 5784-8.txt or 5784-8.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/5/7/8/5784/ + +Produced by Anonymous Volunteers, John Greenman and 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 United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. Special rules, +set forth in the General Terms of Use part of this license, apply to +copying and distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works to +protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm concept and trademark. Project +Gutenberg is a registered trademark, and may not be used if you +charge for the eBooks, unless you receive specific permission. If you +do not charge anything for copies of this eBook, complying with the +rules is very easy. You may use this eBook for nearly any purpose +such as creation of derivative works, reports, performances and +research. They may be modified and printed and given away--you may do +practically ANYTHING with public domain eBooks. Redistribution is +subject to the trademark license, especially commercial +redistribution. + + + +*** START: FULL LICENSE *** + +THE FULL PROJECT GUTENBERG LICENSE +PLEASE READ THIS BEFORE YOU DISTRIBUTE OR USE THIS WORK + +To protect the Project Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting the free +distribution of electronic works, by using or distributing this work +(or any other work associated in any way with the phrase "Project +Gutenberg"), you agree to comply with all the terms of the Full Project +Gutenberg-tm License (available with this file or online at +http://gutenberg.org/license). + + +Section 1. General Terms of Use and Redistributing Project Gutenberg-tm +electronic works + +1.A. By reading or using any part of this Project Gutenberg-tm +electronic work, you indicate that you have read, understand, agree to +and accept all the terms of this license and intellectual property +(trademark/copyright) agreement. If you do not agree to abide by all +the terms of this agreement, you must cease using and return or destroy +all copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in your possession. +If you paid a fee for obtaining a copy of or access to a Project +Gutenberg-tm electronic work and you do not agree to be bound by the +terms of this agreement, you may obtain a refund from the person or +entity to whom you paid the fee as set forth in paragraph 1.E.8. + +1.B. "Project Gutenberg" is a registered trademark. It may only be +used on or associated in any way with an electronic work by people who +agree to be bound by the terms of this agreement. There are a few +things that you can do with most Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works +even without complying with the full terms of this agreement. See +paragraph 1.C below. There are a lot of things you can do with Project +Gutenberg-tm electronic works if you follow the terms of this agreement +and help preserve free future access to Project Gutenberg-tm electronic +works. See paragraph 1.E below. + +1.C. The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation ("the Foundation" +or PGLAF), owns a compilation copyright in the collection of Project +Gutenberg-tm electronic works. Nearly all the individual works in the +collection are in the public domain in the United States. If an +individual work is in the public domain in the United States and you are +located in the United States, we do not claim a right to prevent you from +copying, distributing, performing, displaying or creating derivative +works based on the work as long as all references to Project Gutenberg +are removed. Of course, we hope that you will support the Project +Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting free access to electronic works by +freely sharing Project Gutenberg-tm works in compliance with the terms of +this agreement for keeping the Project Gutenberg-tm name associated with +the work. You can easily comply with the terms of this agreement by +keeping this work in the same format with its attached full Project +Gutenberg-tm License when you share it without charge with others. + +1.D. The copyright laws of the place where you are located also govern +what you can do with this work. Copyright laws in most countries are in +a constant state of change. If you are outside the United States, check +the laws of your country in addition to the terms of this agreement +before downloading, copying, displaying, performing, distributing or +creating derivative works based on this work or any other Project +Gutenberg-tm work. The Foundation makes no representations concerning +the copyright status of any work in any country outside the United +States. + +1.E. Unless you have removed all references to Project Gutenberg: + +1.E.1. The following sentence, with active links to, or other immediate +access to, the full Project Gutenberg-tm License must appear prominently +whenever any copy of a Project Gutenberg-tm work (any work on which the +phrase "Project Gutenberg" appears, or with which the phrase "Project +Gutenberg" is associated) is accessed, displayed, performed, viewed, +copied or distributed: + +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 + +1.E.2. If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is derived +from the public domain (does not contain a notice indicating that it is +posted with permission of the copyright holder), the work can be copied +and distributed to anyone in the United States without paying any fees +or charges. If you are redistributing or providing access to a work +with the phrase "Project Gutenberg" associated with or appearing on the +work, you must comply either with the requirements of paragraphs 1.E.1 +through 1.E.7 or obtain permission for the use of the work and the +Project Gutenberg-tm trademark as set forth in paragraphs 1.E.8 or +1.E.9. + +1.E.3. If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is posted +with the permission of the copyright holder, your use and distribution +must comply with both paragraphs 1.E.1 through 1.E.7 and any additional +terms imposed by the copyright holder. Additional terms will be linked +to the Project Gutenberg-tm License for all works posted with the +permission of the copyright holder found at the beginning of this work. + +1.E.4. Do not unlink or detach or remove the full Project Gutenberg-tm +License terms from this work, or any files containing a part of this +work or any other work associated with Project Gutenberg-tm. + +1.E.5. Do not copy, display, perform, distribute or redistribute this +electronic work, or any part of this electronic work, without +prominently displaying the sentence set forth in paragraph 1.E.1 with +active links or immediate access to the full terms of the Project +Gutenberg-tm License. + +1.E.6. You may convert to and distribute this work in any binary, +compressed, marked up, nonproprietary or proprietary form, including any +word processing or hypertext form. However, if you provide access to or +distribute copies of a Project Gutenberg-tm work in a format other than +"Plain Vanilla ASCII" or other format used in the official version +posted on the official Project Gutenberg-tm web site (www.gutenberg.org), +you must, at no additional cost, fee or expense to the user, provide a +copy, a means of exporting a copy, or a means of obtaining a copy upon +request, of the work in its original "Plain Vanilla ASCII" or other +form. Any alternate format must include the full Project Gutenberg-tm +License as specified in paragraph 1.E.1. + +1.E.7. Do not charge a fee for access to, viewing, displaying, +performing, copying or distributing any Project Gutenberg-tm works +unless you comply with paragraph 1.E.8 or 1.E.9. + +1.E.8. You may charge a reasonable fee for copies of or providing +access to or distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works provided +that + +- You pay a royalty fee of 20% of the gross profits you derive from + the use of Project Gutenberg-tm works calculated using the method + you already use to calculate your applicable taxes. The fee is + owed to the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark, but he + has agreed to donate royalties under this paragraph to the + Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation. Royalty payments + must be paid within 60 days following each date on which you + prepare (or are legally required to prepare) your periodic tax + returns. Royalty payments should be clearly marked as such and + sent to the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation at the + address specified in Section 4, "Information about donations to + the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation." + +- You provide a full refund of any money paid by a user who notifies + you in writing (or by e-mail) within 30 days of receipt that s/he + does not agree to the terms of the full Project Gutenberg-tm + License. You must require such a user to return or + destroy all copies of the works possessed in a physical medium + and discontinue all use of and all access to other copies of + Project Gutenberg-tm works. + +- You provide, in accordance with paragraph 1.F.3, a full refund of any + money paid for a work or a replacement copy, if a defect in the + electronic work is discovered and reported to you within 90 days + of receipt of the work. + +- You comply with all other terms of this agreement for free + distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm works. + +1.E.9. If you wish to charge a fee or distribute a Project Gutenberg-tm +electronic work or group of works on different terms than are set +forth in this agreement, you must obtain permission in writing from +both the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation and Michael +Hart, the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark. Contact the +Foundation as set forth in Section 3 below. + +1.F. + +1.F.1. Project Gutenberg volunteers and employees expend considerable +effort to identify, do copyright research on, transcribe and proofread +public domain works in creating the Project Gutenberg-tm +collection. Despite these efforts, Project Gutenberg-tm electronic +works, and the medium on which they may be stored, may contain +"Defects," such as, but not limited to, incomplete, inaccurate or +corrupt data, transcription errors, a copyright or other intellectual +property infringement, a defective or damaged disk or other medium, a +computer virus, or computer codes that damage or cannot be read by +your equipment. + +1.F.2. LIMITED WARRANTY, DISCLAIMER OF DAMAGES - Except for the "Right +of Replacement or Refund" described in paragraph 1.F.3, the Project +Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation, the owner of the Project +Gutenberg-tm trademark, and any other party distributing a Project +Gutenberg-tm electronic work under this agreement, disclaim all +liability to you for damages, costs and expenses, including legal +fees. YOU AGREE THAT YOU HAVE NO REMEDIES FOR NEGLIGENCE, STRICT +LIABILITY, BREACH OF WARRANTY OR BREACH OF CONTRACT EXCEPT THOSE +PROVIDED IN PARAGRAPH F3. YOU AGREE THAT THE FOUNDATION, THE +TRADEMARK OWNER, AND ANY DISTRIBUTOR UNDER THIS AGREEMENT WILL NOT BE +LIABLE TO YOU FOR ACTUAL, DIRECT, INDIRECT, CONSEQUENTIAL, PUNITIVE OR +INCIDENTAL DAMAGES EVEN IF YOU GIVE NOTICE OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH +DAMAGE. + +1.F.3. LIMITED RIGHT OF REPLACEMENT OR REFUND - If you discover a +defect in this electronic work within 90 days of receiving it, you can +receive a refund of the money (if any) you paid for it by sending a +written explanation to the person you received the work from. If you +received the work on a physical medium, you must return the medium with +your written explanation. The person or entity that provided you with +the defective work may elect to provide a replacement copy in lieu of a +refund. If you received the work electronically, the person or entity +providing it to you may choose to give you a second opportunity to +receive the work electronically in lieu of a refund. If the second copy +is also defective, you may demand a refund in writing without further +opportunities to fix the problem. + +1.F.4. Except for the limited right of replacement or refund set forth +in paragraph 1.F.3, this work is provided to you 'AS-IS' WITH NO OTHER +WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO +WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTIBILITY OR FITNESS FOR ANY PURPOSE. + +1.F.5. Some states do not allow disclaimers of certain implied +warranties or the exclusion or limitation of certain types of damages. +If any disclaimer or limitation set forth in this agreement violates the +law of the state applicable to this agreement, the agreement shall be +interpreted to make the maximum disclaimer or limitation permitted by +the applicable state law. The invalidity or unenforceability of any +provision of this agreement shall not void the remaining provisions. + +1.F.6. INDEMNITY - You agree to indemnify and hold the Foundation, the +trademark owner, any agent or employee of the Foundation, anyone +providing copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in accordance +with this agreement, and any volunteers associated with the production, +promotion and distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works, +harmless from all liability, costs and expenses, including legal fees, +that arise directly or indirectly from any of the following which you do +or cause to occur: (a) distribution of this or any Project Gutenberg-tm +work, (b) alteration, modification, or additions or deletions to any +Project Gutenberg-tm work, and (c) any Defect you cause. + + +Section 2. Information about the Mission of Project Gutenberg-tm + +Project Gutenberg-tm is synonymous with the free distribution of +electronic works in formats readable by the widest variety of computers +including obsolete, old, middle-aged and new computers. It exists +because of the efforts of hundreds of volunteers and donations from +people in all walks of life. + +Volunteers and financial support to provide volunteers with the +assistance they need, are critical to reaching Project Gutenberg-tm's +goals and ensuring that the Project Gutenberg-tm collection will +remain freely available for generations to come. In 2001, the Project +Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation was created to provide a secure +and permanent future for Project Gutenberg-tm and future generations. +To learn more about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation +and how your efforts and donations can help, see Sections 3 and 4 +and the Foundation web page at http://www.pglaf.org. + + +Section 3. Information about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive +Foundation + +The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation is a non profit +501(c)(3) educational corporation organized under the laws of the +state of Mississippi and granted tax exempt status by the Internal +Revenue Service. The Foundation's EIN or federal tax identification +number is 64-6221541. Its 501(c)(3) letter is posted at +http://pglaf.org/fundraising. Contributions to the Project Gutenberg +Literary Archive Foundation are tax deductible to the full extent +permitted by U.S. federal laws and your state's laws. + +The Foundation's principal office is located at 4557 Melan Dr. S. +Fairbanks, AK, 99712., but its volunteers and employees are scattered +throughout numerous locations. Its business office is located at +809 North 1500 West, Salt Lake City, UT 84116, (801) 596-1887, email +business@pglaf.org. Email contact links and up to date contact +information can be found at the Foundation's web site and official +page at http://pglaf.org + +For additional contact information: + Dr. Gregory B. Newby + Chief Executive and Director + gbnewby@pglaf.org + + +Section 4. Information about Donations to the Project Gutenberg +Literary Archive Foundation + +Project Gutenberg-tm depends upon and cannot survive without wide +spread public support and donations to carry out its mission of +increasing the number of public domain and licensed works that can be +freely distributed in machine readable form accessible by the widest +array of equipment including outdated equipment. Many small donations +($1 to $5,000) are particularly important to maintaining tax exempt +status with the IRS. + +The Foundation is committed to complying with the laws regulating +charities and charitable donations in all 50 states of the United +States. Compliance requirements are not uniform and it takes a +considerable effort, much paperwork and many fees to meet and keep up +with these requirements. We do not solicit donations in locations +where we have not received written confirmation of compliance. To +SEND DONATIONS or determine the status of compliance for any +particular state visit http://pglaf.org + +While we cannot and do not solicit contributions from states where we +have not met the solicitation requirements, we know of no prohibition +against accepting unsolicited donations from donors in such states who +approach us with offers to donate. + +International donations are gratefully accepted, but we cannot make +any statements concerning tax treatment of donations received from +outside the United States. U.S. laws alone swamp our small staff. + +Please check the Project Gutenberg Web pages for current donation +methods and addresses. Donations are accepted in a number of other +ways including checks, online payments and credit card donations. +To donate, please visit: http://pglaf.org/donate + + +Section 5. General Information About Project Gutenberg-tm electronic +works. + +Professor Michael S. Hart is the originator of the Project Gutenberg-tm +concept of a library of electronic works that could be freely shared +with anyone. For thirty years, he produced and distributed Project +Gutenberg-tm eBooks with only a loose network of volunteer support. + + +Project Gutenberg-tm eBooks are often created from several printed +editions, all of which are confirmed as Public Domain in the U.S. +unless a copyright notice is included. Thus, we do not necessarily +keep eBooks in compliance with any particular paper edition. + + +Most people start at our Web site which has the main PG search facility: + + http://www.gutenberg.org + +This Web site includes information about Project Gutenberg-tm, +including how to make donations to the Project Gutenberg Literary +Archive Foundation, how to help produce our new eBooks, and how to +subscribe to our email newsletter to hear about new eBooks. |