He shed an official glance upon the situation, and then began to give orders. Two women-servants came out with pails and brooms and brushes, and gave the sidewalk a thorough scrubbing; meanwhile two others scrubbed the four marble steps which led up to the door; beyond these we could see some men-servants taking up the carpet of the grand staircase. This carpet was carried away and the last grain of dust beaten and banged and swept out of it; then brought back and put down again. The brass stair-rods received an exhaustive polishing and were returned to their places. Now a troop of servants brought pots and tubs of blooming plants and formed them into a beautiful jungle about the door and the base of the staircase. Other servants adorned3 all the balconies of the various stories with flowers and banners; others ascended4 to the roof and hoisted5 a great flag on a staff there. Now came some more chamber-maids and retouched the sidewalk, and afterward6 wiped the marble steps with damp cloths and finished by dusting them off with feather brushes. Now a broad black carpet was brought out and laid down the marble steps and out across the sidewalk to the curbstone. The Portier cast his eye along it, and found it was not absolutely straight; he commanded it to be straightened; the servants made the effort—made several efforts, in fact—but the Portier was not satisfied. He finally had it taken up, and then he put it down himself and got it right.
At this stage of the proceedings7, a narrow bright red carpet was unrolled and stretched from the top of the marble steps to the curbstone, along the center of the black carpet. This red path cost the Portier more trouble than even the black one had done. But he patiently fixed8 and refixed it until it was exactly right and lay precisely9 in the middle of the black carpet. In New York these performances would have gathered a mighty10 crowd of curious and intensely interested spectators; but here it only captured an audience of half a dozen little boys who stood in a row across the pavement, some with their school-knapsacks on their backs and their hands in their pockets, others with arms full of bundles, and all absorbed in the show. Occasionally one of them skipped irreverently over the carpet and took up a position on the other side. This always visibly annoyed the Portier.
Now came a waiting interval11. The landlord, in plain clothes, and bareheaded, placed himself on the bottom marble step, abreast12 the Portier, who stood on the other end of the same steps; six or eight waiters, gloved, bareheaded, and wearing their whitest linen13, their whitest cravats14, and their finest swallow-tails, grouped themselves about these chiefs, but leaving the carpetway clear. Nobody moved or spoke15 any more but only waited.
In a short time the shrill16 piping of a coming train was heard, and immediately groups of people began to gather in the street. Two or three open carriages arrived, and deposited some maids of honor and some male officials at the hotel. Presently another open carriage brought the Grand Duke of Baden, a stately man in uniform, who wore the handsome brass-mounted, steel-spiked helmet of the army on his head. Last came the Empress of Germany and the Grand Duchess of Baden in a closed carriage; these passed through the low-bowing groups of servants and disappeared in the hotel, exhibiting to us only the backs of their heads, and then the show was over.
But as to Heidelberg. The weather was growing pretty warm,—very warm, in fact. So we left the valley and took quarters at the Schloss Hotel, on the hill, above the Castle.
Heidelberg lies at the mouth of a narrow gorge18—a gorge the shape of a shepherd’s crook19; if one looks up it he perceives that it is about straight, for a mile and a half, then makes a sharp curve to the right and disappears. This gorge—along whose bottom pours the swift Neckar—is confined between (or cloven through) a couple of long, steep ridges20, a thousand feet high and densely21 wooded clear to their summits, with the exception of one section which has been shaved and put under cultivation23. These ridges are chopped off at the mouth of the gorge and form two bold and conspicuous24 headlands, with Heidelberg nestling between them; from their bases spreads away the vast dim expanse of the Rhine valley, and into this expanse the Neckar goes wandering in shining curves and is presently lost to view.
Now if one turns and looks up the gorge once more, he will see the Schloss Hotel on the right perched on a precipice25 overlooking the Neckar—a precipice which is so sumptuously26 cushioned and draped with foliage27 that no glimpse of the rock appears. The building seems very airily situated28. It has the appearance of being on a shelf half-way up the wooded mountainside; and as it is remote and isolated29, and very white, it makes a strong mark against the lofty leafy rampart at its back.
This hotel had a feature which was a decided30 novelty, and one which might be adopted with advantage by any house which is perched in a commanding situation. This feature may be described as a series of glass-enclosed parlors31 clinging to the outside of the house, one against each and every bed-chamber and drawing-room. They are like long, narrow, high-ceiled bird-cages hung against the building. My room was a corner room, and had two of these things, a north one and a west one.
From the north cage one looks up the Neckar gorge; from the west one he looks down it. This last affords the most extensive view, and it is one of the loveliest that can be imagined, too. Out of a billowy upheaval32 of vivid green foliage, a rifle-shot removed, rises the huge ruin of Heidelberg Castle, [2. See Appendix B] with empty window arches, ivy-mailed battlements, moldering towers—the Lear of inanimate nature—deserted, discrowned, beaten by the storms, but royal still, and beautiful. It is a fine sight to see the evening sunlight suddenly strike the leafy declivity33 at the Castle’s base and dash up it and drench34 it as with a luminous35 spray, while the adjacent groves36 are in deep shadow.
Behind the Castle swells37 a great dome-shaped hill, forest-clad, and beyond that a nobler and loftier one. The Castle looks down upon the compact brown-roofed town; and from the town two picturesque38 old bridges span the river. Now the view broadens; through the gateway39 of the sentinel headlands you gaze out over the wide Rhine plain, which stretches away, softly and richly tinted40, grows gradually and dreamily indistinct, and finally melts imperceptibly into the remote horizon.
I have never enjoyed a view which had such a serene41 and satisfying charm about it as this one gives.
The first night we were there, we went to bed and to sleep early; but I awoke at the end of two or three hours, and lay a comfortable while listening to the soothing42 patter of the rain against the balcony windows. I took it to be rain, but it turned out to be only the murmur43 of the restless Neckar, tumbling over her dikes and dams far below, in the gorge. I got up and went into the west balcony and saw a wonderful sight. Away down on the level under the black mass of the Castle, the town lay, stretched along the river, its intricate cobweb of streets jeweled with twinkling lights; there were rows of lights on the bridges; these flung lances of light upon the water, in the black shadows of the arches; and away at the extremity44 of all this fairy spectacle blinked and glowed a massed multitude of gas-jets which seemed to cover acres of ground; it was as if all the diamonds in the world had been spread out there. I did not know before, that a half-mile of sextuple railway-tracks could be made such an adornment45.
One thinks Heidelberg by day—with its surroundings—is the last possibility of the beautiful; but when he sees Heidelberg by night, a fallen Milky46 Way, with that glittering railway constellation47 pinned to the border, he requires time to consider upon the verdict.
One never tires of poking48 about in the dense22 woods that clothe all these lofty Neckar hills to their tops. The great deeps of a boundless49 forest have a beguiling50 and impressive charm in any country; but German legends and fairy tales have given these an added charm. They have peopled all that region with gnomes51, and dwarfs52, and all sorts of mysterious and uncanny creatures. At the time I am writing of, I had been reading so much of this literature that sometimes I was not sure but I was beginning to believe in the gnomes and fairies as realities.
One afternoon I got lost in the woods about a mile from the hotel, and presently fell into a train of dreamy thought about animals which talk, and kobolds, and enchanted53 folk, and the rest of the pleasant legendary54 stuff; and so, by stimulating55 my fancy, I finally got to imagining I glimpsed small flitting shapes here and there down the columned aisles56 of the forest. It was a place which was peculiarly meet for the occasion. It was a pine wood, with so thick and soft a carpet of brown needles that one’s footfall made no more sound than if he were treading on wool; the tree-trunks were as round and straight and smooth as pillars, and stood close together; they were bare of branches to a point about twenty-five feet above-ground, and from there upward so thick with boughs57 that not a ray of sunlight could pierce through. The world was bright with sunshine outside, but a deep and mellow58 twilight59 reigned60 in there, and also a deep silence so profound that I seemed to hear my own breathings.
When I had stood ten minutes, thinking and imagining, and getting my spirit in tune61 with the place, and in the right mood to enjoy the supernatural, a raven62 suddenly uttered a horse croak63 over my head. It made me start; and then I was angry because I started. I looked up, and the creature was sitting on a limb right over me, looking down at me. I felt something of the same sense of humiliation64 and injury which one feels when he finds that a human stranger has been clandestinely65 inspecting him in his privacy and mentally commenting upon him. I eyed the raven, and the raven eyed me. Nothing was said during some seconds. Then the bird stepped a little way along his limb to get a better point of observation, lifted his wings, stuck his head far down below his shoulders toward me and croaked66 again—a croak with a distinctly insulting expression about it. If he had spoken in English he could not have said any more plainly than he did say in raven, “Well, what do you want here?” I felt as foolish as if I had been caught in some mean act by a responsible being, and reproved for it. However, I made no reply; I would not bandy words with a raven. The adversary67 waited a while, with his shoulders still lifted, his head thrust down between them, and his keen bright eye fixed on me; then he threw out two or three more insults, which I could not understand, further than that I knew a portion of them consisted of language not used in church.
I still made no reply. Now the adversary raised his head and called. There was an answering croak from a little distance in the wood—evidently a croak of inquiry68. The adversary explained with enthusiasm, and the other raven dropped everything and came. The two sat side by side on the limb and discussed me as freely and offensively as two great naturalists69 might discuss a new kind of bug70. The thing became more and more embarrassing. They called in another friend. This was too much. I saw that they had the advantage of me, and so I concluded to get out of the scrape by walking out of it. They enjoyed my defeat as much as any low white people could have done. They craned their necks and laughed at me (for a raven can laugh, just like a man), they squalled insulting remarks after me as long as they could see me. They were nothing but ravens—I knew that—what they thought of me could be a matter of no consequence—and yet when even a raven shouts after you, “What a hat!” “Oh, pull down your vest!” and that sort of thing, it hurts you and humiliates71 you, and there is no getting around it with fine reasoning and pretty arguments.
Animals talk to each other, of course. There can be no question about that; but I suppose there are very few people who can understand them. I never knew but one man who could. I knew he could, however, because he told me so himself. He was a middle-aged72, simple-hearted miner who had lived in a lonely corner of California, among the woods and mountains, a good many years, and had studied the ways of his only neighbors, the beasts and the birds, until he believed he could accurately73 translate any remark which they made. This was Jim Baker74. According to Jim Baker, some animals have only a limited education, and some use only simple words, and scarcely ever a comparison or a flowery figure; whereas, certain other animals have a large vocabulary, a fine command of language and a ready and fluent delivery; consequently these latter talk a great deal; they like it; they are so conscious of their talent, and they enjoy “showing off.” Baker said, that after long and careful observation, he had come to the conclusion that the bluejays were the best talkers he had found among birds and beasts. Said he:
“There’s more to a bluejay than any other creature. He has got more moods, and more different kinds of feelings than other creatures; and, mind you, whatever a bluejay feels, he can put into language. And no mere75 commonplace language, either, but rattling76, out-and-out book-talk—and bristling77 with metaphor78, too—just bristling! And as for command of language—why you never see a bluejay get stuck for a word. No man ever did. They just boil out of him! And another thing: I’ve noticed a good deal, and there’s no bird, or cow, or anything that uses as good grammar as a bluejay. You may say a cat uses good grammar. Well, a cat does—but you let a cat get excited once; you let a cat get to pulling fur with another cat on a shed, nights, and you’ll hear grammar that will give you the lockjaw. Ignorant people think it’s the noise which fighting cats make that is so aggravating79, but it ain’t so; it’s the sickening grammar they use. Now I’ve never heard a jay use bad grammar but very seldom; and when they do, they are as ashamed as a human; they shut right down and leave.
“You may call a jay a bird. Well, so he is, in a measure—but he’s got feathers on him, and don’t belong to no church, perhaps; but otherwise he is just as much human as you be. And I’ll tell you for why. A jay’s gifts, and instincts, and feelings, and interests, cover the whole ground. A jay hasn’t got any more principle than a Congressman80. A jay will lie, a jay will steal, a jay will deceive, a jay will betray; and four times out of five, a jay will go back on his solemnest promise. The sacredness of an obligation is such a thing which you can’t cram81 into no bluejay’s head. Now, on top of all this, there’s another thing; a jay can out-swear any gentleman in the mines. You think a cat can swear. Well, a cat can; but you give a bluejay a subject that calls for his reserve-powers, and where is your cat? Don’t talk to me—I know too much about this thing; in the one little particular of scolding—just good, clean, out-and-out scolding—a bluejay can lay over anything, human or divine. Yes, sir, a jay is everything that a man is. A jay can cry, a jay can laugh, a jay can feel shame, a jay can reason and plan and discuss, a jay likes gossip and scandal, a jay has got a sense of humor, a jay knows when he is an ass2 just as well as you do—maybe better. If a jay ain’t human, he better take in his sign, that’s all. Now I’m going to tell you a perfectly82 true fact about some bluejays."
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收听单词发音
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1
brass
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| n.黄铜；黄铜器，铜管乐器 | |
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ass
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| n.驴；傻瓜，蠢笨的人 | |
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adorned
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| [计]被修饰的 | |
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ascended
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| v.上升，攀登( ascend的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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hoisted
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| 把…吊起，升起( hoist的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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afterward
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| adv.后来；以后 | |
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proceedings
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| n.进程，过程，议程；诉讼(程序)；公报 | |
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fixed
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| adj.固定的，不变的，准备好的；(计算机)固定的 | |
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precisely
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| adv.恰好，正好，精确地，细致地 | |
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mighty
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| adj.强有力的；巨大的 | |
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interval
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| n.间隔，间距；幕间休息，中场休息 | |
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abreast
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| adv.并排地；跟上(时代)的步伐，与…并进地 | |
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linen
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| n.亚麻布，亚麻线，亚麻制品；adj.亚麻布制的，亚麻的 | |
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14
cravats
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| n.（系在衬衫衣领里面的）男式围巾( cravat的名词复数 ) | |
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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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shrill
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| adj.尖声的；刺耳的；v尖叫 | |
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monarch
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| n.帝王，君主，最高统治者 | |
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gorge
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| n.咽喉，胃，暴食，山峡；v.塞饱，狼吞虎咽地吃 | |
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crook
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| v.使弯曲；n.小偷，骗子，贼；弯曲(处) | |
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ridges
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| n.脊( ridge的名词复数 )；山脊；脊状突起；大气层的)高压脊 | |
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densely
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| ad.密集地；浓厚地 | |
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dense
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| a.密集的，稠密的，浓密的；密度大的 | |
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cultivation
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| n.耕作，培养，栽培（法），养成 | |
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conspicuous
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| adj.明眼的，惹人注目的；炫耀的，摆阔气的 | |
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precipice
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| n.悬崖，危急的处境 | |
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sumptuously
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| 奢侈地，豪华地 | |
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foliage
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| n.叶子，树叶，簇叶 | |
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situated
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| adj.坐落在...的，处于某种境地的 | |
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isolated
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| adj.与世隔绝的 | |
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decided
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| adj.决定了的，坚决的；明显的，明确的 | |
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parlors
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| 客厅( parlor的名词复数 )； 起居室； （旅馆中的）休息室； （通常用来构成合成词）店 | |
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32
upheaval
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| n.胀起，(地壳)的隆起；剧变，动乱 | |
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declivity
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| n.下坡，倾斜面 | |
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drench
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| v.使淋透，使湿透 | |
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luminous
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| adj.发光的，发亮的；光明的；明白易懂的；有启发的 | |
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groves
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| 树丛，小树林( grove的名词复数 ) | |
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swells
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| 增强( swell的第三人称单数 )； 肿胀； （使）凸出； 充满（激情） | |
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picturesque
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| adj.美丽如画的，（语言）生动的，绘声绘色的 | |
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gateway
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| n.大门口，出入口，途径，方法 | |
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40
tinted
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| adj. 带色彩的 动词tint的过去式和过去分词 | |
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serene
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| adj. 安详的，宁静的，平静的 | |
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soothing
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| adj.慰藉的；使人宽心的；镇静的 | |
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murmur
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| n.低语，低声的怨言；v.低语，低声而言 | |
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extremity
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| n.末端，尽头；尽力；终极；极度 | |
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45
adornment
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| n.装饰；装饰品 | |
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milky
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| adj.牛奶的，多奶的；乳白色的 | |
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47
constellation
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| n.星座n.灿烂的一群 | |
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48
poking
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| n. 刺，戳，袋 vt. 拨开，刺，戳 vi. 戳，刺，捅，搜索，伸出，行动散慢 | |
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49
boundless
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| adj.无限的；无边无际的；巨大的 | |
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50
beguiling
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| adj.欺骗的，诱人的v.欺骗( beguile的现在分词 )；使陶醉；使高兴；消磨（时间等） | |
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51
gnomes
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| n.矮子( gnome的名词复数 )；侏儒；（尤指金融市场上搞投机的）银行家；守护神 | |
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52
dwarfs
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| n.侏儒，矮子（dwarf的复数形式）vt.（使）显得矮小（dwarf的第三人称单数形式） | |
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53
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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54
legendary
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| adj.传奇（中）的，闻名遐迩的；n.传奇（文学） | |
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55
stimulating
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| adj.有启发性的，能激发人思考的 | |
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56
aisles
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| n. (席位间的)通道, 侧廊 | |
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boughs
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| 大树枝( bough的名词复数 ) | |
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mellow
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| adj.柔和的；熟透的；v.变柔和；(使)成熟 | |
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twilight
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| n.暮光，黄昏；暮年，晚期，衰落时期 | |
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reigned
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| vi.当政，统治（reign的过去式形式） | |
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61
tune
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| n.调子；和谐，协调；v.调音，调节，调整 | |
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raven
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| n.渡鸟，乌鸦；adj.乌亮的 | |
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63
croak
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| vi.嘎嘎叫，发牢骚 | |
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64
humiliation
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| n.羞辱 | |
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clandestinely
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| adv.秘密地，暗中地 | |
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66
croaked
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| v.呱呱地叫( croak的过去式和过去分词 )；用粗的声音说 | |
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67
adversary
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| adj.敌手，对手 | |
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68
inquiry
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| n.打听，询问，调查，查问 | |
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naturalists
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| n.博物学家( naturalist的名词复数 )；（文学艺术的）自然主义者 | |
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70
bug
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| n.虫子；故障；窃听器；vt.纠缠；装窃听器 | |
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71
humiliates
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| 使蒙羞，羞辱，使丢脸( humiliate的第三人称单数 ) | |
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middle-aged
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| adj.中年的 | |
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73
accurately
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| adv.准确地，精确地 | |
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baker
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| n.面包师 | |
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mere
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| adj.纯粹的；仅仅，只不过 | |
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76
rattling
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| adj. 格格作响的, 活泼的, 很好的 adv. 极其, 很, 非常 动词rattle的现在分词 | |
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77
bristling
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| a.竖立的 | |
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metaphor
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| n.隐喻，暗喻 | |
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aggravating
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| adj.恼人的，讨厌的 | |
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Congressman
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| n.（美）国会议员 | |
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81
cram
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| v.填塞，塞满，临时抱佛脚，为考试而学习 | |
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perfectly
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| adv.完美地，无可非议地，彻底地 | |
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