In a German Pension Part 15

I was longing to ask her why normal deathbeds should cause anyone to burst into flower, and said, "Yes, do let us."

We were greeted by the little party of "cure guests" on the pension steps, with those cries of joy and excitement which herald so pleasantly the mildest German excursion. Herr Erchardt and I had not met before that day, so, in accordance with strict pension custom, we asked each other how long we had slept during the night, had we dreamed agreeably, what time we had got up, was the coffee fresh when we had appeared at breakfast, and how had we pa.s.sed the morning. Having toiled up these stairs of almost national politeness we landed, triumphant and smiling, and paused to recover breath.

"And now," said Herr Erchardt, "I have a pleasure in store for you. The Frau Professor is going to be one of us for the afternoon. Yes," nodding graciously to the Advanced Lady. "Allow me to introduce you to each other."

We bowed very formally, and looked each other over with that eye which is known as "eagle" but is far more the property of the female than that most unoffending of birds. "I think you are English?" she said.

I acknowledged the fact. "I am reading a great many English books just now--rather, I am studying them."

"Nu," cried Herr Erchardt. "Fancy that! What a bond already! I have made up my mind to know Shakespeare in his mother tongue before I die, but that you, Frau Professor, should be already immersed in those wells of English thought!"

"From what I have read," she said, "I do not think they are very deep wells."

He nodded sympathetically.

"No," he answered, "so I have heard... But do not let us embitter our excursion for our little English friend. We will speak of this another time."

"Nu, are we ready?" cried Fritz, who stood, supporting Elsa's elbow in his hand, at the foot of the steps. It was immediately discovered that Karl was lost.

"Ka--rl, Karl--chen!" we cried. No response.

"But he was here one moment ago," said Herr Langen, a tired, pale youth, who was recovering from a nervous breakdown due to much philosophy and little nourishment. "He was sitting here, picking out the works of his watch with a hairpin!"

Frau Kellermann rounded on him. "Do you mean to say, my dear Herr Langen, you did not stop the child!"

"No," said Herr Langen; "I've tried stopping him before now."

"Da, that child has such energy; never is his brain at peace. If he is not doing one thing, he is doing another!"

"Perhaps he has started on the dining-room clock now," suggested Herr Langen, abominably hopeful.

The Advanced Lady suggested that we should go without him. "I never take my little daughter for walks," she said. "I have accustomed her to sitting quietly in my bedroom from the time I go out until I return!"

"There he is--there he is," piped Elsa, and Karl was observed slithering down a chestnut-tree, very much the worse for twigs.

"I've been listening to what you said about me, mumma," he confessed while Frau Kellermann brushed him down. "It was not true about the watch. I was only looking at it, and the little girl never stays in the bedroom. She told me herself she always goes down to the kitchen, and--"

"Da, that's enough!" said Frau Kellermann.

We marched en ma.s.se along the station road. It was a very warm afternoon, and continuous parties of "cure guests", who were giving their digestions a quiet airing in pension gardens, called after us, asked if we were going for a walk, and cried "Herr Gott--happy journey"

with immense ill-concealed relish when we mentioned Schlingen.

"But that is eight kilometres," shouted one old man with a white beard, who leaned against a fence, fanning himself with a yellow handkerchief.

"Seven and a half," answered Herr Erchardt shortly.

"Eight," bellowed the sage.

"Seven and a half!"

"Eight!"

"The man is mad," said Herr Erchardt.

"Well, please let him be mad in peace," said I, putting my hands over my ears.

"Such ignorance must not be allowed to go uncontradicted," said he, and turning his back on us, too exhausted to cry out any longer, he held up seven and a half fingers.

"Eight!" thundered the greybeard, with pristine freshness.

We felt very sobered, and did not recover until we reached a white signpost which entreated us to leave the road and walk through the field path--without trampling down more of the gra.s.s than was necessary. Being interpreted, it meant "single file", which was distressing for Elsa and Fritz. Karl, like a happy child, gambolled ahead, and cut down as many flowers as possible with the stick of his mother's parasol--followed the three others--then myself--and the lovers in the rear. And above the conversation of the advance party I had the privilege of hearing these delicious whispers.

Fritz: "Do you love me?" Elsa: "Nu--yes." Fritz pa.s.sionately: "But how much?" To which Elsa never replied--except with "How much do YOU love ME?"

Fritz escaped that truly Christian trap by saying, "I asked you first."

It grew so confusing that I slipped in front of Frau Kellermann--and walked in the peaceful knowledge that she was blossoming and I was under no obligation to inform even my nearest and dearest as to the precise capacity of my affections. "What right have they to ask each other such questions the day after letters of blessing have been received?" I reflected. "What right have they even to question each other? Love which becomes engaged and married is a purely affirmative affair--they are usurping the privileges of their betters and wisers!"

The edges of the field frilled over into an immense pine forest--very pleasant and cool it looked. Another signpost begged us to keep to the broad path for Schlingen and deposit waste paper and fruit peelings in wire receptacles attached to the benches for the purpose. We sat down on the first bench, and Karl with great curiosity explored the wire receptacle.

"I love woods," said the Advanced Lady, smiling pitifully into the air.

"In a wood my hair already seems to stir and remember something of its savage origin."

"But speaking literally," said Frau Kellermann, after an appreciative pause, "there is really nothing better than the air of pine-trees for the scalp."

"Oh, Frau Kellermann, please don't break the spell," said Elsa.

The Advanced Lady looked at her very sympathetically. "Have you, too, found the magic heart of Nature?" she said.

That was Herr Langen's cue. "Nature has no heart," said he, very bitterly and readily, as people do who are over-philosophised and underfed. "She creates that she may destroy. She eats that she may spew up and she spews up that she may eat. That is why we, who are forced to eke out an existence at her trampling feet, consider the world mad, and realise the deadly vulgarity of production."

"Young man," interrupted Herr Erchardt, "you have never lived and you have never suffered!"

"Oh, excuse me--how can you know?"

"I know because you have told me, and there's an end of it. Come back to this bench in ten years' time and repeat those words to me," said Frau Kellermann, with an eye upon Fritz, who was engaged in counting Elsa's fingers with pa.s.sionate fervour--"and bring with you your young wife, Herr Langen, and watch, perhaps, your little child playing with--" She turned towards Karl, who had rooted an old ill.u.s.trated paper out of the receptacle and was spelling over an advertis.e.m.e.nt for the enlargement of Beautiful b.r.e.a.s.t.s.

The sentence remained unfinished. We decided to move on. As we plunged more deeply into the wood our spirits rose--reaching a point where they burst into song--on the part of the three men--"O Welt, wie bist du wunderbar!"--the lower part of which was piercingly sustained by Herr Langen, who attempted quite unsuccessfully to infuse satire into it in accordance with his--"world outlook". They strode ahead and left us to trail after them--hot and happy.

"Now is the opportunity," said Frau Kellermann. "Dear Frau Professor, do tell us a little about your book."

"Ach, how did you know I was writing one?" she cried playfully.

"Elsa, here, had it from Lisa. And never before have I personally known a woman who was writing a book. How do you manage to find enough to write down?"

"That is never the trouble," said the Advanced Lady--she took Elsa's arm and leaned on it gently. "The trouble is to know where to stop. My brain has been a hive for years, and about three months ago the pent-up waters burst over my soul, and since then I am writing all day until late into the night, still ever finding fresh inspirations and thoughts which beat impatient wings about my heart."

"Is it a novel?" asked Elsa shyly.