CHAPTER VII
George wonders--German love of order--"The Band of the SchwarzwaldBlackbirds will perform at seven"--The china dog--Its superiority overall other dogs--The German and the solar system--A tidy country--Themountain valley as it ought to be, according to the German idea--How thewaters come down in Germany--The scandal of Dresden--Harris gives anentertainment--It is unappreciated--George and the aunt of him--George, acushion, and three damsels.
At a point between Berlin and Dresden, George, who had, for the lastquarter of an hour or so, been looking very attentively out of thewindow, said:
"Why, in Germany, is it the custom to put the letter-box up a tree? Whydo they not fix it to the front door as we do? I should hate having toclimb up a tree to get my letters. Besides, it is not fair to thepostman. In addition to being most exhausting, the delivery of lettersmust to a heavy man, on windy nights, be positively dangerous work. Ifthey will fix it to a tree, why not fix it lower down, why always amongthe topmost branches? But, maybe, I am misjudging the country," hecontinued, a new idea occurring to him. "Possibly the Germans, who arein many matters ahead of us, have perfected a pigeon post. Even so, Icannot help thinking they would have been wiser to train the birds, whilethey were about it, to deliver the letters nearer the ground. Gettingyour letters out of those boxes must be tricky work even to the averagemiddle-aged German."
I followed his gaze out of window. I said:
"Those are not letter-boxes, they are birds' nests. You must understandthis nation. The German loves birds, but he likes tidy birds. A birdleft to himself builds his nest just anywhere. It is not a prettyobject, according to the German notion of prettiness. There is not a bitof paint on it anywhere, not a plaster image all round, not even a flag.The nest finished, the bird proceeds to live outside it. He drops thingson the grass; twigs, ends of worms, all sorts of things. He isindelicate. He makes love, quarrels with his wife, and feeds thechildren quite in public. The German householder is shocked. He says tothe bird:
"'For many things I like you. I like to look at you. I like to hear yousing. But I don't like your ways. Take this little box, and put yourrubbish inside where I can't see it. Come out when you want to sing; butlet your domestic arrangements be confined to the interior. Keep to thebox, and don't make the garden untidy.'"
In Germany one breathes in love of order with the air, in Germany thebabies beat time with their rattles, and the German bird has come toprefer the box, and to regard with contempt the few uncivilised outcastswho continue to build their nests in trees and hedges. In course of timeevery German bird, one is confident, will have his proper place in a fullchorus. This promiscuous and desultory warbling of his must, one feels,be irritating to the precise German mind; there is no method in it. Themusic-loving German will organise him. Some stout bird with a speciallywell-developed crop will be trained to conduct him, and, instead ofwasting himself in a wood at four o'clock in the morning, he will, at theadvertised time, sing in a beer garden, accompanied by a piano. Thingsare drifting that way.
Your German likes nature, but his idea of nature is a glorified WelshHarp. He takes great interest in his garden. He plants seven rose treeson the north side and seven on the south, and if they do not grow up allthe same size and shape it worries him so that he cannot sleep of nights.Every flower he ties to a stick. This interferes with his view of theflower, but he has the satisfaction of knowing it is there, and that itis behaving itself. The lake is lined with zinc, and once a week hetakes it up, carries it into the kitchen, and scours it. In thegeometrical centre of the grass plot, which is sometimes as large as atablecloth and is generally railed round, he places a china dog. TheGermans are very fond of dogs, but as a rule they prefer them of china.The china dog never digs holes in the lawn to bury bones, and neverscatters a flower-bed to the winds with his hind legs. From the Germanpoint of view, he is the ideal dog. He stops where you put him, and heis never where you do not want him. You can have him perfect in allpoints, according to the latest requirements of the Kennel Club; or youcan indulge your own fancy and have something unique. You are not, aswith other dogs, limited to breed. In china, you can have a blue dog ora pink dog. For a little extra, you can have a double-headed dog.
On a certain fixed date in the autumn the German stakes his flowers andbushes to the earth, and covers them with Chinese matting; and on acertain fixed date in the spring he uncovers them, and stands them upagain. If it happens to be an exceptionally fine autumn, or anexceptionally late spring, so much the worse for the unfortunatevegetable. No true German would allow his arrangements to be interferedwith by so unruly a thing as the solar system. Unable to regulate theweather, he ignores it.
Among trees, your German's favourite is the poplar. Other disorderlynations may sing the charms of the rugged oak, the spreading chestnut, orthe waving elm. To the German all such, with their wilful, untidy ways,are eyesores. The poplar grows where it is planted, and how it isplanted. It has no improper rugged ideas of its own. It does not wantto wave or to spread itself. It just grows straight and upright as aGerman tree should grow; and so gradually the German is rooting out allother trees, and replacing them with poplars.
Your German likes the country, but he prefers it as the lady thought shewould the noble savage--more dressed. He likes his walk through thewood--to a restaurant. But the pathway must not be too steep, it musthave a brick gutter running down one side of it to drain it, and everytwenty yards or so it must have its seat on which he can rest and mop hisbrow; for your German would no more think of sitting on the grass thanwould an English bishop dream of rolling down One Tree Hill. He likeshis view from the summit of the hill, but he likes to find there a stonetablet telling him what to look at, find a table and bench at which hecan sit to partake of the frugal beer and "belegte Semmel" he has beencareful to bring with him. If, in addition, he can find a police noticeposted on a tree, forbidding him to do something or other, that gives himan extra sense of comfort and security.
Your German is not averse even to wild scenery, provided it be not toowild. But if he consider it too savage, he sets to work to tame it. Iremember, in the neighbourhood of Dresden, discovering a picturesque andnarrow valley leading down towards the Elbe. The winding roadway ranbeside a mountain torrent, which for a mile or so fretted and foamed overrocks and boulders between wood-covered banks. I followed it enchanteduntil, turning a corner, I suddenly came across a gang of eighty or ahundred workmen. They were busy tidying up that valley, and making thatstream respectable. All the stones that were impeding the course of thewater they were carefully picking out and carting away. The bank oneither side they were bricking up and cementing. The overhanging treesand bushes, the tangled vines and creepers they were rooting up andtrimming down. A little further I came upon the finished work--themountain valley as it ought to be, according to German ideas. The water,now a broad, sluggish stream, flowed over a level, gravelly bed, betweentwo walls crowned with stone coping. At every hundred yards it gentlydescended down three shallow wooden platforms. For a space on eitherside the ground had been cleared, and at regular intervals young poplarsplanted. Each sapling was protected by a shield of wickerwork and bossedby an iron rod. In the course of a couple of years it is the hope of thelocal council to have "finished" that valley throughout its entirelength, and made it fit for a tidy-minded lover of German nature to walkin. There will be a seat every fifty yards, a police notice everyhundred, and a restaurant every half-mile.
They are doing the same from the Memel to the Rhine. They are justtidying up the country. I remember well the Wehrthal. It was once themost romantic ravine to be found in the Black Forest. The last time Iwalked down it some hundreds of Italian workmen were encamped there hardat work, training the wild little Wehr the way it should go, bricking thebanks for it here, blasting the rocks for it there, making cement stepsfor it down which it can travel soberly and without fuss.
For in Germany there is no nonse
nse talked about untrammelled nature. InGermany nature has got to behave herself, and not set a bad example tothe children. A German poet, noticing waters coming down as Southeydescribes, somewhat inexactly, the waters coming down at Lodore, would betoo shocked to stop and write alliterative verse about them. He wouldhurry away, and at once report them to the police. Then their foamingand their shrieking would be of short duration.
"Now then, now then, what's all this about?" the voice of Germanauthority would say severely to the waters. "We can't have this sort ofthing, you know. Come down quietly, can't you? Where do you think youare?"
And the local German council would provide those waters with zinc pipesand wooden troughs, and a corkscrew staircase, and show them how to comedown sensibly, in the German manner.
It is a tidy land is Germany.
We reached Dresden on the Wednesday evening, and stayed there over theSunday.
Taking one consideration with another, Dresden, perhaps, is the mostattractive town in Germany; but it is a place to be lived in for a whilerather than visited. Its museums and galleries, its palaces and gardens,its beautiful and historically rich environment, provide pleasure for awinter, but bewilder for a week. It has not the gaiety of Paris orVienna, which quickly palls; its charms are more solidly German, and morelasting. It is the Mecca of the musician. For five shillings, inDresden, you can purchase a stall at the opera house, together,unfortunately, with a strong disinclination ever again to take thetrouble of sitting out a performance in any English, French, or, Americanopera house.
The chief scandal of Dresden still centres round August the Strong, "theMan of Sin," as Carlyle always called him, who is popularly reputed tohave cursed Europe with over a thousand children. Castles where heimprisoned this discarded mistress or that--one of them, who persisted inher claim to a better title, for forty years, it is said, poor lady! Thenarrow rooms where she ate her heart out and died are still shown.Chateaux, shameful for this deed of infamy or that, lie scattered roundthe neighbourhood like bones about a battlefield; and most of yourguide's stories are such as the "young person" educated in Germany hadbest not hear. His life-sized portrait hangs in the fine Zwinger, whichhe built as an arena for his wild beast fights when the people grew tiredof them in the market-place; a beetle-browed, frankly animal man, butwith the culture and taste that so often wait upon animalism. ModernDresden undoubtedly owes much to him.
But what the stranger in Dresden stares at most is, perhaps, its electrictrams. These huge vehicles flash through the streets at from ten totwenty miles an hour, taking curves and corners after the manner of anIrish car driver. Everybody travels by them, excepting only officers inuniform, who must not. Ladies in evening dress, going to ball or opera,porters with their baskets, sit side by side. They are all-important inthe streets, and everything and everybody makes haste to get out of theirway. If you do not get out of their way, and you still happen to bealive when picked up, then on your recovery you are fined for having beenin their way. This teaches you to be wary of them.
One afternoon Harris took a "bummel" by himself. In the evening, as wesat listening to the band at the Belvedere, Harris said, _a propos_ ofnothing in particular, "These Germans have no sense of humour."
"What makes you think that?" I asked.
"Why, this afternoon," he answered, "I jumped on one of those electrictramcars. I wanted to see the town, so I stood outside on the littleplatform--what do you call it?"
"The Stehplatz," I suggested.
"That's it," said Harris. "Well, you know the way they shake you about,and how you have to look out for the corners, and mind yourself when theystop and when they start?"
I nodded.
"There were about half a dozen of us standing there," he continued, "and,of course, I am not experienced. The thing started suddenly, and thatjerked me backwards. I fell against a stout gentleman, just behind me.He could not have been standing very firmly himself, and he, in his turn,fell back against a boy who was carrying a trumpet in a green baize case.They never smiled, neither the man nor the boy with the trumpet; theyjust stood there and looked sulky. I was going to say I was sorry, butbefore I could get the words out the tram eased up, for some reason orother, and that, of course, shot me forward again, and I butted into awhite-haired old chap, who looked to me like a professor. Well, _he_never smiled, never moved a muscle."
"Maybe, he was thinking of something else," I suggested.
"That could not have been the case with them all," replied Harris, "andin the course of that journey, I must have fallen against every one ofthem at least three times. You see," explained Harris, "they knew whenthe corners were coming, and in which direction to brace themselves. I,as a stranger, was naturally at a disadvantage. The way I rolled andstaggered about that platform, clutching wildly now at this man and nowat that, must have been really comic. I don't say it was high-classhumour, but it would have amused most people. Those Germans seemed tosee no fun in it whatever--just seemed anxious, that was all. There wasone man, a little man, who stood with his back against the brake; I fellagainst him five times, I counted them. You would have expected thefifth time would have dragged a laugh out of him, but it didn't; hemerely looked tired. They are a dull lot."
George also had an adventure at Dresden. There was a shop near theAltmarkt, in the window of which were exhibited some cushions for sale.The proper business of the shop was handling of glass and china; thecushions appeared to be in the nature of an experiment. They were verybeautiful cushions, hand-embroidered on satin. We often passed the shop,and every time George paused and examined those cushions. He said hethought his aunt would like one.
George has been very attentive to this aunt of his during the journey. Hehas written her quite a long letter every day, and from every town westop at he sends her off a present. To my mind, he is overdoing thebusiness, and more than once I have expostulated with him. His aunt willbe meeting other aunts, and talking to them; the whole class will becomedisorganised and unruly. As a nephew, I object to the impossiblestandard that George is setting up. But he will not listen.
Therefore it was that on the Saturday he left us after lunch, saying hewould go round to that shop and get one of those cushions for his aunt.He said he would not be long, and suggested our waiting for him.
We waited for what seemed to me rather a long time. When he rejoined ushe was empty handed, and looked worried. We asked him where his cushionwas. He said he hadn't got a cushion, said he had changed his mind, saidhe didn't think his aunt would care for a cushion. Evidently somethingwas amiss. We tried to get at the bottom of it, but he was notcommunicative. Indeed, his answers after our twentieth question orthereabouts became quite short.
In the evening, however, when he and I happened to be alone, he broachedthe subject himself. He said:
"They are somewhat peculiar in some things, these Germans."
I said: "What has happened?"
"Well," he answered, "there was that cushion I wanted."
"For your aunt," I remarked.
"Why not?" he returned. He was huffy in a moment; I never knew a man sotouchy about an aunt. "Why shouldn't I send a cushion to my aunt?"
"Don't get excited," I replied. "I am not objecting; I respect you forit."
He recovered his temper, and went on:
"There were four in the window, if you remember, all very much alike, andeach one labelled in plain figures twenty marks. I don't pretend tospeak German fluently, but I can generally make myself understood with alittle effort, and gather the sense of what is said to me, provided theydon't gabble. I went into the shop. A young girl came up to me; she wasa pretty, quiet little soul, one might almost say, demure; not at all thesort of girl from whom you would have expected such a thing. I was nevermore surprised in all my life."
"Surprised about what?" I said.
George always assumes you know the end of the story while he is tellingyou the beginning; it is an annoying method.
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"At what happened," replied George; "at what I am telling you. Shesmiled and asked me what I wanted. I understood that all right; therecould have been no mistake about that. I put down a twenty mark piece onthe counter and said:
"Please give me a cushion."
"She stared at me as if I had asked for a feather bed. I thought, maybe,she had not heard, so I repeated it louder. If I had chucked her underthe chin she could not have looked more surprised or indignant.
"She said she thought I must be making a mistake.
"I did not want to begin a long conversation and find myself stranded. Isaid there was no mistake. I pointed to my twenty mark piece, andrepeated for the third time that I wanted a cushion, 'a twenty markcushion.'
"Another girl came up, an elder girl; and the first girl repeated to herwhat I had just said: she seemed quite excited about it. The second girldid not believe her--did not think I looked the sort of man who wouldwant a cushion. To make sure, she put the question to me herself.
"'Did you say you wanted a cushion?' she asked.
"'I have said it three times,' I answered. 'I will say it again--I wanta cushion.'
"She said: 'Then you can't have one.'
"I was getting angry by this time. If I hadn't really wanted the thing Ishould have walked out of the shop; but there the cushions were in thewindow, evidently for sale. I didn't see _why_ I couldn't have one.
"I said: 'I will have one!' It is a simple sentence. I said it withdetermination.
"A third girl came up at this point, the three representing, I fancy, thewhole force of the shop. She was a bright-eyed, saucy-looking littlewench, this last one. On any other occasion I might have been pleased tosee her; now, her coming only irritated me. I didn't see the need ofthree girls for this business.
"The first two girls started explaining the thing to the third girl, andbefore they were half-way through the third girl began to giggle--she wasthe sort of girl who would giggle at anything. That done, they fell tochattering like Jenny Wrens, all three together; and between every half-dozen words they looked across at me; and the more they looked at me themore the third girl giggled; and before they had finished they were allthree giggling, the little idiots; you might have thought I was a clown,giving a private performance.
"When she was steady enough to move, the third girl came up to me; shewas still giggling. She said:
"'If you get it, will you go?'
"I did not quite understand her at first, and she repeated it.
"'This cushion. When you've got it, will you go--away--at once?'
"I was only too anxious to go. I told her so. But, I added I was notgoing without it. I had made up my mind to have that cushion now if Istopped in the shop all night for it.
"She rejoined the other two girls. I thought they were going to get methe cushion and have done with the business. Instead of that, thestrangest thing possible happened. The two other girls got behind thefirst girl, all three still giggling, Heaven knows what about, and pushedher towards me. They pushed her close up to me, and then, before I knewwhat was happening, she put her hands on my shoulders, stood up ontiptoe, and kissed me. After which, burying her face in her apron, sheran off, followed by the second girl. The third girl opened the door forme, and so evidently expected me to go, that in my confusion I went,leaving my twenty marks behind me. I don't say I minded the kiss, thoughI did not particularly want it, while I did want the cushion. I don'tlike to go back to the shop. I cannot understand the thing at all."
I said: "What did you ask for?"
He said: "A cushion"
I said: "That is what you wanted, I know. What I mean is, what was theactual German word you said."
He replied: "A kuss."
I said: "You have nothing to complain of. It is somewhat confusing. A'kuss' sounds as if it ought to be a cushion, but it is not; it is akiss, while a 'kissen' is a cushion. You muddled up the two words--peoplehave done it before. I don't know much about this sort of thing myself;but you asked for a twenty mark kiss, and from your description of thegirl some people might consider the price reasonable. Anyhow, I shouldnot tell Harris. If I remember rightly, he also has an aunt."
George agreed with me it would be better not.
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