Diary of a Pilgrimage [36]
Germany; and so, without hesitation, I made a very satisfactory meal.
After supper our host escorted us to our bedroom, an airy apartment adorned with various highly-coloured wood-carvings of a pious but somewhat ghastly character, calculated, I should say, to exercise a disturbing influence upon the night's rest of a nervous or sensitive person.
"Mind that we are called at proper time in the morning," said B. to the man. "We don't want to wake up at four o'clock in the afternoon and find that we have missed the play, after coming all this way to see it."
"Oh! that will be all right," answered the old fellow. "You won't get much chance of oversleeping yourself. We shall all be up and about, and the whole village stirring, before five; and besides, the band will be playing at six just beneath the window here, and the cannon on the Kofel goes off at--"
"Look here," I interrupted, "that won't do for me, you know. Don't you think that I am going to be woke up by mere riots outside the window, and brass-band contests, and earthquakes, and explosions, and those sort of things, because it can't be done that way. Somebody's got to come into this room and haul me out of bed, and sit down on the bed and see that I don't get into it again, and that I don't go to sleep on the floor. That will be the way to get me up to-morrow morning. Don't let's have any nonsense about stirring villages and guns and German bands. I know what all that will end in, my going back to England without seeing the show. I want to be roused in the morning, not lulled off to sleep again."
B. translated the essential portions of this speech to the man, and he laughed and promised upon his sacred word of honour that he would come up himself and have us both out; and as he was a stalwart and determined-looking man, I felt satisfied, and wished him "Good- night," and made haste to get off my boots before I fell asleep.
TUESDAY, THE 27TH
A Pleasant Morning.--What can one Say about the Passion Play?--B. Lectures.--Unreliable Description of Ober-Ammergau.--Exaggerated Description of its Weather.--Possibly Untruthful Account of how the Passion Play came to be Played.--A Good Face.--The Cultured Schoolboy and his Ignorant Relations.
I am lying in bed, or, to speak more truthfully, I am sitting up on a green satin, lace-covered pillow, writing these notes. A green satin, lace-covered bed is on the floor beside me. It is about eleven o'clock in the morning. B. is sitting up in his bed a few feet off, smoking a pipe. We have just finished a light repast of-- what do you think? you will never guess--coffee and rolls. We intend to put the week straight by stopping in bed all day, at all events until the evening. Two English ladies occupy the bedroom next to ours. They seem to have made up their minds to also stay upstairs all day. We can hear them walking about their room, muttering. They have been doing this for the last three-quarters of an hour. They seem troubled about something.
It is very pleasant here. An overflow performance is being given in the theatre to-day for the benefit of those people who could not gain admittance yesterday, and, through the open windows, we can hear the rhythmic chant of the chorus. Mellowed by the distance, the wailing cadence of the plaintive songs, mingled with the shrill Haydnistic strains of the orchestra, falls with a mournful sweetness on our ears.
We ourselves saw the play yesterday, and we are now discussing it. I am explaining to B. the difficulty I experience in writing an account of it for my diary. I tell him that I really do not know what to say about it.
He smokes for a while in silence, and then, taking the pipe from his lips, he says:
"Does it matter very much what you say about it?"
I find much relief in that thought. It at once lifts from my shoulders the oppressive feeling of responsibility that was weighing me down. After all, what does it matter what I say? What does it matter what any of us says about anything? Nobody takes much notice of it, luckily
After supper our host escorted us to our bedroom, an airy apartment adorned with various highly-coloured wood-carvings of a pious but somewhat ghastly character, calculated, I should say, to exercise a disturbing influence upon the night's rest of a nervous or sensitive person.
"Mind that we are called at proper time in the morning," said B. to the man. "We don't want to wake up at four o'clock in the afternoon and find that we have missed the play, after coming all this way to see it."
"Oh! that will be all right," answered the old fellow. "You won't get much chance of oversleeping yourself. We shall all be up and about, and the whole village stirring, before five; and besides, the band will be playing at six just beneath the window here, and the cannon on the Kofel goes off at--"
"Look here," I interrupted, "that won't do for me, you know. Don't you think that I am going to be woke up by mere riots outside the window, and brass-band contests, and earthquakes, and explosions, and those sort of things, because it can't be done that way. Somebody's got to come into this room and haul me out of bed, and sit down on the bed and see that I don't get into it again, and that I don't go to sleep on the floor. That will be the way to get me up to-morrow morning. Don't let's have any nonsense about stirring villages and guns and German bands. I know what all that will end in, my going back to England without seeing the show. I want to be roused in the morning, not lulled off to sleep again."
B. translated the essential portions of this speech to the man, and he laughed and promised upon his sacred word of honour that he would come up himself and have us both out; and as he was a stalwart and determined-looking man, I felt satisfied, and wished him "Good- night," and made haste to get off my boots before I fell asleep.
TUESDAY, THE 27TH
A Pleasant Morning.--What can one Say about the Passion Play?--B. Lectures.--Unreliable Description of Ober-Ammergau.--Exaggerated Description of its Weather.--Possibly Untruthful Account of how the Passion Play came to be Played.--A Good Face.--The Cultured Schoolboy and his Ignorant Relations.
I am lying in bed, or, to speak more truthfully, I am sitting up on a green satin, lace-covered pillow, writing these notes. A green satin, lace-covered bed is on the floor beside me. It is about eleven o'clock in the morning. B. is sitting up in his bed a few feet off, smoking a pipe. We have just finished a light repast of-- what do you think? you will never guess--coffee and rolls. We intend to put the week straight by stopping in bed all day, at all events until the evening. Two English ladies occupy the bedroom next to ours. They seem to have made up their minds to also stay upstairs all day. We can hear them walking about their room, muttering. They have been doing this for the last three-quarters of an hour. They seem troubled about something.
It is very pleasant here. An overflow performance is being given in the theatre to-day for the benefit of those people who could not gain admittance yesterday, and, through the open windows, we can hear the rhythmic chant of the chorus. Mellowed by the distance, the wailing cadence of the plaintive songs, mingled with the shrill Haydnistic strains of the orchestra, falls with a mournful sweetness on our ears.
We ourselves saw the play yesterday, and we are now discussing it. I am explaining to B. the difficulty I experience in writing an account of it for my diary. I tell him that I really do not know what to say about it.
He smokes for a while in silence, and then, taking the pipe from his lips, he says:
"Does it matter very much what you say about it?"
I find much relief in that thought. It at once lifts from my shoulders the oppressive feeling of responsibility that was weighing me down. After all, what does it matter what I say? What does it matter what any of us says about anything? Nobody takes much notice of it, luckily