A Tramp Abroad
Page 13
CHAPTER XI
[I Paint a "Turner"]
The summer days passed pleasantly in Heidelberg. We had a skilledtrainer, and under his instructions we were getting our legs in theright condition for the contemplated pedestrian tours; we were wellsatisfied with the progress which we had made in the German language,[1. See Appendix D for information concerning this fearful tongue.] andmore than satisfied with what we had accomplished in art. We had had thebest instructors in drawing and painting in Germany--Haemmerling, Vogel,Mueller, Dietz, and Schumann. Haemmerling taught us landscape-painting.Vogel taught us figure-drawing, Mueller taught us to do still-life,and Dietz and Schumann gave us a finishing course in twospecialties--battle-pieces and shipwrecks. Whatever I am in Art I owe tothese men. I have something of the manner of each and all of them;but they all said that I had also a manner of my own, and that itwas conspicuous. They said there was a marked individuality about mystyle--insomuch that if I ever painted the commonest type of a dog, Ishould be sure to throw a something into the aspect of that dog whichwould keep him from being mistaken for the creation of any other artist.Secretly I wanted to believe all these kind sayings, but I could not; Iwas afraid that my masters' partiality for me, and pride in me, biasedtheir judgment. So I resolved to make a test. Privately, and unknown toany one, I painted my great picture, "Heidelberg Castle Illuminated"--myfirst really important work in oils--and had it hung up in the midstof a wilderness of oil-pictures in the Art Exhibition, with no nameattached to it. To my great gratification it was instantly recognizedas mine. All the town flocked to see it, and people even came fromneighboring localities to visit it. It made more stir than any otherwork in the Exhibition. But the most gratifying thing of all was, thatchance strangers, passing through, who had not heard of my picture, werenot only drawn to it, as by a lodestone, the moment they entered thegallery, but always took it for a "Turner."
Apparently nobody had ever done that. There were ruined castles on theoverhanging cliffs and crags all the way; these were said to have theirlegends, like those on the Rhine, and what was better still, they hadnever been in print. There was nothing in the books about that lovelyregion; it had been neglected by the tourist, it was virgin soil for theliterary pioneer.
Meantime the knapsacks, the rough walking-suits and the stoutwalking-shoes which we had ordered, were finished and brought to us.A Mr. X and a young Mr. Z had agreed to go with us. We went around oneevening and bade good-by to our friends, and afterward had a littlefarewell banquet at the hotel. We got to bed early, for we wanted tomake an early start, so as to take advantage of the cool of the morning.
We were out of bed at break of day, feeling fresh and vigorous, and tooka hearty breakfast, then plunged down through the leafy arcades of theCastle grounds, toward the town. What a glorious summer morning it was,and how the flowers did pour out their fragrance, and how the birds didsing! It was just the time for a tramp through the woods and mountains.
We were all dressed alike: broad slouch hats, to keep the sun off; grayknapsacks; blue army shirts; blue overalls; leathern gaiters buttonedtight from knee down to ankle; high-quarter coarse shoes snugly laced.Each man had an opera-glass, a canteen, and a guide-book case slung overhis shoulder, and carried an alpenstock in one hand and a sun-umbrellain the other. Around our hats were wound many folds of soft whitemuslin, with the ends hanging and flapping down our backs--an ideabrought from the Orient and used by tourists all over Europe. Harriscarried the little watch-like machine called a "pedometer," whoseoffice is to keep count of a man's steps and tell how far he has walked.Everybody stopped to admire our costumes and give us a hearty "Pleasantmarch to you!"
When we got downtown I found that we could go by rail to within fivemiles of Heilbronn. The train was just starting, so we jumped aboard andwent tearing away in splendid spirits. It was agreed all around that wehad done wisely, because it would be just as enjoyable to walk _down_the Neckar as up it, and it could not be needful to walk both ways.There were some nice German people in our compartment. I got to talkingsome pretty private matters presently, and Harris became nervous; so henudged me and said:
"Speak in German--these Germans may understand English."
I did so, it was well I did; for it turned out that there was not aGerman in that party who did not understand English perfectly. It iscurious how widespread our language is in Germany. After a while some ofthose folks got out and a German gentleman and his two young daughtersgot in. I spoke in German of one of the latter several times, butwithout result. Finally she said:
"_Ich verstehe nur deutch und englishe_,"--or words to that effect. Thatis, "I don't understand any language but German and English."
And sure enough, not only she but her father and sister spoke English.So after that we had all the talk we wanted; and we wanted a good deal,for they were agreeable people. They were greatly interested in ourcustoms; especially the alpenstocks, for they had not seen any before.They said that the Neckar road was perfectly level, so we must be goingto Switzerland or some other rugged country; and asked us if we did notfind the walking pretty fatiguing in such warm weather. But we said no.
We reached Wimpfen--I think it was Wimpfen--in about three hours, andgot out, not the least tired; found a good hotel and ordered beer anddinner--then took a stroll through the venerable old village. It wasvery picturesque and tumble-down, and dirty and interesting. It hadqueer houses five hundred years old in it, and a military tower 115 feethigh, which had stood there more than ten centuries. I made a littlesketch of it. I kept a copy, but gave the original to the Burgomaster.
I think the original was better than the copy, because it had morewindows in it and the grass stood up better and had a brisker look.There was none around the tower, though; I composed the grass myself,from studies I made in a field by Heidelberg in Haemmerling's time. Theman on top, looking at the view, is apparently too large, but I foundhe could not be made smaller, conveniently. I wanted him there, and Iwanted him visible, so I thought out a way to manage it; I composed thepicture from two points of view; the spectator is to observe the manfrom bout where that flag is, and he must observe the tower itself fromthe ground. This harmonizes the seeming discrepancy. [Figure 2]
Near an old cathedral, under a shed, were three crosses of stone--moldyand damaged things, bearing life-size stone figures. The two thieveswere dressed in the fanciful court costumes of the middle of thesixteenth century, while the Saviour was nude, with the exception of acloth around the loins.
We had dinner under the green trees in a garden belonging to the hoteland overlooking the Neckar; then, after a smoke, we went to bed. We hada refreshing nap, then got up about three in the afternoon and puton our panoply. As we tramped gaily out at the gate of the town, weovertook a peasant's cart, partly laden with odds and ends of cabbagesand similar vegetable rubbish, and drawn by a small cow and a smallerdonkey yoked together. It was a pretty slow concern, but it got us intoHeilbronn before dark--five miles, or possibly it was seven.
We stopped at the very same inn which the famous old robber-knightand rough fighter Goetz von Berlichingen, abode in after he got out ofcaptivity in the Square Tower of Heilbronn between three hundred andfifty and four hundred years ago. Harris and I occupied the same roomwhich he had occupied and the same paper had not quite peeled off thewalls yet. The furniture was quaint old carved stuff, full four hundredyears old, and some of the smells were over a thousand. There was a hookin the wall, which the landlord said the terrific old Goetz used to hanghis iron hand on when he took it off to go to bed. This room was verylarge--it might be called immense--and it was on the first floor; whichmeans it was in the second story, for in Europe the houses are sohigh that they do not count the first story, else they would get tiredclimbing before they got to the top. The wallpaper was a fiery red, withhuge gold figures in it, well smirched by time, and it covered all thedoors. These doors fitted so snugly and continued the figures of thepaper so unbrokenly, that when they were closed one had to go feelingand searching
along the wall to find them. There was a stove in thecorner--one of those tall, square, stately white porcelain things thatlooks like a monument and keeps you thinking of death when you ought tobe enjoying your travels. The windows looked out on a little alley, andover that into a stable and some poultry and pig yards in the rear ofsome tenement-houses. There were the customary two beds in the room,one in one end, the other in the other, about an old-fashionedbrass-mounted, single-barreled pistol-shot apart. They were fullyas narrow as the usual German bed, too, and had the German bed'sineradicable habit of spilling the blankets on the floor every time youforgot yourself and went to sleep.
A round table as large as King Arthur's stood in the center of the room;while the waiters were getting ready to serve our dinner on it weall went out to see the renowned clock on the front of the municipalbuildings.