Diary of a Pilgrimage [30]
comes and sits down in front of her, and grins at her. Still, with the same savage expression of hatred towards all living things, she feeds him with sausage at the end of a fork, regarding him all the while with an aspect of such concentrated dislike, that one wonders it does not interfere with his digestion. In a corner, a stout old woman talks incessantly to a solemn-looking man, who sits silent and drinks steadily. It is evident that he can stand her conversation just so long as he has a mug of beer in front of him. He has brought her in here to give her a treat. He will let her have her talk out while he drinks. Heavens! how she does talk! She talks without movement, without expression; her voice never varies, it flows on, and on, and on, like a great resistless river. Four young artisans come clamping along in their hob-nailed boots, and seating themselves at one of the rude wooden tables, call for beer. With their arms round the waist of the utterly indifferent Fraulein, they shout and laugh and sing. Nearly all the young folks here are laughing--looking forward to life. All the old folks are talking, remembering it.
What grand pictures some of these old, seared faces round us would make, if a man could only paint them--paint all that is in them, all the tragedy--and comedy that the great playwright, Life, has written upon the withered skins! Joys and sorrows, sordid hopes and fears, child-like strivings to be good, mean selfishness and grand unselfishness, have helped to fashion these old wrinkled faces. The curves of cunning and kindliness lurk round these fading eyes. The lines of greed hover about these bloodless lips, that have so often been tight-pressed in patient heroism.
SUNDAY, 25TH--CONTINUED
We Dine.--A Curious Dish.--"A Feeling of Sadness Comes O'er Me."-- The German Cigar.--The Handsomest Match in Europe.--"How Easy 'tis for Friends to Drift Apart," especially in a place like Munich Railway Station.--The Victim of Fate.--A Faithful Bradshaw.--Among the Mountains.--Prince and Pauper.--A Modern Romance.--Arrival at Oberau.--Wise and Foolish Pilgrims.--An Interesting Drive.--Ettal and its Monastery.--We Reach the Goal of our Pilgrimage.
At one o'clock we turned into a restaurant for dinner. The Germans themselves always dine in the middle of the day, and a very substantial meal they make of it. At the hotels frequented by tourists table d'hote is, during the season, fixed for about six or seven, but this is only done to meet the views of foreign customers.
I mention that we had dinner, not because I think that the information will prove exciting to the reader, but because I wish to warn my countrymen, travelling in Germany, against undue indulgence in Liptauer cheese.
I am fond of cheese, and of trying new varieties of cheese; so that when I looked down the cheese department of the bill of fare, and came across "liptauer garnit," an article of diet I had never before heard of, I determined to sample it.
It was not a tempting-looking cheese. It was an unhealthy, sad- looking cheese. It looked like a cheese that had seen trouble. In appearance it resembled putty more than anything else. It even tasted like putty--at least, like I should imagine putty would taste. To this hour I am not positive that it was not putty. The garnishing was even more remarkable than the cheese. All the way round the plate were piled articles that I had never before seen at a dinner, and that I do not ever want to see there again. There was a little heap of split-peas, three or four remarkably small potatoes--at least, I suppose they were potatoes; if not, they were pea-nuts boiled soft,--some caraway-seeds, a very young-looking fish, apparently of the stickleback breed, and some red paint. It was quite a little dinner all to itself.
What the red paint was for, I could not understand. B. thought that it was put there for suicidal purposes. His idea was that the customer, after eating all the other things in the plate, would wish he were dead, and that the restaurant people,
What grand pictures some of these old, seared faces round us would make, if a man could only paint them--paint all that is in them, all the tragedy--and comedy that the great playwright, Life, has written upon the withered skins! Joys and sorrows, sordid hopes and fears, child-like strivings to be good, mean selfishness and grand unselfishness, have helped to fashion these old wrinkled faces. The curves of cunning and kindliness lurk round these fading eyes. The lines of greed hover about these bloodless lips, that have so often been tight-pressed in patient heroism.
SUNDAY, 25TH--CONTINUED
We Dine.--A Curious Dish.--"A Feeling of Sadness Comes O'er Me."-- The German Cigar.--The Handsomest Match in Europe.--"How Easy 'tis for Friends to Drift Apart," especially in a place like Munich Railway Station.--The Victim of Fate.--A Faithful Bradshaw.--Among the Mountains.--Prince and Pauper.--A Modern Romance.--Arrival at Oberau.--Wise and Foolish Pilgrims.--An Interesting Drive.--Ettal and its Monastery.--We Reach the Goal of our Pilgrimage.
At one o'clock we turned into a restaurant for dinner. The Germans themselves always dine in the middle of the day, and a very substantial meal they make of it. At the hotels frequented by tourists table d'hote is, during the season, fixed for about six or seven, but this is only done to meet the views of foreign customers.
I mention that we had dinner, not because I think that the information will prove exciting to the reader, but because I wish to warn my countrymen, travelling in Germany, against undue indulgence in Liptauer cheese.
I am fond of cheese, and of trying new varieties of cheese; so that when I looked down the cheese department of the bill of fare, and came across "liptauer garnit," an article of diet I had never before heard of, I determined to sample it.
It was not a tempting-looking cheese. It was an unhealthy, sad- looking cheese. It looked like a cheese that had seen trouble. In appearance it resembled putty more than anything else. It even tasted like putty--at least, like I should imagine putty would taste. To this hour I am not positive that it was not putty. The garnishing was even more remarkable than the cheese. All the way round the plate were piled articles that I had never before seen at a dinner, and that I do not ever want to see there again. There was a little heap of split-peas, three or four remarkably small potatoes--at least, I suppose they were potatoes; if not, they were pea-nuts boiled soft,--some caraway-seeds, a very young-looking fish, apparently of the stickleback breed, and some red paint. It was quite a little dinner all to itself.
What the red paint was for, I could not understand. B. thought that it was put there for suicidal purposes. His idea was that the customer, after eating all the other things in the plate, would wish he were dead, and that the restaurant people,