Through stained glass
Page 24
CHAPTER XXIV
Just before they left Paris a letter had come for Lewis--a big, officialenvelop, unstamped. He tore it open, full of curiosity and wonder. Outfell a fat inclosure. Lewis picked it up and stared. It is always ashock to see your own handwriting months after you have sent it off on along journey. Here was his own handwriting on a very soiled envelop,plastered over with postmarks. How quaint was the superscription, howeloquent the distant dates of the postmarks! "For Natalie. At the Ranchof Dom Francisco, on the Road to Oeiras, in the Province of Ceara,Brazil."
The envelop had been cut open. Lewis took out the many sheets andsearched them for a sign. None was there. He looked again at theenvelop. Across it was stamped a notice of non-delivery on account ofdeficient address. Then his eyes fell on faint writing in pencil under apostmark. He recognized the halting handwriting of Dom Francisco'seldest girl. "She is gone," she had written. Nothing more.
"Gone?" questioned Lewis. "Gone where? Where could Natalie go?" He readparts of his letter over, and blushed at his enthusiasms of almost ayear ago. Almost a year! Leighton called him. He tore up the letter andthrew it away. It was time to start. Then had come the good-by toCellette, and after that the wonders of the road had held his mind in aconstantly renewing grip. They still held it.
Leighton was beyond being a guide. He was a companion. When he could, heavoided big cities and monuments. He loved to stop for the night atwayside inns where the accommodations were meager, but ample opportunitywas given for a friendly chat with the hostess cook. And if the inn wasone of those homely evening meeting-places for old folks, he would say:
"Lew, no country wears its heart on its sleeve, but 'way inside. Let uslive here a little while and feel the pulse of France."
When they crossed the border, he sat down under the first shade tree andmade Lewis sit facing him.
"This," he said gravely, "is an eventful moment. You have just entered astrange country where cooks have been known to fry a steak and live.There are people that eat the steaks and live. It is a wonderfulcountry. Their cooks are also generally ignorant of the axiomaticmission of a dripping-pan, as soggy fowls will prove to you. But what welose in pleasing alimentation, we make up in scenery and food forthought. Collectively, this is the greatest people on earth;individually, the smallest. Their national life is the most communal,the best regulated, the nearest socialistic of any in the world,and--they live it by the inch."
One afternoon, after a long climb through an odorous forest ofred-stemmed pines, with green-black tops stretching for miles and milesin an unbroken canopy, they came out upon a broad view that entrancedwith its sense of illusion. Cities, like bunched cattle, dotted the vastplain. Space and the wide, unhindered sweep of the eye reduced theirgreatness to the dimensions of toy-land.
Leighton and Lewis stood long in silence, then they started down theroad that clung to the steep incline. On the left it was overhung by theforest; on the right, earth fell suddenly away in a wooded precipice. Asthe highway clung to the mountain-side, so did quaint villages cling tothe highway. They came to an old _Gasthaus_, the hinder end of which wasbuttressed over the brink of the valley.
Here they stopped. Their big, square room, the only guest-chamber of thelittle inn, hung in air high above the jumbled roofs of Duerkheim. To theright, the valley split to form a niche for a beetling, ruined castle.Far out on the plain the lights of Darmstadt and Mannheim began toblink. Beyond and above them Heidelberg signaled faintly from theopposing hills.
The room shared its aery with a broad, square veranda, trellised andvine-covered. Here were tables and chairs, and here Leighton and Lewisdined. Before they had finished their meal, two groups had formed aboutseparate tables. One was of old men, white-haired, white-bearded, eachwith his pipe and a long mug of beer. The other was of women. They, too,were old, white-haired. Their faces were not hard, like the men's, butfilled with a withered motherliness. The men eyed the two foreignersdistrustfully as though they hung like a cloud over the accustomed peaceof that informal village gathering.
"All old, eh?" said Leighton to Lewis with a nod. "And sour. Want to seethem wake up?"
"Yes," said Lewis.
The woman who served them was young by comparison with the rest.Leighton had discovered that she was an Alsatian, and had profitedthereby in the ordering of his dinner. She was the daughter-in-law ofthe old couple that owned the inn. He turned to her and said in French,so that Lewis could understand:
"Smile but once, dear lady. You serve us as though we were Britishers."
The woman turned quickly.
"And are you not Britishers?"
"No," said Leighton; "Americans."
"So!" cried the woman, her face brightening. She turned to the twolistening groups. "They are not English, after all," she called gaily."They are Americans--Americans of New York!"
There was an instant change of the social atmosphere, a buzz of eagertalk. The old men and the old women drew near. Then came shy, but eager,questions. Hans, Fritz, Anna were in New York. Could Leighton give anynews of them? Each had his little pathetically confident cry for news ofson or daughter, and Leighton's personal acquaintance, as an American,was taken to range from Toronto to Buenos Aires.
Leighton treated them like children; laughed at them, and then describedgravely in simple words the distances of the New World, the size and theturmoil of its cities.
"Your children are young and strong," he added, noting their wistfuleyes; "they can stand it. But you--you old folks--are much better offhere."
"And yet," said an old woman, with longing in her pale eyes, "I havestood many things."
Leighton turned to Lewis.
"All old, eh?" he repeated. "Young ones all gone. Do you remember what Isaid about this being the best-regulated state on earth?"
Lewis nodded.
"Well," continued Leighton, "a perfectly regulated state is a finething, a great thing for humanity. It has only one fault: nobody wantsto live in it."
Two days later they reached Heidelberg and, on the day following,climbed the mountain to the Koenigstuhl. They stood on the top of thetower and gazed on such a sight as Lewis had never seen. Here were noendless sands and thorn-trees, no lonely reaches, no tropic glare. Allwas river and wooded glade, harvest and harvesters, spires above knottedgroups of houses, castle, and hovel. Here and there and everywhere,still spirals of smoke hung above the abodes of men. It was like avision of peace and plenty from the Bible.
Lewis was surprised to find that his father was not looking at thescene. Leighton was bending over such a dial as no other spot on earthcould boast. Its radiating spokes of varying lengths pointed to ahundred places, almost within the range of sight--names famous in songand story, in peace and in war. Leighton read them out, name after name.He glanced at Lewis's puzzled face.
"They mean nothing to you?" he asked.
Lewis shook his head.
"So you're not quite educated, after all," said Leighton.
They descended almost at a run to the gardens behind the Schloss. Asthey reached them a long string of carriages drove up from the town.They were full of tourists, many of whom wore the enameled flag of theUnited States in their buttonholes. Some of the women carried littlered, white, and blue silk flags.
Lewis saw his father wince.
"Dad," he asked, "are they Americans?"
"Yes, boy," said Leighton. "Do you remember what I told you about theevanescent spirit in art?"
Lewis nodded.
"Well," said Leighton, "a beloved flag has an evanescent spirit, too.One shouldn't finger carelessly the image one would adore. That's why Iwinced just now. Collectively, we Americans have never lowered the Starsand Stripes, but individually we do it pretty often." Then he threw uphis head and smiled. "After all, there's a bright side even to blatantpatriotism. A nation can put up with every form of devotion so long asit gets it from all."
"But, Dad," said Lewis, "I thought all American women were beautiful."
"So they are," s
aid Leighton, with a laugh. "When you stop believingthat, you stop being an American. All American women are beautiful--someoutside, and the rest inside."
"Why don't you take me to the States?" asked Lewis.
Leighton turned around.
"How old are you?"
"Twenty," said Lewis.
"I'll take you," said Leighton, "when you are old enough to see theStates. It takes a certain amount of philosophy nowadays to understandyour country--and mine. Of all the nations in the world, we Americanssee ourselves least as others see us. We have a national vanity thatkeeps us from studying a looking-glass. That's a paradox," saidLeighton, smiling at Lewis's puzzled look. "A paradox," he continued,"is a verity the unpleasant truth of which is veiled."
"Anyway, I should like to go to the States," said Lewis.
"Just now," said Leighton, "our country is traveling the universal roadof commercialism, but it's traveling fast. When it gets to the end ofthe road, it will be an interesting country."