I. French Sons of Germany
In Metz I prefer the Frenchmen to the Germans. I am more at my ease with them. It is a question of temperament.
From the Cathedral down to the river is all French. The Cathedral seems very German. It is nothing but nave: a tremendous lofty nave, and nothing else: a great jump at heaven, in the conception; a rather pathetic fall to earth in execution. Still, the splendid conception is there.
So I go down from the Cathedral to the French quarter. It is full of smells, perhaps, but it is purely itself. A Frenchman has the same soul, whether he is eating his dinner or kissing his baby. A German has no soul when he is eating his dinner, and is beautiful when he kisses his baby. So I prefer the Frenchman who hasn’t the tiresome split between his animal nature and his spiritual, in whom the two are fused.
The barber drinks. He has wild hair and bloodshot eyes. Still, I dare trust my throat and chin to him. I address him in German. He dances before me, answering in mad French, that he speaks no German. Instantly I love him in spite of all.
“You are a foreigner here?” I remark.
He cannot lather me, he is so wildly excited. “No he was born in Metz, his father was born in Metz, his grandfather was born in Metz. For all he knows, Adam was born in Metz. But no Leroy has ever spoken German; no, not a syllable. It would split his tongue- he could not, you see, Sir, he could not; his construction would not allow of it.”
With all of which I agree heartily; whereupon he looks lovingly upon me and continues to lather.
“His wife was a Frenchwoman, born in Paris. I must see his wife.” He calls her by some name I do not know, and she appears — fat and tidy.
“You are a subject of France?” my barber demands furiously.
“Certainly,” she begins. “I was born in Paris — ” As they both talk at once, I can’t make out what they say. But they are happy, they continue. At last, with a final flourish of the razor, I am shaved. The barber is very tipsy.
“Monsieur is from Brittany?” he asks me tenderly.
Alas! I am from England.
“But, why?” cries Madame; “you have not an English face; no, never. And a German face — pah! impossible.”
In spite of all I look incurably English. Nevertheless, I start a story about a great-grandfather who was refugee in England after the revolution. They embrace me, they love me. And I love them.
“Sir,” I say, “will you give me a morsel of soap? No, not shaving soap.”
“This is French soap, this is German,” he says. The French is in a beautiful flowery wrapper, alas! much faded.
“And what is the difference?” I ask.
“The French, of course, is better. The German is five pfennigs- one sou, Monsieur — the cheaper.”
Of course, I take the French soap. The barber grandly gives my twenty-pfennig tip to the lathering boy, who has just entered, and he bows me to the door. I am in the street, breathless.
A German officer, in a flowing cloak of bluey-grey — like ink and milk — looks at me coldly and inquisitively. I look at him with a “Go to the devil” sort of look, and pass along. I wonder to myself if my dislike of these German officers is racial, or owing to present national feeling, or if it is a temperamental aversion. I decide on the last. A German soldier spills something out of a parcel on to the road and looks round like a frightened boy. I want to shelter him.
I pass along, look at the ridiculous imitation-medieval church that is built on the islet — or peninsula — in the middle of the river, on the spot that has been called for ages “The Place of Love.” I wonder how the Protestant conscience of this ugly church remains easy upon such foundation. I think of the famous “three K’s” that are allotted to German women, “Kinder, Kuche, Kirche,” and pity the poor wretches.
Over the river, all is barracks — barracks, and soldiers on foot, and soldiers on horseback. Everywhere these short, baggy German soldiers, with their fair skins and rather stupid blue eyes! I hurry to get away from them. To the right is a steep hill, once, I suppose, the scarp of the river.
At last I found a path, and turned for a little peace to the hillside and the vineyards. The vines are all new young slips, climbing up their sticks. The whole hillside bristles with sticks, like an angry hedgehog. Across lies Montigny; to the right, Metz itself, with its cathedral like a brown rat humped up. I prefer my hillside. In this Mosel valley there is such luxuriance of vegetation. Lilac bushes are only heaps of purple flowers. Some roses are out. Here on the wild hillside there are lively vetches of all sorts, and white poppies and red; and then the vine shoots, with their tips of most living, sensitive pink and red, just like blood under the skin.
I am happy on the hillside. It is a warm, grey day. The Mosel winds below. The vine sticks bristle against the sky. The little church of the village is in front. I climb the hill, past a Madonna shrine that stands out by the naked path. The faded blue “Lady” is stuck with dying white lilac. She looks rather ugly, but I do not mind. Odd men, and women, are working in the vineyards. They are very swarthy, and they have very small-bladed spades, which glisten in the sun.
At last I come to the cemetery under the church. As I marvel at the bead-work wreaths, with ridiculous little naked china figures of infants floating in the middle, I hear voices, and looking up, see two German soldiers on the natural platform, or terrace, beside the church. Along the vineyard path are squares of yellow and black and white, like notice boards. The two soldiers, in their peculiar caps, almost similar to our round sailors’ hats, or blue cooks’ caps, are laughing. They watch the squares, then me.
When I go up to the church and round to the terrace, they are gone. The terrace is a natural platform, a fine playground, very dark with great horse-chestnuts in flower, and walled up many feet from the hillside, overlooking the far valley of the Mosel. As I sit on a bench, the hens come pecking round me. It is perfectly still and lovely, the only sound being from the boys’ school.
Somewhere towards eleven o’clock two more soldiers came. One led his horse, the other was evidently not mounted. They came to the wall, or parapet, to look down the valley at the fort. Meanwhile, to my great joy, the mare belonging to the mounted soldier cocked up her tail and cantered awav under the horse-chestnuts, down the village. Her owner went racing, shouting after her, making the peculiar hu-hu! these Germans use to their horses. She would have been lost had not two men rushed out of the houses, and, shouting in French, stopped her. The soldier jerked her head angrily, and led her back. He was a short, bear-like little German, she was a wicked and delicate mare. He kept her bridle as he returned. Meanwhile, his companion, his hands clasped on his knees, shouted with laughter.
Presently, another, rather taller, rather more manly soldier appeared. He had a sprig of lilac between his teeth. The foot-soldier recounted the escapade with the mare, whereupon the newcomer roared with laughter and suddenly knocked the horse under the jaw. She reared in terror. He got hold of her by the bridle, teasing her. At last her owner pacified her. Then the newcomer would insist on sticking a piece of lilac in her harness, against her ear. It frightened her, she reared, and she panted, but he would not desist. He teased her, bullied her, coaxed her, took her unawares; she was in torment as he pawed at her head to stick in the flower, she would not allow him. At last, however, he succeeded. She, much discomfited, wore lilac against her ear.
Then the children came out of school — boys, in their quaint pinafores. It is strange how pleasant, how quaint, and manly these little children are; the tiny boys of six seemed more really manly than the soldiers of twenty-one, more alert to the real things. They cried to each other in their keen, naive way, discussing the action at the fortress, of which I could make out nothing.
And one of the soldiers asked them, “How old are you, Johnny?” Human nature is very much alike. The boys used French in their play, but they answered the soldiers in German.
As I was going up the hill there came on a heavy shower. I sheltered as much as I could under an apple-tree thick with pink blossom; then I hurried down to the village. “Cafe — Restauration” was written on one house. I wandered into the living-room beyond the courtyard.
“Where does one drink?” I asked the busy, hard-worked-looking woman. She answered me in French, as she took me in. At once, though she was a drudge, her fine spirit of politeness made me comfortable.
“This is not France?” I asked of her.
“Oh, no — but always the people have been French,” and she looked at me quickly from her black eyes. I made my voice tender as I answered her.
Presently I said: “Give me some cigarettes, please.”
“French or German?” she asked.
“What’s the difference?” I inquired.
“The French, of course, are better.” “Then French,” I said, laughing, though I do not really love the black, strong French cigarettes.
“Sit and talk to me a minute,” I said to her. “It is so nice not to speak German.”
“Ah, Monsieur!” she cried, and she loved me. She could not sit, no. She could only stay a minute. Then she sent her man.
I heard her in the other room bid him come. He was shy — he would not. “Ssh!” I heard her go as she pushed him through the door.
He was very swarthy, burned dark with the sun. His eyes were black and very bright. He was a man of about forty-five. I could not persuade him to sit down or to drink with me; he would accept only a cigarette. Then, laughing, he lighted me my cigarette. He was a gentleman, and he had white teeth.
The village, he told me, was Sey: a French name, but a German village.
“And you are a German subject?” I asked.
He bowed to me. He said he had just come in from the vines, and must go back immediately. Last year they had had a bad disease, so that all the plants I had seen were new. I hoped he would get rich with them. He smiled with a peculiar sad grace.
“Not rich, Monsieur, but not a failure this time.”
He had a daughter, Angele: “In Paris — in France.”
He bowed and looked at me meaningly. I said I was glad. I said:
“I do not like Metz: too many soldiers. I do not like German soldiers.”
“They are scarcely polite,” he said quietly.
“You find it?” I asked.
He bowed his acquiescence.
It is a strange thing that these two Frenchmen were the only two men — not acquaintances — whom I felt friendly towards me in the whole of Metz.
II. Hail in the Rhineland
We were determined to take a long walk this afternoon, in spite of the barometer, which persisted in retreating towards “storm.” The morning was warm and mildly sunny. The blossom was still falling from the fruit-trees down the village street, and drifting in pink and white all along the road. The barber was sure it would be fine. But then he’d have sworn to anything I wanted, he liked me so much since I admired, in very bad German, his moustache.
“I may trim your moustache?” he asked.
“You can do what you like with it,” I said.
As he was clipping it quite level with my lip he asked:
“You like a short moustache?”
“Ah,” I answered, “I could never have anything so beautiful and upstanding as yours.”
Whereupon immediately he got excited, and vowed my moustache should stand on end even as Kaiserly as did his own.
“Never,” I vowed.
Then he brought me a bottle of mixture, and a gauze bandage, which I was to bind under my nose, and there I should be, in a few weeks, with an upstanding moustache sufficient as a guarantee for any man. But I was modest; I refused even to try.
“No,” I said, “I will remember yours.” He pitied me, and vowed it would be fine for the afternoon.
I told Johanna so, and she took her parasol. It was really sunny, very hot and pretty, the afternoon. Besides, Johanna’s is the only parasol I have seen in Waldbrol, and I am the only Englishman any woman for miles around could boast. So we set off.
We were walking to Niimbrecht, some five or six miles away. Johanna moved with great dignity, and I held the parasol. Every man, even the workmen on the fields, bowed low to us, and every woman looked at us yearningly. And to every women, and to every man, Johanna gave a bright “Good day.”
“They like it so much,” she said. And I believed her.
There was a scent of apple-blossom quite strong on the air. The cottages, set at random and painted white, with their many numbers painted black, have a make-believe, joyful, childish look.
Everywhere the broom was out, great dishevelled blossoms of ruddy gold sticking over the besom strands. The fields were full of dandelion pappus, floating misty bubbles crowded thick, hiding the green grass with their globes. I showed Johanna how to tell the time. “One!” I puffed; “two-three-four-five-six! Six o’clock, my dear.”
“Six o’clock what?” she asked.
“Anything you like,” I said.
“At six o’clock there will be a storm. The barometer is never wrong,” she persisted.
I was disgusted with her. The beech wood through which we were walking was a vivid flame of green. The sun was warm.
“Johanna,” I said. “Seven ladies in England would walk out with me, although they knew that at six o’clock a thunder-shower would ruin their blue dresses. Besides, there are two holes in your mittens, and black mittens show so badly.”
She quickly hid her arms in the folds of her skirts. “Your English girls have queer taste, to walk out seven at a time with you.”
We were arguing the point with some ferocity when, descending a hill in the wood, we came suddenly upon a bullock-wagon. The cows stood like blocks in the harness, though their faces were black with flies. Johanna was very indignant. An old man was on the long, railed wagon, which was piled with last year’s brown oak- leaves. A boy was straightening the load, and waiting at the end of the wagon ready to help, a young, strong man, evidently his father, who was struggling uphill with an enormous sack-cloth bundle- enormous, full of dead leaves. The new leaves of the oaks overhead were golden brown, and crinkled with young vigour. The cows stood stolid and patient, shutting their eyes, weary of the plague of flies. Johanna ‘flew to their rescue, fanning them with a beech- twig.
“Ah, poor little ones!” she cried. Then, to the old man, in tones of indignation: “These flies will eat up your oxen.”
“Yes — their wicked little mouths,” he agreed.
“Cannot you prevent them?” she asked.
“They are everywhere,” he answered, and he smacked a fly on his hand.
“But you can do something,” she persisted.
“You could write a card and stick it between their horns, ‘Settling of flies strictly forbidden here,’ “ I said.
“ ‘Streng verboten,’ “ he repeated as he laughed.
Johanna looked daggers at me.
“Thank you, young fellow,” she said sarcastically. I stuck leafy branches in the head-harness of the cattle. The old man thanked me with much gratitude.
“It is hot weather!” I remarked.
“It will be a thunderstorm, I believe,” he answered.
“At six o’clock?” cried Johanna.
But I was along the path.
We went gaily through the woods and open places, and had nearly come to Numbrecht, when we met a very old man, coming very slowly up the hill with a splendid young bull, of buff-colour and white, which, in its majestic and leisurely way, was dragging a harrow that rode on sledges.
“Fine weather,” I remarked, forgetting.
“Jawohl!” he answered. “But there will be a thunderstorm.”
“And I knew it,” said Johanna.
But we were at Niimbrecht. Johanna drank her mineral water and raspberry juice. It was ten minutes to six.
“It is getting dark,” remarked Johanna.
“There is no railway here?” I asked.
“Not for six miles,” she replied pointedly.
The landlord was a very handsome man.
“It is getting dark,” said Johanna to him.
“There will be a thunderstorm, Madame,” he replied with beautiful grace. “Madame is walking?”
“From Waldbrol,” she replied. By this time she was statuesque. The landlord went to the door. Girls were leading home the cows.
“It is coming,” he said, and immediately there was a rumbling of thunder.
Johanna went to the door.
“An enormous black cloud. The sky is black,” she announced. I followed to her side. It was so.
“The barber — ” I said.
“Must you live by the word of the barber?” said Johanna.
The landlord retired indoors. He was a very handsome man, all the hair was positively shaved from his head. And I knew Johanna liked the style.
I fled to Stollwerck’s chocolate machine, and spent a few anxious moments extracting burnt almonds. The landlord reappeared.
“There is an omnibus goes to Waldbrol for the station and the east. It passes the door in ten minutes,” he said gracefully. No English landlord could have equalled him. I thanked him with all my heart.
The omnibus was an old brown cab — a growler. Its only occupant was a brown-paper parcel for Frau — .
“You don’t mind riding?” I said tenderly to Johanna.
“I had rather we were at home. I am terribly afraid of thunderstorms,” she answered.
We drove on. A young man in black stopped the omnibus. He bowed to us, then mounted the box with the driver.
“It is Thienes, the Bretzel baker,” she said. Bretzel is a very twisty little cake like Kringel.
I do not know why, but after this Johanna and I sat side by side in tense silence. I felt very queerly.
“There, the rain!” she suddenly cried.
“Never mind,” I pleaded.
“Oh, I like riding in here,” she said.
My heart beat, and I put my hand over hers. She pretended not to notice, which made my heart beat more. I don’t know how it would have ended. Suddenly there was such a rattle outside, and something pounding on me. Johanna cried out. It was a great hailstorm — the air was a moving white storm — enormous balls of ice, big as marbles, then bigger, like balls of white carbon that housewives use against moths, came striking in. I put up the window. It was immediately cracked, so I put it down again. A hailstone as big as a pigeon-egg struck me on the knee, hurt me, and bounced against Johanna’s arm. She cried out with pain. The horses stood still and would not move. There was a roar of hail. All round, on the road balls of ice were bouncing viciously up again. We could not see six yards out of the carriage.
Suddenly the door opened, and Thienes, excusing himself, appeared. I dragged him in. He was a fresh young man, with naive, wide eyes. And his best suit of lustrous black was shining now with wet.
“Had you no cover?” we said.
He showed his split umbrella, and burst into a torrent of speech. The hail drummed bruisingly outside.
It had come like horse-chestnuts of ice, he said.
The fury of the storm lasted for five minutes, all of which time the horses stood stock still. The hailstones shot like great white bullets into the carriage. Johanna clung to me in fear. There was a solid sheet of falling ice outside.
At last the horses moved on. I sat eating large balls of ice and realizing myself. When at last the fall ceased Thienes would get out on tq the box again. I liked him; I wanted him to stay. But he would not.
The country was a sight. All over the road, and fallen thick in the ruts, were balls of ice, pure white, as big as very large marbles, and some as big as bantam-eggs. The ditches looked as if stones and stones weight of loaf sugar had been emptied into them — white balls and cubes of ice everywhere. Then the sun came out, and under the brilliant green birches a thick white mist, only a foot high, sucked at the fall of ice. It was very cold. I shuddered.
“I was only flirting with Johanna,” I said to myself. “But, by Jove, I was nearly dished.”
The carriage crunched over the hail. All the road was thick with twigs, as green as spring. It made me think of the roads strewed for the Entry to Jerusalem. Here it was cherry boughs and twigs and tiny fruits, a thick carpet; next, brilliant green beech; next, pine- brushes, very beautiful, with their creamy pollen cones, making the road into a green bed; then fir twigs, with pretty emerald new shoots like stars, and dark sprigs over the hailstones. Then we passed two small dead birds, fearfully beaten. Johanna began to cry. But we were near a tiny, lonely inn, where the carriage stopped. I said I must give Thienes a Schnapps, and I jumped out. The old lady was sweeping away a thick fall of ice-stones from the doorway.
When I next got into the carriage, I suppose I smelled of Schnapps, and was not lovable. Johanna stared out of the window, away from me. The lovely dandelion bubbles were gone, there was a thicket of stripped stalks, all broken. The corn was broken down, the road was matted with fruit twigs. Over the Rhineland was a grey, desolate mist, very cold.
At the next stopping place, where the driver had to deliver a parcel, a young man passed with a very gaudily apparelled horse, great red trappings. He was a striking young fellow. Johanna watched him. She was not really in earnest with me. We might have both made ourselves unhappy for life, but for this storm. A middle-aged man, very brown and sinewy with work, came to the door. He was rugged, and I liked him. He showed me his hand. The back was bruised, and swollen, and already going discoloured. It made me wince. But he laughed rather winsomely, even as if he were glad.
“A hailstone!” he said, proudly.
We watched the acres of ice-balls slowly pass by, in silence. Neither of us spoke. At last we came to the tiny station, at home. There was the station-master, and, of all people, the barber.
“I can remember fifty-five years,” said the station-master, “but nothing like this.”
“Not round, but squares, two inches across, of ice,” added the barber, with gusto.
“At the shop they have sold out of tiles, so many smashed,” said the station-master.
“And in the green-house roofs, at the Asylum, not a shred of glass,” sang the barber.
“The windows at the station smashed — ” “And a man” — I missed the name — ”hurt quite badly by — ” rattled the barber.
“But,” I interrupted, “you said it would be fine.”
“And,” added Johanna, “we went on the strength of it.” It is queer, how sarcastic she can be, without saying anything really meaningful.
We were four dumb people. But I had a narrow escape, and Johanna had a narrow escape, and we both know it, and thank the terrific hail-storm, though at present she is angry — vanity, I suppose.