Letters from Abroad to Kindred at Home/Place XIX
NIEDERWALD.
Friday, Rudesheim.—This morning we set off on an excursion to the Niederwald, the "Echo," "The Temple," "The Enchanted Cave," and the Rossel. Now, let your fancy surround you with the atmosphere of our cool, bright September days, and present the images of your friends, mounted on asses, winding up steep paths among these rich Rudesheim vineyards, which produce some of the finest wines on the Rhine. See our four esel-meisters slowly gossiping on after us, and our path crossed, ever and anon, with peasant women emerging from the vineyards with baskets on their heads, piled with grape-cuttings, and weeds to feed the asses, pigs, or—children! See us passing through the beech and oaken wood of the Niederwald, and coming out upon the "Temple" to look down on the ruins of the Castle of Bromser, amid a world of beauty, and think upon its old Jephthalord who, when a captive among the Saracens, vowed, if he returned, to devote his only daughter Gisela to the church—of poor Gisela, who had devoted herself to a human divinity, and, finding her crusading father inexorable, threw herself from the tower of the castle into the river. With the clear eye of peasant faith, you may see now, of a dark and gusty night, the pale form of this modern Sappho,, and you may hear her wailings somewhere about Hatto's Tower.
Next see us emerging from our woodland path, and taken possession of by a very stout woodland nymph, who has the showing of the Bezauberte Hole (Enchanted Cave); but, no; you shall not see that with our eyes, but read Sir Francis Head's description of it, which proves that, if he has any right to designate himself as "the old man," time has not done its sad work in abating the fervours of his imagination. He has made a prodigious bubble of this cave. His "subterranean passage" was, to our disenchanted vision, but a walled way on upper earth; and where he looked through fissures of the rock, we had but the prose of windows, whose shutters were slammed open by our Dulcinean wood-nymph. But never mind! long may he live to verify the fantastical figure in the vignette to the Frankfort edition of his charming work, to walk over the world blowing bubbles so filled with the breath of genius and benevolence that they diffuse sweet odours wherever they float.
See us now standing at the Rossel, looking with the feeling of parting lovers at the queenly Rheinstein sitting on her throne of Nature's masonry—at a long reach of the river up and down—at the lovely Nahe; not merely at its graceful entrance into the Rhine, but far, far away as it comes serenely gliding along its deep-sunken channel from its mountain-home—at Drusus' bridge, with its misty light of another age and people—at the massy ruin of Ehrenfels under our feet—at the Mouse Tower of old Bishop Hatto on its pretty island—at vineyards without number—at hills sloping to hills, at the green ravines between them, and the roads that traverse them—at villages, towers, and churches; and, finally, at our little hamlet of Rudesheim, which, with its 3500 people, is so compact that it appeared as if I might span it with my arms. And remember that into all this rich landscape, history, story, ballad, and tradition have breathed the breath of life. Do you wonder that we turned away with the feeling that we should never again see anything so beautiful? thank Heaven, to a scene like this "there can be no farewell!"
We were delighted on getting down to "the Angel" to see the "Victoria" puffing up the Rhine; for, to confess the truth, now that the feast of our eyes and imaginations was over, we began to feel the cravings of our grosser natures. There is no surer sharpener of the appetite than a long mountain-ride in a cool morning. The Niederwald, the Hohle, the Rossel, all were forgotten in the vision of the pleasantest of all repasts—a dinner on the deck of a Rhine steamer. It was just on the stroke of one when we reached the Victoria. The table was laid, and the company was gathering with a certain look of pleased expectation, and a low murmur of sound much resembling that I have heard from your barnyard family when you were shelling out corn to them. The animal nature is strongest at least once in the twenty-four hours! The Russian princess was the first person we encountered. "Monsieur Tonson come again." "We'll not have a seat near her," I whispered to the girls, as, with some difficulty, we doubled the end of the table which her enormous royal person occupied. "No; farthest from her is best," said K.; so we proceeded to the other extremity of the table, where we were met by the head-waiter. "Places for four, if you please," said I. He bowed civilly, was "very sorry, but there was no room." "Surely you can make room!" "Impossible, madame!" A moment's reflection convinced me that a German would not risk the comfort of one guest by crowding in another, so I said, "Well, give us a table to ourselves." "I cannot; it is impossible!" "What!" exclaimed the girls, "does he say we cannot have places? Do order a lunch, then; I am starved," "and so am I," "and I." My next demand showed how narrowed were our prospects. "Then," said I, "I'll ask for nothing more if you will give me some bread and butter and a bottle of wine!" " Afterward, afterward, madame," he replied, his German patience showing some symptoms of diminution; "afterward lunch, dinner, or what you please; but now it is impossible." Like the starving Ugolino when he heard the key of the Tower of Famine turned on him,
"lo guardái |
But soon touched by their misery and urged by my own, I once more intercepted the inexorable youth, and mastering all my eloquence, I told him he had no courtesy for ladies, no "sentiment;" that he would have to answer for the deaths of those three blooming young women, &c., &c.; he smiled, and I thought relented, but the smile was followed with a definitive shake of the head, and away he went to perform well duties divided between half a dozen half-bred waiters in our country. Nothing remained for us but to submit. In a Hudson River steamer (we remembered regretfully our national despatch) the "afterward" would have been time enough; at most, an affair of half an hour's waiting, but the perspective of a German's meandering through his "meridian" was endless. Besides, we were to land at Bieberich in two or three hours, so, "ladies most deject," we sat ourselves down in the only vacant place we could find, close to the head of the table. The people, for the most part, had taken their seats; here and there a chair awaited some loiterer, but one dropped in after another, and my last faint hope that, after all, the waiter would distribute us among them, faded away. There was some delay, and even those seated with the sweet security of dinner began to lose something of their characteristic serenity. There was a low growl from two English gentlemen near us, and the Germans beside us began mumbling their rolls. "Ah," thought I, "if ye who have been, as is your wont, feeding every half hour since you were out of bed, sitting lazily at your little tables here, could feel 'the thorny point of our distress,' you surely would give us that bread!"
The soup came, and as each took his plate, from the top to the bottom of the table, the shadows vanished from their faces as I have seen them pass from a field of corn as a cloud was passing off the sun. "I should have been quite content," said M., meekly, "with a plate of soup on our laps." "Yes," said L. in a faltering voice, "I should be quite satisfied with soup and a bit of bread." But away went the soup, no one heeding us but a fat German whose back was towards us, and who, comprehending our dilemma, felt nothing but the ludicrousness of it. He turned when he had swallowed his soup, and smiled significantly.
Next came the fat, tender bouilli with its three satellites, potatoes à la maître d' hotel, cucumbers, and a fat compound called "gravy." "I always relish the bouilli," said K., faintly. Bouilli, potatoes, and cucumbers were eaten in turn; a German has no sins of omission to answer for at table.
Then appeared the entremets, the croquets, sausages, tongue, the queenly cauliflower floating in butter, rouleaux of cabbage, macaroni, preparations of beans and sorrel, and other messes that have baffled all our investigation and guessing.
Now, fully to comprehend the' prolongation of our misery, you must remember the German custom of eating each article of food presented, each separately, and lounging through a change of twenty plates as if eating dinner comprehended the whole duty and pleasure of life. "If they would only give us a bit of tongue!" said K., "or a croquet," said M., "or just one sausage," said L. But tongue, croquet, and sausage vanished within the all-devouring jaws, and again the emptied dishes were swept off, and on came salmon, tench, pike, and trout (served cold, and with bits of ice), and the delicious puddings. Now came my trial. The puddings, so light, so wholesome, with their sweet innocent fruit-sauces, are always my poste-restante at a German dinner. But "what was I to Hecuba, or Hecuba to me?" the pudding, in its turn, was all eaten, and our fat friend, wiping his mouth after the last morsel, turned round and laughed, yes, actually laughed; and we, being at that point of nervousness when you must either cry or laugh, laughed too—rather hysterically.
Are you tired? I have described but the prefatory manoeuvring of the light troops. Now came the procession of joints, mutton, veal, and venison, interspersed with salads, stewed fruit, calves'-foot jelly, and blancmanges. "Surely they might spare us one form of jelly," said M., "Or a blancmange," said K.; but no; meat, jelly, and all were eaten, and again our stout friend looked round, with less animation this time, for he was beginning to resemble a pampered old house-dog who is too full to bark. The dessert appeared: apricots, cherries, mulberries, pears, and a variety of confectionary. The conductor appeared, too, with the billets. " Surely," I said, "that "is not Bieberich!" " Pardon, madame, we are within a quarter of an hour of Bieberich." "It is a gone case!" I sighed out to the girls; and, in truth, we arrived before the Duke of Nassau's heavy palace just as the company, with the most provoking flush of entire satisfaction, were turning away from the table. We had learned to appreciate the virtue of those Lazaruses who, witnessing the feasting of the Dives, go hungry every day.
I have given you an exact inventory of the dinner, "setting down naught in malice" or in misery; and when you are told that it costs but one florin (forty-two cents), that it is served with nice table-linen, large napkins, and silver forks, you must conclude that provisions are cheap, and that the traveller—if he can "catch the turbot"—is a happy man in Germany.[1]
When we got into the diligence at Bieberich there were two neat peasant-women beside us. We saw the Russian princess, whose carriage had disappointed her, waddling about, attended by her suit, in quest of a passage to Wiesbaden. One of the gentlemen said to her, "The sun is hot; it will be tiresome waiting," and counselled her highness to take a seat in the diligence. "It is quite shocking," she said, "to go in this way." "But there is no other, madame." So she yielded to necessity, and put her royal foot on the step, when, looking up, she shrunk back, exclaiming, "Comment? il y a des paysannes!" ("How is this? there are peasants here!") I am sure we should not have been more dismayed if we had been shoved in with the asses that carried us in the morning. We drove off; and when I compared this woman, with her vacant, gross face, her supercilious demeanour, and her Brussels-lace mantilla, to our peasant companions, with their clean, substantial, well-preserved dresses, their healthful, contented, and serene faces, and their kindly manners, all telling a story of industry, economy, and contentment, I looked proudly, thankfully back to my country of no princesses! Arrogance and superciliousness exist there, no doubt, but they have no birthright for their exercise.
I THINK it is Madame de Staël who, in speaking of travelling as a "triste plaisir," dwells much upon that sad part of it, "hurrying to arrive where none expect you." This was not now our case. We were going "home to Wiesbaden," and there sparkling eyes, welcoming voices, and loving hearts awaited us. And, don't be shocked at the unsentimentality of my mentioning the circumstance, we arrived in time for the five o'clock dinner at the Quatre Saisons, after having passed three days that will be forever bright in memory's calendar, and having paid for all our varied pleasures but about seven dollars each. Had we not them "at a bargain?"
- ↑ The Englishman goes from here to London in two days, and there must pay at a hotel, for the single item in his dinner of a lobster sauce to his salmon, seventy-five cents! No wonder he "puts up" with Germany.