 10 How Wagner operas bang along. Three or four hours. That is a long time to sit in one place, whether one be conspicuous or not, yet some of Wagner's operas bang along for six whole hours on a stretch. But the people sit there and enjoy it all and wish it would last longer. A German lady in Munich told me that a person could not like Wagner's music at first, but must go through the deliberate process of learning to like it. Then he would have his sure reward. For when he had learned to like it, he would hunger for it and never be able to get enough of it. She said that six hours of Wagner was by no means too much. She said that this composer had made a complete revolution in music and was burying the old masters one by one. And she said that Wagner's operas differed from all others in one notable respect, and that was that they were not merely spotted with music here and there, but were all music from the first strain to the last. This surprised me. I said I had attended one of his insurrections and found hardly any music in it except the wedding chorus. She said Lohengrin was much noisier than Wagner's other operas, but that if I would keep on going to see it, I would find by and by that it was all music and therefore would then enjoy it. I could have said, but would you advise a person to deliberately practice having a toothache in the pit of his stomach for a couple of years in order that he might then come to enjoy it? But I reserved that remark. This lady was full of the praises of the head tenor who had performed in a Wagner opera the night before, and went on to enlarge upon his old and prodigious fame and how many honors had been lavished upon him by the princely houses of Germany. Here was another surprise. I had attended that very opera in the person of my agent and had made close and accurate observations. So I said, why, madam, my experience warrants me in stating that that tenor's voice is not a voice at all, but only a shriek, the shriek of a hyena. That is very true, she said. He cannot sing now. It is already many years that he has lost his voice, but in other times he sang, yes, divinely. So whenever he comes now, you shall see, yes, that the theater will not hold the people. You have worried by God, his voice is wundershoen in that past time. I said she was discovering to me a kindly trait in the Germans which was worth emulating. I said that over the water we were not quite so generous, that with us, when a singer had lost his voice and a jumper had lost his legs, these parties ceased to draw. I said I had been to the opera in Hanover once, and in Mannheim once, and in Munich, through my authorized agent once, and this large experience had nearly persuaded me that the Germans preferred singers who couldn't sing. This was not such a very extravagant speech, either, for that burly Mannheim tenor's praises had been the talk of all Heidelberg for a week before his performance took place. Yet his voice was like the distressing noise which a nail makes when you screech it across a window-pane. I said so to Heidelberg friends the next day, and they said, in the calmest and simplest way, that that was very true, but that in earlier times his voice had been wonderfully fine. And the tenor in Hanover was just another example of this sort. The English-speaking German gentleman who went with me to the opera there was brimming with enthusiasm over that tenor. He said, Ah, God! A great man! You shall see him! He is so celebrate in all Germany! And he has a pension, yes, from the government. He not obliged to sing now, only twice every year. But if he not sing twice each year, they take him his pension of they. Very well, we went. When the renowned old tenor appeared, I got a nudge and an excited whisper, Now you will see him. But the celebrate was an astonishing disappointment to me. If he had been behind a screen I should have supposed they were performing a surgical operation on him. I looked at my friend. To my great surprise he seemed intoxicated with pleasure. His eyes were dancing with eager delight. When the curtain at last fell he burst into the stormiest applause and kept it up, as did the whole house, until the afflictive tenor had come three times before the curtain to make his bow. While the glowing enthusiast was swabbing the perspiration from his face I said, I don't mean the least harm, but really now do you think he can sing? Him? No! Of course, in him. But how he has been able to sing twenty-five years ago, then pensively. Ah! No! Now he not sing any more. He only cry. When he think he sing, now he not sing at all. No, no, he only make like a cat which is unwell. Where and how did we get the idea that the Germans are a stolid, phlegmatic race? In truth, they are widely removed from that. They are warm-hearted, emotional, impulsive, enthusiastic. Their tears come at the mildest touch, and it is not hard to move them to laughter. They are the very children of impulse. We are cold and self-contained compared to the Germans. They hug and kiss and cry and shout and dance and sing, and where we use one loving petting expression, they pour out a score. Their language is full of endearing diminutives, nothing that they love escapes the application of a petting diminutive, neither the house, nor the dog, nor the horse, nor the grandmother, nor any other creature animate or inanimate. In the theatres at Hanover, Humboldt and Manheim, they had a wise custom. The moment the curtain went up, the light in the body of the house went down. The audience sat in the cool gloom of a deep twilight, which greatly enhanced the glowing splendours of the stage. It saved gas, too, and people were not sweated to death. When I saw King Lear played, nobody was allowed to see a scene shifted. If there was nothing to be done but slide a forest out of the way and expose a temple beyond, one did not see that forest split itself in the middle and go shrieking away with the accompanying disenchanting spectacle of the hands and heels of the impelling impulse. No, the curtain was always dropped for an instant, one heard not the least movement behind it, but when it went up, the next instant, the forest was gone. Even when the stage was being entirely reset, one heard no noise. During the whole time that King Lear was playing, the curtain was never down two minutes at any one time. The orchestra played until the curtain was ready to go up for the first time, then they departed for the evening. Where the stage waits never reached two minutes, there is no occasion for music. I had never seen this two-minute business between acts but once before, and that was when the chauron was played at Wallach's. I was at a concert in Munich one night, the people were streaming The clock hand pointed to seven, the music struck up and instantly all movement in the body of the house ceased. Nobody was standing or walking up the aisles or fumbling with a seat. The stream of incomers had suddenly dried up at its source. I listened undisturbed to a piece of music that was fifteen minutes long, all was expecting some tardy ticket holders to come crowding past my knees and being continuously and pleasantly disappointed, but when the last note was struck, here came the stream again. You see, they had made those latecomers wait in the comfortable waiting-parlor from the time the music had begun, until it was ended. It was the first time I had ever seen this sort of criminals deny the privilege of destroying the comfort of a house full of their betters. Some of these were pretty fine birds, but no matter, they had to tarry outside in the long parlor under the inspection of a double rank of liveried footmen and waiting-maids who supported the two walls with their backs and held the wraps and traps of their masters and mistresses on their arms. We had no footmen to hold our things, and it was not permissible to take them into the concert room, but there were some men and women to take charge of them for us. They gave us checks for them and charged a fixed price, payable in advance, five cents. In Germany they always hear one thing at an opera which has never yet been heard in America, perhaps. I mean the closing strain of a fine solo or duet. We always smash into it with an earthquake of applause. The result is that we rob ourselves of the sweetest part of the treat. We get the whiskey, but we don't get the sugar in the bottom of the glass. Our way of scattering applause along through an act seems to me to be better than the Mannheim way of saving it all up till the act is ended. I do not see how an actor can forget himself and portray hot passion before a cold still audience. I should think he would feel foolish. It is a pain to me to this day to remember how that old German leer raged and wept and howled around the stage with never a response from that hushed house, never a single outburst till the act was ended. To me there was something unspeakably uncomfortable in the solemn dead silence that always followed this old person's tremendous outpourings of his feelings. I could not help putting myself in his place. I thought I knew how sick and flat he felt during those silences because I remembered a case which came under my observation once, and which—but I will tell the incident. One evening on board a Mississippi steamboat a boy of ten years lay asleep in a berth. A long, slim-legged boy he was encased in quite a short shirt. It was the first time he had ever made a trip on a steamboat, and so he was troubled and scared, and had gone to bed with his head filled with impending snaggings and explosions and conflagrations and sudden death. About ten o'clock some twenty ladies were sitting around about the ladies' saloon, quietly reading, sewing, embroidering and so on, and among them sat a sweet, benign and old dame with round spectacles on her nose and her busy knitting-needles in her hands. Now all of a sudden into the midst of this peaceful scene burst that slim-shanked boy in the brief shirt, wild-eyed, erect-haired, and shouting—'Fire! Fire! Jump and run! The boat's a fire, and there ain't a minute to lose!' All those ladies looked sweetly up and smiled. Nobody stirred. The old lady pulled her spectacles down, looked over them, and said gently, "'But you mustn't catch cold, child. Run and put on your breast-pin, and then come and tell us all about it.' It was a cruel chill to give to a poor little devil's gushing vehemence. He was expecting to be a sort of hero, the creator of a wild panic, and here everybody sat and smiled a mocking smile, and an old woman made fun of his bugbear. I turned and crept away, for I was that boy, and never even cared to discover whether I had dreamed the fire or actually seen it. I am told that in a German concert or opera they hardly ever encore a song—that though they may be dying to hear it again, their good breeding usually preserves them against requiring the repetition. Kings may encore—that is quite another matter—it delights everybody to see that the king is pleased, and as to the actor encore, his pride and gratification are simply boundless. Still there are circumstances in which even a royal encore—but it is better to illustrate. The King of Bavaria is a poet, and has a poet's eccentricities, with the advantage over all other poets of being able to gratify them, no matter what form they may take. He is fond of opera, but not fond of sitting in the presence of an audience. Therefore it has sometimes occurred in Munich that when an opera has been concluded and the players were getting off their paint and finery, a command has come to them to get their paint and finery on again. Presently the king would arrive, solitary and alone, and the players would begin at the beginning and do the entire opera over again, with only that one individual in the vast solemn theatre for audience. Once he took an odd freak into his head. High up and out of sight over the prodigious stage of the court theatre is a maze of interlacing water pipes, so pierced that in case of fire innumerable little thread-like streams of water can be caused to descend, and in case of need this discharge can be augmented to a pouring flood. American managers might want to make note of that. The king was sole audience. The opera proceeded. It was a piece with a storm in it. The mimic thunder began to mutter, the mimic wind began to wail and sow, and the mimic rain to patter. The king's interest rose higher and higher. It developed into enthusiasm. He cried out, It is very, very good indeed! But I will have real rain! Turn on the water!" The manager pleaded for a reversal of the command, said it would ruin the costly scenery and the splendid costumes. But the king cried, No matter, no matter, I will have real rain! Turn on the water!" So the real rain was turned on and began to descend in gossamer lances to the mimic flower beds and gravel walks of the stage. The richly dressed actresses and actors tripped about singing bravely and pretending not to mind. The king was delighted. His enthusiasm grew higher. He cried out, Bravo! Bravo! More thunder! More lightning! Turn on more rain! The thunder boomed. The lightning glared. The storm winds raged. The deluge poured down. The mimic royalty on the stage, with their soaked satins clinging to their bodies, slopped about ankle deep in water, warbling their sweetest and best. The fiddlers under the eaves of the stage sawed away for dear life, with the cold overflow spouting down the backs of their necks, and the dry and happy king sat in his lofty box and wore his gloves to ribbons applauding. More yet! cried the king, More yet! let loose all the thunder! Turn on all the thunder! I will hang the man that raises an umbrella! When this most tremendous and effective storm that had ever been produced in any theatre was at last over, the king's approbation was measureless. He cried, Magnificent! Magnificent! Encore! Do it again! But the manager succeeded in persuading him to recall the encore and said the company would feel sufficiently rewarded and complimented in the mere fact that the encore was desired by his majesty, without fatiguing him with a repetition to gratify their own vanity. During the remainder of the act the lucky performers were those whose parts required changes of dress, the others were a soaked, bedraggled, and uncomfortable lot, but in the last degree, picturesque. The stage scenery was ruined, trapdoors were so swollen that they wouldn't work for a week afterward, the fine costumes were spoiled, and no end of minor damages were done by that remarkable storm. It was a royal idea, that storm, and royally carried out, but observe the moderation of the king he did not insist upon his encore. If he had been a gladsome, unreflecting American opera audience, he probably would have had his storm repeated and repeated until he drowned all those people. CHAPTER X The summer days passed pleasantly in Heidelberg. We had a skilled trainer, and under his instructions we were getting our legs in the right condition for the contemplated pedestrian tours. We were well satisfied with the progress which we had made in the German language. Note one, see Appendix D for information concerning this fearful tongue. End of note one. And more than satisfied with what we had accomplished in art, we had had the best instructors in drawing and painting in Germany. Hammerling, Vogel, Müller, Dietz, and Schumann. Hammerling taught us landscape painting, Vogel taught us figure drawing, Müller taught us to do still life, and Dietz and Schumann gave us a finishing course in two specialties, battle-pieces, and shipwrecks. Whatever I am in art, I owe to these men. I have something of the manner of each and all of them. But they all said that I had also a manner of my own, and that it was conspicuous. They said there was a marked individuality about my style, in so much that if I ever painted the commonest type of a dog, I should be sure to throw a something into the aspect of that dog which would keep him from being mistaken for the creation of any other artist. Secretly I wanted to believe all these kind sayings, but I could not. I was afraid that my master's partiality for me and pride in me biased their judgment. So I resolved to make a test, privately, and unknown to any one. I painted my great picture Heidelberg Castle Illuminated, my first really important work in oils, and had it hung up in the midst of a wilderness of oil pictures in the art exhibition with no name attached to it. To my great gratification it was instantly recognized as mine. All the town flocked to see it, and people even came from neighboring localities to visit it. It made more stir than any other work in the exhibition. But the most gratifying thing of all was that chance strangers passing through, who had not heard of my picture, were not only drawn to it, as by a loadstone, the moment they entered the gallery, but always took it for a turner. Apparently nobody had ever done that. There were ruined castles on the overhanging cliffs and crags all the way. These were said to have their legends, like those on the Rhine, and what was better still, they had never been in print. There was nothing in the books about that lovely region. It had been neglected by the tourist. It was virgin soil for the literary pioneer. Meantime the knapsacks, the rough walking suits, and the stout walking shoes which we had ordered, were finished and brought to us. A Mr. X and a young Mr. Z had agreed to go with us. We went around one evening and bad goodbye to our friends, and afterward had a little farewell banquet at the hotel. We got to bed early, for we wanted to make an early start, so as to take advantage of the cool of the morning. We were out of bed at break of day, feeling fresh and vigorous, and took a hearty breakfast, then plunged down through the leafy arcades of the castle grounds toward the town. What a glorious summer morning it was, and how the flowers did pour out their fragrance, and how the birds did sing. It was just the time for a tramp through the woods and mountains. We were all dressed alike, broad slouch hats to keep the sun off, grey knapsacks, blue army shirts, blue overalls, leathern gaiters button-tight from the knee down to ankle, high-quarter coarse shoes snugly laced. Each man had an opera-glass, a canteen, and a guide-book case slung over his shoulder, and carried an alpin-stock in one hand and a sun umbrella in the other. And our hats were wound many folds of soft white muslim, with the ends hanging and flapping down our backs, an idea brought from the Orient and used by tourists all over Europe. Harris carried the little watch-like machine called a pedometer, whose office is to keep count of a man's steps, and tell how far he has walked. Everybody stopped to admire our costumes and give us hearty, pleasant march to you. When we got downtown I found that we could go by rail to within five miles of Heilbrunn. The train was just starting, so we jumped aboard and went tearing away in splendid spirits. It was agreed all around that we had done wisely because it would be just as enjoyable to walk down the Neckar as up it, and it could not be needful to walk both ways. There were some nice German people in our compartment. I got to talking some pretty private matters presently, and Harris became nervous, so he nudged me and said, Speak in German, these Germans may understand English. I did so, and it was well I did, for it turned out that there was not a German in that party who did not understand English perfectly. It is curious how widespread our language is in Germany. After a while some of those folks got out and a German gentleman and his two young daughters got in. I spoke in German of one of the latter several times, but without result. She said, Ich wirst der nur Deutsche und Englische, or words to that effect, that is, I don't understand any language but German and English. And sure enough not only she but her father and sister spoke English, so after that we had all the talk we wanted, and we wanted a good deal, for they were agreeable people. They were greatly interested in our customs, especially the Alpenstock, for they had not seen any before. They said that the Neckar road was perfectly level, so we must be going to Switzerland or some other rugged country, and asked us if we did not find the walking pretty fatiguing in such warm weather. But we said no. We reached Wimpfen, I think it was Wimpfen, in about three hours, and got out, not the least tired, found a good hotel and ordered beer and dinner, then took a stroll through the venerable old village. It was very picturesque, and tumble down, and dirty, and interesting. It had queer houses five hundred years old in it, and a military tower, a hundred and fifteen feet high, which had stood there more than ten centuries. I made a little sketch of it, I kept a copy, but gave the original to the Burgamaster. I think the original was better than the copy, because it had more windows in it and the grass stood up better and had a brisker look. There was none around the tower, though. I composed the grass myself, from studies I made in a field by Heidelberg in Hamerling's time. The man on top, looking at the view, is apparently too large, but I found he could not be made smaller conveniently. I wanted him there, and I wanted him visible, so I thought out a way to manage it. I composed the picture from two points of view. The spectator is to observe the man from about where that flag is, and he must observe the tower itself from the ground. This harmonizes the seeming discrepancy. FIGURE II Near an old cathedral under a shed were three crosses of stone, moldy and damaged things bearing life-sized stone figures. The two thieves were dressed in the fanciful court costumes of the middle of the sixteenth century, while the Saviour was nude, with the exception of a cloth round his loins. We had dinner under the green trees in a garden belonging to the hotel and overlooking the neck-ar. Then, after a smoke, we went to bed. We had a refreshing nap, then got up about three in the afternoon and put on our panoply. As we tramped gaily out at the gate of the town, we overtook a peasant cart, partly laden with odds and ends of cabbages and similar vegetable rubbish, and drawn by a small cow and a smaller donkey-yoke together. It was a pretty slow concern, but it got us into Heilbrunn before dark, five miles, or possibly it was seven. We stopped at the very same inn, which the famous old robber-knight and rough-fighter Goetz von Berlikingen abode in after he got out of captivity in the square tower of Heilbrunn between three hundred and fifty and four hundred years ago. Harris and I occupied the same room which he had occupied, and the same paper had not quite peeled off the walls yet. The furniture was quaint old carved stuff, full four hundred years old, and some of the smells were over a thousand. There was a hook in the wall, which the landlord said the terrific old Goetz used to hang his iron hand on when he took it off to go to bed. This room was very large, it might be called immense. It was on the first floor, which means it was in the second story, for in Europe the houses are so high that they do not count the first story. Else they would get tired climbing before they got to the top. The wallpaper was a fiery red, with huge gold figures in it, well smirched by time, and it covered all the doors. These doors fitted so snugly and continued the figures of the paper so unbrokenly that when they were closed one had to go feeling and searching along the wall to find them. There was a stove in the corner, one of those tall, square, stately, white porcelain things that looks like a monument and keeps you thinking of death when you ought to be enjoying your travels. The windows looked out on a little alley, and over that into a stable and some poultry and pig-yards in the rear of some tenement-houses. There were the customary two-beds in the room, one in one end, the other in the other, about an old fashioned brass-mounted, single-barreled pistol-shot apart. They were fully as narrow as the usual German bed, too, and had the German bed's ineradicable habit of spilling the blankets on the floor every time you forgot yourself, and went to sleep. A round table as large as King Arthur's stood in the center of the room, while the waiters were getting ready to serve our dinner on it, we all went out to see the renowned clock on the front of the municipal buildings. END OF CHAPTER XI This is CHAPTER XII of A Tramp Abroad. This LibriVox recording is in the public domain. A Tramp Abroad by Mark Twain, CHAPTER XII. WHAT THE WIVES SAVED. The Rathaus, or municipal building, is of the quaintest and most picturesque middle-age architecture. It has a massive portico and steps before it, heavily ballastrated, and adorned with life-sized, rusty iron knights in complete armor. The clock-face on the front of the building is very large, and of curious pattern. Ordinarily, a gilded angel strikes the hour on a big bell with a hammer, as the striking ceases. A life-sized figure of time raises its hourglass and turns it. Two golden rams advance and butt each other. A gilded cock lifts its wings. But the main features are two great angels, who stand on each side of the dial with long horns at their lips. It was said that they blew melodious blasts on these horns every hour, but they did not do it for us. We were told later that they blew only at night when the town was still. Within the Rathaus were a number of huge wild boar's heads preserved and mounted on brackets along the wall. They bore inscriptions telling who killed them and how many hundred years ago it was done. One room in the building was devoted to the preservation of ancient archives. There they showed us no end of aged documents. Some were signed by popes, some by tilly, and other great generals, and one was a letter written and subscribed by Goetz von Berlikingen in Heilbronn in 1519, just after his release from the square tower. This fine old robber-night was a devoutly and sincerely religious man, hospitable and charitable to the poor, fearless in fight, active, enterprising, and possessed of a large and generous nature. He had in him a quality of being able to overlook moderate injuries and being able to forgive and forget mortal ones as soon as he had soundly trounced the authors of them. He was prompt to take up any poor devil's quarrel and risk his neck to write him. The common folk held him dear, and his memory is still green in ballad and tradition. He used to go on the highway and rob rich wayfarers, and other times he would swoop down from his high castle on the hills of the Neckar and capture passing cargoes of merchandise. In his memoirs he piously thanks the giver of all good for remembering him in his needs and delivering sundry such cargoes into his hands at times when only special providences could have relieved him. He was a doubty warrior and found a deep joy in battle. In an assault upon a stronghold in Bavaria, when he was only twenty-three years old, his right hand was shot away, but he was so interested in the fight that he did not observe it for a while. He said that the iron hand which was made for him afterward and which he wore for more than half a century was nearly as clever a member as the fleshy one had been. I was glad to get a facsimile of the letter written by this fine old German Robin Hood, though I was not able to read it. He was a better artist with his sword than with his pen. We went down by the river and saw the square tower. It was a very venerable structure, very strong and very ornamental. There was no opening near the ground. They had to use a ladder to get into it, no doubt. We visited the principal church also, a curious old structure with a tower-like spire adorned with all sorts of grotesque images. The inner walls of the church were placarded with large mural tablets of copper, bearing engraved inscriptions celebrating the merits of old Heilbronn worthies of two or three centuries ago, and also bearing rudely painted effigies of themselves and their families tricked out in the queer costumes of those days. The head of the family sat in the foreground, and beyond him extended a sharply receding and diminishing row of sons. Facing him sat his wife, and beyond her extended a low row of diminishing daughters. The family was usually large, but the perspective bad. Then we hired the hack and the horse which Goetz von Bedelkingen used to use, and drove several miles into the country to visit the place called Weber-Troy, wife's fidelity, I suppose it means. It was a feudal castle of the Middle Ages. When we reached its neighborhood we found it was beautifully situated, but on top of a mound, or hill, round and tolerably steep, and about two hundred feet high. Therefore, as the sun was blazing hot, we did not climb up there, but took the place on trust, and observed it from a distance while the horse leaned up against a fence and rested. The place has no interest except that which is lent it by its legend, which is a very pretty one, to this effect, the legend. In the Middle Ages a couple of young dukes, brothers, took opposite sides in one of the wars, the one fighting for the emperor, the other against him. One of them owned the castle and village on top of the mound, which I have been speaking of, and in his absence his brother came with his knights and soldiers and began a siege. It was a long and tedious business, for the people made a stubborn and faithful defense. But at last their supplies ran out and starvation began its work. More fell by hunger than by the missiles of the enemy. They buy and buy surrendered and begged for charitable terms. But the beleaguering prince was so incensed against them for their long resistance that he said he would spare none but the women and children. All men should be put to the sword without exception, and all their goods destroyed. Then the women came and fell on their knees and begged for the lives of their husbands. No, said the prince, not a man of them shall escape alive. You yourselves shall go with your children into houseless and friendless banishment. But that you may not starve, I grant you this one grace, that each woman may bear with her from this place as much of her most valuable property as she is able to carry. Very well, presently the gates swung open and outfiled those women carrying their husbands on their shoulders. The besiegers, furious at the trick, rushed forward to slaughter the men, but the duke stepped between and said, No, put up your swords. A prince's word is inviolable. When we got back to the hotel, King Arthur's round table was ready for us in its white drapery, and the head waiter and his first assistant in swallow-tails and white cravats brought in the soup and the hot plates at once. Mr. X had ordered the dinner, and when the wine came on he picked up a bottle glanced at the label, and then turned to the grave, the melancholy, the sepulchral head waiter, and said it was not the sort of wine he had asked for. The head waiter picked up the bottle, cast his undertaker eye on it, and said, It is true, I beg pardon. Then he turned on his subordinate and calmly said, Bring another label. At the same time he slid the present label off with his hand and laid it aside. It had been newly put on. Its paste was still wet. When the new label came he put it on. Our French wine being now turned into German wine, according to desire, the head waiter went blandly about his other duties, as if the working of this sort of miracle was a common and easy thing to him. Mr. X said he had not known before that there were people honest enough to do this miracle in public, but he was aware that thousands upon thousands of labels were imported into America from Europe every year to enable dealers to furnish to their customers and acquire an inexpensive way all the different kinds of foreign wines they might require. We took a turn around the town after dinner and found it fully as interesting in the moonlight as it had been in the daytime. The streets were narrow and roughly paved, and there was not a sidewalk or street lamp anywhere. The dwellings were centuries old and vast enough for hotels. They widened all the way up, the storeys projected further and further forward and aside as they ascended, and the long rows of lighted windows filled with little bits of panes, curtained with figured white Muslim and adorned outside with boxes of flowers made a pretty effect. The moon was bright and the light and shadow very strong, and nothing could be more picturesque than those curving streets with their rows of huge high gables leaning far over toward each other in a friendly gossiping way, and the crowds below drifting through the alternating blots of gloom and mellow bars of moonlight. Nearly everybody was abroad chatting, singing, romping, or masked in lazy comfortable attitudes in the doorways. In one place there was a public building which was fenced about with a thick, rusty chain which sagged from post to post in a succession of low swings. The pavement here was made of heavy blocks of stone. In the glare of the moon a party of barefooted children were swinging on those chains and having a noisy good time. They were not the first ones who have done that. Even their great-great-grandfathers had not been the first to do it when they were children. The strokes of the bare feet had worn grooves inches deep in the stone flags. It had taken many generations of swinging children to accomplish that. Everywhere in the town were the mould and decay that go with antiquity and evidence of it. But I do not know that anything else gave us so vivid a sense of the old age of Heilbronn as those foot-worn grooves in the paving stones. End of CHAPTER XII When we got back to the hotel I wound and set the pedometer and put it in my pocket, for I was to carry it next day and keep record of the miles we made. The work which we had given the instrument to do during the day, which had just closed, had not fatigued it perceptibly. We were in bed by ten, for we wanted to be up and away on our tramp homeward with the dawn. I hung fire, but Harris went to sleep at once. I hate a man who goes to sleep at once. There is a sort of an indefinable something about it, which is not exactly an insult, and yet it is an insolence, and one which is hard to bear too. I lay there fraying over this injury and trying to go to sleep. But the harder I tried, the wider awake I grew. I got to feeling very lonely in the dark, with no company but an undigested dinner. My mind got a start by and by, and began to consider the beginning of every subject which has ever been thought of. But it never went further than the beginning. It was touch and go. It fled from topic to topic with a frantic speed. At the end of an hour my head was in a perfect whirl, and I was dead tired, fagged out. The fatigue was so great that it presently began to make some head against the nervous excitement. While imagining myself wide awake, I would really doze into momentary unconsciousness, and come suddenly out of it with a physical jerk which nearly wrenched my joints apart, the delusion of the instant being that I was tumbling backward over a precipice. After I had fallen over eight or nine precipices, and thus found out that one half of my brain had been asleep eight or nine times without the wide awake, hard-working other half suspecting it, the periodical unconsciousnesses began to extend their spell gradually over more of my brain territory, and at last I sank into a drowse which grew deeper and deeper, and was doubtless just on the very point of being a solid blessed dreamless stupor when—what was that? My dulled faculties dragged themselves partly back to life and took a receptive attitude. Now out of an immense, limitless distance came a something which grew and grew and approached and presently was recognizable as a sound. It had rather seemed to be a feeling before. This sound was a mile away now, perhaps it was the murmur of a storm, and now it was nearer, not a quarter of a mile away. Was it the muffled rasping and grinding of distant machinery? No, it came still nearer. Was it the measured tramp of a marching troupe? But it came nearer still and still nearer, and at last it was right in the room. It was merely a mouse gnawing the woodwork. So I had held my breath all that time for such a trifle. Well, what was done could not be helped. I would go to sleep at once and make up the last time. That was a thoughtless thought. Without intending it, hardly knowing it, I fell to listening intently to that sound, and even unconsciously counting the strokes of the mouse's nutmeg greater. Presently I was deriving exquisite suffering from this employment. Yet maybe I could have endured it if the mouse had attended steadily to his work, but he did not do that. He stopped every now and then, and I suffered more while waiting and listening for him to begin again than I did while he was gnawing. Along at first I was mentally offering a reward of five, six, seven, or ten dollars for that mouse, but toward the last I was offering rewards which were entirely beyond my means. I closed riefed my ears, that is to say, I bent the flaps of them down and furled them into five or six folds, and pressed them against the hearing orifice. But it did no good. The faculty was so sharpened by a nervous excitement that it was become a microphone and could hear through the overlays without trouble. My anger grew to a frenzy. I finally did what all persons before me have done, clear back to Adam, resolve to throw something. I reached down and got my walking shoes, then sat up in bed and listened in order to exactly locate the noise, but I couldn't do it. It was as unlocatable as a cricket's noise, and where one thinks that that is, is always the very place where it isn't. So I presently hurled a shoe at random and with a vicious vigor. It struck the wall over Harris's head and fell down on him. I had not imagined I could throw so far. It woke Harris, and I was glad of it until I found he was not angry. Then I was sorry. He soon went to sleep again, which pleased me. But straight away the mouse began again, which roused my temper once more. I did not want to wake Harris a second time, but the gnawing continued until I was compelled to throw the other shoe. This time I broke a mirror. There were two in the room. I got the largest one, of course. Harris woke again, but did not complain, and I was sorryer than ever. I resolved that I would suffer all possible torture before I would disturb him a third time. The mouse eventually retired, and by and by I was sinking to sleep when a clock began to strike. I counted till it was done, and was about to drowse again when another clock began. I counted. Then the two great Rathaus clock angels began to send forth soft rich melodious blasts from their long trumpets. I had never heard anything that was so lovely, or weird, or mysterious. But when they got to blowing the quarter-hours, they seemed to me to be overdoing the thing. Every time I dropped off for the moment, a new noise woke me. Each time I woke I missed my coverlet, and had to reach down to the floor and get it again. At last all sleepiness forsook me. I recognized the fact that I was hopelessly and permanently wide awake, wide awake and feverish and thirsty. When I had lain tossing there as long as I could endure it, it occurred to me that it would be a good idea to dress and go out in the great square and take a refreshing wash in the fountain, and smoke and reflect there until the remnant of the night was gone. I believed I could dress in the dark without waking Harris. I banished my shoes after the mouse, but my slippers would do for a summer night, so I rose softly and gradually got on everything down to one sock. I couldn't seem to get on the track of that sock any way I could fix it, but I had to have it, so I went down on my hands and knees with one slipper on and the other in my hand, and began to paw gently around and rake the floor, but with no success. I enlarged my circle and went on pawing and raking with every pressure of my knee how the floor creaked, and every time I chanced to rake against any article it seemed to give out thirty-five or thirty-six times more noise than it would have done in the daytime. In those cases I always stopped and held my breath till I was sure Harris had not awakened. Then I crept along again. I moved on and on, but I could not find the sock. I could not seem to find anything but furniture. I could not remember that there was much furniture in the room when I went to bed, but the place was alive with it now, especially chairs, chairs everywhere. Had a couple of families moved in in the meantime, and I never could seem to glance on one of those chairs, but always struck it full and square with my head. My temper rose by steady and sure degrees, and as I pawed on and on I fell to making vicious comments under my breath. Finally, with a venomous access of irritation, I said I would leave without the sock, so I rose up and made straight for the door as I supposed, and suddenly confronted my dim spectral image in the unbroken mirror. It startled the breath out of me for an instant. It also showed me that I was lost, and had no sort of idea where I was. When I realized this, I was so angry that I had to sit down on the floor and take hold of something to keep from lifting the roof off with an explosion of opinion. If there had been only one mirror, it might possibly have helped to locate me. But there were two, and two were as bad as a thousand. Besides, these were on opposite sides of the room. I could see the dim blur of the windows, but in my turned-around condition they were exactly where they ought not to be, and so they only confused me instead of helping me. I started to get up and knock down an umbrella. It made a noise like a pistol shot when it struck that hard, slick, carpetless floor. I grated my teeth and held my breath. Harris did not stir. I set the umbrella slowly and carefully on end against the wall. But as soon as I took my hand away its heel slipped from under it, and down it came again with another bang. I shrunk together and listened a moment in silent fury. No harm done. Everything quiet. With the most painstaking care and nicety I stood the umbrella up once more, took my hand away, and down it came again. I have been strictly reared. But if it had not been so dark and solemn and awful there in that lonely vast room, I do believe I should have said something then which could not be put into a Sunday school book without injuring the sale of it. If my reasoning powers had not been already sapped dry by my harassments, I would have known better than to try to set an umbrella on end on one of those glassy German floors in the dark. It can't be done in the daytime without four failures to one success. I had one comfort, though. Harris was yet still and silent. He had not stirred. The umbrella could not locate me. There were four standing around the room and all alike. I thought I would feel along the wall and find the door in that way. I rose up and began this operation, but raked down a picture. It was not a large one, but it made noise enough for a panorama. Harris gave out no sound. But I felt that if I experimented any further with the pictures, I should be sure to wake him. Better give up trying to get out. Yes, I would find King Arthur's round table once more. I had already found it several times, and use it for a base of departure on an exploring tour for my bed. If I could find my bed, I could then find my water-pitcher. I would quench my raging thirst and turn in. So I started on my hands and knees, because I could go faster that way, and with more confidence too, and not knock down things. By and by I found a table with my head, rubbed the bruise a little, then rose up and started with my hands abroad and fingers spread to balance myself. I found a chair, then a wall, then another chair, then a sofa, then an Alpenstock, then another sofa. This confounded me, for I had thought there was only one sofa. I hunted up the table again and took a fresh start. Found some more chairs. It occurred to me now, as it ought to have done before, that as the table was round it was therefore of no value as a base to aim from. So I moved off once more, and at random among the wilderness of chairs and sofas, wandering off into unfamiliar regions, and presently knocked a candlestick and knocked off a lamp, grabbed at the lamp, and knocked off a water-pitcher with a startling crash, and thought to myself, I found you at last. I judged I was close upon you. Harry shouted, Murder! and Thieves! and finished with, I'm absolutely drowned! The crash had roused the house. Mr. X pranced in, in his long night-garment with a candle, young Z after him with another candle, a procession swept in at another door, with candles and lanterns, landlord and two German guests in their nightgowns and a chambermaid in hers. I looked around. I was at Harris's bed, a Sabbath day's journey from my own. There was only one sofa, it was against the wall. There was only one chair, where a body could get at it. I had been revolving around it like a planet, and colliding with it like a comet half the night. I explained how I had been employing myself and why. Then the landlord's party left, and the rest of us set about our preparations for breakfast, for the dawn was ready to break. I glanced furtively at my pedometer and found I had made forty-seven miles. But I did not care, for I had come out for a pedestrian tour anyway. End of Chapter 13 This is Chapter 14 of A Tramp Abroad. This LibriVox recording is in the public domain. A Tramp Abroad by Mark Twain. Chapter 14 Rafting Down the Neckar When the landlord learned that I and my agents were artists, our party rose perceptibly in his esteem. We rose still higher when he learned that we were making a pedestrian tour of Europe. He told us all about the Heidelberg Road, and which were the best places to avoid, and which the best ones to tarry at. He charged me less than cost for the things I broke in the night. He put a fine luncheon for us, and added to it a quantity of great light-green plums, the pleasantest fruit in Germany. He was so anxious to do us honour that he would not allow us to walk out of Heilbrunn, but called up Götz von Bedelinkens horse and cab, and made us ride. I made a sketch of the turnout. It is not a work, it is only what artists call a study, a thing to make a finished picture from. This sketch has several blemishes in it. For instance, the wagon is not travelling as fast as the horse is. This is wrong. Again, the person trying to get out of the way is too small. He is out of perspective, as we say. The two upper lines are not the horse's back. They are the reins. There seems to be a wheel missing. This would be corrected in a finished work, of course. This thing flying out behind is not a flag, it is a curtain. That other thing up there is the sun, but I didn't get enough distance on it. I do not remember now what that thing is that is in front of the man who is running, but I think it is a haystack or a woman. This study was exhibited in the Paris Salon of 1879, but did not take any medal. They do not give medals for studies. See, figure three. We discharged the carriage at the bridge. The river was full of logs, long, slender, barkless pine logs, and we leaned on the rails of the bridge and watched the men put them together into rafts. These rafts were of a shape and construction to suit the crookedness and extreme narrowness of the neck-hair. They were from fifty to one hundred yards long, and they gradually tapered from a nine log breadth at their sterns to a three log breadth at their bow ends. The main part of the steering is done at the bow, with a pole. The three log breadth there furnishes room for only one steersman, for these little logs are not larger around than an average young lady's waist. The connections of the several sections of the raft are slack and pliant, so that the raft may be readily bent into any sort of curve required by the shape of the river. The neck-hair is in many places so narrow that a person can throw a dog across it, if he has one, when it is also sharply curved in such places, the raftsman has to do some pretty nice snug piloting to make the turns. The river is not always allowed to spread over its whole bed, which is as much as thirty and sometimes forty yards wide, but is split into three equal bodies of water by stone dykes, which throw the main volume, depth, and current, into the central one. In low water these neat narrow-edged dykes project four or five inches above the surface, like the comb of a submerged roof, but in high water they are overflowed. A hat full of rain makes high water in the neck-hair, and a basketful produces an overflow. There are dykes abreast the Schloss Hotel, and the current is violently swift at that point. I used to sit for hours in my glass cage watching the long narrow raft slip along through the central channel, grazing the right bank dyke and aiming carefully for the middle arch of the stone bridge below. I watched them in this way, and lost all this time hoping to see one of them hit the bridge pier and wreck itself some time or other, but it was always disappointed. One was smashed there one morning, but I had just stepped into my room a moment to light a pipe, so I lost it. While I was looking down upon the rafts that morning in Heilbronn, the daredevil spirit of adventure came suddenly upon me, and I said to my comrades, I am going to Heidelberg on a raft. Will you venture with me? Their faces paled a little, but they assented with as good a grace as they could. Harris wanted to cable his mother, thought at his duty to do that, as he was all she had in this world. So while he attended to this, I went down to the longest and finest raft, and hailed the captain with a hearty ahoy, shipmate! which put us upon pleasant terms at once, and we entered upon business. I said we were on a pedestrian tour to Heidelberg, and would like to take passage with him. I said this partly through young Zee, who spoke German very well, and partly through Mr. X, who spoke it peculiarly. I can understand German as well as the maniac that invented it, but I talk it best through an interpreter. The captain hitched up his trousers, then shifted his quid thoughtfully. Presently he said, just what I was expecting, he would say, that he had no license to carry passengers, and therefore was afraid the law would be after him in case the matter got noised about or any accident happened. So I chartered the raft and the crew, and took all the responsibilities on myself. With a rattling song the starboard watch bent to their work and hovered the cable short, then got the anchor home, and our bark moved off with a stately stride, and soon was bowling along at about two knots an hour. Our party were grouped amidst ships. At first the talk was a little gloomy and ran mainly upon the shortness of life, the uncertainty of it, the perils which beset it, and the need and wisdom of being always prepared for the worst. This shaded off into low-voiced references to the dangers of the deep and kindred matters. But as the grey east began to redden, and the mysterious solemnity and silence of the dawn to give place to the joy songs of the birds, the talk took a cheerier tone, and our spirits began to rise steadily. Germany in the summer is the perfection of the beautiful. But nobody has understood and realized and enjoyed the utmost possibilities of this soft and peaceful beauty unless he has voyaged down the Nekar on a raft. The motion of a raft is the needful motion. It is gentle and gliding and smooth and noiseless. It calms down all feverish activities. It soothes to sleep all nervous hurry and impatience. Under its restful influence all the troubles and vexations and sorrows that harass the mind vanish away, and existence becomes a dream, a charm, a deep and tranquil ecstasy. How it contrasts with hot and perspiring pedestrianism and dusty and deafening railroad rush, and tedious jolting behind tired horses over blinding white roads. We went slipping silently along between the green and fragrant banks, with a sense of pleasure and contentment that grew and grew all the time. Sometimes the banks were overhung with thick masses of willows that wholly hid the ground beneath. Sometimes we had noble hills on one hand, clothed densely with foliage to their tops. And on the other hand open levels blazing with poppies, or clothed in the rich blue of the cornflower. Sometimes we drifted in the shadow of forests, and sometimes along the margin of long stretches of velvety grass, fresh and green and bright, a tireless charm to the eye. And the birds, they were everywhere. They swept back and forth across the river constantly, and their jubilant music was never stilled. It was a deep and satisfying pleasure to see the sun create the new morning, and gradually, patiently, lovingly, clothe it on with splendor after splendor, and glory after glory, till the miracle was complete. How different is this marvel observed from a raft, from what it is when one observes it through the dingy windows of a railway station in some wretched village, while he munches a petrified sandwich and waits for the train. Men and women and cattle were at work in the dewy fields by this time. The people often stepped aboard the raft as we glided along the grassy shores, and gossiped with us, and with the crew for a hundred yards or so, then stepped ashore again, refreshed by the ride. Only the men did this. The women were too busy. The women do all kinds of work on the continent. They dig, they hoe, they reap, they sow, they bear monstrous burdens on their backs, they shove similar ones, long distances on wheel-barrows. They drag the cart when there is no dog or lean cow to drag it, and when there is, they assist the dog or cow. Age is no matter. The older the woman, the stronger she is, apparently. On the farm a woman's duties are not defined. She does a little of everything. But in the towns it is different. There she only does certain things, the men do the rest. For instance, a hotel chambermaid has nothing to do but make beds and fires in fifty or sixty rooms, bring towels and candles and fetch several tons of water up several flights of stairs, a hundred pounds at a time, in prodigious metal pitchers. She does not have to work more than eighteen or twenty hours a day, and she can always get down on her knees and scrub the floors of halls and closets when she is tired and needs a rest. As the morning advanced and the weather grew hot, we took off our outside clothing and sat in a row along the edge of the raft and enjoyed the scenery, with our sun umbrellas over our heads and our legs dangling in the water. Every now and then we plunged in and had a swim. Every projecting grassy cape had its joyous group of naked children, the boys to themselves and the girls to themselves, the latter usually in care of some motherly dame who sat in the shade of a tree with her knitting. The little boys swam out to us sometimes, but the little maids stood knee-deep in the water and stopped their splashing and frolicking to inspect the raft with their innocent eyes as it drifted by. Once we turned a corner suddenly and surprised a slender girl of twelve years or upward just stepping into the water. She had not time to run, but she did what answered just as well. She promptly drew a little young willow-bowl at thwerp her white body with one hand and then contemplated us with a simple and untroubled interest. Thus she stood while we glided by. She was a pretty creature, and she and her willow-bowl made a very pretty picture, and one which could not offend the modesty of the most fastidious spectator. Her white skin had a low bank of fresh green willows for background and effective contrast, for she stood against them, and above and out of them projected the eager faces and white shoulders of two smaller girls. Toward noon we heard the inspiring cry, Sail Ho! Where away, shouted the captain, three points off the weather-bowl! We ran forward to see the vessel. It proved to be a steamboat, for they had begun to run a steamer up the neck-hair for the first time in May. She was a tug, and one of a very peculiar build and aspect. I had often watched her from the hotel and wondered how she propelled herself, for apparently she had no propeller or paddles. She came churning along now, making a deal of noise of one kind or another, and aggravating it every now and then by blowing a horse whistle. She had nine keel-boats hitched on behind, and following after her in a long, slender rank. We met her in a narrow place, between dykes, and there was hardly room for us both in the cramped passage. As she went grinding and groaning by, we perceived the secret of her moving impulse. She did not drive herself up the river with paddles or propellers. She pulled herself by hauling on a great chain. This chain is laid in the bank of the river and is only fastened at the two ends. It is seventy miles long. It comes in over the boat's bow, passes around a drum, and is paid out a stern. She pulls on that chain, and so drags herself up the river or down it. She has neither bow nor stern strictly speaking, for she has a long bladed rudder on each end, and she never turns around. She uses both rudders all the time, and they are powerful enough to enable her to turn to the right or the left and steer around curves, in spite of the strong resistance of the chain. I would not have believed that that impossible thing could be done, but I saw it done, and therefore I know that there is one impossible thing which can be done. What miracle will man attempt next? We met many big keel-boats on their way up, using sails, mule power, and profanity—a tedious and laborious business. A wire rope led from the foretop mass to the file of mules on the tow-path a hundred yards ahead, and by dint of much banging and swearing and urging, the detachment of drivers managed to get a speed of two or three miles an hour out of the mules against the stiff current. The neck-ar has always been used as a canal, and thus has given employment to a great many men and animals. But now that this steamboat is able, with a small crew and a bushel or so of coal, to take nine keel-boats farther up the river in one hour than thirty men and thirty mules can do it in two, it is believed that the old-fashioned towing industry is on its deathbed. A second steamboat began work in the neck-ar three months after the first one was put in service. Figure four. At noon we stepped ashore and bought some bottle beer and got some chickens cooked while the raft waited. Then we immediately put to sea again and had our dinner while the beer was cold and the chickens hot. There is no pleasanter place for such a meal than a raft that is gliding down the winding neck-ar past green meadows and wooded hills and slumbering villages and craggy heights graced with crumbling towers and battlements. In one place we saw a nicely dressed German gentleman without any spectacles. Before I could come to anchor he had got under way. It was a great pity. I so wanted to make a sketch of him. The captain comforted me for my loss, however, by saying that the man was, without a doubt, a fraud who had spectacles but kept them in his pocket in order to make himself conspicuous. Below Hasmashheim we passed Hornberg, Götz von Berlikingen's old castle. It stands on a bold elevation two hundred feet above the surface of the river. It has high vine-clad walls and closing trees and a peaked tower about seventy-five feet high. The steep hillside from the castle clear down to the water's edge is terraced and clothed thick with grapevines. This is like farming a mansored roof. All the steeps along that part of the river which furnish the proper exposure are given up to the grape. That region is a great producer of rind wines. The Germans are exceedingly fond of rind wines. They are put up in tall, slender bottles and are considered a pleasant beverage. One tells them from vinegar by the label. The Hornberg hill is to be tunneled and the new railway will pass under the castle. The Cave of the Spectre. Two miles below Hornberg Castle is a cave in a low cliff which the captain of the raft said had once been occupied by a beautiful heiress of Hornberg, the Lady Gertrude, in the old times. It was seven hundred years ago. She had a number of rich and noble lovers and one poor and obscure one, Sir Wendell Loebenfeld. With the native chuckle headedness of the heroine of romance she preferred the poor and obscure lover. With the native sound judgment of the father of a heroine of romance the von Berlikingen of that day shut his daughter up in his dungeon keep, or his Ubliette, or his Culverin, or some such place, and resolved that she should stay there until she selected a husband from among her rich and noble lovers. The latter visited her and persecuted her with their supplications but without effect, for her heart was true to her poor despised crusader who was fighting in the Holy Land. Finally she resolved that she would endure the attentions of the rich lovers no longer, so one stormy night she escaped and went down the river and hit herself in the cave on the other side. Her father ransacked the country for her, but found not a trace of her. As the days went by and still no tidings of her came his conscience began to torture him, and he caused proclamation to be made that if she were yet living and would return he would oppose her no longer she might marry whom she would. The months dragged on, all hope forsook the old man, he ceased from his customary pursuits and pleasures, he devoted himself to pious works and longed for the deliverance of death. Now just at midnight every night the lost Harris stood in the mouth of her cave, arrayed in white robes, and sang a little love ballad which her crusader had made for her. She judged that if he came home alive the superstitious peasants would tell him about the ghosts that sang in the cave, and that as soon as they described the ballad he would know that none but he and she knew that song, therefore he would suspect that she was alive and would come and find her. As time went on the people of the region became sorely distressed about the specter of the haunted cave. It was said that ill luck of one kind or another always overtook anyone who had the misfortune to hear that song. Eventually every calamity that happened thereabouts was laid at the door of that music. Consequently no boatmen would consent to pass the cave at night. The peasants shunned the place, even in the daytime. But the faithful girls sang on night after night, month after month, and patiently waited. Her reward must come at last. Five years dragged by, and still every night at midnight the plaintive tones floated out over the silent land, while the distant boatmen and peasants thrust their fingers into their ears and shuddered out a prayer. And now came the crusader home, bronzed and battle-scarred, but bringing a great and splendid fame to lay at the feet of his bride. The old lord of Hornburg received him as his son, and wanted him to stay by him and be the comfort and blessing of his age. But the tale of that young girl's devotion to him and its pathetic consequences made a changed man of the night. He could not enjoy his well earned rest. He said his heart was broken. He would give the remnant of his life to high deeds in the cause of humanity, and so find a worthy death and a blessed reunion with a brave, true heart whose love had more honoured him than all his victories in war. When the people heard this resolve of his, they came and told him there was a pitiless dragon in human disguise in the haunted cave, a dread creature which no night had yet been bold enough to face and begged him to rid the land of its desolating presence. He said he would do it. They told him about the song, and when he asked what song it was, they said the memory of it was gone, for nobody had been hardy enough to listen to it for the past four years and more. Toward midnight the crusader came floating down the river in a boat, with his trusty crossbow in his hands. He drifted silently through the dim reflections of the crags and trees, with his intent eyes fixed upon the low cliff which he was approaching. As he drew nearer, he discerned the black mouth of the cave. Now, is that a white figure? Yes. The plaintive song begins to well forth and float away over meadow and river. The crossbow is slowly raised to position. A steady aim is taken. The bolt flies straight to the mark. The figure sinks down, still singing. The knight takes the wool out of his ears and recognizes the old ballad too late. Ah! if he had only not put the wool in his ears. The crusader went away to the wars again and presently fell in battle fighting for the cross. Tradition says that during several centuries the spirit of the unfortunate girl sang nightly from the cave at midnight, but the music carried no curse with it, and although many listened for the mysterious sounds few were favored since only those could hear them who had never failed in a trust. It is believed that the singing still continues, but it is known that nobody has heard it during the present century. End of Chapter 15 This is Chapter 16 of A Tramp Abroad. This Liebervox recording is in the public domain. A Tramp Abroad by Mark Twain, Chapter 16. An Ancient Legend of the Rhine, the Lorelei The last legend reminds one of the Lorelei, a legend of the Rhine. There is a song called the Lorelei. Germany is rich in folk songs, and the words and heirs of several of them are peculiarly beautiful, but the Lorelei is the people's favorite. I could not endure it at first, but by and by it began to take hold of me, and now there is no tune which I like so well. It is not possible that it is much known in America else I should have heard it there. The fact that I never heard it there is evidence that there are others in my country who have fared likewise. Therefore, for the sake of these, I mean to print the words and music in this chapter, and I will refresh the reader's memory by printing the legend of the Lorelei too. I have it by me in the Legends of the Rhine, done into English by the wildly gifted Garnum Bachelor of Arts. I print the legend partly to refresh my own memory too, for I have never read it before. The legend, Lorelei, two syllables, was a water nymph who used to sit on a high rock called the Lai, or Lai, pronounced like our word Lai, in the Rhine, and lure boatmen to destruction in a furious rapid which marred the channel at that spot. She so bewitched them with her plaintive songs and her wonderful beauty that they forgot everything else to gaze up at her, and so they presently drifted among the broken reefs and were lost. In those old, old times the Count Bruno lived in a great castle near there with his son, the Count Hermann, a youth of twenty. Hermann had heard a great deal about the beautiful Laura, and had finally fallen very deeply in love with her, without having seen her. So he used to wander to the neighborhood of the Lai, evenings, with his Zither, and express his longing in low singing, as Garnum says. On one of these occasions suddenly there hovered around the top of the rock a brightness of unequal clearness and color which, in increasingly smaller circles thickened, was the enchanting figure of the beautiful Laura. An unintentional cry of joy escaped the youth, he let his Zither fall, and, with extended arms, he called out the name of the enigmatical being who seemed to stoop lovingly to him and beckon to him in a friendly manner. Indeed, if his ear did not deceive him, she called his name with unutterable sweet whispers proper to love. Beside himself with delight the youth lost his senses and sank senseless to the earth. After that he was a changed person, he went dreaming about thinking only of his fairy and caring for naught else in the world. The old Count saw with affliction this changement in his son, whose cause he could not divine, and tried to divert his mind into cheerful channels, but to no purpose. Then the old Count used authority. He commanded the youth to butake himself to the camp. Obedience was promised, Garnum says. It was on the evening before his departure, as he wished still once to visit the lie, and offer to the nymph of the Rhine his sighs the tones of his Zither and his songs. He went, in his boat, this time accompanied by a faithful squire, down the stream. The moon shed her silvery light over the whole country. The steep bank mountains appeared in the most fantastical shapes, and the high oaks on either side bowed their branches on Herman's passing. As soon as he approached the lie, and was aware of the surf waves, his attendant was seized with an inexpressible anxiety, and he begged permission to land. But the night swept the strings of his guitar and sang, once I saw the in-dark night, in supernatural beauty bright, of light rays was the figure wove, to share its light locked hair strove. Thy garment color waved of, by the hand the sign of love, thy eyes sweet enchantment, reigning to me. O enchantment! O, work thou but my sweetheart, how willingly thy love to part, with delight I should be bound to thy rocky house in deep ground. That Herman should have gone to that place at all was not wise, that he should have gone with such a song as that in his mouth was a most serious mistake. The Laura-lie did not call his name in unutterable sweet whispers this time. No, that song naturally worked an instant and thorough changement in her, and not only that, but it stirred the bowels of the whole afflicted region around about there, for scarcely had these tones sounded everywhere there began a tumult and sound, as if voices above and below the water. On the lie rose flames. The ferry stood above at that time, and beckoned with her right hand clearly and urgently to the infatuated night, while with a staff in her left hand she called the waves to her service. They began to mount heavenward. The boat was upset, mocking every exertion. The waves rose to the gunnel, and splitting on the hard stones the boat broke into pieces. The youth sank into the depths, but the squire was thrown on shore by a powerful wave. The bitterest things have been said about the Laura-lie during many centuries, but surely her conduct upon this occasion entitles her to our respect. One feels drawn tenderly toward her and is moved to forget her many crimes and remember only the good deed that crowned and closed her career. The ferry was never more seen, but her enchanting tones have often been heard. In the beautiful, refreshing, still nights of spring, when the moon pours her silver light over the country, the listening shipper hears from the rushing of the waves the echoing clang of a wonderfully charming voice which sings a song from the crystal castle, and with sorrow and fear he thinks on the young Count Hermann seduced by the nymph. Here is the music, and the German words by Heinrich Heine. This song has been a favourite in Germany for forty years, and will remain a favourite always, maybe. Figure five. I have a prejudice against people who print things in a foreign language and add no translation. When I am the reader, and the author considers me able to do the translating myself, he pays me quite a nice compliment. But if he would do the translating for me, I would try to get along without the compliment. If I were at home, no doubt I would get a translation of this poem, but I am abroad and can't, therefore I will make a translation myself. It may not be a good one, for poetry is out of my line, but it will serve my purpose, which is to give the un-German young girl a jingle of words to hang the tune on until she can get hold of a good version, made by someone who is a poet, and knows how to convey a poetical thought from one language to another. The Lorelei. I cannot divine what it meaneth, this haunting nameless pain, a tale of the bygone ages keeps brooding through my brain. The faint air cools in the glooming and peaceful flows the Rhine, the thirsty summits are drinking the sun-set's flooding wine. The loveliest maiden is sitting high-throined in yawn-blue air. Her golden jewels are shining, she combs her golden hair. She combs with a comb that is golden, and sings a weird refrain that steeps in a deadly enchantment the listener's ravaged brain. The doomed in his drifting shallop is tranced with a sad sweet tone. He sees not the yawning breakers, he sees but the maiden alone. The pitiless billows engulf him. So perish, sailor and bark! And this, with her baleful singing, is the Lorelei's gruesome work. I have a translation by Garnum, Bachelor of Arts, in the Legends of the Rhine, but it would not answer the purpose I mentioned above, because the measure is too nobly irregular. It don't fit the tune snugly enough. In places it hangs over at the ends too far, and in other places one runs out of words before he gets to the end of a bar. Still, Garnum's translation has high merits, and I am not dreaming of leaving it out of my book. I believe this poet is wholly unknown in America and England. I take peculiar pleasure in bringing him forward, because I consider that I discovered him. The Lorelei, translated by L. W. Garnum, BA. I do not know what it signifies, that I am so sorrowful. A fable of old time so terrifies leaves my heart so thoughtful. The air is cool and it darkens and calmly flows the Rhine, the summit of the mountain harkens in evening sunshine line. The most beautiful maiden in trances above wonderfully there, her beautiful golden attire glances, she combs her golden hair. With golden comb so lustrous and thereby a song sings, it has a tone so wondrous that powerful melody rings. The shipper in the little ship it affects with woe, sad might. He does not see the rocky slip, he only regards dreaded height. I believe the turbulent waves swallow the last shipper and boat. She with her singing craves all to visit her magic moat. No translation could be closer. He has got in all the facts, and in their regular order, too. There is not a statistic wanting. It is as succinct as an invoice. That is what a translation ought to be. It should exactly reflect the thought of the original. You can't sing above wonderfully there, because it simply won't go to the tune without damaging the singer. But it is a most clingingly exact translation of Dort oben wunderbar fits it like a blister. Mr. Garnham's reproduction has other merits, a hundred of them, but it is not necessary to point them out. They will be detected. No one with a specialty can hope to have a monopoly of it. Even Garnham has a rival. Mr. X had a small pamphlet with him, which he had bought while on a visit to Munich. It was entitled A Catalog of Pictures in the Old Pinacotec, and was written in a peculiar kind of English. Here are a few extracts. It is not permitted to make use of the work in question to a publication of the same contents as well as to the pirated edition of it. An evening landscape, in the foreground near a pond and a group of white beaches, is leading a footpath animated by travellers. A learned man in a cynical and torn dress holding an open book in his hand. Saint Bartholomew and the executioner with a knife to fulfil the martyr. Portrait of a young man. A long while this picture was thought to be Bindi Altoviti's portrait. Now somebody will again have it to be the self-portrait of Raphael. Susan Bathing. Surprised by the two old men. In the background the lapidation of the condemned. Lapidation is good. It is much more elegant than stoning. Saint Rokas sitting in a landscape with an angel who looks at his plague sore whilst the dog, the bread in his mouth, attents him. Spring, the goddess Flora, sitting. Behind her a fertile valley perfused by a river. A beautiful bouquet animated by Maybugs, etc. A warrior in armour with a gypsious pipe in his hand leans against a table and blows the smoke far away of himself. A Dutch landscape along a navigable river which perfuses it till to the background. Some peasants singing in a cottage. A woman lets drink a child out of a cup. St. John's head as a boy painted in fresco on a brick, meaning a tile. A young man of the Ricchio family, his hair cut off right at the end, dressed in black with the same cap, attributed to Raphael, but the signation is false. The virgin holding the infant. It is very painted in the manner of Sassoferrato. A larder with greens and dead game animated by a cookmaid and two kitchen boys. However the English of this catalogue is at least as happy as that which distinguishes an inscription upon a certain picture in Rome to wit, Revelation's view. St. John in Patterson's island. But meanwhile the raft is moving on. CHAPTER XVI A mile or two above Eberbach we saw a peculiar ruin projecting above the foliage which clothed the peak of a high and very steep hill. This ruin consisted of merely a couple of crumbling masses of masonry which bore a rude resemblance to human faces. They leaned forward and touched foreheads and had the look of being absorbed in conversation. This ruin had nothing very imposing or picturesque about it, and there was no great deal of it, yet it was called the spectacular ruin. LEGEND OF THE SPECTACULAR RUIN The captain of the raft, who was as full of history as he could stick, said that in the Middle Ages a most prodigious fire-breathing dragon used to live in that region and made more trouble than a tax collector. He was as long as a railway train, and had the customary impenetrable green scales all over him. His breath bred pestilence and conflagration, and his appetite bred famine. He ate men and cattle impartially, and was exceedingly unpopular. The German Emperor of that day made the usual offer. He would grant to the destroyer of the dragon any one solitary thing he might ask for, for he had a surplusage of daughters, and it was customary for dragon killers to take a daughter for pay. So the most renowned knights came from the four corners of the earth and retired down the dragon's throat one after the other. A panic arose and spread. Heroes grew cautious. The procession ceased. The dragon became more destructive than ever. The people lost all hope of succor, and fled to the mountains for refuge. At last Servicenshaft, a poor and obscure knight, out of a far country, arrived to do battle with the monster. A pitiable object he was, with his armor hanging in rags about him, and his strange shaped knapsacks strapped upon his back. Everybody turned up their noses at him, and some openly jeered him. But he was calm. He simply inquired if the Emperor's offer was still in force. The Emperor said it was, but charitably advised him to go and hunt hairs and not endanger so precious a life as his in an attempt which had brought death to so many of the world's most illustrious heroes. But this tramp only asked, were any of these heroes men of science? This raised a laugh, of course, for science was despised in those days. But the tramp was not in the least ruffled. He said he might be a little in advance of his age, but no matter, science would come to be honoured some time or other. He said he would march against the dragon in the morning. Out of compassion, then, a decent spear was offered him, but he declined and said, Spears were useless to men of science. They allowed him to sup in the servants' hall, and gave him a bed in the stables. When he started forth in the morning, thousands were gathered to see. The Emperor said, Do not be rash, take a spear, and leave off your knapsack. But the tramp said, It is not a knapsack, and moved straight on. The dragon was waiting and ready. He was breathing forth vast volumes of sulfurous smoke and lurid blasts of flame. The ragged knight stole warily to a good position. Then he unslung his cylindrical knapsack, which was simply the common fire extinguisher known to modern times, and the first chance he got he turned on his hose and shot the dragon square in the center of his cavernous mouth. Out went the fires in an instant, and the dragon curled up and died. This man had brought brains to his aid. He had reared dragons from the egg in his laboratory. He had watched over them like a mother, and patiently studied them and experimented upon them while they grew. Thus he had found out that fire was the life principle of a dragon. Put out the dragon's fires, and it could make steam no longer and must die. He could not put out a fire with a spear, therefore he invented the extinguisher. The dragon being dead, the Emperor fell on the hero's neck and said, Deliverer, name your request! At the same time beckoning out behind with his heel for a detachment of his daughters to form in advance. But the tramp gave them no observance. He simply said, My request is that upon me be conferred the monopoly of the manufacture and sale of spectacles in Germany. The Emperor sprang aside and exclaimed, This transcends all the impudence I ever heard! A modest demand by my halodome! Why didn't you ask for the imperial revenues at once and be done with it? But the monarch had given his word, and he kept it. To everybody's surprise the unselfish monopolist immediately reduced the price of spectacles to such a degree that a great and crushing burden was removed from the nation. The Emperor, to commemorate this generous act, and to testify his appreciation of it, issued a decree commanding everybody to buy this benefactor's spectacles and wear them whether they needed them or not. So originated the widespread custom of wearing spectacles in Germany, and as the custom once established in these old lands is imperishable, this one remains universal in the Empire to this day, such as the legend of the monopolist's once stately and sumptuous castle now called the Spectacular Ruin. On the right bank, two or three miles below the Spectacular Ruin, we passed by a noble pile of castellated buildings overlooking the water from the crest of a lofty elevation, a stretch of two hundred yards of the high front wall was heavily draped with ivy, and out of the mass of buildings within rose three picturesque old towers. The place was in fine order and was inhabited by a family of princely rank. This castle had its legend too, but I should not feel justified in repeating it because I doubted the truth of some of its minor details. Along in this region a multitude of Italian laborers were blasting away the frontage of the hills to make room for the new railway. They were fifty or a hundred feet above the river. As we turned a sharp corner they began to wave signals and shout warnings to us to look out for the explosions. It was all very well to warn us, but what could we do? You can't back a raft upstream, you can't hurry it downstream, you can't scatter out to one side when you haven't any room to speak of, you won't take to the perpendicular cliffs on the other shore when they appear to be blasting there too. Your resources are limited, you see. There is simply nothing for it but to watch and pray. For some hours we had been making three and a half or four miles an hour, and we were still making that. We had been dancing right along until those men began to shout. Then for the next ten minutes it seemed to me that I had never seen a raft go so slowly. When the first blast went off we raised our sun umbrellas and waited for the result. No harm done. None of the stones fell in the water. Another blast followed, and another, and another. Some of the rubbish fell in the water just a stern of us. We ran that whole battery of nine blasts in a row and it was certainly one of the most exciting and uncomfortable weeks I ever spent, either a ship or a shore. Of course we frequently manned the poles and shoved earnestly for a second or so, but every time one of those spurts of dust and debris shot aloft, every man dropped his pole and looked up to get the bearings of his share of it. It was very busy times along there for a while. It appeared certain that we must perish. But even that was not the bitterest thought. No, the objectively unheroic nature of the death. That was the sting. That and the bizarre wording of the resulting obituary. Shot was a rock on a raft. There would be no poetry written about it. None could be written about it. An example. Not by war's shock or war's shaft. Shot with a rock on a raft. No poet who valued his reputation would touch such a theme as that. I should be distinguished as the only distinguished dead who went down to the grave unsonneted in 1878. But we escaped and I have never regretted it. The last blast was a peculiarly strong one, and after the small rubbish was done raining around us and we were just going to shake hands over our deliverance, a later and larger stone came down amongst our little group of pedestrians and wrecked an umbrella. It did no other harm, but we took to the water just the same. It seems that the heavy work in the quarries and the new railway gratings is done mainly by Italians. That was a revelation. We have the notion in our country that Italians never do heavy work at all, but confine themselves to the lighter arts, like organ grinding, operetic singing, and assassination. We have blundered. That is plain. All along the river near every village we saw little station houses for the future railway. They were finished and waiting for the rails and business. They were as trim and snug and pretty as they could be. They were always of brick or stone. They were of graceful shape. They had vines and flowers about them already. And around them the grass was bright and green, and showed that it was carefully looked after. They were a decoration to the beautiful landscape, not an offence. Wherever one saw a pile of gravel or a pile of broken stone, it was always heaped as trimly and exactly as a new grave or a stack of cannonballs. Nothing about those stations, or along the railroad or the wagon-road, was allowed to look shabby or be unornimental. The keeping a country in such beautiful order as Germany exhibits has a wise practical side to it, too, for it keeps thousands of people in work and bread who would otherwise be idle and mischievous. As the night shut down the captain wanted to tie up, but I thought maybe we might make Hirshhorn, so we went on. Presently the sky became overcast and the captain came aft looking uneasy. He cast his eye aloft, then shook his head, and said it was coming on to blow. My party wanted to land at once, therefore I wanted to go on. The captain said we ought to shorten the sail, anyway, out of common prudence. Consequently the larbored watch was ordered to lay in his pole. It grew quite dark now, and the wind began to rise. It wailed through the swaying branches of the trees and swept our decks in fitful gusts. Things were taking on an ugly look. The captain shouted to the steersman on the forward log, How's she landing? The answer came faint and hoarse from far forward. Nor east and by nor east, by east, half east, sir! Let her go off a point! Aye, aye, sir! What water have you got? Shoal, sir! Two-foot large, on the stabbered, two-and-a-half scant on the labored. Let her go off another point! Aye, aye, sir! Forward, men, all of you, lively now! Stand by to crowded round the weather-corner! Aye, aye, sir! Then followed a wild running and trampling and horse-shouting, but the forms of the men were lost in the darkness and the sounds were distorted and confused by the roaring of the wind through the shingle bundles. By this time the sea was running inches high and threatening every moment to engulf the frail bark. Now came the mate hurrying aft and said, close to the captain's ear, in a low, agitated voice, Prepare for the worst, sir! We have sprung a leak! Heavens, where? Right aft, the second row of logs! Nothing but a miracle can save us! Don't let the men know, or there will be a panic and mutiny. Lay her in shore and stand by to jump with a stern line the moment she touches. Gentlemen, I must look to you to second my endeavours in this hour of peril. You have hats, go forward, and bail for your lives! Down swept another mighty blast of wind closed in spray and thick darkness. At such a moment as this came from away forward that most appalling of all cries that are ever heard at sea. Man overboard! The captain shouted, Harp a port! Never mind the man! Let him climb a board or way to shore! Another cry came down the wind. Breakers ahead! Wear away! Not a log's length off her port forefoot! We had groped our slippery way forward and were now bailing with a frenzy of despair when we heard the mate's terrified cry from far aft. Stop that dash bailing or we shall be aground! But this was immediately followed by the glad shout, Land aboard the starboard transom! Saved, cried the captain, jump ashore and take a turn round a tree and pass the bite aboard. The next moment we were all on shore weeping and embracing for joy while the rain poured down in torrents. The captain said he had been a mariner for forty years on the neck-car, and in that time had seen storms to make a man's cheek blanch and his pulses stop, but he had never, never seen a storm that even approached this one. How familiar that sounded! For I have been at sea a good deal and have heard that remark from captains with a frequency accordingly. We framed in our minds the usual resolution of thanks and admiration and gratitude, and took the first opportunity to vote it and put it in writing and presented to the captain with the customary speech. We tramped through the darkness and the drenching summer rain full three miles and reached the naturalist tavern in the village of Hirshhorn just an hour before midnight almost exhausted from hardship, fatigue, and terror. I can never forget that night. The landlord was rich and therefore could afford to be crusty and disobliging. He did not at all like being turned out of his warm bed to open his house for us, but no matter his household got up and cooked a quick supper for us and then we brewed a hot punch for ourselves to keep off consumption. After supper and punch we had an hour's soothing smoke while we fought the naval battle over again and voted the resolutions. Then we retired to exceedingly neat and pretty chambers upstairs that had clean, comfortable beds in them with heirloom pillowcases most elaborately and tastefully embroidered by hand. Such rooms and beds and embroidered linen are as frequent in German village inns as they are rare in ours. Our villages are superior to German villages in more merits, excellences, conveniences, and privileges than I can enumerate, but the hotels do not belong in the list. The naturalist tavern was not a meaningless name. For all the halls and all the rooms were lined with large glass cases, which were filled with all sorts of birds and animals, glass-eyed, ably stuffed, and set up in the most natural eloquent and dramatic attitudes. The moment we were a bed the rain cleared away and the moon came out. I dozed off to sleep while contemplating a great white, stuffed owl which was looking intently down on me from a high perch with the air of a person who thought he had met me before, but could not make out for certain. But young Zee did not get off so easily. He said that as he was sinking deliciously to sleep the moon lifted away the shadows and developed a huge cat on a bracket, dead and stuffed, but crouching, with every muscle tense for a spring, and with its glittering glass eyes aimed straight at him. It made Zee uncomfortable. He tried closing his own eyes, but that did not answer. For a natural instinct kept making him open them again to see if the cat was still getting ready to launch at him, which she always was. He tried turning his back, but that was a failure. He knew the sinister eyes were on him still, so at last he had to get up after an hour or two of worry and experiment and set the cat out in the hall. So he won that time.