arrival at ostend.—coffee and rolls.—difficulty of making french waiters understand german.—advantages of possessing a conscience that does not get up too early.—villainy triumphant.—virtue ordered outside.—a homely english row.
when i say i was “awakened” at ostend, i do not speak the strict truth. i was not awakened—not properly. i was only half-awakened. i never did get fairly awake until the afternoon. during the journey from ostend to cologne i was three-parts asleep and one-part partially awake.
at ostend, however, i was sufficiently aroused to grasp the idea that we had got somewhere, and that i must find my luggage and b., and do something or other; in addition to which, a strange, vague instinct, but one which i have never yet known deceive me, hovering about my mind, and telling me that i was in the neighbourhood of something to eat and drink, spurred me to vigour and action.
i hurried down into the saloon and there found b. he excused himself for having left me alone all night—he need not have troubled himself. i had not pined for him in the least. if the only woman i had ever loved had been on board, i should have sat silent, and let any other fellow talk to her that wanted to, and that felt equal to it—by explaining that he had met a friend and that they had been talking. it appeared to have been a trying conversation.
i also ran against the talkative man and his companion. such a complete wreck of a once strong man as the latter looked i have never before seen. mere sea-sickness, however severe, could never have accounted for the change in his appearance since, happy and hopeful, he entered the railway-carriage at victoria six short hours ago. his friend, on the other hand, appeared fresh and cheerful, and was relating an anecdote about a cow.
we took our bags into the custom house and opened them, and i sat down on mine, and immediately went to sleep.
when i awoke, somebody whom i mistook at first for a field-marshal, and from force of habit—i was once a volunteer—saluted, was standing over me, pointing melodramatically at my bag. i assured him in picturesque german that i had nothing to declare. he did not appear to comprehend me, which struck me as curious, and took the bag away from me, which left me nothing to sit upon but the floor. but i felt too sleepy to be indignant.
after our luggage had been examined, we went into the buffet. my instinct had not misled me: there i found hot coffee, and rolls and butter. i ordered two coffees with milk, some bread, and some butter. i ordered them in the best german i knew. as nobody understood me, i went and got the things for myself. it saves a deal of argument, that method. people seem to know what you mean in a moment then.
b. suggested that while we were in belgium, where everybody spoke french, while very few indeed knew german, i should stand a better chance of being understood if i talked less german and more french.
he said:
“it will be easier for you, and less of a strain upon the natives. you stick to french,” he continued, “as long as ever you can. you will get along much better with french. you will come across people now and then—smart, intelligent people—who will partially understand your french, but no human being, except a thought-reader, will ever obtain any glimmering of what you mean from your german.”
“oh, are we in belgium,” i replied sleepily; “i thought we were in germany. i didn’t know.” and then, in a burst of confidence, i added, feeling that further deceit was useless, “i don’t know where i am, you know.”
“no, i thought you didn’t,” he replied. “that is exactly the idea you give anybody. i wish you’d wake up a bit.”
we waited about an hour at ostend, while our train was made up. there was only one carriage labelled for cologne, and four more passengers wanted to go there than the compartment would hold.
not being aware of this, b. and i made no haste to secure places, and, in consequence, when, having finished our coffee, we leisurely strolled up and opened the carriage door we saw that every seat was already booked. a bag was in one space and a rug in another, an umbrella booked a third, and so on. nobody was there, but the seats were gone!
it is the unwritten law among travellers that a man’s luggage deposited upon a seat, shall secure that seat to him until he comes to sit upon it himself. this is a good law and a just law, and one that, in my normal state, i myself would die to uphold and maintain.
but at three o’clock on a chilly morning one’s moral sensibilities are not properly developed. the average man’s conscience does not begin work till eight or nine o’clock—not till after breakfast, in fact. at three a.m. he will do things that at three in the afternoon his soul would revolt at.
under ordinary circumstances i should as soon have thought of shifting a man’s bag and appropriating his seat as an ancient hebrew squatter would have thought of removing his neighbour’s landmark; but at this time in the morning my better nature was asleep.
i have often read of a man’s better nature being suddenly awakened. the business is generally accomplished by an organ-grinder or a little child (i would back the latter, at all events—give it a fair chance—to awaken anything in this world that was not stone deaf, or that had not been dead for more than twenty-four hours); and if an organ-grinder or a little child had been around ostend station that morning, things might have been different.
b. and i might have been saved from crime. just as we were in the middle of our villainy, the organ-grinder or the child would have struck up, and we should have burst into tears, and have rushed from the carriage, and have fallen upon each other’s necks outside on the platform, and have wept, and waited for the next train.
as it was, after looking carefully round to see that nobody was watching us, we slipped quickly into the carriage, and, making room for ourselves among the luggage there, sat down and tried to look innocent and easy.
b. said that the best thing we could do, when the other people came, would be to pretend to be dead asleep, and too stupid to understand anything.
i replied that as far as i was concerned, i thought i could convey the desired impression without stooping to deceit at all, and prepared to make myself comfortable.
a few seconds later another man got into the carriage. he also made room for himself among the luggage and sat down.
“i am afraid that seat’s taken, sir,” said b. when he had recovered his surprise at the man’s coolness. “in fact, all the seats in this carriage are taken.”
“i can’t help that,” replied the ruffian, cynically. “i’ve got to get to cologne some time to-day, and there seems no other way of doing it that i can see.”
“yes, but so has the gentleman whose seat you have taken got to get there,” i remonstrated; “what about him? you are thinking only of yourself!”
my sense of right and justice was beginning to assert itself, and i felt quite indignant with the fellow. two minutes ago, as i have explained, i could contemplate the taking of another man’s seat with equanimity. now, such an act seemed to me shameful. the truth is that my better nature never sleeps for long. leave it alone and it wakens of its own accord. heaven help me! i am a sinful, worldly man, i know; but there is good at the bottom of me. it wants hauling up, but it’s there.
this man had aroused it. i now saw the sinfulness of taking another passenger’s place in a railway-carriage.
but i could not make the other man see it. i felt that some service was due from me to justice, in compensation of the wrong i had done her a few moments ago, and i argued most eloquently.
my rhetoric was, however, quite thrown away. “oh! it’s only a vice-consul,” he said; “here’s his name on the bag. there’s plenty of room for him in with the guard.”
it was no use my defending the sacred cause of right before a man who held sentiments like that; so, having lodged a protest against his behaviour, and thus eased my conscience, i leant back and dozed the doze of the just.
five minutes before the train started, the rightful owners of the carriage came up and crowded in. they seemed surprised at finding only five vacant seats available between seven of them, and commenced to quarrel vigorously among themselves.
b. and i and the unjust man in the corner tried to calm them, but passion ran too high at first for the voice of reason to be heard. each combination of five, possible among them, accused each remaining two of endeavouring to obtain seats by fraud, and each one more than hinted that the other six were liars.
what annoyed me was that they quarrelled in english. they all had languages of their own,—there were four belgians, two frenchmen, and a german,—but no language was good enough for them to insult each other in but english.
finding that there seemed to be no chance of their ever agreeing among themselves, they appealed to us. we unhesitatingly decided in favour of the five thinnest, who, thereupon, evidently regarding the matter as finally settled, sat down, and told the other two to get out.
these two stout ones, however—the german and one of the belgians—seemed inclined to dispute the award, and called up the station-master.
the station-master did not wait to listen to what they had to say, but at once began abusing them for being in the carriage at all. he told them they ought to be ashamed of themselves for forcing their way into a compartment that was already more than full, and inconveniencing the people already there.
he also used english to explain this to them, and they got out on the platform and answered him back in english.
english seems to be the popular language for quarrelling in, among foreigners. i suppose they find it more expressive.
we all watched the group from the window. we were amused and interested. in the middle of the argument an early gendarme arrived on the scene. the gendarme naturally supported the station-master. one man in uniform always supports another man in uniform, no matter what the row is about, or who may be in the right—that does not trouble him. it is a fixed tenet of belief among uniform circles that a uniform can do no wrong. if burglars wore uniform, the police would be instructed to render them every assistance in their power, and to take into custody any householder attempting to interfere with them in the execution of their business. the gendarme assisted the station-master to abuse the two stout passengers, and he also abused them in english. it was not good english in any sense of the word. the man would probably have been able to give his feelings much greater variety and play in french or flemish, but that was not his object. his ambition, like every other foreigner’s, was to become an accomplished english quarreller, and this was practice for him.
a customs house clerk came out and joined in the babel. he took the part of the passengers, and abused the station-master and the gendarme, and he abused them in english.
b. said he thought it very pleasant here, far from our native shores, in the land of the stranger, to come across a little homely english row like this.
