The name over the door was Andreas Hausberger. Will entered the inn with a polite inclination17 of the head, and inquired in his very best German of the first man he saw if he could speak with the landlord.
“I am he,” the stranger said, drawing himself up with much dignity. “This inn is my Schloss. My name is Hausberger.”
Will Deverill surveyed him with a critical air. He had seen such men before; they are not uncommon18 in the rural Tyrol. Tall, powerful, big-built, with a resolute19 face and a determined20 mien21, he looked like a man well able to keep order among the noisy frequenters of his rustic22 tavern23. For the wirth or innkeeper of these remote villages is often, after the priest, the most important personage of the little community: he represents the temporal as the pfarrer represents the spiritual authority. The owner of four or five horses, the entertainer of strange guests, the dispenser of liquor to the countryside, the organiser of festivals, marriage-feasts, and dances, the proprietor24 of the one club and assembly-room of the village, the wirth is necessarily a man of mark and of local position, beyond anything that is usual with his kind elsewhere. In the communal25 council his voice is supreme26; the parlour is his court-house: he settles all quarrels, attests27 all deeds, arranges all assemblies, and assists, as a matter of course, at all rural ceremonies.
“Can we have rooms here for a week?” Will inquired, still in German.
The landlord led them upstairs and showed them two bedrooms on the first floor, roughly furnished, but neat, and, as Florian had foreseen, with a glorious outlook. Will proceeded to inquire, as interpreter for the party, about various details of price, possibilities as to meals, excursions in the neighbourhood, and other practical matters. The landlord answered all in the same self-respecting and almost haughty28 tone as before, assuring him in few words as to the excellence29 of the bread and the meat, the cleanliness of the beds, the soundness of the beer, and the advantages and respectability of his establishment in general. “You will be as well here,” he said, summing up, “as in New York or London?—?a little less luxury, perhaps, but quite as much real and solid comfort.”
“What does he say?” Florian asked, languidly, as the landlord finished. For, though in his capacity as man of culture, the philosopher of taste was prepared to give a critical opinion offhand30 at any moment, on Goethe or Heine, the Minnes?nger, or the Nibelungenlied, he was innocent of even the faintest acquaintance with the German language. Two words in it amply served his turn: with wieviel and ja wohl, he made the tour of the Fatherland.
Will explained to him in brief, and in the vulgar tongue, the nature of the landlord’s somewhat high-flown commendations.
By way of answer Florian unslung his knapsack, which he flung on the bed with as much iron determination as his height permitted. “This’ll do,” he said, decisively?—?this time in his character as the man of impulse. “I like the house; I like the place; I like the view; I like the landlord. He’s a dignified31 looking old boy in his way, the landlord, with that independence of mien and that manly32 chivalry33 which forms an integral part of my mental conception of the Tyrolese character. No bowing and scraping there; no civilised flunkeydom. And that scar on his face, you observe; what a history it conceals34: some free fight on the hills, no doubt, or some tussle35 with a wounded bear in his native forest!”
“Wal, no; not pre-cisely that,” the landlord answered, in very Teutonic English, strangely tinged36 with an under-current of a most Western flavour. “I got that mark in a scrimmage one day on a Mississippi steamer. It was a pretty hard fight, with a pretty hard lot, too?—?he was a real rough customer?—?one of these professional monte-sharpers that go up and down on the boats on the lookout37 for flats; but I settled him, anyway. He didn’t want another when we’d squared accounts over that gash38 on my face. He retired39 into private life at the St Louis hospital for the next few voyages.”
Poor Florian collapsed40. This was too, too much! He sank on the sofa with a dejected face, drew a very long breath from the innermost depths of his manly bosom41, and at last gasped42 out with a violent effort: “Are there no Tyrolese in the Tyrol at all, then?”
The landlord smiled, a restrained and cautious smile. He was a self-contained sort of man, very large and roomy. “Why, I’m a Tyroler, myself,” he said, opening the second window, and bustling43 about the room a little?—?“as Tyrolese as they make ’em; but I’ve been around the world a bit, for all that, both in Europe and America.”
“You play the zither?” Will inquired, guessing at once what quest was most likely to have taken him there.
The landlord shook his head. “No; I sing,” he answered. “It was in charge of a troupe44 that I went over the water. You know Ludwig Rainer?”
“Who has an hotel on the Achensee?” Will replied. “The well-known jodel singer? Yes; I’ve stayed there and heard him.”
“Wal, he set the thing going,” Herr Andreas Hausberger continued, still bustling about the room; “he took over a troupe to New York and Chicawgo. The first time, he fell in with a pack of scoundrels who cheated him of everything he made by the trip. The second time, he came back with a few hundred dollars. The third time, he got into a very good thing, and made money enough out of his tour to start the Seehof. So I followed suit, but I only saved enough on my first venture to set me up here in this house in the village. It’s a one-horse affair for a man like me. Next time, I hope I shall make a little capital to start a big hotel for foreign tourists and kur-guests at Meran or Innsbruck.”
“Then you mean to go again?” Will Deverill asked, sitting down.
“Why, certainly,” the landlord answered, retreating to the door, “as soon as ever I can get another good troupe together again.” And with a ceremonious bow, like a courtly gentleman that he was, he retired downstairs to superintend the preparation of those fresh mountain trout he had promised them for dinner.
As soon as he was gone, Florian raised himself on one elbow like a startled butterfly, with an air of studious vacancy45, and stared hard at Will Deverill. “What an extraordinary country,” he murmured, with a pensive46 sigh. “It’s Babel reversed. Everybody seems to speak and understand every European language. The very babes and sucklings call one names as one passes, in vile47 gutter48 English. It’s really quite uncanny. Who’d have thought, now, of meeting in an out-of-the-way lost corner of earth like this, a village innkeeper who’s a man of the world, a distinguished49 traveller, an accomplished50 linguist51, and an intelligent impresario52? The ways of Providence53 are truly mysterious! What a place to bury such a shining light! Why dump him down so, in this untrodden valley?”
“Oh, it’s not by any means such a singular case as you suppose,” Will answered, looking up from the knapsack he was engaged in unpacking54?—?“above all, in the Zillerthal. I’ve never been here before myself, but I’ve always been told in other parts of the Tyrol that the Zillerthalers, men and girls, are every one of them born musicians. And as for our landlord here, the Tyrolese wirth is always a man of light and leading in his own society. He opposes the priest, and heads the liberal party. All the popular leaders in the war of independence in the Tyrol were monks55 or innkeepers. Andreas Hofer, himself, you know, had an inn of his own in the Passer valley.”
“Ah, to be sure,” Florian ejaculated, in an acquiescent56 tone of a peculiar57 calibre, which showed his friend at once he hadn’t the remotest idea who Andreas Hofer was, or why one should be expected to know anything about him. Now, want of knowledge on such a point is, of course, most natural and pardonable in a stranger; but there was no sufficient reason, Will Deverill thought, for Florian’s pretence58 at its possession where he really knew nothing. That, however, was poor Florian’s foible. He couldn’t bear to have it thought he was ignorant of anything, from mathematics or music to esoteric Buddhism59. If a native of Siberia had addressed him casually60 in the Ostiak dialect of the Tungusian language, Florian would have nodded and smiled a non-committing assent61, as though Ostiak had always been his mother-tongue, and he had drunk in Tungusian at his nurse’s bosom.
“You know who Andreas Hofer was, of course?” Deverill went on, persistently62. He was a devil of a fellow for not letting you off when he caught you out in an innocent little piece of social pretension63, was Deverill.
Florian, thus hard pressed, found himself compelled to do what he hated most in the world?—?confess his ignorance. “I remember the gentleman’s respected name, of course!” he said, dubiously64, with a sickly smile and a little forced pleasantry; “but his precise claims to distinction, as Men of the Time puts it in its cheerful circular, entirely65 escape my memory for the moment.”
“He was the leader of the spontaneous Tyrolese peasant movement, you know, for the expulsion of the French and their Bavarian allies in 1808 or thereabouts,” Will went on, still unpacking. “Napoleon caught him at last, and had him shot at Mantua. You’ll see his tomb when you go to Innsbruck, and lots of other mementos66 of him all over the country everywhere. He pervades67 the place. He’s the national hero, in fact?—?the martyr68 of independence?—?a sort of later and more historical William Wallace.”
“Dear me, yes; how stupid of me!” Florian cried, clapping his hand to his head in a sudden burst of pretended recollection. “It comes back to me now, of course. Good old Andreas Hofer! How could I ever forget him? The Tyrolese William Tell! The Hampden of the Alps! The undaunted Caractacus of these snow-clad mountains!”
Deverill pulled off his coat. “If I were you,” he said, drily, “instead of rhapsodising here, I’d go into my own room, have a jolly good wash, and get ready for dinner. We must have walked about twenty-two miles since we got out at Jenbach, and this bracing69 air gives one a positively70 Gargantuan71 appetite.”
Florian roused himself with a yawn, for though vigorous enough for his size, he was a lazy creature, and when once he sat down it was with difficulty he could be prevailed upon to put himself in motion again. Ten minutes later they were seated at the white-covered table in the tidy little salon72, doing the fullest justice to the delicious broiled73 trout, the foaming74 amber75 ale, the fresh laid eggs, and the excellent home-made bread, provided, according to promise, by Herr Andreas Hausberger.
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1
immediate
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| adj.立即的；直接的，最接近的；紧靠的 | |
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panorama
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| n.全景，全景画，全景摄影，全景照片[装置] | |
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enchanted
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| adj. 被施魔法的，陶醉的，入迷的 动词enchant的过去式和过去分词 | |
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4
fatigues
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| n.疲劳( fatigue的名词复数 )；杂役；厌倦；（士兵穿的）工作服 | |
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comely
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| adj.漂亮的，合宜的 | |
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boulders
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| n.卵石( boulder的名词复数 )；巨砾；（受水或天气侵蚀而成的）巨石；漂砾 | |
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7
shingled
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| adj.盖木瓦的；贴有墙面板的v.用木瓦盖(shingle的过去式和过去分词形式) | |
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8
quaint
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| adj.古雅的，离奇有趣的，奇怪的 | |
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tapering
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| adj.尖端细的 | |
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spire
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| n.(教堂)尖顶，尖塔，高点 | |
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11
prettily
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| adv.优美地；可爱地 | |
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12
slates
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| （旧时学生用以写字的）石板( slate的名词复数 )； 板岩； 石板瓦； 石板色 | |
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13
hospitable
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| adj.好客的；宽容的；有利的，适宜的 | |
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14
homely
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| adj.家常的，简朴的；不漂亮的 | |
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15
wholesome
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| adj.适合；卫生的；有益健康的；显示身心健康的 | |
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16
trout
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| n.鳟鱼；鲑鱼(属) | |
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17
inclination
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| n.倾斜；点头；弯腰；斜坡；倾度；倾向；爱好 | |
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18
uncommon
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| adj.罕见的，非凡的，不平常的 | |
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19
resolute
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| adj.坚决的，果敢的 | |
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determined
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| adj.坚定的；有决心的 | |
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21
mien
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| n.风采；态度 | |
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22
rustic
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| adj.乡村的，有乡村特色的；n.乡下人，乡巴佬 | |
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23
tavern
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| n.小旅馆，客栈；小酒店 | |
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24
proprietor
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| n.所有人；业主；经营者 | |
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25
communal
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| adj.公有的，公共的，公社的，公社制的 | |
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26
supreme
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| adj.极度的，最重要的；至高的，最高的 | |
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27
attests
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| v.证明( attest的第三人称单数 )；证实；声称…属实；使宣誓 | |
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28
haughty
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| adj.傲慢的，高傲的 | |
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29
excellence
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| n.优秀，杰出，(pl.)优点，美德 | |
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30
offhand
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| adj.临时，无准备的；随便，马虎的 | |
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dignified
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| a.可敬的，高贵的 | |
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32
manly
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| adj.有男子气概的；adv.男子般地，果断地 | |
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33
chivalry
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| n.骑士气概，侠义；（男人）对女人彬彬有礼，献殷勤 | |
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34
conceals
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| v.隐藏，隐瞒，遮住( conceal的第三人称单数 ) | |
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35
tussle
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| n.&v.扭打，搏斗，争辩 | |
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36
tinged
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| v.（使）发丁丁声( ting的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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37
lookout
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| n.注意，前途，瞭望台 | |
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38
gash
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| v.深切，划开；n.(深长的)切(伤)口；裂缝 | |
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39
retired
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| adj.隐退的，退休的，退役的 | |
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40
collapsed
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| adj.倒塌的 | |
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41
bosom
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| n.胸，胸部；胸怀；内心；adj.亲密的 | |
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42
gasped
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| v.喘气( gasp的过去式和过去分词 )；喘息；倒抽气；很想要 | |
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43
bustling
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| adj.喧闹的 | |
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troupe
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| n.剧团，戏班；杂技团；马戏团 | |
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45
vacancy
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| n.（旅馆的）空位，空房，（职务的）空缺 | |
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46
pensive
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| a.沉思的,哀思的,忧沉的 | |
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47
vile
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| adj.卑鄙的，可耻的，邪恶的；坏透的 | |
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48
gutter
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| n.沟，街沟，水槽，檐槽，贫民窟 | |
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49
distinguished
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| adj.卓越的，杰出的，著名的 | |
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50
accomplished
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| adj.有才艺的；有造诣的；达到了的 | |
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51
linguist
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| n.语言学家；精通数种外国语言者 | |
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52
impresario
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| n.歌剧团的经理人；乐团指挥 | |
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53
providence
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| n.深谋远虑，天道，天意；远见；节约；上帝 | |
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54
unpacking
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| n.取出货物，拆包[箱]v.从（包裹等）中取出（所装的东西），打开行李取出( unpack的现在分词 )；拆包；解除…的负担；吐露（心事等） | |
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55
monks
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| n.修道士，僧侣( monk的名词复数 ) | |
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56
acquiescent
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| adj.默许的，默认的 | |
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57
peculiar
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| adj.古怪的，异常的；特殊的，特有的 | |
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58
pretence
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| n.假装，作假；借口，口实；虚伪；虚饰 | |
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59
Buddhism
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| n.佛教（教义） | |
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60
casually
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| adv.漠不关心地，无动于衷地，不负责任地 | |
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61
assent
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| v.批准，认可；n.批准，认可 | |
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62
persistently
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| ad.坚持地；固执地 | |
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63
pretension
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| n.要求；自命，自称；自负 | |
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64
dubiously
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| adv.可疑地，怀疑地 | |
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65
entirely
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| ad.全部地，完整地；完全地，彻底地 | |
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66
mementos
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| 纪念品，令人回忆的东西( memento的名词复数 ) | |
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pervades
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| v.遍及，弥漫( pervade的第三人称单数 ) | |
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68
martyr
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| n.烈士，殉难者；vt.杀害，折磨，牺牲 | |
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69
bracing
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| adj.令人振奋的 | |
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70
positively
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| adv.明确地，断然，坚决地；实在，确实 | |
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71
gargantuan
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| adj.巨大的，庞大的 | |
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72
salon
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| n.[法]沙龙；客厅；营业性的高级服务室 | |
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73
broiled
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| a.烤过的 | |
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74
foaming
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| adj.布满泡沫的；发泡 | |
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75
amber
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| n.琥珀；琥珀色；adj.琥珀制的 | |
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