difficulty of keeping this diary.—a big wash.—the german bed.—its goings on.—manners and customs of the german army.—b.’s besetting sin.—cologne cathedral.—thoughts without words.—a curious custom.
this diary is getting mixed. the truth is, i am not living as a man who keeps a diary should live. i ought, of course, to sit down in front of this diary at eleven o’clock at night, and write down all that has occurred to me during the day. but at eleven o’clock at night, i am in the middle of a long railway journey, or have just got up, or am just going to bed for a couple of hours. we go to bed at odd moments, when we happen to come across a bed, and have a few minutes to spare. we have been to bed this afternoon, and are now having another breakfast; and i am not quite sure whether it is yesterday or to-morrow, or what day it is.
i shall not attempt to write up this diary in the orthodox manner, therefore; but shall fix in a few lines whenever i have half-an-hour with nothing better to do.
we washed ourselves in the rhine at cologne (we had not had a wash since we had left our happy home in england). we started with the idea of washing ourselves at the hotel; but on seeing the basin and water and towel provided, i decided not to waste my time playing with them. as well might hercules have attempted to tidy up the augean stables with a squirt.
we appealed to the chambermaid. we explained to her that we wanted to wash—to clean ourselves—not to blow bubbles. could we not have bigger basins and more water and more extensive towels? the chambermaid (a staid old lady of about fifty) did not think that anything better could be done for us by the hotel fraternity of cologne, and seemed to think that the river was more what we wanted.
i fancied that the old soul was speaking sarcastically, but b. said “no;” she was thinking of the baths alongside the river, and suggested that we should go there. i agreed. it seemed to me that the river—the rhine—would, if anything could, meet the case. there ought to be plenty of water in it now, after the heavy spring rains.
when i saw it, i felt satisfied. i said to b.:
“that’s all right, old man; that’s the sort of thing we need. that is just the sized river i feel i can get myself clean in this afternoon.”
i have heard a good deal in praise of the rhine, and i am glad to be able to speak well of it myself. i found it most refreshing.
i was, however, sorry that we had washed in it afterwards. i have heard from friends who have travelled since in germany that we completely spoiled that river for the rest of the season. not for business purposes, i do not mean. the barge traffic has been, comparatively speaking, uninterfered with. but the tourist trade has suffered terribly. parties who usually go up the rhine by steamer have, after looking at the river, gone by train this year. the boat agents have tried to persuade them that the rhine is always that colour: that it gets like that owing to the dirt and refuse washed down into it during its course among the mountains.
but the tourists have refused to accept this explanation. they have said:
“no. mountains will account for a good deal, we admit, but not for all that. we are acquainted with the ordinary condition of the rhine, and although muddy, and at times unpleasant, it is passable. as it is this summer, however, we would prefer not to travel upon it. we will wait until after next year’s spring-floods.”
we went to bed after our wash. to the blasé english bed-goer, accustomed all his life to the same old hackneyed style of bed night after night, there is something very pleasantly piquant about the experience of trying to sleep in a german bed. he does not know it is a bed at first. he thinks that someone has been going round the room, collecting all the sacks and cushions and antimacassars and such articles that he has happened to find about, and has piled them up on a wooden tray ready for moving. he rings for the chambermaid, and explains to her that she has shown him into the wrong room. he wanted a bedroom.
she says: “this is a bedroom.”
he says: “where’s the bed?”
“there!” she says, pointing to the box on which the sacks and antimacassars and cushions lie piled.
“that!” he cries. “how am i going to sleep in that?”
the chambermaid does not know how he is going to sleep there, never having seen a gentleman go to sleep anywhere, and not knowing how they set about it; but suggests that he might try lying down flat, and shutting his eyes.
“but it is not long enough,” he says.
the chambermaid thinks he will be able to manage, if he tucks his legs up.
he sees that he will not get anything better, and that he must put up with it.
“oh, very well!” he says. “look sharp and get it made, then.”
she says: “it is made.”
he turns and regards the girl sternly. is she taking advantage of his being a lonely stranger, far from home and friends, to mock him? he goes over to what she calls the bed, and snatching off the top-most sack from the pile and holding it up, says:
“perhaps you’ll tell me what this is, then?”
“that,” says the girl, “that’s the bed!”
he is somewhat nonplussed at the unexpected reply.
“oh!” he says. “oh! the bed, is it? i thought it was a pincushion! well, if it is the bed, then what is it doing out here, on the top of everything else? you think that because i’m only a man, i don’t understand a bed!”
“that’s the proper place for it,” responds the chambermaid.
“what! on top?”
“yes, sir.”
“well, then where are the clothes?”
“underneath, sir.”
“look here, my good girl,” he says; “you don’t understand me, or i don’t understand you, one or the other. when i go to sleep, i lie on a bed and pull the clothes over me. i don’t want to lie on the clothes, and cover myself with the bed. this isn’t a comic ballet, you know!”
the girl assures him that there is no mistake about the matter at all. there is the bed, made according to german notions of how a bed should be made. he can make the best of it and try to go to sleep upon it, or he can be sulky and go to sleep on the floor.
he is very much surprised. it looks to him the sort of bed that a man would make for himself on coming home late from a party. but it is no use arguing the matter with the girl.
“all right,” he says; “bring me a pillow, and i’ll risk it!”
the chambermaid explains that there are two pillows on the bed already, indicating, as she does so, two flat cushions, each one a yard square, placed one on top of the other at one end of the mixture.
“these!” exclaims the weary traveller, beginning to feel that he does not want to go to bed at all. “these are not pillows! i want something to put my head on; not a thing that comes down to the middle of my back! don’t tell me that i’ve got to sleep on these things!”
but the girl does tell him so, and also implies that she has something else to do than to stand there all day talking bed-gossip with him.
“well, just show me how to start,” he says, “which way you get into it, and then i won’t keep you any longer; i’ll puzzle out the rest for myself.”
she explains the trick to him and leaves, and he undresses and crawls in.
the pillows give him a good deal of worry. he does not know whether he is meant to sit on them or merely to lean up against them. in experimenting upon this point, he bumps his head against the top board of the bedstead. at this, he says, “oh!” and shoots himself down to the bottom of the bed. here all his ten toes simultaneously come into sharp contact with the board at the bottom.
nothing irritates a man more than being rapped over the toes, especially if he feels that he has done nothing to deserve it. he says, “oh, damn!” this time, and spasmodically doubles up his legs, thus giving his knees a violent blow against the board at the side of the bed. (the german bedstead, be it remembered, is built in the form of a shallow, open box, and the victim is thus completely surrounded by solid pieces of wood with sharp edges. i do not know what species of wood it is that is employed. it is extremely hard, and gives forth a curious musical sound when struck sharply with a bone.)
after this he lies perfectly still for a while, wondering where he is going to be hit next. finding that nothing happens, he begins to regain confidence, and ventures to gently feel around with his left leg and take stock of his position.
for clothes, he has only a very thin blanket and sheet, and beneath these he feels decidedly chilly. the bed is warm enough, so far as it goes, but there is not enough of it. he draws it up round his chin, and then his feet begin to freeze. he pushes it down over his feet, and then all the top part of him shivers.
he tries to roll up into a ball, so as to get the whole of himself underneath it, but does not succeed; there is always some of him left outside in the cold.
he reflects that a “boneless wonder” or a “man serpent” would be comfortable enough in this bed, and wishes that he had been brought up as a contortionist. if he could only tie his legs round his neck, and tuck his head in under his arm, all would yet be well.
never having been taught to do any really useful tricks such as these, however, he has to be content to remain spread out, warming a bit of himself at a time.
it is, perhaps, foolish of him, amid so many real troubles, to allow a mere æsthetical consideration to worry him, but as he lies there on his back, looking down at himself, the sight that he presents to himself considerably annoys him. the puffed-up bed, resting on the middle of him, gives him the appearance of a man suffering from some monstrous swelling, or else of some exceptionally well-developed frog that has been turned up the wrong way and does not know how to get on to its legs again.
another vexation that he has to contend with is, that every time he moves a limb or breathes extra hard, the bed (which is only of down) tumbles off on to the floor.
you cannot lean out of a german bed to pick up anything off the floor, owing to its box-like formation; so he has to scramble out after it, and of course every time he does this he barks both his shins twice against the sides of the bed.
when he has performed this feat for about the tenth time, he concludes that it was madness for him, a mere raw amateur at the business, to think that he could manage a complicated, tricky bed of this sort, that must take even an experienced man all he knows to sleep in it; and gets out and camps on the floor.
at least, that is what i did. b. is accustomed to german beds, and doubled himself up and went off to sleep without the slightest difficulty.
we slept for two hours, and then got up and went back to the railway-station, where we dined. the railway refreshment-room in german towns appears to be as much patronised by the inhabitants of the town as by the travellers passing through. it is regarded as an ordinary restaurant, and used as such by the citizens. we found the dining-room at cologne station crowded with cologneists.
all classes of citizens were there, but especially soldiers. there were all sorts of soldiers—soldiers of rank, and soldiers of rank and file; attached soldiers (very much attached, apparently) and soldiers unattached; stout soldiers, thin soldiers; old soldiers, young soldiers. four very young soldiers sat opposite us, drinking beer. i never saw such young soldiers out by themselves before. they each looked about twelve years old, but may have been thirteen; and they each looked, also, ready and willing to storm a battery, if the order were given to them to do it. there they sat, raising and lowering their huge mugs of beer, discussing military matters, and rising every now and again to gravely salute some officer as he passed, and to receive as gravely his grave salute in return.
there seemed to be a deal of saluting to be gone through. officers kept entering and passing through the room in an almost continual stream, and every time one came in sight all the military drinkers and eaters rose and saluted, and remained at the salute until the officer had passed.
one young soldier, who was trying to eat a plate of soup near us, i felt quite sorry for. every time he got the spoon near his mouth an officer invariably hove in view, and down would have to go the spoon, soup and all, and up he would have to rise. it never seemed to occur to the silly fellow to get under the table and finish his dinner there.
we had half-an-hour to spare between dinner and the starting of our train, and b. suggested that we should go into the cathedral. that is b.’s one weakness, churches. i have the greatest difficulty in getting him past a church-door. we are walking along a street, arm in arm, talking as rationally and even as virtuously as need be, when all at once i find that b. has become silent and abstracted.
i know what it is; he has caught sight of a church. i pretend not to notice any change in him, and endeavour to hurry him on. he lags more and more behind, however, and at last stops altogether.
“come, come,” i say to him, encouragingly, “pull yourself together, and be a man. don’t think about it. put it behind you, and determine that you won’t be conquered. come, we shall be round the corner in another minute, where you won’t be able to see it. take my hand, and let’s run!”
he makes a few feeble steps forward with me, and then stops again.
“it’s no good, old man,” he says, with a sickly smile, so full of pathos that it is impossible to find it in one’s heart to feel anything but pity for him. “i can’t help it. i have given way to this sort of thing too long. it is too late to reform now. you go on and get a drink somewhere; i’ll join you again in a few minutes. don’t worry about me; it’s no good.”
and back he goes with tottering steps, while i sadly pass on into the nearest café, and, over a glass of absinthe or cognac, thank providence that i learnt to control my craving for churches in early youth, and so am not now like this poor b.
in a little while he comes in, and sits down beside me. there is a wild, unhealthy excitement in his eye, and, under a defiant air of unnatural gaiety, he attempts to hide his consciousness of guilt.
“it was a lovely altar-cloth,” he whispers to me, with an enthusiasm that only makes one sorrow for him the more, so utterly impossible does it cause all hope of cure to seem. “and they’ve got a coffin in the north crypt that is simply a poem. i never enjoyed a sarcophagus more in all my life.”
i do not say much at the time; it would be useless. but after the day is done, and we are standing beside our little beds, and all around is as silent as one can expect it to be in an hotel where people seem to be arriving all night long with heavy luggage, and to be all, more or less, in trouble, i argue with him, and gently reprove him. to avoid the appearance of sermonising as much as possible, i put it on mere grounds of expediency.
“how are we to find time,” i say, “to go to all the places that we really ought to go to—to all the cafés and theatres and music-halls and beer-gardens and dancing-saloons that we want to visit—if you waste half the precious day loafing about churches and cathedrals?”
he is deeply moved, and promises to swear off. he vows, with tears in his voice, that he will never enter a church-door again. but next morning, when the temptation comes, all his good resolutions are swept away, and again he yields. it is no good being angry with him, because he evidently does really try; but there is something about the mere odour of a church that he simply cannot withstand.
not knowing, then, that this weakness of his for churches was so strong, i made no objection to the proposed visit to cologne cathedral, and, accordingly, towards it we wended our way. b. has seen it before, and knows all about it. he tells me it was begun about the middle of the thirteenth century, and was only completed ten years ago. it seems to me that there must have been gross delay on the part of the builder. why, a plumber would be ashamed to take as long as that over a job!
b. also asserts that the two towers are the highest church towers in the world. i dispute this, and deprecate the towers generally. b. warmly defends them. he says they are higher than any building in europe, except the eiffel tower.
“oh, dear no!” i say, “there are many buildings higher than they in europe—to say nothing of asia and america.”
i have no authority for making this assertion. as a matter of fact, i know nothing whatever about the matter. i merely say it to irritate b. he appears to take a sort of personal interest in the building, and enlarges upon its beauties and advantages with as much fervour as if he were an auctioneer trying to sell the place.
he retorts that the towers are 512 feet high.
i say:
“nonsense! somebody has imposed upon you, because they see you are a foreigner.”
he becomes quite angry at this, and says he can show me the figures in the guide-book.
“the guide-book!” i reply, scornfully. “you’ll believe a newspaper next!”
b. asks me, indignantly, what height i should say they are, then. i examine them critically for a few minutes, and then give it as my opinion that they do not exceed 510 feet at the very outside. b. seems annoyed with me, and we enter the church in silence.
there is little to be said about a cathedral. except to the professional sightseer, one is very much like another. their beauty to me lies, not in the paintings and sculpture they give houseroom to, nor in the bones and bric-à-brac piled up in their cellars, but in themselves—their echoing vastness, their deep silence.
above the little homes of men, above the noisy teeming streets, they rise like some soft strain of perfect music, cleaving its way amid the jangle of discordant notes. here, where the voices of the world sound faint; here, where the city’s glamour comes not in, it is good to rest for a while—if only the pestering guides would leave one alone—and think.
there is much help in silence. from its touch we gain renewed life. silence is to the soul what his mother earth was to briareus. from contact with it we rise healed of our hurts and strengthened for the fight.
amid the babel of the schools we stand bewildered and affrighted. silence gives us peace and hope. silence teaches us no creed, only that god’s arms are around the universe.
how small and unimportant seem all our fretful troubles and ambitions when we stand with them in our hand before the great calm face of silence! we smile at them ourselves, and are ashamed.
silence teaches us how little we are—how great we are. in the world’s market-places we are tinkers, tailors, apothecaries, thieves—respectable or otherwise, as the case may be—mere atoms of a mighty machine—mere insects in a vast hive.
it is only in silence that it comes home to us that we are something much greater than this—that we are men, with all the universe and all eternity before us.
it is in silence we hear the voice of truth. the temples and the marts of men echo all night and day to the clamour of lies and shams and quackeries. but in silence falsehood cannot live. you cannot float a lie on silence. a lie has to be puffed aloft, and kept from falling by men’s breath. leave a lie on the bosom of silence, and it sinks. a truth floats there fair and stately, like some stout ship upon a deep ocean. silence buoys her up lovingly for all men to see. not until she has grown worn-out and rotten, and is no longer a truth, will the waters of silence close over her.
silence is the only real thing we can lay hold of in this world of passing dreams. time is a shadow that will vanish with the twilight of humanity; but silence is a part of the eternal. all things that are true and lasting have been taught to men’s hearts by silence.
among all nations, there should be vast temples raised where the people might worship silence and listen to it, for it is the voice of god.
these fair churches and cathedrals that men have reared around them throughout the world, have been built as homes for mere creeds—this one for protestantism, that one for romanism, another for mahomedanism. but god’s silence dwells in all alike, only driven forth at times by the tinkling of bells and the mumbling of prayers; and, in them, it is good to sit awhile and have communion with her.
we strolled round, before we came out. just by the entrance to the choir an official stopped me, and asked me if i wanted to go and see a lot of fal-lal things he had got on show—relics and bones, and old masters, and such-like wardour-street rubbish.
i told him, “no”; and attempted to pass on, but he said:
“no, no! you don’t pay, you don’t go in there,” and shut the gate.
he said this sentence in english; and the precision and fluency with which he delivered it rather suggested the idea that it was a phrase much in request, and one that he had had a good deal of practice in.
it is very prevalent throughout germany, this custom of not allowing you to go in to see a thing unless you pay.
