Part 6

MRS. JAKE: "My! Yes! I don't think much of Europe, anyway, but I could never have bought that bonnet in Baltimore. But, Jake, do look on the map and tell me when we get to Heidelberg."

JAKE: "It ain't any good my lookin', my dear, for I wasn't raised to these sort of things, and I'm darned if I know where to find it."

A groan from Mrs. Jake, followed by: "Wall, I reckon when I find myself again in No. 9, Mount Mascal Street, I won't want to go travelling around even to cut out Keren-Happuch Jones."

I came to the rescue at this point, and showed the good lady where Heidelberg lay. She was a hard-featured, plain woman of some thirty-eight summers, her hair was dragged back uncompromisingly from her forehead, and there were no "adulteries of art" about either coiffure or costume.

"You see," she said apologetically, "Jake here and me are travelling around, and the only way we can get on is to ask for a ticket to a place, and never stop travelling till we get there. We speak German all right because my parents were Germans, and Jake was born in Germany; but he don't know much about it because he was only two years old when he left it eight-and-thirty years ago. We thought we'd like to see the Paris Exposition, but my! it ain't to be compared to the Chicago Exhibition, and as for Paris, it can't come up to Noo York, and these river steamers ain't a patch on the Hudson River boats, and I don't think much of Europe anyway."

Jake, a good-looking, gentle-mannered man, tried to soften the asperity of his wife's strictures without success. He evidently adored her.

"The way we travel," resumed Mrs. Jake, "is to think of a place we've heard of, and to ask for a ticket to it. Now, we'd heard of Paris and Cologne, and Heidelberg, and Baden, and Dresden, and Berlin, and Hamburg, but we don't know now how they come--see? So we hev' to go cavortin' around to find out which to take next. A gentleman way back at Cologne"--she pronounced it "Klon"--"told me Heidelberg came next. I quite thought Baden was near Hamburg, and that we should take it last; but they tell me it ain't, and that, you see, has upset all our calculations. Guess you're a Londoner, anyway; thought so by your accent!"

When we left the steamer at Bingen, the last I heard of Mrs. Jake was a plaintive moan:

"Guess I don't think much of Europe, anyway, and I wouldn't come again, not even to cut out Keren-Happuch!"

OF SOME FELLOW TRAVELLERS AND THE CATHEDRAL OF MAINZ.

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

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

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

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

Zum Kurfuerstlichen Wappen. Erneuert in Jahr des Heils 1899.

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

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

SCHLANGENBAD.

GREEN HILLS AND BLUE WATERS.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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