The Project Gutenberg EBook of A Tramp Abroad, Complete 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.net Title: A Tramp Abroad, Complete Author: Mark Twain (Samuel Clemens) Release Date: June 2004 [EBook #119] Last Updated: October 18, 2012] Language: English Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 *** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK A TRAMP ABROAD *** Produced by David Widger
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1. PORTRAIT OF THE AUTHOR
2. TITIAN'S MOSES
3. THE AUTHOR'S MEMORIES
4. THE BLACK KNIGHT
5. OPENING HIS VIZIER
6. THE ENRAGED EMPEROR
7. THE PORTIER
8. ONE
OF THOSE BOYS
9. SCHLOSS
HOTEL
10. IN MY CAGE
11. HEIDELBERG CASTLE
12. HEIDELBERG CASTLE, RIVER FRONTAGE
13. THE RETREAT
14. JIM
BAKER
15. "A BLUE FLUSH ABOUT IT"
16. COULD NOT SEE IT
17. THE BEER KING
18. THE
LECTURER'S AUDIENCE
19. INDUSTRIOUS
STUDENTS
20. IDLE STUDENT
21. COMPANIONABLE INTERCOURSE
22. AN IMPOSING SPECTACLE
23. AN ADVERTISEMENT
24. "UNDERSTANDS
HIS BUSINESS"
25. THE OLD SURGEON
26. THE FIRST WOUND
27. THE CASTLE COURT
28. WOUNDED
29. FAVORITE STREET COSTUME
30. INEFFACEABLE SCARS
31. PIECE OF SWORD
32. FRENCH
CALM
33. THE CHALLENGE ACCEPTED
34. A SEARCH
35. HE SWOONED PONDEROUSLY
36. I ROLLED HIM OVER
37. THE
ONE I HIRED
36. THE MARCH TO THE
FIELD
39. THE POST OF DANGER
40. THE RECONCILIATION
41. AN OBJECT OF ADMIRATION
42. WAGNER
43. RAGING
44. ROARING
45. SHRIEKING
46. A
CUSTOMARY THING
47. ONE OF THE
"REST"
48. A CONTRIBUTION BOX
49. CONSPICUOUS
50. TAIL PIECE
51. ONLY
A SHRIEK
52. "HE ONLY CRY"
53. LATE COMERS CARED FOR
54. EVIDENTLY DREAMING
55. "TURN ON MORE RAIN"
56. HARRIS ATTENDING THE OPERA
57. PAINTING MY GREAT PICTURE
58. OUR START
59. AN
UNKNOWN COSTUME
60. THE TOWER
61. SLOW BUT SURE
62. THE ROBBER CHIEF
63. AN
HONEST MAN
64. THE TOWN BY NIGHT
65. GENERATIONS OF BAREFEET
66. OUR BEDROOM
67. PRACTICING
68. PAWING AROUND
69. A NIGHT'S WORK
70. LEAVING
HEILBRONN
71. THE CAPTAIN
72. WAITING FOR THE TRAIN
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.  "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
119. BLACK
FOREST GRANDEE
120. THE GRANDEE'S
DAUGHTER
121. RICH OLD HUSS
122. GRETCHEN
123. PAUL HOCH
124. HANS
SCHMIDT
125. ELECTING A NEW
MEMBER
126. OVERCOMING OBSTACLES
127. FRIENDS
128. PROSPECTING
129. TAIL
PIECE
130. A GENERAL HOWL
131. SEEKING A SITUATION
132. STANDING GUARD
133. RESULT
OF A JOKE
134. DESCENDING A FARM
155. A GERMAN SABBATH
136. AN OBJECT OF SYMPATHY
137. A NON-CLASSICAL STYLE
138. THE TRADITIONAL CHAMOIS
139. HUNTING CHAMOIS THE TRUE WAY
140. CHAMOIS HUNTER AS REPORTED
141. MARKING ALPENSTOCKS
142. IS SHE EIGHTEEN OR TWENTY
143. I KNEW I WASN'T MISTAKEN
144. HARRIS ASTONISHED
145. TAIL PIECE
146. THE
LION OF LUCERNE
147. HE LIKED
CLOCKS
148. "I WILL TELL YOU"
149. COULDN'T WAIT
150. DIDN'T CARE FOR STYLE
151. A PAIR BETTER THAN FOUR
152. TWO WASN'T NECESSARY
153. JUST THE TRICK
154. GOING
TO MAKE THEM STARE
155. NOT
THROWN AWAY
156.  WANTED TO FEEL
SAFE
158. PREFERRED TO TRAMP ON
FOOT
159. DERN A DOG, ANYWAY
160. TAIL PIECE
161. THE GLACIER GARDEN
162. LAKE AND MOUNTAINS (MONT PILATUS)
163. MOUNTAIN PATHS
164. "YOU'RE
AN AMERICAN—SO AM I"
165. ENTERPRISE
166. THE CONSTANT SEARCHER
167. THE MOUNTAIN BOY
168. THE
ENGLISHMAN
169. THE JODLER
170. ANOTHER VOCALIST
171. THE FELSENTHOR
172. A
VIEW FROM THE STATION
173. LOST
IN THE MIST
174. THE RIGI-KULM
HOTEL
175. WHAT AWAKENED US
176. A SUMMIT SUNRISE
177. TAIL PIECE
178. EXCEEDINGLY
COMFORTABLE
179. THE SUNRISE
180. THE RIGI-KULM
181. AN OPTICAL ILLUSION
182. TAIL PIECE
183. RAILWAY
DOWN THE MOUNTAIN
184. SOURCE OF
THE RHONE
185. A GLACIER TABLE
186. GLACIER OF GRINDELWALD
187. DAWN ON THE MOUNTAINS
188. TAIL PIECE
189. NEW
AND OLD STYLE
190. ST NICHOLAS,
AS A HERMIT
191. A LANDSLIDE
192. GOLDAU VALLEY BEFORE AND AFTER THE
LANDSLIDE
193. THE WAY THEY DO IT
194. OUR GALLANT DRIVER
195. A MOUNTAIN PASS
196. "I'M
OFUL DRY"
197. IT'S THE FASHION
198. WHAT WE EXPECTED
199. WE MISSED THE SCENERY
200. THE TOURISTS
201. THE
YOUNG BRIDE
202. "IT WAS A FAMOUS
VICTORY
203. PROMENADE IN
INTERLAKEN
204. THE JUNGFRAU BY
M.T.
205. STREET IN INTERLAKEN
206. WITHOUT A COURIER
207. TRAVELING WITH A COURIER
208. TAIL PIECE
209. GRAPE
AND WHEY PATIENTS
210. SOCIABLE
DRIVERS
211. A MOUNTAIN CASCADE
212. THE GASTERNTHAL
213. EXHILARATING SPORT
214. FALLS
215. WHAT
MIGHT BE
216. AN ALPINE BOUQUET
217. THE END OF THE WORLD
218. THE FORGET-ME-NOT
219. A NEEDLE OF ICE
220. CLIMBING
THE MOUNTAIN
221. SNOW CREVASSES
222. CUTTING STEPS
223. THE GUIDE
224. VIEW
FROM THE CLIFF
225. GEMMI PASS
AND LAKE DAUBENSEE
226. ALMOST A
TRAGEDY
227. THE ALPINE LITTER
228. SOCIAL BATHERS
229. DEATH OF COUNTESS HERLINCOURT
230.  MODEL FOR AN EMPRESS
232. BATH HOUSES AT LEUKE
233. THE BATHERS AT LEUKE
234. RATTIER MIXED UP
235. TAIL
PIECE
236. A SUNDAY MORNING'S
DEMON
237. JUST SAVED
238. SCENE IN VALLEY OF ZERMATT
239. ARRIVAL AT ZERMATT
240. FITTED OUT
241. A
FEARFUL FALL
242. TAIL PIECE
243.  THE MARCH
245. THE
CARAVAN
246. THE HOOK
247. THE DISABLED CHAPLAIN
248. TRYING EXPERIMENTS
249. SAVED! SAVED!
250. TWENTY
MINUTES WORK
251. THE BLACK RAM
252. THE MIRACLE
253. THE NEW GUIDE
251. SCIENTIFIC
RESEARCHES
255. MOUNTAIN CHALET
256. THE GRANDSON
257. OCCASIONLY MET WITH
258. SUMMIT OF THE GORNER GRAT
259. CHIEFS OF THE ADVANCE GUARD
260. MY PICTURE OF THE MATTERHORN
261. EVERYBODY HAD AN EXCUSE
262. SPRUNG A LEAK
263. A
SCIENTIFIC QUESTION
264. A
TERMINAL MORAINE
265. FRONT OF
GLACIER
266. AN OLD MORAINE
267. GLACIER OF ZERMATT WITH LATERAL MORAINE
269. UNEXPECTED MEETING OF FRIENDS
269. VILLAGE OF CHAMONIX
270. THE MATTERHORN
271. ON
THE SUMMIT
272. ACCIDENT ON THE
MATTERHORN (1865)
273. ROPED
TOGETHER
274. STORAGE OF
ANCESTORS
275. FALLING OUT OF HIS
FARM
276. CHILD LIFE IN
SWITZERLAND
277. A SUNDAY PLAY
278. THE COMBINATION
279. CHILLON
280. THE
TETE NOIR
281. MONT BLANC'S
NEIGHBORS
282. AN EXQUISITE THING
283. A WILD RIDE
284. SWISS PEASANT GIRL
285. STREET IN CHAMONIX
286. THE PROUD GERMAN
287. THE
INDIGNANT TOURIST
288. MUSIC OF
SWITZERLAND
289. ONLY A MISTAKE
290. A BROAD VIEW
291. PREPARING TO START
292. ASCENT OF MONT BLANC
293.  THE GRANDE MULETS
295. CABIN ON THE GRANDE MULETS
296. KEEPING WARM
297. TAIL
PIECE
298. TAKE IT EASY
299. THE MER DE GLACE (MONT BLANC)
300. TAKING TOLL
301. A DESCENDING TOURIST
302. LEAVING BY DILIGENCE
303. THE SATISFIED ENGLISHMAN
301. HIGH PRESSURE
305. NO
APOLOGY
307. A LIVELY STREET
308. HAVING HER FULL RIGHTS
309. HOW SHE FOOLED US
310. "YOU'LL TAKE THAT OR NONE"
311. ROBBING A BEGGAR
312. DISHONEST ITALY
313. STOCK IN TRADE
314. STYLE
315. SPECIMENS FROM OLD MASTERS
316. AN OLD MASTER
317. THE LION OF ST MARK
318. OH TO BE AT RRST!
319. THE WORLD'S MASTERPIECE
320. TAIL PIECE
321. AESTHETIC
TASTES
322. A PRIVATE FAMILY
BREAKFAST
323. EUROPEAN CARVING
323. A TWENTY-FOUR HOUR FIGHT
325. GREAT HEIDELBERG TUN
326. BISMARCK IN PRISON
327. TAIL PIECE 600
328. A
COMPLETE WORD
CHAPTER I
A Tramp over Europe—On the
Holsatia—Hamburg—Frankfort-on-the-Main—How it Won its
Name—A Lesson in Political Economy—Neatness in Dress—Rhine
Legends—"The Knave of Bergen" The Famous Ball—The Strange
Knight—Dancing with the Queen—Removal of the Masks—The
Disclosure—Wrath of the Emperor—The Ending
CHAPTER II
At Heidelberg—Great Stir at a Hotel—The
Portier—Arrival of the Empress—The Schloss Hotel—Location
of Heidelberg—The River Neckar—New Feature in a Hotel—Heidelberg
Castle—View from the Hotel—A Tramp in the Woods—Meeting
a Raven—Can Ravens Talk?—Laughed at and Vanquished—Language
of Animals—Jim Baker—Blue-Jays
CHAPTER
III
Baker's Blue-Jay Yarn—Jay Language—The Cabin—"Hello,
I reckon I've struck something"—A Knot Hole—Attempt to fill it—A
Ton of Acorns—Friends Called In—A Great Mystery—More
Jays called A Blue Flush—A Discovery—A Rich Joke—One
that Couldn't See It
CHAPTER IV
Student
Life—The Five Corps—The Beet King—A Free Life—Attending
Lectures—An Immense Audience—Industrious Students—Politeness
of the Students—Intercourse with the Professors Scenes at the Castle
Garden—Abundance of Dogs—Symbol of Blighted Love—How the
Ladies Advertise
CHAPTER V
The
Students' Dueling Ground—The Dueling Room—The Sword Grinder—Frequency
of the Duels—The Duelists—Protection against Injury—The
Surgeon—Arrangements for the Duels—The First Duel—The
First Wound—A Drawn Battle—The Second Duel—Cutting and
Slashing—Interference of the Surgeon
CHAPTER
VI
The Third Duel—A Sickening Spectacle—Dinner
between Fights—The Last Duel—Fighting in Earnest—Faces
and Heads Mutilated—Great Nerve of the Duelists—Fatal Results
not Infrequent—The World's View of these Fights
CHAPTER VII
Corps—laws and Usages—Volunteering
to Fight—Coolness of the Wounded—Wounds Honorable—Newly
bandaged Students around Heidelberg—Scarred Faces Abundant—A
Badge of Honor—Prince Bismark as a Duelist—Statistics—Constant
Sword Practice—Color of the Corps—Corps Etiquette
CHAPTER VIII
The Great French Duel—Mistaken
Notions—Outbreak in the French Assembly—Calmness of M Gambetta—I
Volunteer as Second—Drawing up a Will—The Challenge and its
Acceptance—Difficulty in Selection of Weapons—Deciding on
Distance—M. Gambetta's Firmness—Arranging Details—Hiring
Hearses—How it was Kept from the Press—March to the Field—The
Post of Danger—The Duel—The Result—General Rejoicings—The
only One Hurt—A Firm Resolution
CHAPTER IX
At the Theatre—German Ideal—At the Opera—The Orchestra—Howlings
and Wailings—A Curious Play—One Season of Rest—The
Wedding Chorus—Germans fond of the Opera—Funerals Needed
—A Private Party—What I Overheard—A Gentle Girl—A
Contribution—box—Unpleasantly Conspicuous
CHAPTER X
Four Hours with Wagner—A Wonderful
Singer, Once—" Only a Shriek"—An Ancient Vocalist—"He
Only Cry"—Emotional Germans—A Wise Custom—Late Comers
Rebuked—Heard to the Last—No Interruptions Allowed—A
Royal Audience—An Eccentric King—Real Rain and More of It—Immense
Success—"Encore! Encore!"—Magnanimity of the King
CHAPTER XI
Lessons in Art—My Great Picture
of Heidelberg Castle—Its Effect in the Exhibition—Mistaken for
a Turner—A Studio—Waiting for Orders—A Tramp Decided On—The
Start for Heilbronn—Our Walking Dress—"Pleasant march to you"—We
Take the Rail—German People on Board—Not Understood—Speak
only German and English—Wimpfen—A Funny Tower—Dinner in
the Garden—Vigorous Tramping—Ride in a Peasant's Cart—A
Famous Room
CHAPTER XII
The Rathhaus—An
Old Robber Knight, Gotz Von Berlichingen—His Famous Deeds—The
Square Tower—A Curious old Church—A Gay Turn—out—A
Legend—The Wives' Treasures—A Model Waiter—A Miracle
Performed—An Old Town—The Worn Stones
CHAPTER XIII
Early to Bed—Lonesome—Nervous
Excitement—The Room We Occupied—Disturbed by a Mouse—Grow
Desperate—The Old Remedy—A Shoe Thrown—Result—Hopelessly
Awake—An Attempt to Dress—A Cruise in the Dark—Crawling
on the Floor—A General Smash-up—Forty-seven Miles' Travel
CHAPTER XIV
A Famous Turn—out—Raftsmen
on the Neckar—The Log Rafts—The Neckar—A Sudden Idea—To
Heidelberg on a Raft—Chartering a Raft—Gloomy Feelings and
Conversation—Delicious Journeying—View of the Banks—Compared
with Railroading
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 XXII
The Black Forest—A Grandee and
his Family—The Wealthy Nabob—A New Standard of Wealth—Skeleton
for a New Novel—Trying Situation—The Common Council—Choosing
a New Member Studying Natural History—The Ant a Fraud—Eccentricities
of the Ant—His Deceit and Ignorance—A German Dish—Boiled
Oranges
CHAPTER XXIII
Off for a Day's
Tramp—Tramping and Talking—Story Telling—Dentistry in
Camp—Nicodemus Dodge—Seeking a Situation—A Butt for
Jokes—Jimmy Finn's Skeleton—Descending a Farm—Unexpected
Notoriety
CHAPTER XXIV
Sunday on the
Continent—A Day of Rest—An Incident at Church—An Object
of Sympathy—Royalty at Church—Public Grounds Concert—Power
and Grades of Music—Hiring a Courier
CHAPTER
XXV
Lucerne—Beauty of its Lake—The Wild Chamois—A
Great Error Exposed—Methods of Hunting the Chamois—Beauties of
Lucerne—The Alpenstock—Marking Alpenstocks—Guessing at
Nationalities—An American Party—An Unexpected Acquaintance—Getting
Mixed Up—Following Blind Trails—A Happy Half—hour—Defeat
and Revenge
CHAPTER XXVI
Commerce of
Lucerne—Benefits of Martyrdom—A Bit of History—The Home
of Cuckoo Clocks—A Satisfactory Revenge—The Alan Who Put Up at
Gadsby's—A Forgotten Story—Wanted to be Postmaster—A
Tennessean at Washington—He Concluded to Stay A While—Application
of the Story
CHAPTER XXVII
The Glacier
Garden—Excursion on the Lake—Life on the Mountains—A
Specimen Tourist—"Where're you From?"—An Advertising Dodge—A
Righteous Verdict—The Guide-book Student—I Believe that's All
CHAPTER XXVIII
The Rigi-Kulm—Its
Ascent—Stripping for Business—A Mountain Lad—An English
Tourist—Railroad up the Mountain—Villages and Mountain—The
Jodlers—About Ice Water—The Felsenthor—Too Late—Lost
in the Fog—The Rigi-Kulm Hotel—The Alpine Horn—Sunrise
at Night
CHAPTER XXIX
Everything
Convenient—Looking for a Western Sunrise—Mutual Recrimination—View
from the Summit—Down the Mountain—Railroading—Confidence
Wanted and Acquired
CHAPTER XXX
A Trip
by Proxy—A Visit to the Furka Regions—Deadman's Lake—Source
of the Rhone—Glacier Tables—Storm in the Mountains—At
Grindelwald—Dawn on the Mountains—An Explanation Required—Dead
Language—Criticism of Harris's Report
CHAPTER
XXXI
Preparations for a Tramp—From Lucerne to Interlaken—The
Brunig Pass—Modern and Ancient Chalets—Death of Pontius Pilate—Hermit
Home of St Nicholas—Landslides—Children Selling Refreshments—How
they Harness a Horse—A Great Man—Honors to a Hero—A
Thirsty Bride—For Better or Worse—German Fashions—Anticipations—Solid
Comfort—An Unsatisfactory \ Awakening—What we had Lost—Our
Surroundings
CHAPTER XXXII
The
Jungfrau Hotel—A Whiskered Waitress—An Arkansas Bride—Perfection
in Discord—A Famous Victory—A Look from a Window—About
the Jungfrau
CHAPTER XXXIII
The
Giesbach Falls—The Spirit of the Alps—Why People Visit Them—Whey
and Grapes as Medicines—The Kursaal—A Formidable Undertaking—From
Interlaken to Zermatt on Foot—We Concluded to take a Buggy—A
Pair of Jolly Drivers—We meet with Companions—A Cheerful Ride—Kandersteg
Valley—An Alpine Parlor—Exercise and Amusement—A Race
with a Log
CHAPTER XXXIV
An Old Guide—Possible
Accidents—Dangerous Habitation—Mountain Flowers—Embryo
Lions—Mountain Pigs—The End of The World—Ghastly
Desolation—Proposed Adventure—Reading-up Adventures—Ascent
of Monte Rosa—Precipices and Crevasses—Among the Snows—Exciting
Experiences—lee Ridges—The Summit—Adventures Postponed
CHAPTER XXXV
A New Interest—Magnificent
Views—A Mule's Prefereoces—Turning Mountain Corners—Terror
of a Horse—Lady Tourists—Death of a young Countess—A
Search for a Hat—What We Did Find—Harris's Opinion of Chamois—A
Disappointed Man—A Giantess—Model for an Empress—Baths
at Leuk—Sport in the Water—The Gemmi Precipices—A Palace
for an Emperor—The Famous Ladders—Considerably Mixed Up—Sad
Plight of a Minister
CHAPTER XXXVI
Sunday Church Bells—A Cause of Profanity—A Magnificent Glacier—Fault
Finding by Harris—Almost an Accident—Selfishness of Harris—Approaching
Zermatt—The Matterhorn—Zermatt—Home of Mountain Climbers—Fitted
out for Climbing—A Fearful Adventure —Never Satisfied
CHAPTER XXXVII
A Calm Decision—"I
Will Ascend the Riffelberg"—Preparations for the Trip—All
Zermatt on the Alert—Schedule of Persons and Things—An
Unprecedented Display—A General Turn—out—Ready for a
Start—The Post of Danger—The Advance Directed—Grand
Display of Umbrellas—The First Camp—Almost a Panic—Supposed
to be Lost—The First Accident—A Chaplain Disabled—An
Experimenting Mule—Good Effects of a Blunder—Badly Lost—A
Reconnoiter—Mystery and Doubt—Stern Measures Taken—A
Black Ram—Saved by a Miracle—The Guide's Guide
CHAPTER XXXVIII
Our Expedition Continued—Experiments
with the Barometer—Boiling Thermometer—Barometer Soup—An
Interesting Scientific Discovery—Crippling a Latinist—A
Chaplain Injured—Short of Barkeepers—Digging a Mountain Cellar—A
Young American Specimen—Somebody's Grandson—Arrival at
Riffelberg Botel—Ascent of Gorner Grat—Faith in Thermometers—The
Matterhorn
CHAPTER XXXIX
Guide Books—Plans
for the Return of the Expedition—A Glacier Train—Parachute
Descent from Gorner Grat—Proposed Honors to Harris Declined—All
had an Excuse—A Magnificent Idea Abandoned—Descent to the
Glacier—A Supposed Leak—A Slow Train—The Glacier
Abandoned—Journey to Zermatt—A Scientific Question
CHAPTER XL
Glaciers—Glacier Perils—Moraines—Terminal
Moraines—Lateral Moraines—Immense Size of Glacier—Traveling
Glacier——General Movements of Glaciers—Ascent of Mont
Blacc—Loss of Guides—Finding of Remains—Meeting of Old
Friends—The Dead and Living—Proposed Museum—The Relics
at Chamonix
CHAPTER XLI
The Matterhorn
Catastrophe of 1563—Mr Whymper's Narrative—Ascent of the
Matterhorn—The Summit—The Matterhorn Conquered—The
Descent Commenced—A Fearful Disaster—Death of Lord Douglas and
Two Others—The Graves of the Two
CHAPTER
XLII
Switzerland—Graveyard at Zermatt—Balloting for
Marriage—Farmers as Heroes—Falling off a Farm—From St
Nicholas to Visp—Dangerous Traveling—Children's Play—The
Parson's Children—A Landlord's Daughter—A Rare Combination—Ch
iIIon—Lost Sympathy—Mont Blanc and its Neighbors—Beauty
of Soap Bubbles—A Wild Drive—The King of Drivers—Benefit
of getting Drunk
CHAPTER XLIII
Chamonix—Contrasts—Magnificent Spectacle—The Guild of
Guides—The Guide—in—Chief—The Returned Tourist—Getting
Diploma—Rigid Rules—Unsuccessful Efforts to Procure a Diploma—The
Record-Book—The Conqueror of Mont Blanc—Professional Jealousy
—Triumph of Truth—Mountain Music—Its Effect—A Hunt
for a Nuisance
CHAPTER XLIV
Looking at
Mont Blanc—Telescopic Effect—A Proposed Trip—Determination
and Courage—The Cost all counted——Ascent of Mont Blanc
by Telescope—Safe and Rapid Return—Diplomas Asked for and
Refused—Disaster of 1866—The Brave Brothers—Wonderful
Endurance and Pluck—Love Making on Mont Blanc—First Ascent of
a Woman—Sensible Attire
CHAPTER XLV
A Catastrophe which Cost Eleven Lives—Accident of 1870—A Party
of Eleven—A Fearful Storm—Note-books of the Victims—Within
Five Minutes of Safety—Facing Death Resignedly
CHAPTER XLVI
The Hotel des Pyramids—The
Glacier des Bossons—One of the Shows—Premeditated Crime—Saved
Again—Tourists Warned—Advice to Tourists—The Two
Empresses—The Glacier Toll Collector—Pure Ice Water—Death
Rate of the World—Of Various Cities—A Pleasure Excursionist—A
Diligence Ride—A Satisfied Englishman
CHAPTER
XLVII
Geneva—Shops of Geneva—Elasticity of Prices—Persistency
of Shop-Women—The High Pressure System—How a Dandy was brought
to Grief—American Manners—Gallantry—Col Baker of London—Arkansaw
Justice—Safety of Women in America—Town of Chambery—A
Lively Place—At Turin—A Railroad Companion—An Insulted
Woman—City of Turin—Italian Honesty—A Small Mistake
—Robbing a Beggar Woman
CHAPTER XLVIII
In Milan—The Arcade—Incidents we Met With—The Pedlar—Children—The
Honest Conductor—Heavy Stocks of Clothing—The Quarrelsome
Italians—Great Smoke and Little Fire—The Cathedral—Style
in Church—The Old Masters—Tintoretto's great Picture—Emotional
Tourists—Basson's Famed Picture—The Hair Trunk
CHAPTER XLIX
In Venice—St Mark's Cathedral—Discovery
of an Antique—The Riches of St Mark's—A Church Robber—Trusting
Secrets to a Friend —The Robber Hanged—A Private Dinner—European
Food
CHAPTER L
Why Some things Are—Art
in Rome and Florence—The Fig Leaf Mania—Titian's Venus—Difference
between Seeing and Describing A Real work of Art—Titian's Moses—Home
A—The Portier analyzed
B—Hiedelberg Castle Described
C—The College Prison and Inmates
D—The Awful German Language
E—Legends of the Castle
F—The Journals of Germany
One day it occurred to me that it had been many years since the world had been afforded the spectacle of a man adventurous enough to undertake a journey through Europe on foot. After much thought, I decided that I was a person fitted to furnish to mankind this spectacle. So I determined to do it. This was in March, 1878.
I looked about me for the right sort of person to accompany me in the capacity of agent, and finally hired a Mr. Harris for this service.
It was also my purpose to study art while in Europe. Mr. Harris was in sympathy with me in this. He was as much of an enthusiast in art as I was, and not less anxious to learn to paint. I desired to learn the German language; so did Harris.
Toward the middle of April we sailed in the Holsatia, Captain Brandt, and had a very pleasant trip, indeed.
After a brief rest at Hamburg, we made preparations for a long pedestrian trip southward in the soft spring weather, but at the last moment we changed the program, for private reasons, and took the express-train.
We made a short halt at Frankfort-on-the-Main, and found it an interesting city. I would have liked to visit the birthplace of Gutenburg, but it could not be done, as no memorandum of the site of the house has been kept. So we spent an hour in the Goethe mansion instead. The city permits this house to belong to private parties, instead of gracing and dignifying herself with the honor of possessing and protecting it.
Frankfort is one of the sixteen cities which have the distinction of being the place where the following incident occurred. Charlemagne, while chasing the Saxons (as he said), or being chased by them (as they said), arrived at the bank of the river at dawn, in a fog. The enemy were either before him or behind him; but in any case he wanted to get across, very badly. He would have given anything for a guide, but none was to be had. Presently he saw a deer, followed by her young, approach the water. He watched her, judging that she would seek a ford, and he was right. She waded over, and the army followed. So a great Frankish victory or defeat was gained or avoided; and in order to commemorate the episode, Charlemagne commanded a city to be built there, which he named Frankfort—the ford of the Franks. None of the other cities where this event happened were named for it. This is good evidence that Frankfort was the first place it occurred at.
Frankfort has another distinction—it is the birthplace of the German alphabet; or at least of the German word for alphabet—buchstaben. They say that the first movable types were made on birch sticks—buchstabe—hence the name.
I was taught a lesson in political economy in Frankfort. I had brought from home a box containing a thousand very cheap cigars. By way of experiment, I stepped into a little shop in a queer old back street, took four gaily decorated boxes of wax matches and three cigars, and laid down a silver piece worth 48 cents. The man gave me 43 cents change.
In Frankfort everybody wears clean clothes, and I think we noticed that this strange thing was the case in Hamburg, too, and in the villages along the road. Even in the narrowest and poorest and most ancient quarters of Frankfort neat and clean clothes were the rule. The little children of both sexes were nearly always nice enough to take into a body's lap. And as for the uniforms of the soldiers, they were newness and brightness carried to perfection. One could never detect a smirch or a grain of dust upon them. The street-car conductors and drivers wore pretty uniforms which seemed to be just out of the bandbox, and their manners were as fine as their clothes.
In one of the shops I had the luck to stumble upon a book which has charmed me nearly to death. It is entitled The Legends Of The Rhine From Basle To Rotterdam, by F. J. Kiefer; translated by L. W. Garnham, B.A.
All tourists mention the Rhine legends—in that sort of way which quietly pretends that the mentioner has been familiar with them all his life, and that the reader cannot possibly be ignorant of them—but no tourist ever tells them. So this little book fed me in a very hungry place; and I, in my turn, intend to feed my reader, with one or two little lunches from the same larder. I shall not mar Garnham's translation by meddling with its English; for the most toothsome thing about it is its quaint fashion of building English sentences on the German plan—and punctuating them accordingly to no plan at all.
In the chapter devoted to "Legends of Frankfort," I find the following:
"In Frankfort at the Romer was a great mask-ball, at the coronation
festival, and in the illuminated saloon, the clanging music invited to
dance, and splendidly appeared the rich toilets and charms of the ladies,
and the festively costumed Princes and Knights. All seemed pleasure, joy,
and roguish gaiety, only one of the numerous guests had a gloomy exterior;
but exactly the black armor in which he walked about excited general
attention, and his tall figure, as well as the noble propriety of his
movements, attracted especially the regards of the ladies.
Who the Knight was? Nobody could guess, for his Vizier was well closed, and nothing made him recognizable. Proud and yet modest he advanced to the Empress; bowed on one knee before her seat, and begged for the favor of a waltz with the Queen of the festival. And she allowed his request. With light and graceful steps he danced through the long saloon, with the sovereign who thought never to have found a more dexterous and excellent dancer. But also by the grace of his manner, and fine conversation he knew to win the Queen, and she graciously accorded him a second dance for which he begged, a third, and a fourth, as well as others were not refused him. How all regarded the happy dancer, how many envied him the high favor; how increased curiosity, who the masked knight could be.
"Also the Emperor became more and more excited with curiosity, and with
great suspense one awaited the hour, when according to mask-law, each
masked guest must make himself known. This moment came, but although all
other unmasked; the secret knight still refused to allow his features to
be seen, till at last the Queen driven by curiosity, and vexed at the
obstinate refusal; commanded him to open his Vizier.
He opened it, and none of the high ladies and knights knew him. But from
the crowded spectators, 2 officials advanced, who recognized the black
dancer, and horror and terror spread in the saloon, as they said who the
supposed knight was. It was the executioner of Bergen. But glowing with
rage, the King commanded to seize the criminal and lead him to death, who
had ventured to dance, with the queen; so disgraced the Empress, and
insulted the crown. The culpable threw himself at the Emperor, and said—
"'Indeed I have heavily sinned against all noble guests assembled here, but most heavily against you my sovereign and my queen. The Queen is insulted by my haughtiness equal to treason, but no punishment even blood, will not be able to wash out the disgrace, which you have suffered by me. Therefore oh King! allow me to propose a remedy, to efface the shame, and to render it as if not done. Draw your sword and knight me, then I will throw down my gauntlet, to everyone who dares to speak disrespectfully of my king.'
"The Emperor was surprised at this bold proposal, however it appeared the
wisest to him; 'You are a knave,' he replied after a moment's
consideration, 'however your advice is good, and displays prudence, as
your offense shows adventurous courage. Well then,' and gave him the
knight-stroke 'so I raise you to nobility, who begged for grace for your
offense now kneels before me, rise as knight; knavish you have acted, and
Knave of Bergen shall you be called henceforth,' and gladly the Black
knight rose; three cheers were given in honor of the Emperor, and loud
cries of joy testified the approbation with which the Queen danced still
once with the Knave of Bergen."
We stopped at a hotel by the railway-station. Next morning, as we sat in
my room waiting for breakfast to come up, we got a good deal interested in
something which was going on over the way, in front of another hotel.
First, the personage who is called the Portier (who is not the Porter, but
is a sort of first-mate of a hotel) [1. See Appendix A] appeared at the
door in a spick-and-span new blue cloth uniform, decorated with shining
brass buttons, and with bands of gold lace around his cap and wristbands;
and he wore white gloves, too.
He shed an official glance upon the situation, and then began to give orders. Two women-servants came out with pails and brooms and brushes, and gave the sidewalk a thorough scrubbing; meanwhile two others scrubbed the four marble steps which led up to the door; beyond these we could see some men-servants taking up the carpet of the grand staircase. This carpet was carried away and the last grain of dust beaten and banged and swept out of it; then brought back and put down again. The brass stair-rods received an exhaustive polishing and were returned to their places. Now a troop of servants brought pots and tubs of blooming plants and formed them into a beautiful jungle about the door and the base of the staircase. Other servants adorned all the balconies of the various stories with flowers and banners; others ascended to the roof and hoisted a great flag on a staff there. Now came some more chamber-maids and retouched the sidewalk, and afterward wiped the marble steps with damp cloths and finished by dusting them off with feather brushes. Now a broad black carpet was brought out and laid down the marble steps and out across the sidewalk to the curbstone. The Portier cast his eye along it, and found it was not absolutely straight; he commanded it to be straightened; the servants made the effort—made several efforts, in fact—but the Portier was not satisfied. He finally had it taken up, and then he put it down himself and got it right.
At this stage of the proceedings, a narrow bright red carpet was unrolled
and stretched from the top of the marble steps to the curbstone, along the
center of the black carpet. This red path cost the Portier more trouble
than even the black one had done. But he patiently fixed and refixed it
until it was exactly right and lay precisely in the middle of the black
carpet.  Occasionally one of them skipped irreverently over the carpet
and took up a position on the other side. This always visibly annoyed the
Portier.
Now came a waiting interval. The landlord, in plain clothes, and bareheaded, placed himself on the bottom marble step, abreast the Portier, who stood on the other end of the same steps; six or eight waiters, gloved, bareheaded, and wearing their whitest linen, their whitest cravats, and their finest swallow-tails, grouped themselves about these chiefs, but leaving the carpetway clear. Nobody moved or spoke any more but only waited.
In a short time the shrill piping of a coming train was heard, and immediately groups of people began to gather in the street. Two or three open carriages arrived, and deposited some maids of honor and some male officials at the hotel. Presently another open carriage brought the Grand Duke of Baden, a stately man in uniform, who wore the handsome brass-mounted, steel-spiked helmet of the army on his head. Last came the Empress of Germany and the Grand Duchess of Baden in a closed carriage; these passed through the low-bowing groups of servants and disappeared in the hotel, exhibiting to us only the backs of their heads, and then the show was over.
It appears to be as difficult to land a monarch as it is to launch a ship.
But as to Heidelberg. The weather was growing pretty warm,—very
warm, in fact. So we left the valley and took quarters at the Schloss
Hotel, on the hill, above the Castle.
Heidelberg lies at the mouth of a narrow gorge—a gorge the shape of a shepherd's crook; if one looks up it he perceives that it is about straight, for a mile and a half, then makes a sharp curve to the right and disappears. This gorge—along whose bottom pours the swift Neckar—is confined between (or cloven through) a couple of long, steep ridges, a thousand feet high and densely wooded clear to their summits, with the exception of one section which has been shaved and put under cultivation. These ridges are chopped off at the mouth of the gorge and form two bold and conspicuous headlands, with Heidelberg nestling between them; from their bases spreads away the vast dim expanse of the Rhine valley, and into this expanse the Neckar goes wandering in shining curves and is presently lost to view.
Now if one turns and looks up the gorge once more, he will see the Schloss Hotel on the right perched on a precipice overlooking the Neckar—a precipice which is so sumptuously cushioned and draped with foliage that no glimpse of the rock appears. The building seems very airily situated. It has the appearance of being on a shelf half-way up the wooded mountainside; and as it is remote and isolated, and very white, it makes a strong mark against the lofty leafy rampart at its back.
This hotel had a feature which was a decided novelty, and one which might
be adopted with advantage by any house which is perched in a commanding
situation. This feature may be described as a series of glass-enclosed
parlors clinging to the outside of the house, one against each and every
bed-chamber and drawing-room. They are like long, narrow, high-ceiled
bird-cages hung against the building. My room was a corner room, and had
two of these things, a north one and a west one.
From the north cage one looks up the Neckar gorge; from the west one he
looks down it. This last affords the most extensive view, and it is one of
the loveliest that can be imagined, too. Out of a billowy upheaval of
vivid green foliage, a rifle-shot removed, rises the huge ruin of
Heidelberg Castle, [2. See Appendix B] with empty window arches,
ivy-mailed battlements, moldering towers—the Lear of inanimate
nature—deserted, discrowned, beaten by the storms, but royal still,
and beautiful. It is a fine sight to see the evening sunlight suddenly
strike the leafy declivity at the Castle's base and dash up it and drench
it as with a luminous spray, while the adjacent groves are in deep shadow.
Behind the Castle swells a great dome-shaped hill, forest-clad, and beyond that a nobler and loftier one. The Castle looks down upon the compact brown-roofed town; and from the town two picturesque old bridges span the river. Now the view broadens; through the gateway of the sentinel headlands you gaze out over the wide Rhine plain, which stretches away, softly and richly tinted, grows gradually and dreamily indistinct, and finally melts imperceptibly into the remote horizon.
I have never enjoyed a view which had such a serene and satisfying charm about it as this one gives.
The first night we were there, we went to bed and to sleep early; but I
awoke at the end of two or three hours, and lay a comfortable while
listening to the soothing patter of the rain against the balcony windows.
I took it to be rain, but it turned out to be only the murmur of the
restless Neckar, tumbling over her dikes and dams far below, in the gorge.
I got up and went into the west balcony and saw a wonderful sight. Away
down on the level under the black mass of the Castle, the town lay,
stretched along the river, its intricate cobweb of streets jeweled with
twinkling lights; there were rows of lights on the bridges; these flung
lances of light upon the water, in the black shadows of the arches; and
away at the extremity of all this fairy spectacle blinked and glowed a
massed multitude of gas-jets which seemed to cover acres of ground; it was
as if all the diamonds in the world had been spread out there. I did not
know before, that a half-mile of sextuple railway-tracks could be made
such an adornment.
One thinks Heidelberg by day—with its surroundings—is the last possibility of the beautiful; but when he sees Heidelberg by night, a fallen Milky Way, with that glittering railway constellation pinned to the border, he requires time to consider upon the verdict.
One never tires of poking about in the dense woods that clothe all these lofty Neckar hills to their tops. The great deeps of a boundless forest have a beguiling and impressive charm in any country; but German legends and fairy tales have given these an added charm. They have peopled all that region with gnomes, and dwarfs, and all sorts of mysterious and uncanny creatures. At the time I am writing of, I had been reading so much of this literature that sometimes I was not sure but I was beginning to believe in the gnomes and fairies as realities.
One afternoon I got lost in the woods about a mile from the hotel, and presently fell into a train of dreamy thought about animals which talk, and kobolds, and enchanted folk, and the rest of the pleasant legendary stuff; and so, by stimulating my fancy, I finally got to imagining I glimpsed small flitting shapes here and there down the columned aisles of the forest. It was a place which was peculiarly meet for the occasion. It was a pine wood, with so thick and soft a carpet of brown needles that one's footfall made no more sound than if he were treading on wool; the tree-trunks were as round and straight and smooth as pillars, and stood close together; they were bare of branches to a point about twenty-five feet above-ground, and from there upward so thick with boughs that not a ray of sunlight could pierce through. The world was bright with sunshine outside, but a deep and mellow twilight reigned in there, and also a deep silence so profound that I seemed to hear my own breathings.
When I had stood ten minutes, thinking and imagining, and getting my
spirit in tune with the place, and in the right mood to enjoy the
supernatural, a raven suddenly uttered a horse croak over my head. It made
me start; and then I was angry because I started. I looked up, and the
creature was sitting on a limb right over me, looking down at me. I felt
something of the same sense of humiliation and injury which one feels when
he finds that a human stranger has been clandestinely inspecting him in
his privacy and mentally commenting upon him. I eyed the raven, and the
raven eyed me. Nothing was said during some seconds. Then the bird stepped
a little way along his limb to get a better point of observation, lifted
his wings, stuck his head far down below his shoulders toward me and
croaked again—a croak with a distinctly insulting expression about
it. If he had spoken in English he could not have said any more plainly
than he did say in raven, "Well, what do you want here?" I felt as foolish
as if I had been caught in some mean act by a responsible being, and
reproved for it. However, I made no reply; I would not bandy words with a
raven. The adversary waited a while, with his shoulders still lifted, his
head thrust down between them, and his keen bright eye fixed on me; then
he threw out two or three more insults, which I could not understand,
further than that I knew a portion of them consisted of language not used
in church.
I still made no reply. Now the adversary raised his head and called. There was an answering croak from a little distance in the wood—evidently a croak of inquiry. The adversary explained with enthusiasm, and the other raven dropped everything and came. The two sat side by side on the limb and discussed me as freely and offensively as two great naturalists might discuss a new kind of bug. The thing became more and more embarrassing. They called in another friend. This was too much. I saw that they had the advantage of me, and so I concluded to get out of the scrape by walking out of it. They enjoyed my defeat as much as any low white people could have done. They craned their necks and laughed at me (for a raven can laugh, just like a man), they squalled insulting remarks after me as long as they could see me. They were nothing but ravens—I knew that—what they thought of me could be a matter of no consequence—and yet when even a raven shouts after you, "What a hat!" "Oh, pull down your vest!" and that sort of thing, it hurts you and humiliates you, and there is no getting around it with fine reasoning and pretty arguments.
Animals talk to each other, of course. There can be no question about that; but I suppose there are very few people who can understand them. I never knew but one man who could. I knew he could, however, because he told me so himself. He was a middle-aged, simple-hearted miner who had lived in a lonely corner of California, among the woods and mountains, a good many years, and had studied the ways of his only neighbors, the beasts and the birds, until he believed he could accurately translate any remark which they made. This was Jim Baker. According to Jim Baker, some animals have only a limited education, and some use only simple words, and scarcely ever a comparison or a flowery figure; whereas, certain other animals have a large vocabulary, a fine command of language and a ready and fluent delivery; consequently these latter talk a great deal; they like it; they are so conscious of their talent, and they enjoy "showing off." Baker said, that after long and careful observation, he had come to the conclusion that the bluejays were the best talkers he had found among birds and beasts. Said he:
"There's more to a bluejay than any other creature. He has got more moods,
and more different kinds of feelings than other creatures; and, mind you,
whatever a bluejay feels, he can put into language. And no mere
commonplace language, either, but rattling, out-and-out book-talk—and
bristling with metaphor, too—just bristling! And as for command of
language—why you never see a bluejay get stuck for a word. No man
ever did. They just boil out of him! And another thing: I've noticed a
good deal, and there's no bird, or cow, or anything that uses as good
grammar as a bluejay. You may say a cat uses good grammar.  Ignorant people think it's the noise which
fighting cats make that is so aggravating, but it ain't so; it's the
sickening grammar they use. Now I've never heard a jay use bad grammar but
very seldom; and when they do, they are as ashamed as a human; they shut
right down and leave.
"You may call a jay a bird. Well, so he is, in a measure—but he's
got feathers on him, and don't belong to no church, perhaps; but otherwise
he is just as much human as you be. And I'll tell you for why. A jay's
gifts, and instincts, and feelings, and interests, cover the whole ground.
A jay hasn't got any more principle than a Congressman.  The sacredness of an
obligation is such a thing which you can't cram into no bluejay's head.
Now, on top of all this, there's another thing; a jay can out-swear any
gentleman in the mines. You think a cat can swear.  Don't talk to me—I know too much about this thing; in
the one little particular of scolding—just good, clean, out-and-out
scolding—a bluejay can lay over anything, human or divine. Yes, sir,
a jay is everything that a man is.  If a jay ain't human, he better
take in his sign, that's all.
"When I first begun to understand jay language correctly, there was a little incident happened here. Seven years ago, the last man in this region but me moved away. There stands his house—been empty ever since; a log house, with a plank roof—just one big room, and no more; no ceiling—nothing between the rafters and the floor. Well, one Sunday morning I was sitting out here in front of my cabin, with my cat, taking the sun, and looking at the blue hills, and listening to the leaves rustling so lonely in the trees, and thinking of the home away yonder in the states, that I hadn't heard from in thirteen years, when a bluejay lit on that house, with an acorn in his mouth, and says, 'Hello, I reckon I've struck something.'  It was a knot-hole in the roof.  If I ain't in luck!—Why it's a perfectly elegant hole!' So he flew down and got that acorn, and fetched it up and dropped it in, and was just tilting his head back, with the heavenliest smile on his face, when all of a sudden he was paralyzed into a listening attitude and that smile faded gradually out of his countenance like breath off'n a razor, and the queerest look of surprise took its place. Then he says, 'Why, I didn't hear it fall!' He cocked his eye at the hole again, and took a long look; raised up and shook his head; stepped around to the other side of the hole and took another look from that side; shook his head again. He studied a while, then he just went into the Details—walked round and round the hole and spied into it from every point of the compass. No use.  He held his eye there as much as a minute; then he raised up
and sighed, and says, 'Confound it, I don't seem to understand this thing,
no way; however, I'll tackle her again.' He fetched another acorn, and
done his level best to see what become of it, but he couldn't. He says,
'Well, I never struck no such a hole as this before; I'm of the opinion
it's a totally new kind of a hole.' Then he begun to get mad. He held in
for a spell, walking up and down the comb of the roof and shaking his head
and muttering to himself; but his feelings got the upper hand of him,
presently, and he broke loose and cussed himself black in the face. I
never see a bird take on so about a little thing. When he got through he
walks to the hole and looks in again for half a minute; then he says,
'Well, you're a long hole, and a deep hole, and a mighty singular hole
altogether—but I've started in to fill you, and I'm damned if I
don't fill you, if it takes a hundred years!'
"And with that, away he went. You never see a bird work so since you was born. He laid into his work like a nigger, and the way he hove acorns into that hole for about two hours and a half was one of the most exciting and astonishing spectacles I ever struck. He never stopped to take a look anymore—he just hove 'em in and went for more. Well, at last he could hardly flop his wings, he was so tuckered out. He comes a-dropping down, once more, sweating like an ice-pitcher, dropped his acorn in and says, 'Now I guess I've got the bulge on you by this time!' So he bent down for a look. If you'll believe me, when his head come up again he was just pale with rage. He says, 'I've shoveled acorns enough in there to keep the family thirty years, and if I can see a sign of one of 'em I wish I may land in a museum with a belly full of sawdust in two minutes!'
"He just had strength enough to crawl up on to the comb and lean his back agin the chimbly, and then he collected his impressions and begun to free his mind. I see in a second that what I had mistook for profanity in the mines was only just the rudiments, as you may say.
 The sufferer told him the whole circumstance, and says, 'Now yonder's the hole, and if you don't believe me, go and look for yourself.' So this fellow went and looked, and comes back and says, 'How many did you say you put in there?' 'Not any less than two tons,' says the sufferer. The other jay went and looked again. He couldn't seem to make it out, so he raised a yell, and three more jays come. They all examined the hole, they all made the sufferer tell it over again, then they all discussed it, and got off as many leather-headed opinions about it as an average crowd of humans could have done.
"They called in more jays; then more and more, till pretty soon this whole region 'peared to have a blue flush about it. There must have been five thousand of them; and such another jawing and disputing and ripping and cussing, you never heard. Every jay in the whole lot put his eye to the hole and delivered a more chuckle-headed opinion about the mystery than the jay that went there before him. They examined the house all over, too. The door was standing half open, and at last one old jay happened to go and light on it and look in. Of course, that knocked the mystery galley-west in a second. There lay the acorns, scattered all over the floor.. He flopped his wings and raised a whoop. 'Come here!' he says, 'Come here, everybody; hang'd if this fool hasn't been trying to fill up a house with acorns!' They all came a-swooping down like a blue cloud, and as each fellow lit on the door and took a glance, the whole absurdity of the contract that that first jay had tackled hit him home and he fell over backward suffocating with laughter, and the next jay took his place and done the same.
"Well, sir, they roosted around here on the housetop and the trees for an
hour, and guffawed over that thing like human beings. It ain't any use to
tell me a bluejay hasn't got a sense of humor, because I know better. And
memory, too. They brought jays here from all over the United States to
look down that hole, every summer for three years. Other birds, too. And
they could all see the point except an owl that come from Nova Scotia to
visit the Yo Semite, and he took this thing in on his way back. He said he
couldn't see anything funny in it. But then he was a good deal
disappointed about Yo Semite, too."
The summer semester was in full tide; consequently the most frequent figure in and about Heidelberg was the student. Most of the students were Germans, of course, but the representatives of foreign lands were very numerous. They hailed from every corner of the globe—for instruction is cheap in Heidelberg, and so is living, too. The Anglo-American Club, composed of British and American students, had twenty-five members, and there was still much material left to draw from.
Nine-tenths of the Heidelberg students wore no badge or uniform; the other
tenth wore caps of various colors, and belonged to social organizations
called "corps." There were five corps, each with a color of its own; there
were white caps, blue caps, and red, yellow, and green ones. The famous
duel-fighting is confined to the "corps" boys. The "Kneip" seems to be a
specialty of theirs, too. Kneips are held, now and then, to celebrate
great occasions, like the election of a beer king, for instance. The
solemnity is simple; the five corps assemble at night, and at a signal
they all fall loading themselves with beer, out of pint-mugs, as fast as
possible, and each man keeps his own count—usually by laying aside a
lucifer match for each mug he empties.
The election is soon decided. When the candidates can hold no more, a count is instituted and the one who has drank the greatest number of pints is proclaimed king. I was told that the last beer king elected by the corps—or by his own capabilities—emptied his mug seventy-five times. No stomach could hold all that quantity at one time, of course—but there are ways of frequently creating a vacuum, which those who have been much at sea will understand.
One sees so many students abroad at all hours, that he presently begins to
wonder if they ever have any working-hours. Some of them have, some of
them haven't. Each can choose for himself whether he will work or play;
for German university life is a very free life; it seems to have no
restraints. The student does not live in the college buildings, but hires
his own lodgings, in any locality he prefers, and he takes his meals when
and where he pleases. He goes to bed when it suits him, and does not get
up at all unless he wants to. He is not entered at the university for any
particular length of time; so he is likely to change about. He passes no
examinations upon entering college. He merely pays a trifling fee of five
or ten dollars, receives a card entitling him to the privileges of the
university, and that is the end of it. He is now ready for business—or
play, as he shall prefer. If he elects to work, he finds a large list of
lectures to choose from. He selects the subjects which he will study, and
enters his name for these studies; but he can skip attendance.
The result of this system is, that lecture-courses upon specialties of an unusual nature are often delivered to very slim audiences, while those upon more practical and every-day matters of education are delivered to very large ones. I heard of one case where, day after day, the lecturer's audience consisted of three students—and always the same three. But one day two of them remained away. The lecturer began as usual—
"Gentlemen,"—then, without a smile, he corrected himself, saying—
"Sir,"—and went on with his discourse.
It is said that the vast majority of the Heidelberg students are hard
workers, and make the most of their opportunities; that they have no
surplus means to spend in dissipation, and no time to spare for
frolicking. One lecture follows right on the heels of another, with very
little time for the student to get out of one hall and into the next; but
the industrious ones manage it by going on a trot. The professors assist
them in the saving of their time by being promptly in their little
boxed-up pulpits when the hours strike, and as promptly out again when the
hour finishes. I entered an empty lecture-room one day just before the
clock struck. The place had simple, unpainted pine desks and benches for
about two hundred persons.
About a minute before the clock struck, a hundred and fifty students
swarmed in, rushed to their seats, immediately spread open their notebooks
and dipped their pens in ink. When the clock began to strike, a burly
professor entered, was received with a round of applause, moved swiftly
down the center aisle, said "Gentlemen," and began to talk as he climbed
his pulpit steps; and by the time he had arrived in his box and faced his
audience, his lecture was well under way and all the pens were going. He
had no notes, he talked with prodigious rapidity and energy for an hour—then
the students began to remind him in certain well-understood ways that his
time was up; he seized his hat, still talking, proceeded swiftly down his
pulpit steps, got out the last word of his discourse as he struck the
floor; everybody rose respectfully, and he swept rapidly down the aisle
and disappeared. An instant rush for some other lecture-room followed, and
in a minute I was alone with the empty benches once more.
Yes, without doubt, idle students are not the rule. Out of eight hundred in the town, I knew the faces of only about fifty; but these I saw everywhere, and daily. They walked about the streets and the wooded hills, they drove in cabs, they boated on the river, they sipped beer and coffee, afternoons, in the Schloss gardens. A good many of them wore colored caps of the corps. They were finely and fashionably dressed, their manners were quite superb, and they led an easy, careless, comfortable life. If a dozen of them sat together and a lady or a gentleman passed whom one of them knew and saluted, they all rose to their feet and took off their caps. The members of a corps always received a fellow-member in this way, too; but they paid no attention to members of other corps; they did not seem to see them. This was not a discourtesy; it was only a part of the elaborate and rigid corps etiquette.
There seems to be no chilly distance existing between the German students
and the professor; but, on the contrary, a companionable intercourse, the
opposite of chilliness and reserve. When the professor enters a beer-hall
in the evening where students are gathered together, these rise up and
take off their caps, and invite the old gentleman to sit with them and
partake. He accepts, and the pleasant talk and the beer flow for an hour
or two, and by and by the professor, properly charged and comfortable,
gives a cordial good night, while the students stand bowing and uncovered;
and then he moves on his happy way homeward with all his vast cargo of
learning afloat in his hold. Nobody finds fault or feels outraged; no harm
has been done.
It seemed to be a part of corps etiquette to keep a dog or so, too. I mean a corps dog—the common property of the organization, like the corps steward or head servant; then there are other dogs, owned by individuals.
On a summer afternoon in the Castle gardens, I have seen six students
march solemnly into the grounds, in single file, each carrying a bright
Chinese parasol and leading a prodigious dog by a string. It was a very
imposing spectacle. Sometimes there would be as many dogs around the
pavilion as students; and of all breeds and of all degrees of beauty and
ugliness. These dogs had a rather dry time of it; for they were tied to
the benches and had no amusement for an hour or two at a time except what
they could get out of pawing at the gnats, or trying to sleep and not
succeeding. However, they got a lump of sugar occasionally—they were
fond of that.
It seemed right and proper that students should indulge in dogs; but
everybody else had them, too—old men and young ones, old women and
nice young ladies. If there is one spectacle that is unpleasanter than
another, it is that of an elegantly dressed young lady towing a dog by a
string. It is said to be the sign and symbol of blighted love. It seems to
me that some other way of advertising it might be devised, which would be
just as conspicuous and yet not so trying to the proprieties.
It would be a mistake to suppose that the easy-going pleasure-seeking
student carries an empty head. Just the contrary. He has spent nine years
in the gymnasium, under a system which allowed him no freedom, but
vigorously compelled him to work like a slave. Consequently, he has left
the gymnasium with an education which is so extensive and complete, that
the most a university can do for it is to perfect some of its profounder
specialties.
For instance, he does not merely read and write Greek, but speaks it; the
same with the Latin. Foreign youth steer clear of the gymnasium; its rules
are too severe. They go to the university to put a mansard roof on their
whole general education; but the German student already has his mansard
roof, so he goes there to add a steeple in the nature of some specialty,
such as a particular branch of law, or diseases of the eye, or special
study of the ancient Gothic tongues. So this German attends only the
lectures which belong to the chosen branch, and drinks his beer and tows
his dog around and has a general good time the rest of the day. He has
been in rigid bondage so long that the large liberty of the university
life is just what he needs and likes and thoroughly appreciates; and as it
cannot last forever, he makes the most of it while it does last, and so
lays up a good rest against the day that must see him put on the chains
once more and enter the slavery of official or professional life.
One day in the interest of science my agent obtained permission to bring me to the students' dueling-place. We crossed the river and drove up the bank a few hundred yards, then turned to the left, entered a narrow alley, followed it a hundred yards and arrived at a two-story public house; we were acquainted with its outside aspect, for it was visible from the hotel. We went upstairs and passed into a large whitewashed apartment which was perhaps fifty feet long by thirty feet wide and twenty or twenty-five high. It was a well-lighted place. There was no carpet. Across one end and down both sides of the room extended a row of tables, and at these tables some fifty or seventy-five students [1. See Appendix C] were sitting.
Some of them were sipping wine, others were playing cards, others chess,
other groups were chatting together, and many were smoking cigarettes
while they waited for the coming duels. Nearly all of them wore colored
caps; there were white caps, green caps, blue caps, red caps, and
bright-yellow ones; so, all the five corps were present in strong force.
In the windows at the vacant end of the room stood six or eight,
narrow-bladed swords with large protecting guards for the hand, and
outside was a man at work sharpening others on a grindstone.
He understood his business; for when a sword left his hand one could shave himself with it.
It was observable that the young gentlemen neither bowed to nor spoke with students whose caps differed in color from their own. This did not mean hostility, but only an armed neutrality. It was considered that a person could strike harder in the duel, and with a more earnest interest, if he had never been in a condition of comradeship with his antagonist; therefore, comradeship between the corps was not permitted. At intervals the presidents of the five corps have a cold official intercourse with each other, but nothing further. For example, when the regular dueling-day of one of the corps approaches, its president calls for volunteers from among the membership to offer battle; three or more respond—but there must not be less than three; the president lays their names before the other presidents, with the request that they furnish antagonists for these challengers from among their corps. This is promptly done. It chanced that the present occasion was the battle-day of the Red Cap Corps. They were the challengers, and certain caps of other colors had volunteered to meet them. The students fight duels in the room which I have described, two days in every week during seven and a half or eight months in every year. This custom had continued in Germany two hundred and fifty years.
To return to my narrative. A student in a white cap met us and introduced us to six or eight friends of his who also wore white caps, and while we stood conversing, two strange-looking figures were led in from another room. They were students panoplied for the duel. They were bareheaded; their eyes were protected by iron goggles which projected an inch or more, the leather straps of which bound their ears flat against their heads were wound around and around with thick wrappings which a sword could not cut through; from chin to ankle they were padded thoroughly against injury; their arms were bandaged and rebandaged, layer upon layer, until they looked like solid black logs. These weird apparitions had been handsome youths, clad in fashionable attire, fifteen minutes before, but now they did not resemble any beings one ever sees unless in nightmares. They strode along, with their arms projecting straight out from their bodies; they did not hold them out themselves, but fellow-students walked beside them and gave the needed support.
There was a rush for the vacant end of the room, now, and we followed and
got good places. The combatants were placed face to face, each with
several members of his own corps about him to assist; two seconds, well
padded, and with swords in their hands, took their stations; a student
belonging to neither of the opposing corps placed himself in a good
position to umpire the combat; another student stood by with a watch and a
memorandum-book to keep record of the time and the number and nature of
the wounds; a gray-haired surgeon was present with his lint, his bandages,
and his instruments.
After a moment's pause the duelists saluted the umpire respectfully, then one after another the several officials stepped forward, gracefully removed their caps and saluted him also, and returned to their places. Everything was ready now; students stood crowded together in the foreground, and others stood behind them on chairs and tables. Every face was turned toward the center of attraction.
The combatants were watching each other with alert eyes; a perfect stillness, a breathless interest reigned. I felt that I was going to see some wary work. But not so. The instant the word was given, the two apparitions sprang forward and began to rain blows down upon each other with such lightning rapidity that I could not quite tell whether I saw the swords or only flashes they made in the air; the rattling din of these blows as they struck steel or paddings was something wonderfully stirring, and they were struck with such terrific force that I could not understand why the opposing sword was not beaten down under the assault. Presently, in the midst of the sword-flashes, I saw a handful of hair skip into the air as if it had lain loose on the victim's head and a breath of wind had puffed it suddenly away.
The seconds cried "Halt!" and knocked up the combatants' swords with their
own. The duelists sat down; a student official stepped forward, examined
the wounded head and touched the place with a sponge once or twice; the
surgeon came and turned back the hair from the wound—and revealed a
crimson gash two or three inches long, and proceeded to bind an oval piece
of leather and a bunch of lint over it; the tally-keeper stepped up and
tallied one for the opposition in his book.
Then the duelists took position again; a small stream of blood was flowing down the side of the injured man's head, and over his shoulder and down his body to the floor, but he did not seem to mind this. The word was given, and they plunged at each other as fiercely as before; once more the blows rained and rattled and flashed; every few moments the quick-eyed seconds would notice that a sword was bent—then they called "Halt!" struck up the contending weapons, and an assisting student straightened the bent one.
The wonderful turmoil went on—presently a bright spark sprung from a blade, and that blade broken in several pieces, sent one of its fragments flying to the ceiling. A new sword was provided and the fight proceeded. The exercise was tremendous, of course, and in time the fighters began to show great fatigue. They were allowed to rest a moment, every little while; they got other rests by wounding each other, for then they could sit down while the doctor applied the lint and bandages. The law is that the battle must continue fifteen minutes if the men can hold out; and as the pauses do not count, this duel was protracted to twenty or thirty minutes, I judged. At last it was decided that the men were too much wearied to do battle longer. They were led away drenched with crimson from head to foot. That was a good fight, but it could not count, partly because it did not last the lawful fifteen minutes (of actual fighting), and partly because neither man was disabled by his wound. It was a drawn battle, and corps law requires that drawn battles shall be refought as soon as the adversaries are well of their hurts.
During the conflict, I had talked a little, now and then, with a young gentleman of the White Cap Corps, and he had mentioned that he was to fight next—and had also pointed out his challenger, a young gentleman who was leaning against the opposite wall smoking a cigarette and restfully observing the duel then in progress.
My acquaintanceship with a party to the coming contest had the effect of giving me a kind of personal interest in it; I naturally wished he might win, and it was the reverse of pleasant to learn that he probably would not, because, although he was a notable swordsman, the challenger was held to be his superior.
The duel presently began and in the same furious way which had marked the
previous one. I stood close by, but could not tell which blows told and
which did not, they fell and vanished so like flashes of light. They all
seemed to tell; the swords always bent over the opponents' heads, from the
forehead back over the crown, and seemed to touch, all the way; but it was
not so—a protecting blade, invisible to me, was always interposed
between. At the end of ten seconds each man had struck twelve or fifteen
blows, and warded off twelve or fifteen, and no harm done; then a sword
became disabled, and a short rest followed whilst a new one was brought.
Early in the next round the White Corps student got an ugly wound on the
side of his head and gave his opponent one like it. In the third round the
latter received another bad wound in the head, and the former had his
under-lip divided. After that, the White Corps student gave many severe
wounds, but got none of the consequence in return. At the end of five
minutes from the beginning of the duel the surgeon stopped it; the
challenging party had suffered such injuries that any addition to them
might be dangerous. These injuries were a fearful spectacle, but are
better left undescribed. So, against expectation, my acquaintance was the
victor.
The third duel was brief and bloody. The surgeon stopped it when he saw that one of the men had received such bad wounds that he could not fight longer without endangering his life.
The fourth duel was a tremendous encounter; but at the end of five or six minutes the surgeon interfered once more: another man so severely hurt as to render it unsafe to add to his harms. I watched this engagement as I watched the others—with rapt interest and strong excitement, and with a shrink and a shudder for every blow that laid open a cheek or a forehead; and a conscious paling of my face when I occasionally saw a wound of a yet more shocking nature inflicted. My eyes were upon the loser of this duel when he got his last and vanquishing wound—it was in his face and it carried away his—but no matter, I must not enter into details. I had but a glance, and then turned quickly, but I would not have been looking at all if I had known what was coming. No, that is probably not true; one thinks he would not look if he knew what was coming, but the interest and the excitement are so powerful that they would doubtless conquer all other feelings; and so, under the fierce exhilaration of the clashing steel, he would yield and look after all. Sometimes spectators of these duels faint—and it does seem a very reasonable thing to do, too.
Both parties to this fourth duel were badly hurt so much that the surgeon was at work upon them nearly or quite an hour—a fact which is suggestive. But this waiting interval was not wasted in idleness by the assembled students. It was past noon, therefore they ordered their landlord, downstairs, to send up hot beefsteaks, chickens, and such things, and these they ate, sitting comfortable at the several tables, whilst they chatted, disputed and laughed. The door to the surgeon's room stood open, meantime, but the cutting, sewing, splicing, and bandaging going on in there in plain view did not seem to disturb anyone's appetite. I went in and saw the surgeon labor awhile, but could not enjoy; it was much less trying to see the wounds given and received than to see them mended; the stir and turmoil, and the music of the steel, were wanting here—one's nerves were wrung by this grisly spectacle, whilst the duel's compensating pleasurable thrill was lacking.
Finally the doctor finished, and the men who were to fight the closing battle of the day came forth. A good many dinners were not completed, yet, but no matter, they could be eaten cold, after the battle; therefore everybody crowded forth to see. This was not a love duel, but a "satisfaction" affair. These two students had quarreled, and were here to settle it. They did not belong to any of the corps, but they were furnished with weapons and armor, and permitted to fight here by the five corps as a courtesy. Evidently these two young men were unfamiliar with the dueling ceremonies, though they were not unfamiliar with the sword. When they were placed in position they thought it was time to begin—and then did begin, too, and with a most impetuous energy, without waiting for anybody to give the word. This vastly amused the spectators, and even broke down their studied and courtly gravity and surprised them into laughter. Of course the seconds struck up the swords and started the duel over again. At the word, the deluge of blows began, but before long the surgeon once more interfered—for the only reason which ever permits him to interfere—and the day's war was over. It was now two in the afternoon, and I had been present since half past nine in the morning. The field of battle was indeed a red one by this time; but some sawdust soon righted that. There had been one duel before I arrived. In it one of the men received many injuries, while the other one escaped without a scratch.
I had seen the heads and faces of ten youths gashed in every direction by the keen two-edged blades, and yet had not seen a victim wince, nor heard a moan, or detected any fleeting expression which confessed the sharp pain the hurts were inflicting. This was good fortitude, indeed. Such endurance is to be expected in savages and prize-fighters, for they are born and educated to it; but to find it in such perfection in these gently bred and kindly natured young fellows is matter for surprise. It was not merely under the excitement of the sword-play that this fortitude was shown; it was shown in the surgeon's room where an uninspiring quiet reigned, and where there was no audience. The doctor's manipulations brought out neither grimaces nor moans. And in the fights it was observable that these lads hacked and slashed with the same tremendous spirit, after they were covered with streaming wounds, which they had shown in the beginning.
The world in general looks upon the college duels as very farcical affairs: true, but considering that the college duel is fought by boys; that the swords are real swords; and that the head and face are exposed, it seems to me that it is a farce which had quite a grave side to it. People laugh at it mainly because they think the student is so covered up with armor that he cannot be hurt.  He can not only be badly wounded, but his life is in danger; and he would sometimes lose it but for the interference of the surgeon. It is not intended that his life shall be endangered. Fatal accidents are possible, however. For instance, the student's sword may break, and the end of it fly up behind his antagonist's ear and cut an artery which could not be reached if the sword remained whole. This has happened, sometimes, and death has resulted on the spot. Formerly the student's armpits were not protected—and at that time the swords were pointed, whereas they are blunt, now; so an artery in the armpit was sometimes cut, and death followed. Then in the days of sharp-pointed swords, a spectator was an occasional victim—the end of a broken sword flew five or ten feet and buried itself in his neck or his heart, and death ensued instantly. The student duels in Germany occasion two or three deaths every year, now, but this arises only from the carelessness of the wounded men; they eat or drink imprudently, or commit excesses in the way of overexertion; inflammation sets in and gets such a headway that it cannot be arrested. Indeed, there is blood and pain and danger enough about the college duel to entitle it to a considerable degree of respect.
All the customs, all the laws, all the details, pertaining to the student duel are quaint and naive. The grave, precise, and courtly ceremony with which the thing is conducted, invests it with a sort of antique charm.
This dignity and these knightly graces suggest the tournament, not the
prize-fight. The laws are as curious as they are strict. For instance, the
duelist may step forward from the line he is placed upon, if he chooses,
but never back of it. If he steps back of it, or even leans back, it is
considered that he did it to avoid a blow or contrive an advantage; so he
is dismissed from his corps in disgrace. It would seem natural to step
from under a descending sword unconsciously, and against one's will and
intent—yet this unconsciousness is not allowed. Again: if under the
sudden anguish of a wound the receiver of it makes a grimace, he falls
some degrees in the estimation of his fellows; his corps are ashamed of
him: they call him "hare foot," which is the German equivalent for
chicken-hearted.
In addition to the corps laws, there are some corps usages which have the force of laws.
Perhaps the president of a corps notices that one of the membership who is
no longer an exempt—that is a freshman—has remained a
sophomore some little time without volunteering to fight; some day, the
president, instead of calling for volunteers, will appoint this sophomore
to measure swords with a student of another corps; he is free to decline—everybody
says so—there is no compulsion. This is all true—but I have
not heard of any student who did decline; to decline and still remain in
the corps would make him unpleasantly conspicuous, and properly so, since
he knew, when he joined, that his main business, as a member, would be to
fight. No, there is no law against declining—except the law of
custom, which is confessedly stronger than written law, everywhere.
The ten men whose duels I had witnessed did not go away when their hurts
were dressed, as I had supposed they would, but came back, one after
another, as soon as they were free of the surgeon, and mingled with the
assemblage in the dueling-room. The white-cap student who won the second
fight witnessed the remaining three, and talked with us during the
intermissions. He could not talk very well, because his opponent's sword
had cut his under-lip in two, and then the surgeon had sewed it together
and overlaid it with a profusion of white plaster patches; neither could
he eat easily, still he contrived to accomplish a slow and troublesome
luncheon while the last duel was preparing. The man who was the worst hurt
of all played chess while waiting to see this engagement. A good part of
his face was covered with patches and bandages, and all the rest of his
head was covered and concealed by them.
It is said that the student likes to appear on the street and in other
public places in this kind of array, and that this predilection often
keeps him out when exposure to rain or sun is a positive danger for him.
Newly bandaged students are a very common spectacle in the public gardens
of Heidelberg. It is also said that the student is glad to get wounds in
the face, because the scars they leave will show so well there; and it is
also said that these face wounds are so prized that youths have even been
known to pull them apart from time to time and put red wine in them to
make them heal badly and leave as ugly a scar as possible. It does not
look reasonable, but it is roundly asserted and maintained, nevertheless;
I am sure of one thing—scars are plenty enough in Germany, among the
young men; and very grim ones they are, too. They crisscross the face in
angry red welts, and are permanent and ineffaceable.
Some of these scars are of a very strange and dreadful aspect; and the effect is striking when several such accent the milder ones, which form a city map on a man's face; they suggest the "burned district" then. We had often noticed that many of the students wore a colored silk band or ribbon diagonally across their breasts. It transpired that this signifies that the wearer has fought three duels in which a decision was reached—duels in which he either whipped or was whipped—for drawn battles do not count. [1] After a student has received his ribbon, he is "free"; he can cease from fighting, without reproach—except some one insult him; his president cannot appoint him to fight; he can volunteer if he wants to, or remain quiescent if he prefers to do so. Statistics show that he does not prefer to remain quiescent. They show that the duel has a singular fascination about it somewhere, for these free men, so far from resting upon the privilege of the badge, are always volunteering. A corps student told me it was of record that Prince Bismarck fought thirty-two of these duels in a single summer term when he was in college. So he fought twenty-nine after his badge had given him the right to retire from the field.
1. From My Diary.—Dined in a hotel a few miles up the Neckar, in a room whose walls were hung all over with framed portrait-groups of the Five Corps; some were recent, but many antedated photography, and were pictured in lithography—the dates ranged back to forty or fifty years ago. Nearly every individual wore the ribbon across his breast. In one portrait-group representing (as each of these pictures did) an entire Corps, I took pains to count the ribbons: there were twenty-seven members, and twenty-one of them wore that significant badge.
The statistics may be found to possess interest in several particulars. Two days in every week are devoted to dueling. The rule is rigid that there must be three duels on each of these days; there are generally more, but there cannot be fewer. There were six the day I was present; sometimes there are seven or eight. It is insisted that eight duels a week—four for each of the two days—is too low an average to draw a calculation from, but I will reckon from that basis, preferring an understatement to an overstatement of the case. This requires about four hundred and eighty or five hundred duelists a year—for in summer the college term is about three and a half months, and in winter it is four months and sometimes longer. Of the seven hundred and fifty students in the university at the time I am writing of, only eighty belonged to the five corps, and it is only these corps that do the dueling; occasionally other students borrow the arms and battleground of the five corps in order to settle a quarrel, but this does not happen every dueling-day. [2] Consequently eighty youths furnish the material for some two hundred and fifty duels a year. This average gives six fights a year to each of the eighty. This large work could not be accomplished if the badge-holders stood upon their privilege and ceased to volunteer.
2. They have to borrow the arms because they could not get them elsewhere or otherwise. As I understand it, the public authorities, all over Germany, allow the five Corps to keep swords, but do not allow them to use them. This is law is rigid; it is only the execution of it that is lax.
Of course, where there is so much fighting, the students make it a point to keep themselves in constant practice with the foil. One often sees them, at the tables in the Castle grounds, using their whips or canes to illustrate some new sword trick which they have heard about; and between the duels, on the day whose history I have been writing, the swords were not always idle; every now and then we heard a succession of the keen hissing sounds which the sword makes when it is being put through its paces in the air, and this informed us that a student was practicing. Necessarily, this unceasing attention to the art develops an expert occasionally. He becomes famous in his own university, his renown spreads to other universities. He is invited to Goettingen, to fight with a Goettingen expert; if he is victorious, he will be invited to other colleges, or those colleges will send their experts to him. Americans and Englishmen often join one or another of the five corps. A year or two ago, the principal Heidelberg expert was a big Kentuckian; he was invited to the various universities and left a wake of victory behind him all about Germany; but at last a little student in Strasburg defeated him. There was formerly a student in Heidelberg who had picked up somewhere and mastered a peculiar trick of cutting up under instead of cleaving down from above. While the trick lasted he won in sixteen successive duels in his university; but by that time observers had discovered what his charm was, and how to break it, therefore his championship ceased.
A rule which forbids social intercourse between members of different corps
is strict. In the dueling-house, in the parks, on the street, and anywhere
and everywhere that the students go, caps of a color group themselves
together. If all the tables in a public garden were crowded but one, and
that one had two red-cap students at it and ten vacant places, the
yellow-caps, the blue-caps, the white caps, and the green caps, seeking
seats, would go by that table and not seem to see it, nor seem to be aware
that there was such a table in the grounds. The student by whose courtesy
we had been enabled to visit the dueling-place, wore the white cap—Prussian
Corps. He introduced us to many white caps, but to none of another color.
The corps etiquette extended even to us, who were strangers, and required
us to group with the white corps only, and speak only with the white
corps, while we were their guests, and keep aloof from the caps of the
other colors. Once I wished to examine some of the swords, but an American
student said, "It would not be quite polite; these now in the windows all
have red hilts or blue; they will bring in some with white hilts
presently, and those you can handle freely." When a sword was broken in
the first duel, I wanted a piece of it; but its hilt was the wrong color,
so it was considered best and politest to await a properer season.
It was brought to me after the room was cleared, and I will now make a "life-size" sketch of it by tracing a line around it with my pen, to show the width of the weapon. [Figure 1] The length of these swords is about three feet, and they are quite heavy. One's disposition to cheer, during the course of the duels or at their close, was naturally strong, but corps etiquette forbade any demonstrations of this sort. However brilliant a contest or a victory might be, no sign or sound betrayed that any one was moved. A dignified gravity and repression were maintained at all times.
When the dueling was finished and we were ready to go, the gentlemen of the Prussian Corps to whom we had been introduced took off their caps in the courteous German way, and also shook hands; their brethren of the same order took off their caps and bowed, but without shaking hands; the gentlemen of the other corps treated us just as they would have treated white caps—they fell apart, apparently unconsciously, and left us an unobstructed pathway, but did not seem to see us or know we were there. If we had gone thither the following week as guests of another corps, the white caps, without meaning any offense, would have observed the etiquette of their order and ignored our presence.
[How strangely are comedy and tragedy blended in this life! I had not been
home a full half-hour, after witnessing those playful sham-duels, when
circumstances made it necessary for me to get ready immediately to assist
personally at a real one—a duel with no effeminate limitation in the
matter of results, but a battle to the death. An account of it, in the
next chapter, will show the reader that duels between boys, for fun, and
duels between men in earnest, are very different affairs.]
[Transcriber's Note for edition 12: on the advice of two German-speaking volunteers, the German letters a, o, and u with umlauts have been rendered as ae, oe, and ue instead of as, variously, :a, a", :o, o" and :u, u" as in previous editions.]
Much as the modern French duel is ridiculed by certain smart people, it is in reality one of the most dangerous institutions of our day. Since it is always fought in the open air, the combatants are nearly sure to catch cold. M. Paul de Cassagnac, the most inveterate of the French duelists, had suffered so often in this way that he is at last a confirmed invalid; and the best physician in Paris has expressed the opinion that if he goes on dueling for fifteen or twenty years more—unless he forms the habit of fighting in a comfortable room where damps and draughts cannot intrude—he will eventually endanger his life. This ought to moderate the talk of those people who are so stubborn in maintaining that the French duel is the most health-giving of recreations because of the open-air exercise it affords. And it ought also to moderate that foolish talk about French duelists and socialist-hated monarchs being the only people who are immoral.
But it is time to get at my subject. As soon as I heard of the late fiery outbreak between M. Gambetta and M. Fourtou in the French Assembly, I knew that trouble must follow. I knew it because a long personal friendship with M. Gambetta revealed to me the desperate and implacable nature of the man. Vast as are his physical proportions, I knew that the thirst for revenge would penetrate to the remotest frontiers of his person.
I did not wait for him to call on me, but went at once to him. As I had
expected, I found the brave fellow steeped in a profound French calm. I
say French calm, because French calmness and English calmness have points
of difference.
He was moving swiftly back and forth among the debris of his furniture, now and then staving chance fragments of it across the room with his foot; grinding a constant grist of curses through his set teeth; and halting every little while to deposit another handful of his hair on the pile which he had been building of it on the table.
He threw his arms around my neck, bent me over his stomach to his breast, kissed me on both cheeks, hugged me four or five times, and then placed me in his own arm-chair. As soon as I had got well again, we began business at once.
I said I supposed he would wish me to act as his second, and he said, "Of
course." I said I must be allowed to act under a French name, so that I
might be shielded from obloquy in my country, in case of fatal results. He
winced here, probably at the suggestion that dueling was not regarded with
respect in America. However, he agreed to my requirement. This accounts
for the fact that in all the newspaper reports M. Gambetta's second was
apparently a Frenchman.
First, we drew up my principal's will. I insisted upon this, and stuck to my point. I said I had never heard of a man in his right mind going out to fight a duel without first making his will. He said he had never heard of a man in his right mind doing anything of the kind. When he had finished the will, he wished to proceed to a choice of his "last words." He wanted to know how the following words, as a dying exclamation, struck me:
"I die for my God, for my country, for freedom of speech, for progress, and the universal brotherhood of man!"
I objected that this would require too lingering a death; it was a good speech for a consumptive, but not suited to the exigencies of the field of honor. We wrangled over a good many ante-mortem outbursts, but I finally got him to cut his obituary down to this, which he copied into his memorandum-book, purposing to get it by heart:
"I DIE THAT FRANCE MIGHT LIVE."
I said that this remark seemed to lack relevancy; but he said relevancy was a matter of no consequence in last words, what you wanted was thrill.
The next thing in order was the choice of weapons. My principal said he was not feeling well, and would leave that and the other details of the proposed meeting to me. Therefore I wrote the following note and carried it to M. Fourtou's friend:
Sir: M. Gambetta accepts M. Fourtou's challenge, and authorizes me to propose Plessis-Piquet as the place of meeting; tomorrow morning at daybreak as the time; and axes as the weapons.
I am, sir, with great respect,
Mark Twain.
M. Fourtou's friend read this note, and shuddered. Then he turned to me, and said, with a suggestion of severity in his tone:
"Have you considered, sir, what would be the inevitable result of such a meeting as this?"
"Well, for instance, what would it be?"
"Bloodshed!"
"That's about the size of it," I said. "Now, if it is a fair question, what was your side proposing to shed?"
I had him there. He saw he had made a blunder, so he hastened to explain it away. He said he had spoken jestingly. Then he added that he and his principal would enjoy axes, and indeed prefer them, but such weapons were barred by the French code, and so I must change my proposal.
I walked the floor, turning the thing over in my mind, and finally it occurred to me that Gatling-guns at fifteen paces would be a likely way to get a verdict on the field of honor. So I framed this idea into a proposition.
But it was not accepted. The code was in the way again. I proposed rifles; then double-barreled shotguns; then Colt's navy revolvers. These being all rejected, I reflected awhile, and sarcastically suggested brickbats at three-quarters of a mile. I always hate to fool away a humorous thing on a person who has no perception of humor; and it filled me with bitterness when this man went soberly away to submit the last proposition to his principal.
He came back presently and said his principal was charmed with the idea of brickbats at three-quarters of a mile, but must decline on account of the danger to disinterested parties passing between them. Then I said:
"Well, I am at the end of my string, now. Perhaps you would be good enough to suggest a weapon? Perhaps you have even had one in your mind all the time?"
His countenance brightened, and he said with alacrity:
"Oh, without doubt, monsieur!"
So he fell to hunting in his pockets—pocket after pocket, and he had plenty of them—muttering all the while, "Now, what could I have done with them?"
At last he was successful. He fished out of his vest pocket a couple of little things which I carried to the light and ascertained to be pistols. They were single-barreled and silver-mounted, and very dainty and pretty. I was not able to speak for emotion. I silently hung one of them on my watch-chain, and returned the other. My companion in crime now unrolled a postage-stamp containing several cartridges, and gave me one of them. I asked if he meant to signify by this that our men were to be allowed but one shot apiece. He replied that the French code permitted no more. I then begged him to go and suggest a distance, for my mind was growing weak and confused under the strain which had been put upon it. He named sixty-five yards. I nearly lost my patience. I said:
"Sixty-five yards, with these instruments? Squirt-guns would be deadlier at fifty. Consider, my friend, you and I are banded together to destroy life, not make it eternal."
But with all my persuasions, all my arguments, I was only able to get him to reduce the distance to thirty-five yards; and even this concession he made with reluctance, and said with a sigh, "I wash my hands of this slaughter; on your head be it."
There was nothing for me but to go home to my old lion-heart and tell my humiliating story. When I entered, M. Gambetta was laying his last lock of hair upon the altar. He sprang toward me, exclaiming:
"You have made the fatal arrangements—I see it in your eye!"
"I have."
His face paled a trifle, and he leaned upon the table for support. He breathed thick and heavily for a moment or two, so tumultuous were his feelings; then he hoarsely whispered:
"The weapon, the weapon! Quick! what is the weapon?"
"This!" and I displayed that silver-mounted thing. He cast but one glance
at it, then swooned ponderously to the floor.
When he came to, he said mournfully:
"The unnatural calm to which I have subjected myself has told upon my nerves. But away with weakness! I will confront my fate like a man and a Frenchman."
He rose to his feet, and assumed an attitude which for sublimity has never been approached by man, and has seldom been surpassed by statues. Then he said, in his deep bass tones:
"Behold, I am calm, I am ready; reveal to me the distance."
"Thirty-five yards." ...
I could not lift him up, of course; but I rolled him over, and poured water down his back. He presently came to, and said:
"Thirty-five yards—without a rest? But why ask?  But mark you one thing: in my fall the world shall see how the chivalry of France meets death."
After a long silence he asked:
"Was nothing said about that man's family standing up with him, as an offset to my bulk? But no matter; I would not stoop to make such a suggestion; if he is not noble enough to suggest it himself, he is welcome to this advantage, which no honorable man would take."
He now sank into a sort of stupor of reflection, which lasted some minutes; after which he broke silence with:
"The hour—what is the hour fixed for the collision?"
"Dawn, tomorrow."
He seemed greatly surprised, and immediately said:
"Insanity! I never heard of such a thing. Nobody is abroad at such an hour."
"That is the reason I named it. Do you mean to say you want an audience?"
"It is no time to bandy words. I am astonished that M. Fourtou should ever have agreed to so strange an innovation. Go at once and require a later hour."
I ran downstairs, threw open the front door, and almost plunged into the arms of M. Fourtou's second. He said:
"I have the honor to say that my principal strenuously objects to the hour chosen, and begs you will consent to change it to half past nine."
"Any courtesy, sir, which it is in our power to extend is at the service of your excellent principal. We agree to the proposed change of time."
"I beg you to accept the thanks of my client." Then he turned to a person behind him, and said, "You hear, M. Noir, the hour is altered to half past nine." Whereupon M. Noir bowed, expressed his thanks, and went away. My accomplice continued:
"If agreeable to you, your chief surgeons and ours shall proceed to the field in the same carriage as is customary."
"It is entirely agreeable to me, and I am obliged to you for mentioning the surgeons, for I am afraid I should not have thought of them. How many shall I want? I supposed two or three will be enough?"
"Two is the customary number for each party. I refer to 'chief' surgeons;
but considering the exalted positions occupied by our clients, it will be
well and decorous that each of us appoint several consulting surgeons,
from among the highest in the profession. These will come in their own
private carriages. Have you engaged a hearse?"
"Bless my stupidity, I never thought of it! I will attend to it right away. I must seem very ignorant to you; but you must try to overlook that, because I have never had any experience of such a swell duel as this before. I have had a good deal to do with duels on the Pacific coast, but I see now that they were crude affairs. A hearse—sho! we used to leave the elected lying around loose, and let anybody cord them up and cart them off that wanted to. Have you anything further to suggest?"
"Nothing, except that the head undertakers shall ride together, as is usual. The subordinates and mutes will go on foot, as is also usual. I will see you at eight o'clock in the morning, and we will then arrange the order of the procession. I have the honor to bid you a good day."
I returned to my client, who said, "Very well; at what hour is the engagement to begin?"
"Half past nine."
"Very good indeed. Have you sent the fact to the newspapers?"
"Sir! If after our long and intimate friendship you can for a moment deem me capable of so base a treachery—"
"Tut, tut! What words are these, my dear friend? Have I wounded you? Ah, forgive me; I am overloading you with labor. Therefore go on with the other details, and drop this one from your list. The bloody-minded Fourtou will be sure to attend to it. Or I myself—yes, to make certain, I will drop a note to my journalistic friend, M. Noir—"
"Oh, come to think of it, you may save yourself the trouble; that other second has informed M. Noir."
"H'm! I might have known it. It is just like that Fourtou, who always
wants to make a display."
At half past nine in the morning the procession approached the field of Plessis-Piquet in the following order: first came our carriage—nobody in it but M. Gambetta and myself; then a carriage containing M. Fourtou and his second; then a carriage containing two poet-orators who did not believe in God, and these had MS. funeral orations projecting from their breast pockets; then a carriage containing the head surgeons and their cases of instruments; then eight private carriages containing consulting surgeons; then a hack containing a coroner; then the two hearses; then a carriage containing the head undertakers; then a train of assistants and mutes on foot; and after these came plodding through the fog a long procession of camp followers, police, and citizens generally. It was a noble turnout, and would have made a fine display if we had had thinner weather.
There was no conversation. I spoke several times to my principal, but I judge he was not aware of it, for he always referred to his note-book and muttered absently, "I die that France might live."
Arrived on the field, my fellow-second and I paced off the thirty-five yards, and then drew lots for choice of position. This latter was but an ornamental ceremony, for all the choices were alike in such weather. These preliminaries being ended, I went to my principal and asked him if he was ready. He spread himself out to his full width, and said in a stern voice, "Ready! Let the batteries be charged."
The loading process was done in the presence of duly constituted witnesses. We considered it best to perform this delicate service with the assistance of a lantern, on account of the state of the weather. We now placed our men.
At this point the police noticed that the public had massed themselves together on the right and left of the field; they therefore begged a delay, while they should put these poor people in a place of safety.
The request was granted.
The police having ordered the two multitudes to take positions behind the duelists, we were once more ready. The weather growing still more opaque, it was agreed between myself and the other second that before giving the fatal signal we should each deliver a loud whoop to enable the combatants to ascertain each other's whereabouts.
I now returned to my principal, and was distressed to observe that he had lost a good deal of his spirit. I tried my best to hearten him. I said, "Indeed, sir, things are not as bad as they seem. Considering the character of the weapons, the limited number of shots allowed, the generous distance, the impenetrable solidity of the fog, and the added fact that one of the combatants is one-eyed and the other cross-eyed and near-sighted, it seems to me that this conflict need not necessarily be fatal. There are chances that both of you may survive. Therefore, cheer up; do not be downhearted."
This speech had so good an effect that my principal immediately stretched forth his hand and said, "I am myself again; give me the weapon."
I laid it, all lonely and forlorn, in the center of the vast solitude of his palm. He gazed at it and shuddered. And still mournfully contemplating it, he murmured in a broken voice:
"Alas, it is not death I dread, but mutilation."
I heartened him once more, and with such success that he presently said, "Let the tragedy begin. Stand at my back; do not desert me in this solemn hour, my friend."
I gave him my promise. I now assisted him to point his pistol toward the spot where I judged his adversary to be standing, and cautioned him to listen well and further guide himself by my fellow-second's whoop. Then I propped myself against M. Gambetta's back, and raised a rousing "Whoop-ee!" This was answered from out the far distances of the fog, and I immediately shouted:
"One—two—three—FIRE!"
Two little sounds like spit! spit! broke upon my ear, and in the same
instant I was crushed to the earth under a mountain of flesh. Bruised as I
was, I was still able to catch a faint accent from above, to this effect:
"I die for... for ... perdition take it, what is it I die for? ... oh, yes—France! I die that France may live!"
The surgeons swarmed around with their probes in their hands, and applied their microscopes to the whole area of M. Gambetta's person, with the happy result of finding nothing in the nature of a wound. Then a scene ensued which was in every way gratifying and inspiriting.
The two gladiators fell upon each other's neck, with floods of proud and happy tears; that other second embraced me; the surgeons, the orators, the undertakers, the police, everybody embraced, everybody congratulated, everybody cried, and the whole atmosphere was filled with praise and with joy unspeakable.
It seems to me then that I would rather be a hero of a French duel than a
crowned and sceptered monarch.
When the commotion had somewhat subsided, the body of surgeons held a consultation, and after a good deal of debate decided that with proper care and nursing there was reason to believe that I would survive my injuries. My internal hurts were deemed the most serious, since it was apparent that a broken rib had penetrated my left lung, and that many of my organs had been pressed out so far to one side or the other of where they belonged, that it was doubtful if they would ever learn to perform their functions in such remote and unaccustomed localities. They then set my left arm in two places, pulled my right hip into its socket again, and re-elevated my nose. I was an object of great interest, and even admiration; and many sincere and warm-hearted persons had themselves introduced to me, and said they were proud to know the only man who had been hurt in a French duel in forty years.
I was placed in an ambulance at the very head of the procession; and thus
with gratifying 'eclat I was marched into Paris, the most conspicuous
figure in that great spectacle, and deposited at the hospital.
The cross of the Legion of Honor has been conferred upon me. However, few escape that distinction.
Such is the true version of the most memorable private conflict of the age.
I have no complaints to make against any one. I acted for myself, and I can stand the consequences.
Without boasting, I think I may say I am not afraid to stand before a
modern French duelist, but as long as I keep in my right mind I will never
consent to stand behind one again.
One day we took the train and went down to Mannheim to see "King Lear" played in German. It was a mistake. We sat in our seats three whole hours and never understood anything but the thunder and lightning; and even that was reversed to suit German ideas, for the thunder came first and the lightning followed after.
The behavior of the audience was perfect. There were no rustlings, or whisperings, or other little disturbances; each act was listened to in silence, and the applauding was done after the curtain was down. The doors opened at half past four, the play began promptly at half past five, and within two minutes afterward all who were coming were in their seats, and quiet reigned. A German gentleman in the train had said that a Shakespearian play was an appreciated treat in Germany and that we should find the house filled. It was true; all the six tiers were filled, and remained so to the end—which suggested that it is not only balcony people who like Shakespeare in Germany, but those of the pit and gallery, too.
Another time, we went to Mannheim and attended a shivaree—otherwise
an opera—the one called "Lohengrin." The banging and slamming and
booming and crashing were something beyond belief. The racking and
pitiless pain of it remains stored up in my memory alongside the memory of
the time that I had my teeth fixed.
There were circumstances which made it necessary for me to stay through
the four hours to the end, and I stayed; but the recollection of that
long, dragging, relentless season of suffering is indestructible. To have
to endure it in silence, and sitting still, made it all the harder. I was
in a railed compartment with eight or ten strangers, of the two sexes, and
this compelled repression; yet at times the pain was so exquisite that I
could hardly keep the tears back.
At those times, as the howlings and wailings and shrieking of the singers,
and the ragings and roarings and explosions of the vast orchestra rose
higher and higher, and wilder and wilder, and fiercer and fiercer, I could
have cried if I had been alone. Those strangers would not have been
surprised to see a man do such a thing who was being gradually skinned,
but they would have marveled at it here, and made remarks about it no
doubt, whereas there was nothing in the present case which was an
advantage over being skinned.
There was a wait of half an hour at the end of the
first act, and I could have gone out and rested during that time, but I
could not trust myself to do it, for I felt that I should desert to stay
out. There was another wait of half an hour toward nine o'clock, but I had
gone through so much by that time that I had no spirit left, and so had no
desire but to be let alone.
I do not wish to suggest that the rest of the people there were like me, for, indeed, they were not. Whether it was that they naturally liked that noise, or whether it was that they had learned to like it by getting used to it, I did not at the time know; but they did like it—this was plain enough. While it was going on they sat and looked as rapt and grateful as cats do when one strokes their backs; and whenever the curtain fell they rose to their feet, in one solid mighty multitude, and the air was snowed thick with waving handkerchiefs, and hurricanes of applause swept the place. This was not comprehensible to me. Of course, there were many people there who were not under compulsion to stay; yet the tiers were as full at the close as they had been at the beginning. This showed that the people liked it.
It was a curious sort of a play. In the manner of costumes and scenery it
was fine and showy enough; but there was not much action. That is to say,
there was not much really done, it was only talked about; and always
violently. It was what one might call a narrative play. Everybody had a
narrative and a grievance, and none were reasonable about it, but all in
an offensive and ungovernable state. There was little of that sort of
customary thing where the tenor and the soprano stand down by the
footlights, warbling, with blended voices, and keep holding out their arms
toward each other and drawing them back and spreading both hands over
first one breast and then the other with a shake and a pressure—no,
it was every rioter for himself and no blending. Each sang his indictive
narrative in turn, accompanied by the whole orchestra of sixty
instruments, and when this had continued for some time, and one was hoping
they might come to an understanding and modify the noise, a great chorus
composed entirely of maniacs would suddenly break forth, and then during
two minutes, and sometimes three, I lived over again all that I suffered
the time the orphan asylum burned down.
We only had one brief little season of heaven and heaven's sweet ecstasy and peace during all this long and diligent and acrimonious reproduction of the other place. This was while a gorgeous procession of people marched around and around, in the third act, and sang the Wedding Chorus. To my untutored ear that was music—almost divine music. While my seared soul was steeped in the healing balm of those gracious sounds, it seemed to me that I could almost resuffer the torments which had gone before, in order to be so healed again. There is where the deep ingenuity of the operatic idea is betrayed. It deals so largely in pain that its scattered delights are prodigiously augmented by the contrasts. A pretty air in an opera is prettier there than it could be anywhere else, I suppose, just as an honest man in politics shines more than he would elsewhere.
I have since found out that there is nothing the Germans like so much as
an opera. They like it, not in a mild and moderate way, but with their
whole hearts. This is a legitimate result of habit and education. Our
nation will like the opera, too, by and by, no doubt. One in fifty of
those who attend our operas likes it already, perhaps, but I think a good
many of the other forty-nine go in order to learn to like it, and the rest
in order to be able to talk knowingly about it. The latter usually hum the
airs while they are being sung, so that their neighbors may perceive that
they have been to operas before. The funerals of these do not occur often
enough.
A gentle, old-maidish person and a sweet young girl of seventeen sat right in front of us that night at the Mannheim opera. These people talked, between the acts, and I understood them, though I understood nothing that was uttered on the distant stage. At first they were guarded in their talk, but after they had heard my agent and me conversing in English they dropped their reserve and I picked up many of their little confidences; no, I mean many of her little confidences—meaning the elder party—for the young girl only listened, and gave assenting nods, but never said a word. How pretty she was, and how sweet she was! I wished she would speak. But evidently she was absorbed in her own thoughts, her own young-girl dreams, and found a dearer pleasure in silence. But she was not dreaming sleepy dreams—no, she was awake, alive, alert, she could not sit still a moment. She was an enchanting study. Her gown was of a soft white silky stuff that clung to her round young figure like a fish's skin, and it was rippled over with the gracefulest little fringy films of lace; she had deep, tender eyes, with long, curved lashes; and she had peachy cheeks, and a dimpled chin, and such a dear little rosebud of a mouth; and she was so dovelike, so pure, and so gracious, so sweet and so bewitching. For long hours I did mightily wish she would speak. And at last she did; the red lips parted, and out leaps her thought—and with such a guileless and pretty enthusiasm, too: "Auntie, I just know I've got five hundred fleas on me!"
That was probably over the average. Yes, it must have been very much over
the average. The average at that time in the Grand Duchy of Baden was
forty-five to a young person (when alone), according to the official
estimate of the home secretary for that year; the average for older people
was shifty and indeterminable, for whenever a wholesome young girl came
into the presence of her elders she immediately lowered their average and
raised her own. She became a sort of contribution-box.
This dear young thing in the theater had been sitting there unconsciously taking up a collection. Many a skinny old being in our neighborhood was the happier and the restfuler for her coming.
In that large audience, that night, there were eight very conspicuous
people. These were ladies who had their hats or bonnets on. What a blessed
thing it would be if a lady could make herself conspicuous in our theaters
by wearing her hat.
It is not usual in Europe to allow ladies and gentlemen to take bonnets,
hats, overcoats, canes, or umbrellas into the auditorium, but in Mannheim
this rule was not enforced because the audiences were largely made up of
people from a distance, and among these were always a few timid ladies who
were afraid that if they had to go into an anteroom to get their things
when the play was over, they would miss their train. But the great mass of
those who came from a distance always ran the risk and took the chances,
preferring the loss of a train to a breach of good manners and the
discomfort of being unpleasantly conspicuous during a stretch of three or
four hours.
Three or four hours. That is a long time to sit in one place, whether one be conspicuous or not, yet some of Wagner's operas bang along for six whole hours on a stretch! But the people sit there and enjoy it all, and wish it would last longer. A German lady in Munich told me that a person could not like Wagner's music at first, but must go through the deliberate process of learning to like it—then he would have his sure reward; for when he had learned to like it he would hunger for it and never be able to get enough of it. She said that six hours of Wagner was by no means too much. She said that this composer had made a complete revolution in music and was burying the old masters one by one. And she said that Wagner's operas differed from all others in one notable respect, and that was that they were not merely spotted with music here and there, but were all music, from the first strain to the last. This surprised me. I said I had attended one of his insurrections, and found hardly any music in it except the Wedding Chorus. She said "Lohengrin" was noisier than Wagner's other operas, but that if I would keep on going to see it I would find by and by that it was all music, and therefore would then enjoy it. I could have said, "But would you advise a person to deliberately practice having a toothache in the pit of his stomach for a couple of years in order that he might then come to enjoy it?" But I reserved that remark.
This lady was full of the praises of the head-tenor who had performed in a Wagner opera the night before, and went on to enlarge upon his old and prodigious fame, and how many honors had been lavished upon him by the princely houses of Germany. Here was another surprise. I had attended that very opera, in the person of my agent, and had made close and accurate observations. So I said:
"Why, madam, my experience warrants me in stating that that tenor's voice
is not a voice at all, but only a shriek—the shriek of a hyena."
"That is very true," she said; "he cannot sing now; it is already many years that he has lost his voice, but in other times he sang, yes, divinely! So whenever he comes now, you shall see, yes, that the theater will not hold the people. Jawohl bei Gott! his voice is wunderschoen in that past time."
I said she was discovering to me a kindly trait in the Germans which was worth emulating. I said that over the water we were not quite so generous; that with us, when a singer had lost his voice and a jumper had lost his legs, these parties ceased to draw. I said I had been to the opera in Hanover, once, and in Mannheim once, and in Munich (through my authorized agent) once, and this large experience had nearly persuaded me that the Germans preferred singers who couldn't sing. This was not such a very extravagant speech, either, for that burly Mannheim tenor's praises had been the talk of all Heidelberg for a week before his performance took place—yet his voice was like the distressing noise which a nail makes when you screech it across a window-pane. I said so to Heidelberg friends the next day, and they said, in the calmest and simplest way, that that was very true, but that in earlier times his voice had been wonderfully fine. And the tenor in Hanover was just another example of this sort. The English-speaking German gentleman who went with me to the opera there was brimming with enthusiasm over that tenor. He said:
"Ach Gott! a great man! You shall see him. He is so celebrate in all Germany—and he has a pension, yes, from the government. He not obliged to sing now, only twice every year; but if he not sing twice each year they take him his pension away."
Very well, we went. When the renowned old tenor appeared, I got a nudge and an excited whisper:
"Now you see him!"
But the "celebrate" was an astonishing disappointment to me. If he had been behind a screen I should have supposed they were performing a surgical operation on him. I looked at my friend—to my great surprise he seemed intoxicated with pleasure, his eyes were dancing with eager delight. When the curtain at last fell, he burst into the stormiest applause, and kept it up—as did the whole house—until the afflictive tenor had come three times before the curtain to make his bow. While the glowing enthusiast was swabbing the perspiration from his face, I said:
"I don't mean the least harm, but really, now, do you think he can sing?"
"Him? No! Gott im Himmel, aber, how he has been able to sing twenty-five
years ago?" [Then pensively.] "Ach, no, now he not sing any more, he only
cry. When he think he sing, now, he not sing at all, no, he only make like
a cat which is unwell."
Where and how did we get the idea that the Germans are a stolid, phlegmatic race? In truth, they are widely removed from that. They are warm-hearted, emotional, impulsive, enthusiastic, their tears come at the mildest touch, and it is not hard to move them to laughter. They are the very children of impulse. We are cold and self-contained, compared to the Germans.  Their language is full of endearing diminutives; nothing that they love escapes the application of a petting diminutive—neither the house, nor the dog, nor the horse, nor the grandmother, nor any other creature, animate or inanimate.
In the theaters at Hanover, Hamburg, and Mannheim, they had a wise custom. The moment the curtain went up, the light in the body of the house went down. The audience sat in the cool gloom of a deep twilight, which greatly enhanced the glowing splendors of the stage. It saved gas, too, and people were not sweated to death.
When I saw "King Lear" played, nobody was allowed to see a scene shifted; if there was nothing to be done but slide a forest out of the way and expose a temple beyond, one did not see that forest split itself in the middle and go shrieking away, with the accompanying disenchanting spectacle of the hands and heels of the impelling impulse—no, the curtain was always dropped for an instant—one heard not the least movement behind it—but when it went up, the next instant, the forest was gone. Even when the stage was being entirely reset, one heard no noise. During the whole time that "King Lear" was playing the curtain was never down two minutes at any one time. The orchestra played until the curtain was ready to go up for the first time, then they departed for the evening. Where the stage waits never reach two minutes there is no occasion for music. I had never seen this two-minute business between acts but once before, and that was when the "Shaughraun" was played at Wallack's.
I was at a concert in Munich one night, the people were streaming in, the
clock-hand pointed to seven, the music struck up, and instantly all
movement in the body of the house ceased—nobody was standing, or
walking up the aisles, or fumbling with a seat, the stream of incomers had
suddenly dried up at its source. I listened undisturbed to a piece of
music that was fifteen minutes long—always expecting some tardy
ticket-holders to come crowding past my knees, and being continuously and
pleasantly disappointed—but when the last note was struck, here came
the stream again. You see, they had made those late comers wait in the
comfortable waiting-parlor from the time the music had begun until it was
ended.
It was the first time I had ever seen this sort of criminals denied the privilege of destroying the comfort of a house full of their betters. Some of these were pretty fine birds, but no matter, they had to tarry outside in the long parlor under the inspection of a double rank of liveried footmen and waiting-maids who supported the two walls with their backs and held the wraps and traps of their masters and mistresses on their arms.
We had no footmen to hold our things, and it was not permissible to take them into the concert-room; but there were some men and women to take charge of them for us. They gave us checks for them and charged a fixed price, payable in advance—five cents.
In Germany they always hear one thing at an opera which has never yet been heard in America, perhaps—I mean the closing strain of a fine solo or duet. We always smash into it with an earthquake of applause. The result is that we rob ourselves of the sweetest part of the treat; we get the whiskey, but we don't get the sugar in the bottom of the glass.
Our way of scattering applause along through an act seems to me to be better than the Mannheim way of saving it all up till the act is ended. I do not see how an actor can forget himself and portray hot passion before a cold still audience. I should think he would feel foolish. It is a pain to me to this day, to remember how that old German Lear raged and wept and howled around the stage, with never a response from that hushed house, never a single outburst till the act was ended. To me there was something unspeakably uncomfortable in the solemn dead silences that always followed this old person's tremendous outpourings of his feelings. I could not help putting myself in his place—I thought I knew how sick and flat he felt during those silences, because I remembered a case which came under my observation once, and which—but I will tell the incident:
One evening on board a Mississippi steamboat, a boy of ten years lay asleep in a berth—a long, slim-legged boy, he was, encased in quite a short shirt; it was the first time he had ever made a trip on a steamboat, and so he was troubled, and scared, and had gone to bed with his head filled with impending snaggings, and explosions, and conflagrations, and sudden death. About ten o'clock some twenty ladies were sitting around about the ladies' saloon, quietly reading, sewing, embroidering, and so on, and among them sat a sweet, benignant old dame with round spectacles on her nose and her busy knitting-needles in her hands. Now all of a sudden, into the midst of this peaceful scene burst that slim-shanked boy in the brief shirt, wild-eyed, erect-haired, and shouting, "Fire, fire! Jump and run, the boat's afire and there ain't a minute to lose!" All those ladies looked sweetly up and smiled, nobody stirred, the old lady pulled her spectacles down, looked over them, and said, gently:
"But you mustn't catch cold, child. Run and put on your breastpin, and then come and tell us all about it."

 I turned and crept away—for I was that boy—and