“Does some one live here?” I hazarded, lamely10.
“Certainly, the Wagner family,” he replied, sharply, glaring at me under bushy eyebrows11.
“But—er—Frau Wagner being dead, I thought....”
“Frau Wagner is as alive as you or I,” he retorted, staring as if he suspected me of being some harmless species of maniac12.
“Frau Cosima Wagner, wife of the composer?” I persisted, smiling at what seemed to be the forgetfulness of an old man; “why, my dear fellow, her death was in the papers a year ago....”
“Frau Cosima Wagner, jawohl, mein Herr,” he retorted. “As I cut flowers for her room every morning and see her every afternoon, I suppose I know as much about it as the papers. It was quite another Frau Wagner who died last year; and the fool newspapers seldom know what they are talking about, anyway. Then there is....”
His voice had dropped to a whisper and I followed the gaze he had turned into the house. Over the veranda balustrade a bareheaded man stared down at us like one who had been disturbed from mental labors13, or an afternoon nap, by our chatter14. He was short and slight, yet rather strongly built, too, with iron-gray hair and a smooth-shaven face. A photograph I had seen somewhere suddenly rose to the surface of my memory and I recognized Siegfried Wagner, son of the musician, whose existence I had for the moment forgotten. Having glared us into silence, he turned abruptly15 and re-entered the house.
“Herr Siegfried and his wife and his two children live here also,” went on the gardener, in a whisper that was still harsh and uninviting, “and....”
323But I was already beating a discreet16 retreat, resolved to make sure of my ground before I marched in upon another “museum.”
I turned down the next side-street, passing on the corner the house of Herr Chamberlain, the Englishman who married Frau Wagner’s daughter, and, farther on, the former home of Liszt, not the least of the old lady’s acquaintances, then unexpectedly found myself again looking in upon the Wagner residence. The high brick wall had suddenly ended and the iron-grilled fence that followed it disclosed flower-gardens and house in their entirety. It was an agreeable dwelling-place, certainly, flanked front and rear with forest-like parks in which birds sang constantly, and set far enough back from the main street so that its noises blended together into what, no doubt, the composer would have recognized as music.
But I had no intention of spying upon a private residence. I turned my face sternly to the front and hurried on—until a sound between a cough and a hiss17, twice repeated, called my attention once more to the flower-plots behind the grill4. The aged gardener was worming his way hurriedly toward me and beckoning18 me to wait. When only an upright iron bar separated us he whispered hoarsely19, still in his curiously20 unwelcoming tone:
“If you wish to see the Wagner grave, turn down that next opening into the park and come back this way through it. I will be at the gate to let you in.”
He had the back entrance to the Wagner estate unlocked when I reached it and led the way around a mass of flowering bushes to the plain flat slab21 of marble without inscription22 under which the composer lies buried in his own back yard. But for the house fifty yards away it would have been easy to imagine oneself in the depth of a forest. The old gardener considered his fee earned when he had showed me the grave, and he answered my questions with cold brevity. 324He had held his present position for thirty-eight years. Of course he had known Herr Richard. Hadn’t he seen and talked with him every day for many years? No, there was nothing unusual about him. He was like any other rich man, except that he was always making music. It was plain that the gardener thought this a rather foolish hobby. He spoke23 of his former master with that slight tinge24 of scorn, mingled25 with considerable pride at the importance of his own position, which servants so often show in discussing employers whom the world considers famous, and changed the subject as soon as possible to the all-engrossing scarcity26 of food. Even Herr Siegfried and his family suffered from that, he asserted. He was still grumbling27 hungrily when he pocketed what pewter coins I had left and, locking the gate, shuffled back to his watering-pots.
The outwardly ugly Wagner opera-house on a hillock at the farther end of town was as dismal28 in its abandonment as most cheap structures become that have stood five years unoccupied and unrepaired. There was nothing to recall the famous singers and the international throngs29 from kings to scrimping schoolma’ams from overseas, who had so often gathered here for the annual Wagner festival. A few convalescing30 soldiers lounged under the surrounding trees; from the graveled terrace one had an all-embracing view of Bayreuth and the rolling hills about it. But only a few twittering birds broke the silence of a spot that had so often echoed with the strident strains of all the musical instruments known to mankind.
The change from a country town of three thousand to a city of thirty thousand emphasized once more the disadvantage, in the matter of food, of the urban dweller31. The hotel that housed me in Bayreuth swarmed32 with waiters in evening dress and with a host of useless flunkies, but its dining-room was no place for a tramp’s appetite. The scarcity was made all the more oppressive by the 325counting of crumbs33 and laboriously34 entering them in a ledger36, which occupied an imposing37 personage at the door, after the fashion of Europe’s more expensive establishments. In a Bavarian Gasthaus a dinner of meat, potatoes, bread, and perhaps a soup left the most robust38 guest at peace with the world for hours afterward39. I ordered the same here, but when I had seen the “meat” I quickly concluded not to skip the fish course, and the sight of that turned my attention once more to the menu-card. When I had made way with all it had to offer, from top to bottom, I rose with a strong desire to go somewhere and get something to eat. It would probably have been a vain quest, in Bayreuth. Yet my bill was more than one-fourth as much as the one hundred and twenty-four marks I had squandered40 during my first week on the road in Bavaria.
The hotel personnel was vastly excited at the announcement of my nationality. To them it seemed to augur41 the arrival of more of my fellow-countrymen, with their well-filled purses, to be the rebeginning of the good old days when tips showered upon them. Moreover, it gave them an opportunity to air their opinions on the “peace of violence” and the Allied42 world in general. They were typically German opinions, all carefully tabulated43 under the customary headings. The very errand-boys bubbled over with impressions on those unescapable Fourteen Points; they knew by heart the reasons why the proposed treaty was “inacceptable” and “unfulfillable.” But the final attitude of all was, “Let’s stop this foolish fighting and get back to the times of the annual festival and its flocks of tourists.”
The Royal Opera House next door announced a gala performance that evening. I got my ticket early, fearful of being crowded away from what promised to be my first artistic44 treat in a fortnight. I took pains to choose a seat near enough the front to catch each detail, yet far enough away from the orchestra not to be deafened45 by its Wagnerian 326roar—and when I arrived the orchestra seemed to have been dead for years! The place it should have occupied was filled with broken chairs and music-racks black with age, and resembled nothing so much as grandfather’s garret. A single light, somewhat more powerful than a candle, burned high up under the dome46 of the house and cast faint, weird47 flickers48 over its dusty regal splendor49. For some reason the place was cold as an ice-house, though the weather outside was comfortable, and the scattered50 audience shivered audibly in its scanty52 Ersatz garments. It was without doubt the most poorly dressed, unprepossessing little collection of hearers that I had ever seen gathered together in such an edifice53. One was reminded not merely that the textile-mills of Bayreuth had only paper to work with now, but that soap had become an unattainable luxury in Germany. Plainly das Volk had taken over the exiled king’s playhouse for itself. Even the ornate old royal loge was occupied by a few patched soldiers and giggling55 girls of the appearance of waitresses. But to what purpose? Surely such an audience as this could not find entertainment in one of Germany’s classics! Alas56! it was I who had been led astray! The promising57 title of the play announced was mere54 camouflage58. Who perpetrated the incomprehensible, inane59 rubbish on which the curtain finally rose, and why, are questions I willingly left to the howling audience, which dodged60 back and forth61, utterly62 oblivious63 of the fact that the Royal Opera House had been erected64 before theater-builders discovered that it was easier to see between two heads than through one. Surely German Kultur, theatrically65 at least, was on the down-grade in Bayreuth.
A few miles out along a highway framed in apple blossoms next morning I overtook a group of some twenty persons. The knapsacks on their backs suggested a party of “hamsterers,” but as I drew nearer I noted66 that each carried some species of musical instrument. Now and 327again the whole group fell to singing and playing as they marched, oblivious to the stares of the peasants along the way. I concluded that it was my duty to satisfy my curiosity by joining them, and did so by a simple little ruse67, plus the assistance of my kodak. They were a S?ngerverein from Bayreuth. Each holiday they celebrated68 by an excursion to some neighboring town, and this was Himmelsfahrt, or Assumption Day. The members ranged from shy little girls of twelve to stodgy69 men and women of fifty. The leader was a blind man, a veteran of the trenches70, who not only directed the playing and singing, with his cane71 as a baton72, but marched briskly along the snaky highway without a hint of assistance.
There were a half-dozen discharged soldiers in the glee club, but if anything this increased the eagerness with which I was welcomed. Their attitude was almost exactly what would be that of a football team which chanced to meet a rival player a year or so after disbanding—they were glad to compare notes and to amuse themselves by living over old times again. For a while I deliberately73 tried to stir up some sign of anger or resentment74 among them; if they had any personal feelings during the contest they had now completely faded out of existence. One dwarfish75, insignificant76, whole-hearted little fellow, a mill-hand on week-days, had been in the same sector77 as I during the reduction of the St.-Mihiel salient. Unless we misunderstood each other’s description of it, I had entered the dugout he had lived in for months a few hours after he so hastily abandoned it. He laughed heartily78 at my description of the food we had found still on the stove; he had been cook himself that morning. Every one knew, he asserted, that the St.-Mihiel attack was coming, two weeks before it started, but no one had expected it that cold, rainy morning. On the strength of the coincidence we had discovered, he proposed me as an honorary member of the Verein for the 328day, and the nomination79 was quickly and unanimously accepted.
We loafed on through the perfect early-summer morning, a soloist80 striking up on voice and instrument now and then, the whole club joining frequently in some old German song proposed by the blind leader, halting here and there to sit in the shade of a grassy81 slope, pouring pellmell every mile or two into a Gasthaus, where even the shy little girls emptied their half-liter mugs of beer without an effort. One of the ex-soldiers enlivened the stroll by giving me his unexpurgated opinion of the Prussians. They “hogged” everything they could lay their hands on, he grumbled82. Prussian wounded sent to Bavaria had been fed like princes; Bavarians who were so unfortunate as to be assigned to hospitals in Prussia—he had suffered that misfortune himself—had been treated like cattle and robbed even of the food sent them from home. He “had no use for” die verdammten Preussen, from any viewpoint; it was their “big men” who had started the war in the first place, but.... No, indeed, Bavaria could not afford to separate from Prussia. She had no coal of her own and she had no seaport84. Business interests were too closely linked together through all the Empire to make separation possible. It would be cutting their own throats.
Toward noon we reached the village of Neudrossenfeld, where the Verein had engaged for the day a rambling86 old country inn, with a spacious87 dance-hall above an outdoor Kegelbahn for those who bowled, and a shady arbor88 overlooking a vast stretch of rolling summer landscape for those who did not, in the garden at the rear. Other glee clubs, from Kulmbach and another neighboring city, had occupied the other two Gasth?user and every even semi-public establishment. The town resounded89 from one end to the other with singing and playing, with laughter and dancing, with the clatter90 of ninepins and the rattle91 of table utensils92. A lone93 stranger without glee-club standing94 would have been 329forced to plod95 on, hungry and thirsty. I spent half the afternoon in the shady arbor. Several of the girls were well worth looking at; the music, not being over-ambitious, added just the needed touch to the languid, sun-flooded day. One could not but be struck by the innocence96 of these typically Bavarian pleasures. Not a suggestion of rowdyism, none of the questionable97 antics of similar gatherings99 in some other lands, marred100 the amusements of these childlike holiday-makers. They were as gentle-mannered as the tones of the guitars, zithers, and mandolins they thrummed so diligently101, with never a rude word or act even toward hangers-on like myself. Yet there was a bit less gaiety than one would have expected. Even the youthful drifted now and then into moods of sadness—or was it mere apathy102 due to their long lack of abundant wholesome103 food?
The philosophical104 old landlord brought us a word of wisdom with each double-handful of overflowing105 beer-mugs. “If ever the world gets reasonable again,” he mused106, “the good old times will come back—and we shall be able to serve real beer at the proper price. But what ideas people get into their Sch?dels nowadays! They can never let well enough alone. The moment man gets contented107, the moment he has everything as it should be, he must go and start something and tumble it all into a heap again.”
A rumor108 broke out that cookies were being sold across the street. I joined the foraging109-party that quickly fled from the arbor. When we reached the house of the enterprising old lady who had mothered this brilliant idea it was packed with clamoring humanity like the scene of the latest crime of violence. At intervals110 a glee-clubber catapulted out of the mob, grinning gleefully and tenaciously111 clutching in one hand a paper sack containing three of the precious Kuchen, but even with so low a ration85 the producer could not begin to make headway against the feverish112 demands. I decided113 that I could not justly add my extraneous114 competition 330in a contest that meant so much more to others and, taking my leave of the S?ngerverein, struck off again to the north.
A middle-aged115 baker116 from Kulmbach, who had been “hamstering” all day, with slight success, fell in with me. He had that pathetic, uncomplaining manner of so many of his class, seeming to lay his misfortunes at the door of some power too high to be reached by mere human protest. The war had left him one eye and a weakened physique. Two Ersatz teeth gleamed at me dully whenever his wan117 smile disclosed them. He worked nights, and earned forty-eight marks a week. That was eighteen more than he had been paid before the war, to be sure, and the hours were a bit shorter. But how was a man to feed a wife and three children on forty-eight marks, with present prices; would I tell him that? He walked his legs off during the hours he wished to be sleeping, and often came home without so much as a potato. There were a dozen or so in his rucksack now, and he had tramped more than thirty kilometers. I suggested that the apples would be large enough on the trees that bordered our route to be worth picking in a couple of months. He gave me a startled glance, as if I had proposed that we rob a bank together. The apples along public highways, he explained patiently, were property of the state. No one but those the government sent to pick them could touch them. True, hunger was driving people to strange doings these days. Guards patrolled the roads now when the apples began to get ripe. Peasants had to protect their potato-fields in the same manner. He, however, would remain an honest man, no matter what happened to him or to his wife and his three children. The apparently118 complete absence of country police was one of the things I had often wondered at during my tramp. The baker assured me that none were needed, except in harvest time. He had never seen a kodak in action. He 331would not at first believe that it could catch a picture in an instant. Surely it would need a half-hour or so to get down all the details! Queer people Americans must be, to send men out through the world just to get pictures of simple country people. Still he wouldn’t mind having a trade like that himself—if it were not for his wife and his three children.
Kulmbach, noted the world over for its beer, is surrounded with immense breweries119 as with a medieval city wall. But the majority of them stood idle. The beverages120 to be had in its Gasth?user, too, bore little resemblance to the rich Kulmbacher of pre-war days. Thanks perhaps to its industrial character, the city of breweries seemed to be even shorter of food than Bayreuth; or it may be that its customary supply had disappeared during the celebration of Assumption Day. The meat-tickets I had carried all the way from Munich were required here for the first time. Some very appetizing little rolls were displayed in several shop-windows, but when I attempted to stock up on them I found they were to be had in exchange for special Marken, issued to Kulmbachers only. There was a more sinister121, a more surly air about Kulmbach, with its garrison122 of Prussian-mannered soldiers housed in a great fortress123 on a hill towering high above the town, than I had thus far found in Bavaria.
As I sat down to an alleged124 dinner in a self-styled hotel, my attention was drawn125 to a noisy group at a neighboring table. I stared in amazement126, not so much because the five men opposite were Italian soldiers in the uniform with which I had grown so familiar during my service on the Padovan plains the summer before, but because of the astonishing contrast between them and the pale, thin Germans about me. The traveler grows quickly accustomed to any abnormality of type of the people among whom he is living. He soon forgets that they look different from other people—until 332suddenly the appearance of some really normal being in their midst brings his judgment127 back with a jerk to his customary standards. I had grown to think of the Germans, particularly the Bavarians, as looking quite fit, a trifle under weight perhaps, but healthy and strong. Now all at once, in comparison with these ruddy, plump, animated128 Italians, they seemed a nation of invalids129. The energetic chatter of the visitors brought out in striking relief the listless taciturnity of the natives; they talked more in an hour than I had ever heard all Germany do in a day. Meanwhile they made way with an immense bowlful of—well, what would you expect Italians to be eating? Macaroni, of course, and with it heaping plates of meat, vegetables, and white hard-bread that made the scant51 fare before me look like a phantom130 meal. I called the landlady131 aside and asked if I might not be served macaroni also. She gave me a disgusted look and informed me that she would be glad to do so—if I would bring it with me, as the Italians had. When I had paid my absurd bill I broke in upon the garrulous132 southerners. They greeted my use of their tongue with a lingual133 uproar134, particularly after I had mentioned my nationality, but quickly cooled again with a reference to Fiume, and satisfied my curiosity only to the extent of stating that they were billeted in Kulmbach “on official business.”
I sought to replenish135 my food-tickets before setting out again next morning, but found the municipal Lebensmittelversorgung packed ten rows deep with disheveled housewives. Scientists have figured it out that the human body loses twice as much fat standing in line the four or five hours necessary to obtain the few ounces of grease-products issued weekly on the German food ration as the applicant136 receives for his trouble. The housewife, they assert, who remains137 in bed instead of entering the contest gains materially by her conservation of energy. In other words, 333apparently, it would have been better for the Fatherland—to say nothing of the rest of the world—had the entire nation insisted on sleeping during the five years that turned humanity topsy-turvy. Millions agree with them. But for once the German populace declines to accept the assertions of higher authorities and persists in wearing itself out by its struggles to obtain food. However short-sighted this policy may be on the part of the natives, it is certain that the tail-end of a multitude besieging138 a food-ticket dispensary is no place for a traveler gifted with scant patience and a tendency to profanity, and I left Kulmbach behind hours before I could have hoped to reach the laborious35 officials who dealt out legal permission to eat.
A General Staff map in several sheets, openly sold in the shops and giving every cowpath of the region, made it possible for me to set a course due north by compass over the almost mountainous region beyond. “Roads” little more deserving the name than those of the Andes led me up and down across fertile fields, through deep-wooded valleys, and into cozy139 little country villages tucked away in delightful140 corners of the landscape. Even in these the peasant inhabitants complained of the scarcity of food, and for the most part declined to sell anything. They recalled the South American Indian again in their transparent141 ruses142 to explain the visible presence of foodstuffs143. Ducks, geese, and chickens, here and there guinea-fowls, peacocks, rabbits, not to mention pigs, sheep, and cattle, enlivened the village lanes and the surrounding meadows, but every suggestion of meat brought from innkeepers and shopkeepers clumsy, non-committal replies. At one Gasthaus where I had been refused anything but beer I opened by design the wrong door at my exit, and stared with amazement at four heaping bushel baskets of eggs, a score of grindstone-shaped cheeses, and an abundant supply of other local products that all but completely filled what I had 334correctly surmised145 was the family storeroom. “They are not ours,” exclaimed the landlady, hastily; “they belong to others, who will not permit us to sell anything.” Her competitor across the street was more hospitable147, but the anticipations148 I unwisely permitted his honeyed words to arouse were sadly wrecked149 when the “dinner” he promised stopped abruptly at a watery150 soup, with a meager151 serving of real bread and butter. Another village astonished me by yielding a whole half-pound of cheese; it boasted a Kuhk?serei—what we might call a “cow cheesery”—that was fortunately out of proportion to its transportation facilities. Rodach, at the bottom of a deep cleft152 in the hills where my route crossed the main railway line to the south, had several by no means empty shops. I canvassed153 them all without reward, except that one less hard-hearted soul granted me a scoopful154 of the mysterious purple “marmalade” which, with the possible exception of turnips155, seemed to be the only plentiful156 foodstuff144 in Germany. But has the reader ever carried a pint157 of marmalade, wrapped in a sheet of porous158 paper, over ten miles of mountainous byways on a warm summer afternoon? If not, may I not be permitted to insist, out of the fullness of experience, that it is far wiser to swallow the sickly stuff on the spot, without hoping in vain to find bread to accompany it, or, indeed, to smear159 it on some convenient house-wall, than to undertake that hazardous160 feat161?
In short, my travels were growing more and more a constant foraging expedition, with success never quite overhauling162 appetite. The country, indeed, was changing in character, and with it the inhabitants. I had entered a region noted for its slate163 quarries164, and in place of the attractive little villages, with their red-tile roofs and masses of flowering bushes, there came dismal, slate-built black hamlets, almost treeless in setting and peopled by less progressive, more slovenly165 citizens. The only public hostess 335of Lahm refused to take me in for the night because her husband was not at home, a circumstance for which I was duly thankful after one glimpse of her slatternly household. A mile or more farther on my eyes were drawn to an unusual sight. An immense rounded hillock ahead stood forth in the sunset like an enameled166 landscape painted in daring lilac-purple hues167. When I reached it I found acres upon acres closely grown with that species of wild pansy which American children call “snap-heads.” Similar fields followed, until the entire country-side had taken on the-same curious color, and the breeze blowing across it carried to the nostrils168 a perfume almost overpowering in its intensity169. They were not, as I supposed, meadows lying fallow and overrun with a useless, if attractive, weed, but another example of the German’s genius for discovering Ersatz species of nourishment170. Sown like wheat in the spring, the flowers were harvested, stem and all, in the autumn, and sent to Hamburg to be made into “tea.”
Effelter was as black as any African tribe, but its Gasthaus was homelike enough within. By the time darkness had thoroughly171 fallen its every table was closely surrounded by oxlike, hob-nailed countrymen who had stamped in, singly or in small groups, as the last daylight faded away. The innkeeper and his family strove in vain to keep every mug filled, and sprinkled the floor from end to end with drippings of beer. The town was Catholic. While the church-bell tolled172 the end of evening vespers, the entire gathering98 sat silently, with bared heads, as is the Bavarian custom, but once the tolling173 had ceased they did not resume their interrupted conversation. Instead they rose as one man and, each carrying his beer-mug, filed solemnly across the hallway into an adjoining room. The landlord disappeared with them, and I was left entirely174 alone, except for one horny-handed man of fifty at my own table. He slid bit by bit along the bench on which we both sat, until 336his elbow touched mine, and entered into conversation by proffering175 some remark in the crippled dialect of the region about the close connection between crops and weather.
From the adjoining room rose sounds of untrained oratory176, mingled with the dull clinking of beer-mugs. The innkeeper and his family had by no means abandoned their service of supply; they had merely laid out a new line of communication between spigots and consumers. Gradually the orderly discussion became a dispute, then an uproar in which a score of raucous177 voices joined. I looked questioningly at my companion.
“They are electing a new Bürgemeister,” he explained, interrupting a question he was asking about the “peasants” of America. “It is always a fight between the Bürger and the Arbeiter—the citizens and the workers—in which the workers always win in the end.”
One could easily surmise146 in which class he claimed membership by the scornful tone in which he pronounced the word “citizen.”
“I live in another town,” he added, when I expressed surprise that he remained with me in the unlighted Gastzimmer instead of joining his fellows.
I slipped out into the hallway and glanced in upon the disputants. A powerful young peasant stood in an open space between the tables, waving his beer-mug over his head with a gesture worthy178 of the Latin race, at the same time shouting some tirade179 against the “citizens.” An older man, somewhat better dressed, pounded the table with his empty glass and bellowed180 repeatedly: “Na, da’ is’ giene Wahrhied! Da’ is’ giene Wahrhied, na!” The other twoscore electors sipped181 their beer placidly182 and added new clouds to the blue haze183 of tobacco smoke that already half hid the gathering, only now and then adding their voices to the dispute. It was evident that the youthful Arbeiter had the great majority 337with him. As I turned away, my eyes caught a detail of the election that had so far escaped my attention. In a corner of the hallway, huddled184 closely together, stood a score or more of women, dressed in the gloomy all-black of church service, peering curiously into the room where their husbands smoked, drank, and disputed, and preserving the most absolute silence.
I mentioned the detail to my companion of the guest-room, recalling frequent assertions by Germans in a position to know that the women had been quick to take advantage of the granting of equal suffrage185 to both sexes by the new “republican” government.
“Certainly,” he replied, “they have the right to vote, but the German Frau has not lost her character. She is still satisfied to let her man speak for her. Oh yes, to be sure, in the large cities there are women who insist on voting for themselves. But then, in the cities there are women who insist on smoking cigarettes!”
In contrast with this conservative, rural viewpoint I have been assured by persons worthy of credence186 that in the more populous187 centers some 80 per cent. of the women flocked to the polls for the first election in which suffrage was granted them.
An Arbeiter was eventually elected burgmaster of Effelter, as the non-resident had prophesied188, but not until long after I had retired189 to a bedroom above the place of meeting. The vocal190 uproar intruded191 for some time upon my dreams and mingled fantastically with them. From the dull clinking of mugs that continued far into the night it was easy to surmise that the evening election turned out to the complete satisfaction, at least, of the innkeeper and his family.
My route next morning lay along the top of a high plateau, wooded in places, but by no means such an Andean wilderness192 of forest and mountain as that which spread 338away to the horizon on the left, across a great chasm193, in the direction of Teuschnitz. Black hills of slate stood here and there tumbled together in disorderly heaps. Tschirn, the last town of Bavaria, laid out on a bare sloping hillside as if on display as a curiosity in the world’s museum, was jet-black from end to end. Not merely were its walls and roofs covered with slate, but its very foundations and cobblestones, even the miniature lake in its outskirts194, were slate-black in color.
It was in Tschirn that I discovered I had been “overlooking a bet” on the food question—experience, alas! so often arrives too late to be of value! The innkeepess to whom I murmured some hint about lunch shook her head without looking up from her ironing, but a moment later she added, casually195:
“You passed the butcher’s house a few yards down the hill, and to-day is Saturday.”
The last day of the week, I had been slow in discovering, was meat day in most of the smaller towns of Germany. I grasped at the hint and hastened down to the slate-faced Metzgerei. As I thrust my head in at the door, the Falstaffian butcher paused with his cleaver196 in the air and rumbled83, “Ha! Ein ganz Fremder!” (“A total stranger”). The carcass of a single steer197 was rapidly disappearing under his experienced hands into the baskets of the citizens who formed a line at the home-made counter. As each received his portion and added his meat-tickets to the heap that already overflowed198 a cigar-box, the butcher marked a name off the list that lay before him. I drew out the Anmeldungskarte I had received in Berlin, by no means hopeful that it would be honored in a Bavarian mountain village. The butcher glanced at it, read the penciled “Dauernd auf Reise” (“Always traveling”) at the top, and handed it back to me. The regulations required that I present the document to the Bürgermeister, who would issue 339me meat-tickets to be in turn handed to the butcher; but it happened that the Bürgermeister and butcher of Tschirn were one and the same person.
“Amerikaner, eh!” he cried, hospitably199, at once giving me precedence over his fellow-townsmen, whose stares had doubled at the revelation of my nationality. “Na, they say it is always meat day in America!”
He carefully selected the best portion of the carcass, cut it through the center to get the choicest morsel200, and slashed201 off an appetizing tenderloin that represented the two hundred grams of the weekly meat ration of Tschirn so exactly that the scales teetered for several seconds. Then he added another slice that brought the weight up to a generous half-pound and threw in a nubbin of suet for good measure.
“Making just two marks,” he announced, wrapping it up in a sheet of the local newspaper. “That will put kick in your legs for a day or two—if you watch the cook that prepares it for you.”
There was nothing to indicate where Bavaria ended and Saxe-Weimar began, except the sudden appearance of blue post-boxes instead of yellow, and the change in beer. This jumped all at once from sixteen pfennigs a mug to twenty-five, thirty, and, before the day was done, to forty, at the same time deteriorating202 in size and quality so rapidly that I took to patronizing hillside springs instead of wayside taverns203. At the first town over the border I found the municipal ration official at leisure and laid in a new supply of food-tickets. My week’s allowance of butter, sugar, and lard I bought on the spot, since those particular Marken were good only in specified204 local shops. The purchases did not add materially to the weight of my knapsack. I confess to having cheated the authorities a bit, too, for I had suddenly discovered a loophole in the iron-clad German rationing205 system. The jolly butcher-mayor of Tschirn 340had neglected to note on my “travel-sheet” the tenderloin he had issued me. Meat-tickets were therefore furnished with the rest—and I accepted them without protest. Had all officials been as obliging as he I might have played the same passive trick in every town I passed. But the clerks of the Saxe-Weimar municipality decorated my precious document in a thoroughly German manner with the information that I had been supplied all the tickets to which I was entitled for the ensuing week. That Saturday, however, was a Gargantuan206 period, and a vivid contrast to the hungry day before; for barely had I received this new collection of Marken when an innkeeper served me a generous meat dinner without demanding any of them.
A tramp through the Thuringian highlands, with their deep, black-wooded valleys and glorious hilltops bathed in the cloudless sunshine of early summer, their flower-scented breezes and pine-perfumed woodlands, would convert to pedestrianism the most sedentary of mortals. Laasen was still slate-black, like a village in deep mourning, but the next town, seen far off across a valley in its forest frame, was gay again under the familiar red-tile roofs. With sunset I reached Saalfeld, a considerable city in a broad lowland, boasting a certain grimy industrial progress and long accustomed to batten on tourists. In these untraveled days it was sadly down at heel, and had a grasping disposition207 that made it far less agreeable than the simple little towns behind that earn their own honest living. Food, of course, was scarce and poor, and, as is always the case, the more one paid for it the more exacting208 was the demand for tickets. A hawk-faced hostess charged me twice as much for boiling the meat I had brought with me as I had paid for it in Tschirn.
Sunday had come again. The cities, therefore, were all but forsaken209 and my hob-nails echoed resoundingly through the stone-paved streets. Their inhabitants one found 341miles beyond, “hamstering” the country-side or holidaying with song, dancing, and beer in the little villages higher up among the hills. The habitual210 tramp, however, was nowhere to be seen; the Great War has driven him from the highways of Europe. An occasional band of gipsies, idling about their little houses on wheels, in some shaded glen, or peering out through their white-curtained windows, were the only fellow-vagabonds I met during all my German tramp. I talked with several of them, but they were unusually wary211 of tongue, taking me perhaps for a government spy; hence there was no way of knowing whether their fiery-eyed assertion of patriotism212 was truth or pretense213.
My last village host was a man of far more culture than the average peasant innkeeper. In his youth he had attended the Realschule of Weimar. But Germany is not America in its opportunity to climb the ladder of success irrespective of caste and origin, and he had drifted back to his turnip-fields and a slattern household strangely out of keeping with his clear-thinking mental equipment. He had gone through the entire war as a private, which fact of itself was a striking commentary on the depressing caste system of the German army. Yet there was not the slightest hint in his speech or manner to suggest that he resented what would have been branded a crying injustice214 in a more democratic land. A society of solidified215 strata216 he seemed to find natural and unavoidable. The goddess of chance had been more kind to him than had his fellow-men. Four unbroken years he had served in the trenches, on every front, yet though he towered 1.87 meters aloft, or an inch above the regulation German parapet, his only wound was a tiny nick in the lobe217 of an ear. Gas, however, had left him hollow-chested and given him, during his frequent spasms218 of coughing, a curious resemblance to a shepherd’s crook219.
The thoroughness with which Germany utilized220 her 342man-power during the war was personified in this human pine-tree of the Weimar hills. He had been granted just two furloughs—of six and fourteen days, respectively. Both of them he had spent in his fields, laboring221 from dawn to dark, for, as he put it, “the women were never able to keep up with the crops.” His only grievance222 against fate, however, was the setback223 it had given the education of his children. Since 1914 his boys had received only four hours of schooling224 a week—as to the girls he said nothing, as if they did not matter. The teachers had all gone to war; the village pastor225 had done his best to take the place of six of them. Women, he admitted, might have made tolerable substitutes, but in Germany that was not the custom and they had never been prepared to teach. The optimistic American attitude of overlooking the lack of specific preparation when occasion demanded has no champions in the Fatherland, where professions, as well as trades, are taken with racial seriousness. The end of the war, he complained, with the only suggestion of bitterness he displayed during a long evening, had found him with a son “going on twelve” who could barely spell out the simplest words and could not reckon up the cost of a few mugs of beer without using his fingers.
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1
vistas
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| 长条形景色( vista的名词复数 )； 回顾； 展望； （未来可能发生的）一系列情景 | |
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2
immediate
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| adj.立即的；直接的，最接近的；紧靠的 | |
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3
grilled
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| adj. 烤的, 炙过的, 有格子的 动词grill的过去式和过去分词形式 | |
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grill
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| n.烤架，铁格子，烤肉；v.烧，烤，严加盘问 | |
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latch
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| n.门闩，窗闩；弹簧锁 | |
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veranda
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| n.走廊；阳台 | |
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7
bust
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| vt.打破；vi.爆裂；n.半身像；胸部 | |
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8
aged
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| adj.年老的，陈年的 | |
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shuffled
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| v.洗（纸牌）( shuffle的过去式和过去分词 )；拖着脚步走；粗心地做；摆脱尘世的烦恼 | |
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10
lamely
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| 一瘸一拐地，不完全地 | |
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eyebrows
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| 眉毛( eyebrow的名词复数 ) | |
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12
maniac
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| n.精神癫狂的人；疯子 | |
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13
labors
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| v.努力争取(for)( labor的第三人称单数 )；苦干；详细分析；（指引擎）缓慢而困难地运转 | |
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14
chatter
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| vi.／n.喋喋不休；短促尖叫；(牙齿)打战 | |
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15
abruptly
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| adv.突然地，出其不意地 | |
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16
discreet
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| adj.(言行)谨慎的；慎重的；有判断力的 | |
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17
hiss
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| v.发出嘶嘶声；发嘘声表示不满 | |
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18
beckoning
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| adj.引诱人的，令人心动的v.（用头或手的动作）示意，召唤( beckon的现在分词 ) | |
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19
hoarsely
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| adv.嘶哑地 | |
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20
curiously
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| adv.有求知欲地；好问地；奇特地 | |
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21
slab
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| n.平板，厚的切片；v.切成厚板，以平板盖上 | |
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22
inscription
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| n.（尤指石块上的）刻印文字，铭文，碑文 | |
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23
spoke
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| n.（车轮的）辐条；轮辐；破坏某人的计划；阻挠某人的行动 v.讲，谈（speak的过去式）；说；演说；从某种观点来说 | |
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24
tinge
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| vt.(较淡)着色于，染色；使带有…气息；n.淡淡色彩，些微的气息 | |
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25
mingled
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| 混合，混入( mingle的过去式和过去分词 )； 混进，与…交往[联系] | |
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26
scarcity
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| n.缺乏，不足，萧条 | |
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27
grumbling
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| adj. 喃喃鸣不平的, 出怨言的 | |
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28
dismal
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| adj.阴沉的，凄凉的，令人忧郁的，差劲的 | |
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29
throngs
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| n.人群( throng的名词复数 )v.成群，挤满( throng的第三人称单数 ) | |
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30
convalescing
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| v.康复( convalesce的现在分词 ) | |
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31
dweller
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| n.居住者，住客 | |
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32
swarmed
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| 密集( swarm的过去式和过去分词 )； 云集； 成群地移动； 蜜蜂或其他飞行昆虫成群地飞来飞去 | |
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33
crumbs
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| int. (表示惊讶)哎呀 n. 碎屑 名词crumb的复数形式 | |
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34
laboriously
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| adv.艰苦地；费力地；辛勤地；（文体等）佶屈聱牙地 | |
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35
laborious
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| adj.吃力的，努力的，不流畅 | |
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36
ledger
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| n.总帐，分类帐；帐簿 | |
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37
imposing
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| adj.使人难忘的，壮丽的，堂皇的，雄伟的 | |
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38
robust
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| adj.强壮的，强健的，粗野的，需要体力的，浓的 | |
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39
afterward
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| adv.后来；以后 | |
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40
squandered
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| v.（指钱，财产等）浪费，乱花( squander的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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41
augur
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| n.占卦师；v.占卦 | |
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42
allied
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| adj.协约国的；同盟国的 | |
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43
tabulated
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| 把（数字、事实）列成表( tabulate的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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44
artistic
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| adj.艺术(家)的，美术(家)的；善于艺术创作的 | |
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45
deafened
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| 使聋( deafen的过去式和过去分词 )； 使隔音 | |
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46
dome
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| n.圆屋顶，拱顶 | |
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47
weird
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| adj.古怪的，离奇的；怪诞的，神秘而可怕的 | |
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48
flickers
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| 电影制片业； （通常指灯光）闪烁，摇曳( flicker的名词复数 ) | |
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49
splendor
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| n.光彩；壮丽，华丽；显赫，辉煌 | |
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50
scattered
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| adj.分散的，稀疏的；散步的；疏疏落落的 | |
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51
scant
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| adj.不充分的，不足的；v.减缩，限制，忽略 | |
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52
scanty
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| adj.缺乏的，仅有的，节省的，狭小的，不够的 | |
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53
edifice
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| n.宏伟的建筑物(如宫殿，教室) | |
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54
mere
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| adj.纯粹的；仅仅，只不过 | |
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55
giggling
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| v.咯咯地笑( giggle的现在分词 ) | |
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56
alas
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| int.唉(表示悲伤、忧愁、恐惧等) | |
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57
promising
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| adj.有希望的，有前途的 | |
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58
camouflage
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| n./v.掩饰，伪装 | |
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59
inane
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| adj.空虚的，愚蠢的，空洞的 | |
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60
dodged
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| v.闪躲( dodge的过去式和过去分词 )；回避 | |
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61
forth
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| adv.向前；向外，往外 | |
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62
utterly
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| adv.完全地，绝对地 | |
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63
oblivious
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| adj.易忘的，遗忘的，忘却的，健忘的 | |
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64
ERECTED
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| adj. 直立的，竖立的，笔直的 vt. 使 ... 直立，建立 | |
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65
theatrically
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| adv.戏剧化地 | |
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66
noted
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| adj.著名的，知名的 | |
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67
ruse
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| n.诡计，计策；诡计 | |
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68
celebrated
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| adj.有名的，声誉卓著的 | |
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69
stodgy
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| adj.易饱的；笨重的；滞涩的；古板的 | |
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70
trenches
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| 深沟，地沟( trench的名词复数 )； 战壕 | |
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71
cane
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| n.手杖，细长的茎，藤条；v.以杖击，以藤编制的 | |
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72
baton
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| n.乐队用指挥杖 | |
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73
deliberately
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| adv.审慎地；蓄意地；故意地 | |
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74
resentment
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| n.怨愤，忿恨 | |
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75
dwarfish
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| a.像侏儒的，矮小的 | |
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76
insignificant
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| adj.无关紧要的，可忽略的，无意义的 | |
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77
sector
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| n.部门，部分；防御地段，防区；扇形 | |
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78
heartily
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| adv.衷心地，诚恳地，十分，很 | |
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79
nomination
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| n.提名，任命，提名权 | |
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80
soloist
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| n.独奏者，独唱者 | |
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81
grassy
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| adj.盖满草的；长满草的 | |
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82
grumbled
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| 抱怨( grumble的过去式和过去分词 )； 发牢骚； 咕哝； 发哼声 | |
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83
rumbled
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| 发出隆隆声，发出辘辘声( rumble的过去式和过去分词 )； 轰鸣着缓慢行进； 发现…的真相； 看穿（阴谋） | |
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84
seaport
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| n.海港，港口，港市 | |
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85
ration
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| n.定量(pl.)给养，口粮；vt.定量供应 | |
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86
rambling
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| adj.[建]凌乱的，杂乱的 | |
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87
spacious
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| adj.广阔的，宽敞的 | |
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88
arbor
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| n.凉亭；树木 | |
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89
resounded
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| v.（指声音等）回荡于某处( resound的过去式和过去分词 )；产生回响；（指某处）回荡着声音 | |
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90
clatter
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| v./n.(使)发出连续而清脆的撞击声 | |
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91
rattle
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| v.飞奔，碰响；激怒；n.碰撞声；拨浪鼓 | |
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92
utensils
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| 器具，用具，器皿( utensil的名词复数 )； 器物 | |
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93
lone
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| adj.孤寂的，单独的；唯一的 | |
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94
standing
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| n.持续，地位；adj.永久的，不动的，直立的，不流动的 | |
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95
plod
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| v.沉重缓慢地走，孜孜地工作 | |
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96
innocence
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| n.无罪；天真；无害 | |
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97
questionable
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| adj.可疑的，有问题的 | |
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98
gathering
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| n.集会，聚会，聚集 | |
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99
gatherings
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| 聚集( gathering的名词复数 )； 收集； 采集； 搜集 | |
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100
marred
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| adj. 被损毁, 污损的 | |
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101
diligently
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| ad.industriously;carefully | |
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102
apathy
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| n.漠不关心，无动于衷；冷淡 | |
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103
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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104
philosophical
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| adj.哲学家的，哲学上的，达观的 | |
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105
overflowing
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| n. 溢出物,溢流 adj. 充沛的，充满的 动词overflow的现在分词形式 | |
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106
mused
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| v.沉思，冥想( muse的过去式和过去分词 )；沉思自语说（某事） | |
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107
contented
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| adj.满意的，安心的，知足的 | |
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108
rumor
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| n.谣言，谣传，传说 | |
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109
foraging
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| v.搜寻（食物），尤指动物觅（食）( forage的现在分词 )；（尤指用手）搜寻（东西） | |
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110
intervals
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| n.[军事]间隔( interval的名词复数 )；间隔时间；[数学]区间；（戏剧、电影或音乐会的）幕间休息 | |
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111
tenaciously
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| 坚持地 | |
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112
feverish
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| adj.发烧的，狂热的，兴奋的 | |
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113
decided
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| adj.决定了的，坚决的；明显的，明确的 | |
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114
extraneous
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| adj.体外的；外来的；外部的 | |
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115
middle-aged
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| adj.中年的 | |
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116
baker
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| n.面包师 | |
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117
wan
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| (wide area network)广域网 | |
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118
apparently
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| adv.显然地；表面上，似乎 | |
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119
breweries
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| 酿造厂，啤酒厂( brewery的名词复数 ) | |
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120
beverages
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| n.饮料( beverage的名词复数 ) | |
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121
sinister
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| adj.不吉利的，凶恶的，左边的 | |
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122
garrison
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| n.卫戍部队；驻地，卫戍区；vt.派(兵)驻防 | |
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123
fortress
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| n.堡垒，防御工事 | |
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124
alleged
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| a.被指控的，嫌疑的 | |
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125
drawn
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| v.拖，拉，拔出；adj.憔悴的，紧张的 | |
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126
amazement
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| n.惊奇，惊讶 | |
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127
judgment
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| n.审判；判断力，识别力，看法，意见 | |
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128
animated
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| adj.生气勃勃的，活跃的，愉快的 | |
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129
invalids
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| 病人，残疾者( invalid的名词复数 ) | |
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130
phantom
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| n.幻影，虚位，幽灵；adj.错觉的，幻影的，幽灵的 | |
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131
landlady
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| n.女房东，女地主 | |
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132
garrulous
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| adj.唠叨的，多话的 | |
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133
lingual
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| adj.语言的；舌的 | |
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134
uproar
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| n.骚动，喧嚣，鼎沸 | |
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135
replenish
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| vt.补充；(把…)装满；(再)填满 | |
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136
applicant
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| n.申请人，求职者，请求者 | |
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137
remains
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| n.剩余物，残留物；遗体，遗迹 | |
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138
besieging
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| 包围，围困，围攻( besiege的现在分词 ) | |
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139
cozy
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| adj.亲如手足的，密切的，暖和舒服的 | |
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140
delightful
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| adj.令人高兴的，使人快乐的 | |
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141
transparent
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| adj.明显的，无疑的；透明的 | |
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142
ruses
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| n.诡计，计策( ruse的名词复数 ) | |
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143
foodstuffs
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| 食物，食品( foodstuff的名词复数 ) | |
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144
foodstuff
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| n.食料，食品 | |
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145
surmised
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| v.臆测，推断( surmise的过去式和过去分词 )；揣测；猜想 | |
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146
surmise
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| v./n.猜想，推测 | |
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147
hospitable
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| adj.好客的；宽容的；有利的，适宜的 | |
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148
anticipations
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| 预期( anticipation的名词复数 )； 预测； （信托财产收益的）预支； 预期的事物 | |
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149
wrecked
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| adj.失事的，遇难的 | |
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150
watery
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| adj.有水的，水汪汪的；湿的，湿润的 | |
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151
meager
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| adj.缺乏的，不足的，瘦的 | |
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152
cleft
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| n.裂缝；adj.裂开的 | |
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153
canvassed
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| v.（在政治方面）游说( canvass的过去式和过去分词 )；调查（如选举前选民的）意见；为讨论而提出（意见等）；详细检查 | |
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154
scoopful
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| n.满满的一勺子 | |
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155
turnips
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| 芜青( turnip的名词复数 )； 芜菁块根； 芜菁甘蓝块根； 怀表 | |
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156
plentiful
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| adj.富裕的，丰富的 | |
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157
pint
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| n.品脱 | |
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158
porous
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| adj.可渗透的，多孔的 | |
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159
smear
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| v.涂抹；诽谤，玷污；n.污点；诽谤，污蔑 | |
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160
hazardous
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| adj.(有)危险的，冒险的；碰运气的 | |
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161
feat
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| n.功绩；武艺，技艺；adj.灵巧的，漂亮的，合适的 | |
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162
overhauling
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| n.大修；拆修；卸修；翻修v.彻底检查( overhaul的现在分词 )；大修；赶上；超越 | |
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163
slate
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| n.板岩，石板，石片，石板色，候选人名单；adj.暗蓝灰色的，含板岩的；vt.用石板覆盖，痛打，提名，预订 | |
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164
quarries
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| n.（采）石场( quarry的名词复数 )；猎物（指鸟，兽等）；方形石；（格窗等的）方形玻璃v.从采石场采得( quarry的第三人称单数 )；从（书本等中）努力发掘（资料等）；在采石场采石 | |
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165
slovenly
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| adj.懒散的，不整齐的，邋遢的 | |
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166
enameled
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| 涂瓷釉于，给…上瓷漆，给…上彩饰( enamel的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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167
hues
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| 色彩( hue的名词复数 )； 色调； 信仰； 观点 | |
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168
nostrils
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| 鼻孔( nostril的名词复数 ) | |
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169
intensity
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| n.强烈，剧烈；强度；烈度 | |
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170
nourishment
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| n.食物，营养品；营养情况 | |
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171
thoroughly
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| adv.完全地，彻底地，十足地 | |
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172
tolled
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| 鸣钟（toll的过去式与过去分词形式） | |
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173
tolling
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| [财]来料加工 | |
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174
entirely
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| ad.全部地，完整地；完全地，彻底地 | |
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175
proffering
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| v.提供，贡献，提出( proffer的现在分词 ) | |
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176
oratory
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| n.演讲术；词藻华丽的言辞 | |
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177
raucous
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| adj.(声音)沙哑的，粗糙的 | |
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178
worthy
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| adj.(of)值得的，配得上的；有价值的 | |
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179
tirade
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| n.冗长的攻击性演说 | |
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180
bellowed
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| v.发出吼叫声，咆哮（尤指因痛苦）( bellow的过去式和过去分词 )；（愤怒地）说出（某事），大叫 | |
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181
sipped
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| v.小口喝，呷，抿( sip的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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182
placidly
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| adv.平稳地，平静地 | |
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183
haze
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| n.霾，烟雾；懵懂，迷糊；vi.(over)变模糊 | |
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184
huddled
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| 挤在一起（huddle的过去式与过去分词形式） | |
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185
suffrage
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| n.投票，选举权，参政权 | |
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186
credence
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| n.信用，祭器台，供桌，凭证 | |
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187
populous
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| adj.人口稠密的，人口众多的 | |
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188
prophesied
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| v.预告，预言( prophesy的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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189
retired
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| adj.隐退的，退休的，退役的 | |
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190
vocal
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| adj.直言不讳的；嗓音的；n.[pl.]声乐节目 | |
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191
intruded
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| n.侵入的，推进的v.侵入，侵扰，打扰( intrude的过去式和过去分词 )；把…强加于 | |
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192
wilderness
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| n.杳无人烟的一片陆地、水等，荒漠 | |
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193
chasm
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| n.深坑，断层，裂口，大分岐，利害冲突 | |
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194
outskirts
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| n.郊外，郊区 | |
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195
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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196
cleaver
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| n.切肉刀 | |
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197
steer
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| vt.驾驶，为…操舵；引导；vi.驾驶 | |
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198
overflowed
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| 溢出的 | |
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199
hospitably
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| 亲切地，招待周到地，善于款待地 | |
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200
morsel
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| n.一口，一点点 | |
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201
slashed
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| v.挥砍( slash的过去式和过去分词 )；鞭打；割破；削减 | |
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202
deteriorating
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| 恶化，变坏( deteriorate的现在分词 ) | |
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203
taverns
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| n.小旅馆，客栈，酒馆( tavern的名词复数 ) | |
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204
specified
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| adj.特定的 | |
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205
rationing
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| n.定量供应 | |
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206
gargantuan
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| adj.巨大的，庞大的 | |
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207
disposition
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| n.性情，性格；意向，倾向；排列，部署 | |
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208
exacting
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| adj.苛求的，要求严格的 | |
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209
Forsaken
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| adj. 被遗忘的, 被抛弃的 动词forsake的过去分词 | |
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210
habitual
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| adj.习惯性的；通常的，惯常的 | |
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211
wary
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| adj.谨慎的，机警的，小心的 | |
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212
patriotism
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| n.爱国精神，爱国心，爱国主义 | |
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213
pretense
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| n.矫饰，做作，借口 | |
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214
injustice
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| n.非正义，不公正，不公平，侵犯（别人的）权利 | |
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215
solidified
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| （使）成为固体，（使）变硬，（使）变得坚固( solidify的过去式和过去分词 )； 使团结一致； 充实，巩固； 具体化 | |
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216
strata
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| n.地层（复数）；社会阶层 | |
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217
lobe
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| n.耳垂，（肺，肝等的）叶 | |
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218
spasms
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| n.痉挛( spasm的名词复数 )；抽搐；（能量、行为等的）突发；发作 | |
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219
crook
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| v.使弯曲；n.小偷，骗子，贼；弯曲(处) | |
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220
utilized
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| v.利用，使用( utilize的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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221
laboring
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| n.劳动，操劳v.努力争取(for)( labor的现在分词 )；苦干；详细分析；（指引擎）缓慢而困难地运转 | |
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222
grievance
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| n.怨愤，气恼，委屈 | |
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223
setback
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| n.退步，挫折，挫败 | |
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224
schooling
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| n.教育；正规学校教育 | |
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225
pastor
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| n.牧师，牧人 | |
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