All three of us, by some means or another, managed, between Nuremberg and the Black Forest, to get into trouble.
Harris led off at Stuttgart by insulting an official. Stuttgart is a charming town, clean and bright, a smaller Dresden. It has the additional attraction of containing little that one need to go out of one’s way to see: a medium-sized picture gallery, a small museum of antiquities6, and half a palace, and you are through with the entire thing and can enjoy yourself. Harris did not know it was an official he was insulting. He took it for a fireman (it looked like a fireman), and he called it a “dummer Esel.”
In German you are not permitted to call an official a “silly ass7,” but undoubtedly8 this particular man was one. What had happened was this: Harris in the Stadgarten, anxious to get out, and seeing a gate open before him, had stepped over a wire into the street. Harris maintains he never saw it, but undoubtedly there was hanging to the wire a notice, “Durchgang Verboten!” The man, who was standing9 near the gates stopped Harris, and pointed10 out to him this notice. Harris thanked him, and passed on. The man came after him, and explained that treatment of the matter in such off-hand way could not be allowed; what was necessary to put the business right was that Harris should step back over the wire into the garden. Harris pointed out to the man that the notice said “going through forbidden,” and that, therefore, by re-entering the garden that way he would be infringing11 the law a second time. The man saw this for himself, and suggested that to get over the difficulty Harris should go back into the garden by the proper entrance, which was round the corner, and afterwards immediately come out again by the same gate. Then it was that Harris called the man a silly ass. That delayed us a day, and cost Harris forty marks.
I followed suit at Carlsruhe, by stealing a bicycle. I did not mean to steal the bicycle; I was merely trying to be useful. The train was on the point of starting when I noticed, as I thought, Harris’s bicycle still in the goods van. No one was about to help me. I jumped into the van and hauled it out, only just in time. Wheeling it down the platform in triumph, I came across Harris’s bicycle, standing against a wall behind some milk-cans. The bicycle I had secured was not Harris’s, but some other man’s.
It was an awkward situation. In England, I should have gone to the stationmaster and explained my mistake. But in Germany they are not content with your explaining a little matter of this sort to one man: they take you round and get you to explain it to about half a dozen; and if any one of the half dozen happens not to be handy, or not to have time just then to listen to you, they have a habit of leaving you over for the night to finish your explanation the next morning. I thought I would just put the thing out of sight, and then, without making any fuss or show, take a short walk. I found a wood shed, which seemed just the very place, and was wheeling the bicycle into it when, unfortunately, a red-hatted railway official, with the airs of a retired12 field-marshal, caught sight of me and came up. He said:
“What are you doing with that bicycle?”
I said: “I am going to put it in this wood shed out of the way.” I tried to convey by my tone that I was performing a kind and thoughtful action, for which the railway officials ought to thank me; but he was unresponsive.
“Is it your bicycle?” he said.
“Well, not exactly,” I replied.
“Whose is it?” he asked, quite sharply.
“I can’t tell you,” I answered. “I don’t know whose bicycle it is.”
“Where did you get it from?” was his next question. There was a suspiciousness about his tone that was almost insulting.
“I got it,” I answered, with as much calm dignity as at the moment I could assume, “out of the train.”
He did not allow me time to finish. He merely said he thought so too, and blew a whistle.
Recollection of the subsequent proceedings15 is not, so far as I am concerned, amusing. By a miracle of good luck—they say Providence16 watches over certain of us—the incident happened in Carlsruhe, where I possess a German friend, an official of some importance. Upon what would have been my fate had the station not been at Carlsruhe, or had my friend been from home, I do not care to dwell; as it was I got off, as the saying is, by the skin of my teeth. I should like to add that I left Carlsruhe without a stain upon my character, but that would not be the truth. My going scot free is regarded in police circles there to this day as a grave miscarriage17 of justice.
But all lesser18 sin sinks into insignificance19 beside the lawlessness of George. The bicycle incident had thrown us all into confusion, with the result that we lost George altogether. It transpired20 subsequently that he was waiting for us outside the police court; but this at the time we did not know. We thought, maybe, he had gone on to Baden by himself; and anxious to get away from Carlsruhe, and not, perhaps, thinking out things too clearly, we jumped into the next train that came up and proceeded thither21. When George, tired of waiting, returned to the station, he found us gone and he found his luggage gone. Harris had his ticket; I was acting22 as banker to the party, so that he had in his pocket only some small change. Excusing himself upon these grounds, he thereupon commenced deliberately23 a career of crime that, reading it later, as set forth baldly in the official summons, made the hair of Harris and myself almost to stand on end.
German travelling, it may be explained, is somewhat complicated. You buy a ticket at the station you start from for the place you want to go to. You might think this would enable you to get there, but it does not. When your train comes up, you attempt to swarm24 into it; but the guard magnificently waves you away. Where are your credentials25? You show him your ticket. He explains to you that by itself that is of no service whatever; you have only taken the first step towards travelling; you must go back to the booking-office and get in addition what is called a “schnellzug ticket.” With this you return, thinking your troubles over. You are allowed to get in, so far so good. But you must not sit down anywhere, and you must not stand still, and you must not wander about. You must take another ticket, this time what is called a “platz ticket,” which entitles you to a place for a certain distance.
What a man could do who persisted in taking nothing but the one ticket, I have often wondered. Would he be entitled to run behind the train on the six-foot way? Or could he stick a label on himself and get into the goods van? Again, what could be done with the man who, having taken his schnellzug ticket, obstinately26 refused, or had not the money to take a platz ticket: would they let him lie in the umbrella rack, or allow him to hang himself out of the window?
To return to George, he had just sufficient money to take a third-class slow train ticket to Baden, and that was all. To avoid the inquisitiveness27 of the guard, he waited till the train was moving, and then jumped in.
That was his first sin:
(a) Entering a train in motion;
(b) After being warned not to do so by an official.
Second sin:
(a) Travelling in train of superior class to that for which ticket was held.
(b) Refusing to pay difference when demanded by an official. (George says he did not “refuse”; he simply told the man he had not got it.)
Third sin:
(a) Travelling in carriage of superior class to that for which ticket was held.
(b) Refusing to pay difference when demanded by an official. (Again George disputes the accuracy of the report. He turned his pockets out, and offered the man all he had, which was about eightpence in German money. He offered to go into a third class, but there was no third class. He offered to go into the goods van, but they would not hear of it.)
Fourth sin:
(a) Occupying seat, and not paying for same.
(b) Loitering about corridor. (As they would not let him sit down without paying, and as he could not pay, it was difficult to see what else he could do.)
But explanations are held as no excuse in Germany; and his journey from Carlsruhe to Baden was one of the most expensive perhaps on record.
Reflecting upon the case and frequency with which one gets into trouble here in Germany, one is led to the conclusion that this country would come as a boon and a blessing to the average young Englishman. To the medical student, to the eater of dinners at the Temple, to the subaltern on leave, life in London is a wearisome proceeding14. The healthy Briton takes his pleasure lawlessly, or it is no pleasure to him. Nothing that he may do affords to him any genuine satisfaction. To be in trouble of some sort is his only idea of bliss28. Now, England affords him small opportunity in this respect; to get himself into a scrape requires a good deal of persistence29 on the part of the young Englishman.
I spoke30 on this subject one day with our senior churchwarden. It was the morning of the 10th of November, and we were both of us glancing, somewhat anxiously, through the police reports. The usual batch31 of young men had been summoned for creating the usual disturbance32 the night before at the Criterion. My friend the churchwarden has boys of his own, and a nephew of mine, upon whom I am keeping a fatherly eye, is by a fond mother supposed to be in London for the sole purpose of studying engineering. No names we knew happened, by fortunate chance, to be in the list of those detained in custody33, and, relieved, we fell to moralising upon the folly34 and depravity of youth.
“It is very remarkable,” said my friend the churchwarden, “how the Criterion retains its position in this respect. It was just so when I was young; the evening always wound up with a row at the Criterion.”
“So meaningless,” I remarked.
“So monotonous,” he replied. “You have no idea,” he continued, a dreamy expression stealing over his furrowed35 face, “how unutterably tired one can become of the walk from Piccadilly Circus to the Vine Street Police Court. Yet, what else was there for us to do? Simply nothing. Sometimes we would put out a street lamp, and a man would come round and light it again. If one insulted a policeman, he simply took no notice. He did not even know he was being insulted; or, if he did, he seemed not to care. You could fight a Covent Garden porter, if you fancied yourself at that sort of thing. Generally speaking, the porter got the best of it; and when he did it cost you five shillings, and when he did not the price was half a sovereign. I could never see much excitement in that particular sport. I tried driving a hansom cab once. That has always been regarded as the acme36 of modern Tom and Jerryism. I stole it late one night from outside a public-house in Dean Street, and the first thing that happened to me was that I was hailed in Golden Square by an old lady surrounded by three children, two of them crying and the third one half asleep. Before I could get away she had shot the brats37 into the cab, taken my number, paid me, so she said, a shilling over the legal fare, and directed me to an address a little beyond what she called North Kensington. As a matter of fact, the place turned out to be the other side of Willesden. The horse was tired, and the journey took us well over two hours. It was the slowest lark38 I ever remember being concerned in. I tried once or twice to persuade the children to let me take them back to the old lady: but every time I opened the trap-door to speak to them the youngest one, a boy, started screaming; and when I offered other drivers to transfer the job to them, most of them replied in the words of a song popular about that period: ‘Oh, George, don’t you think you’re going just a bit too far?’ One man offered to take home to my wife any last message I might be thinking of, while another promised to organise39 a party to come and dig me out in the spring. When I mounted the dickey I had imagined myself driving a peppery old colonel to some lonesome and cabless region, half a dozen miles from where he wanted to go, and there leaving him upon the kerbstone to swear. About that there might have been good sport or there might not, according to circumstances and the colonel. The idea of a trip to an outlying suburb in charge of a nursery full of helpless infants had never occurred to me. No, London,” concluded my friend the churchwarden with a sigh, “affords but limited opportunity to the lover of the illegal.”
Now, in Germany, on the other hand, trouble is to be had for the asking. There are many things in Germany that you must not do that are quite easy to do. To any young Englishman yearning40 to get himself into a scrape, and finding himself hampered41 in his own country, I would advise a single ticket to Germany; a return, lasting42 as it does only a month, might prove a waste.
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1
beset
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| v.镶嵌；困扰，包围 | |
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forth
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| adv.向前；向外，往外 | |
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boon
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| n.恩赐，恩物，恩惠 | |
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blessing
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| n.祈神赐福；祷告；祝福，祝愿 | |
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wilfulness
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| 任性；倔强 | |
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antiquities
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| n.古老( antiquity的名词复数 )；古迹；古人们；古代的风俗习惯 | |
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ass
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| n.驴；傻瓜，蠢笨的人 | |
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undoubtedly
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| adv.确实地，无疑地 | |
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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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pointed
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| adj.尖的，直截了当的 | |
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infringing
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| v.违反（规章等）( infringe的现在分词 )；侵犯（某人的权利）；侵害（某人的自由、权益等） | |
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12
retired
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| adj.隐退的，退休的，退役的 | |
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13
frankly
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| adv.坦白地，直率地；坦率地说 | |
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14
proceeding
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| n.行动，进行，(pl.)会议录，学报 | |
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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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providence
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| n.深谋远虑，天道，天意；远见；节约；上帝 | |
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miscarriage
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| n.失败，未达到预期的结果；流产 | |
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18
lesser
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| adj.次要的，较小的；adv.较小地，较少地 | |
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19
insignificance
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| n.不重要；无价值；无意义 | |
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20
transpired
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| （事实，秘密等）被人知道( transpire的过去式和过去分词 )； 泄露； 显露； 发生 | |
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21
thither
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| adv.向那里；adj.在那边的，对岸的 | |
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acting
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| n.演戏，行为，假装；adj.代理的，临时的，演出用的 | |
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deliberately
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| adv.审慎地；蓄意地；故意地 | |
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swarm
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| n.(昆虫)等一大群；vi.成群飞舞；蜂拥而入 | |
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credentials
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| n.证明，资格，证明书，证件 | |
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obstinately
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| ad.固执地，顽固地 | |
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inquisitiveness
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| 好奇，求知欲 | |
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28
bliss
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| n.狂喜，福佑，天赐的福 | |
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29
persistence
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| n.坚持，持续，存留 | |
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30
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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batch
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| n.一批(组，群)；一批生产量 | |
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disturbance
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| n.动乱，骚动；打扰，干扰；(身心)失调 | |
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custody
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| n.监护，照看，羁押，拘留 | |
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folly
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| n.愚笨，愚蠢，蠢事，蠢行，傻话 | |
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furrowed
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| v.犁田，开沟( furrow的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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acme
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| n.顶点，极点 | |
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brats
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| n.调皮捣蛋的孩子( brat的名词复数 ) | |
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lark
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| n.云雀，百灵鸟；n.嬉戏，玩笑；vi.嬉戏 | |
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organise
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| vt.组织，安排，筹办 | |
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40
yearning
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| a.渴望的；向往的；怀念的 | |
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41
hampered
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| 妨碍，束缚，限制( hamper的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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42
lasting
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| adj.永久的，永恒的；vbl.持续，维持 | |
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