In The Footprints of Heine V Gorman LIBRARY UNIVtK^ TY OF CALIFORNIA DIEGO IN THE FOOTPRINTS OF HEINE (p. ITU) WALDEINSAMKEIT In The Footprints of Heine BY HENRY JAMES FORMAN With Illustrations by WALTER KING STONE Houghton Mifflin Company Boston & New York : The Riverside Press Cambridge 1910 COPYRIGHT, 1910, BY HENRY JAMES FORMAN ALL RIGHTS RESERVED Published October IQIO TO WILLIAM DEAN HOWELLS WHO FIRST TAUGHT ME TO LOVE HEINE THIS BOOK IS GRATEFULLY AND CORDIALLY INSCRIBED Wer den Dicbter will versteben y Muss in Dicbter s Lande geben. GOETHE. Contents I. The Passionate Pilgrim .! II. Steps of Promise 13 III. On the Golden Uplands . . . .21 IV. The Black Dog at Osterode ... 36 V. The Lady of the Diligence .... 53 VI. Pisgah Sight 70 VII. The Enchanted Hill Man .... 83 VIII. The Hartz Air-Cure 103 IX. Goslar the Glorious 120 X. The Throne of Barbarossa . . . .136 XI. Forest Sanctuary 167 XII. The Valley of Ochre 179 XIII. Vanity Fair 187 XIV. The Wild Huntsman 196 XV. Witches' Trail 207 XVI. The Brocken . . . . . . .221 XVII. The Princess Use 242 Illustrations Waldeinsamkeit (p. 175) . . . . Frontispiece Heine's Lodgings at Gottingen (5 3 Weenderstrasse) 8 The Way to Lerbach ...... 62 Goslar the Glorious 100 A Little Backwater at Goslar 138 The Kaiserhaus at Goslar 160 The Valley of Ochre 184 Harzburg: Where the Wild Huntsman Roams . 198 Toiling up the Brocken 218 The Castle of Wernigerode 252 From drawings by Walter King Stone In the Footprints of Heine CHAPTER I THE PASSIONATE PILGRIM Semen Wanderstab er griff er Jetzo und verliess die Hauptstadt. HEINE. AFTER fifteen years of dreaming and an eternity in the cars from the Hook of Holland I found myself actually in Gb't- tingen, my point of departure for the Hartz. The doors of my heart opened suddenly to a flood of rich, boyish enthusiasm as I sat in my room at the " Krone," trying with diffi- culty to realize that at last I was about to begin the journey that had brought peace, as well as joy, to Heine, Goethe, Chamisso, and to so many others who sought to com- bine beauty with solitude. Now that I was within a day's walk from the Hartz region, In the Footprints of Heine no artist could have painted scenes so vivid or so beautiful as those depicted by my yearn- ing imagination. The hills and the pines and the castle ruins, the mountain torrents, the homely natives, their picturesque le- gends and customs, I hungered for them all. My one concern was lest any of the beauty should fade before my coming. It behooved me to start at once, and much re- mained to be done. I walked forth into the streets of Gottingen. "Gottingen," says Heine, "looks its best when you have turned your back upon it." To me it was almost beautiful. A peaceful venerable city it seemed, with an air of quiet wisdom about it, much like an elderly gen- tleman who has lived chiefly in the study, Faust before the temptation of Mephistoph- eles. But little traffic disturbed the spacious quietude of Weenderstrasse. Quaint gables and old-fashioned balconies overhung the roomy pavements. Serene young men were 2 The Passionate Pilgrim strolling leisurely about, doffing straw hats of studied shapelessness to equally serene young women. Mild and placid faces showed among the wares displayed in the shop win- dows, and the many booksellers' establish- ments leavened the whole effect with a re- deeming dignity, even as the colored caps of the students roaming proudly hither and thither cast a kind of glamour on the com- monplace townsfolk. My business at that particular hour was to purchase a knapsack and other equipment for my journey. The bookseller, from whom I bought that excellent guide-book, " Mey- er's Hartz," directed me to his favorite clothier. " The Herr undoubtedly desires the best," he suggested with an air at once grave and insinuating, like a family banker recom- mending an investment ; " then be pleased to go to Morck. He has the best costumes in Gottingen, and is an honest man to boot." 3 In the Footprints of Heine Morck was as good as the bookseller's word. Though my choice was made quickly, he ordered his apprentice to exhibit innu- merable costumes, being apparently bent upon showing the stranger that even here in little Gdttingen stood an emporium of met- ropolitan proportions. In all those clothes the prevailing characteristic was a girth far too generous for the slender American. " They are obviously built with the Gdt- tingen citizen in mind/' I ventured lightly. "That is how we are in this locality,'* said the clothier with quiet dignity, and cheerfully offered to change the girth. "It is scarcely necessary, however," he added gravely, after a pause, "if the Herr is to remain in Gottingen." "I am going to walk in the Hartz," said I. "Ah, then the girth must be changed," he concluded. " You gain no weight in climbing mountains." 4 The Passionate Pilgrim I hastened away to another shop to pro- cure a knapsack. How many times had I not pictured myself, staffin hand and slightly stooping under just such a knapsack, disap- pearing into the bosom of a mysterious for- est in the Hartz. Of such knapsacks there was now a lavish display in the shop I en- tered. I must have had what philosophers call a priori knowledge of them, for I real- ized I had never seen one before. I touched the greenish pouch with almost trembling fingers, and the saturnine damsel who con- ducted the sale must have seen that she could ask any price she chose. But Got- tingen is of a hopeless honesty. Darkness was falling swiftly when I re- turned to the hotel tired but happy, and quite provided with the needful things for my journey. Strains of martial music came sud- denly floating through my window, and I arose to meet them upon the balcony over- hanging Weenderstrasse. A regiment of foot 5 In the Footprints of Heine was returning to barracks from a day's target practice; the thud, thud of the rhythmic feet fell pleasantly upon ears still throbbing with the din and clatter of a day on the rail- way, and the color of their uniform was grateful to tired eyes. The short under-waiter, who fancied he could speak English, came running up to call my attention to the spec- tacle. " Do you see how their arms all swing like one arm ? " he spluttered excitedly. " They are fine Kerls y not true?" Afterwards this poor lad told me that he was flat-footed, and by consequence had been rejected as a re- cruit; he could never become one of the Kerls in the ranks. The shop girls were all upon the pavement gazing and smiling on the soldiers, and even the most stolid of the citizens stood still and reviewed the files of marching men with calm, bovine speculation. The little flat-footed waiter looked with longing eyes now at the soldiers passing by, 6 The Passionate Pilgrim and now at the bright-eyed girls. But from the girls there was never a look for him. A little later I heard him in the court- yard jeering with bitterness in his voice at the " boots " and one or two others of the serving lads for the poverty of their lot. " As for me/' said he, " I shall go to America or to England, and easily make three thousand marks a year. There is no police there. Everything is free not like here." "I wish I could come, too," wistfully murmured one mild, impressionable lad. "And I, no!" stout little boots replied with spirit. " I shall stay here, and when the time comes I shall be a soldier like those fine Kerls in the ranks." The flat-footed waiter winced. The next day broke so clear and cool that had it not been a Sunday I should have felt moved to depart that morning. As it was, I resolved to wait until the Monday, and to look 7 In the Footprints of Heine in the meanwhile upon Gottingen. I drove about the speckless city, gazing my fill upon the ugly University buildings, the venerable Aula, the Anatomical Institute with its mon- strous collection of skulls made by a man bearing the pastoral name of Blumenbach. The white houses surrounded by glistening verdure on that brilliant morning gave to northern Gottingen an almost tropical ap- pearance, both refreshing and alluring. But that was in the newer streets that must have arisen since Heine made his characterization. Handsomestatues decorate thepublic squares, and the most graceful of these adornments is the Goose Girl Fountain in front of the Ratbaus. That sweet maiden with her geese, whom Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm have brought from Fairyland to the heart of childhood, would surely have placated even Heine. That day even drowsy Gottingen was moved to gayety. That is to say, the inhabi- 8 HEINE'S LODGINGS AT GOTTINGEN 53 Weenderstrasse The Passionate Pilgrim tants, male and female, ponderous and slow, kept moving up and down Weenderstrasse, gazing stolidly and aimlessly before them. They retraced their steps often, so that in the course of half an hour the same faces passed you several times, like supers in a play. The droscbkes behaved similarly, and, though there were only two or three of them, they passed and repassed so often that the unob- servant might have concluded the town to be alive with them. In the cool of the afternoon I myself joined the loitering throng, sauntered along the ramparts close to the Leine River, and gazed upon the modest, simple, one-storied house where the Iron Chancellor lived in his stu- dent days. A solitary mongrel dog, which came wandering that way, stopped beside me for a moment, he too gazing upward. For we both knew well that of the two, the statue of Bismarck in the square and the house in Rothstrasse, this was the rarer me- 9 In the Footprints of Heine morial. But Gottingen surged toward the statue. Upon returning to Weenderstrasse I felt in my heart a pleasant pang of gratitude to Gottingen when at number 8, my eye fell upon a tablet to the memory of our own historian, George Bancroft, who dwelt here in his student years. Almost next door stands the square, silent, three-story house where the brothers Grimm, princes of word-lore and Fairyland, had lived for near upon ten years. On a gabled house of many windows across the way is inscribed the name of Goethe, who lodged there in 1801, when he wrote his "Farbenlehre." I wondered whether the tobacconist's shop under these rooms had been there in Goethe's day, and whether it was in the least disquieting to the poet. Samuel Taylor Coleridge was another familiar name in Weenderstrasse, and a few doors from it, at number 53, my pulse beat quickly as I beheld the two words " Hein- rich Heine.'* 10 The Passionate Pilgrim The somewhat crumbling old house, of brown stone, seems to nod toward the pass- ers-by in a pleasant, friendly manner. And what though a tailor's shop occupies the ground story, and though the house itself is not beautiful, I felt a nameless resentment against all who passed without so much as a look at the name above them. A saddler now dwells in the low-ceiled rooms where the poet nearly a century ago dreamed his wildest dreams, wrote some of his most be- loved lines, and cursed the study of jurispru- dence. Only the sun falling on the panes and the flowers in the window spoke of Heine the poet in that mansion, Heine the lover, the singer of nature, of joy, but chiefly of sorrow. From that door it was that he escaped nearly a hundred years ago into the soul- reviving Hartz, and to this day men the world over follow his footsteps in their dreams, and dream, at least in their youth, ii In the Footprints of Heine of following in the flesh. My heart filled with gratitude at the thought that on the morrow I, of the happy minority, should set out on precisely that magical journey. Steps of Promise CHAPTER II STEPS OP PROMISE Gaben mir Rat und gute Lehren^ Uberschutteten mich mit Ehren. HEINE. THE next morning it was my intention to rise at five o'clock and begin my journey so early as to outstrip the very sun in his course. My programme was to walk from six until ten or possibly eleven ; then, after a siesta in the middle of the day, to walk again from half past three or four until seven. But such is the power of habit that not once during my journey did I quite square with that programme. Even when I did awake early, either with assistance or without, a sudden clarity and keenness seemed to penetrate my mind, and I saw that the plan of early rising which had seemed 13 In the Footprints of Heine so wise and sound the day before was a piece of unspeakable folly. Was I not on a plea- sure trip? Why hurry? Feverish haste, the very bane of America that I was here to es- cape for a little while, was pursuing me like a crime even to these remote parts, and mak- ing life a burden. I thanked my stars that the freshness of early morning had come to my aid, and helped me to see and conquer this, our national infirmity. And so I turned over and slept on. I did not arise until seven on the morn- ing of my departure. The bath, which was a wonderful affair, equipped with its own boiler and stoker, had been waiting since five o'clock, and the first sound I heard on wak- ing was the thud of the engine in the bath- room. A general air of subdued excitement hung about the corridor, and, as I entered upon the scene, a council of war was being held between the engineer and the head and other waiters as to whether the engine had Steps of Promise not better be stopped. The engineer com- plained that his fuel was almost exhausted and that duties were awaiting him in the kitchen. But the waiter assured him I was imminent because of the journey and that he must not lose heart. My arrival cut short the colloquy, and the waiter urged me to enjoy this bath to the fullest extent, to make the most of it and then take a tender fare- well of it, for I should probably not look upon its like again in the Hartz. Despite that threat I did not dally long, for once fully awake, the advantages of an early start again stood out as something desirable. Hurriedly I climbed into my rough mountaineering clothes, and after a hasty breakfast proceeded to finish the packing of my knapsack. The peculiar type of knapsack in use on these journeys is very difficult to describe. It is made of a greenish-brown waterproof cloth and purses up like a tobacco pouch. If you are wise and do not put too much into it. In the Footprints of Heine the bag shapes itself to your back and dis- tributes your burden very comfortably. If you are not wise and attempt to carry all that the guide-book recommends, Christian's pack was but a feather to what your load becomes, unless, as Mrs. Malaprop might have said, Christian and Hercules were two gentlemen in one. Personally I did not intend to follow the guide-book. I took no cloak, no umbrella, no medical outfit, no tailor's outfit all of which are recommended by the book. But I put in a couple of changes of linen, an extra pair of shoes, some writing materials, two or three books, a tin of tobacco and a pipe, a pair of hairbrushes, one or two other toilet articles, and some rolls of photographic films. The razor-edge was still upon my enthusi- asm, but the knapsack felt somewhat heavy. This the head waiter assured me was an error on my part. The pack was not at all heavy. It was abnormally light. 16 Steps of Promise "How do you know?" I asked. "Did you ever carry such a load for two weeks?" He had not, he said. But the year before an Englishman had set out from that hotel on a similar journey, and his pack was at least twice as heavy as mine. He carried two extra pair of boots, a quantity of food, and certain flasks and bottles. This was a conso- lation, but not an important one. I com- promised by unpursing my sack for the twentieth time and extracting Kinglake's Eotben, which I had fondly cherished as a traveling companion. So Kinglake went by the board. I strapped on the pack, slung my camera over my shoulder, and now I was ready to start. " Good-bye, good-bye, good-bye," to the head waiter, to the second head waiter, to the valet, to the boots, to everybody a silver farewell, and from everybody a pleasant little friendly speech well worth the silver. The flat-footed humbug who fancied he could 17 In the Footprints of Heine speak English paraded his incompetence to the last with some absurd combination that sounded like, " Go out coome not true soon back," and looked ostentatiously about for the effect upon the others. I had not the heart to undeceive them. I gave him good- bye in English and marched a way from the "Krone "at last. I thought I had departed. Before I had gone three steps the head waiter, excited and hatless, ran after me and called my name. Forgive him, but he had something to pro- pose. Osterode was my goal to-day, was it not ? Well, then he knew a route that not only offered more attractive scenery than the one I meant to follow, but was several kilo- meters shorter besides. With a zeal worthy of better things he pleaded passionately for this "better" route, while I stood inwardly fretting at the loss of time. His staff of un- der-waiters and servitors, who should have been at a worthier employment, stood about Steps of Promise open-mouthed, looking from one of us to the other. I realized that decisive action was necessary. Before the flat-footed waiter, who was lurking in the neighborhood with a dark elucidation in his English, could open his head, I quickly informed them that I meant to make the journey along the same route as Heine had made it, and that, be- sides, it was a wager. What Heine had to do with it they could not see, but the lie in time of hesitation had saved me. A wager was another matter. If the Herr had made a wager of course he had to go that way, ir- respective of the lures and blessings of Some- where Else. The waiter had yet to learn how much such lures depended on the mind of the beholder. He bowed. They all bowed. There we stood in a little clump on the pavement before the "Krone." Two or three stolid citizens of Gottingen who hap- pened to pass by during this colloquy were so excited that one of them almost turned 19 In the Footprints of Heine round to look at us again. But as that was too much work for a summer's day, he thought better of it and rolled on. Again farewell, and now I was really on my way. On the Golden Uplands CHAPTER III ON THE GOLDEN UPLANDS Das alles siebt so Iiistig aus y So wohl gewachsen das BauerbauSj So morgentaulich Gras und Baum^ So herrlich blau der Berge Saum. GOETHE. THE sun had not waited to rise at my departure, but was already in the heavens at the nine o'clock height. Those heavens, by the way, were doing all that in them lay to give heart to the solitary trav- eler. A sky of blue so tender and serene I could not remember anywhere else. Its speckless arch seemed to cover a world without sorrow or turmoil, without squalor or pain. Black care that so many writers, from Horace down, have described as perched behind the traveler was nowhere in my 21 In the Footprints of Heine vicinity. The golden sun poured down its limitless flood of light upon the quiet city as I walked out toward the Weender gate, penetrated with a feeling of boyish irre- sponsibility and gladness. I was not flee- ing from the City of Destruction, but walk- ing straight into the land of joy and Heart's Desire. The burden which was upon my back did not oppress me as yet, and every sight and sound seemed to have a delicious freshness about it. Past nine though it was, Gottingen was scarcely astir as yet. Shops were still being opened by seemingly drowsy shopmen. A milkman's wagon rattled along the cobble- stones ; a butcher's boy was briskly urging a Dalmatian hound harnessed to a meat-bas- ket on wheels; a tiny mouse-gray donkey was nonchalantly drawing a heavy two- wheeled cart, with a strapping man in it. I was touched with pity for the poor little beast, though the little beast itself seemed 22 On the Golden Uplands wholly unconcerned and at peace with the bright world. Small children with knap- sacks of their own were strolling unwillingly to the summer school and philosophically munching bread and butter meant for a later hour. Toward the city gate the street began to die out, and soon it perished ut- terly, and was merged into the great white highway that swept nobly on, bordered by green meadows and yellow wheat-fields, until it was lost beyond the horizon. A short distance beyond the gate lies the tiny hamlet of Weende that gives the gate its name; thence the narrow road, straight as a dart, leads on to Bovenden. Bovenden, according to Heine, was of old selected by students for their duels and was therefore patrolled by the University's proctors. These gentlemen, adds Heine characteristically, also held quarantine without the city gate, lest any enterprising young tutor should im- port some new ideas into the learned old In the Footprints of Heine town. I marched joyfully along the ribbon of springy footpath with the golden fields of barley and rye on either hand, alternating with squares of soft green meadow land, like some god's checkerboard. On the outskirts of Bovenden, which is nearly all outskirts, I met an aged man with a great gray beard covering his bosom and in his gait a stately senatorial dignity. He seemed a man to trust and confide in. My breakfast at Gottingen, due to the excite- ment of departure, had been light. I felt a little ashamed to be hungry at ten o'clock of the morning, after walking exactly an hour. Nevertheless I turned to the stranger, gave him good morning, and asked him for the best inn at Bovenden. " I am going there myself," said he, " for it is time I had a little musical refreshment," and in his eye was a jolly twinkle. What musical refreshment was I did not discover until we entered the inn and the old man 24 On the Golden Uplands poured himself a tiny liqueur glass of Schnapps and paid for it with a small coin. Musicians, being generally poor, can afford but little for dissipation ; that is why, I sup- pose, the smallest purchasable quantity was described as musical by the old man. He was a buyer of leaf tobacco, which is abun- dantly cultivated in the neighborhood, and observing that I had unstrapped my knap- sack with the air of one who had been marching for many hours, and ordered luncheon, he remarked that he must be on his rounds, and with a civil word left me alone. I looked from the cosy inn parlor upon the empty square about which were grouped the village church, the schoolhouse and the town hall. In the centre was the town pump and watering trough. A dog lay sleeping in the shadow of the church. Now and again the sweet treble of childish voices singing either in the church or in the schoolhouse, 25 In the Footprints of Heine I could not tell which, came floating across the square with that haunting, touching quality that children's voices always have. My own childhood flashed before me and with it came the vision of long, sunny, peaceful days in a green-meadowed coun- try-side that somehow blended with this German picture of deep tranquillity. I felt something catch at my throat; another mo- ment and my sentimental pilgrimage would have begun very sentimentally indeed, but the clangor of a bell suddenly brought me out of my reverie and there, beside the town pump, stood the bellman with a scroll in his hand. He was the town crier, and in drawling monotonous voice he read to the church, to the schoolhouse, to the dozing dog, to the empty square and to me the an- nouncement that a meeting would be held that evening in the town hall for the pur- pose of voting the village taxes. Every citi- zen probably knew of the meeting anyway, 26 On the Golden Uplands but for hundreds of years news had been spread after that fashion in Bovenden, and in such places fashions do not change. The townsfolk were all in the fields. Everybody was occupied excepting myself. I, in the character of the weary traveler, sat there guiltily eating the bread or, ra- ther, the eggs of idleness. Could those eggs have been laid by merely earthly hens ? I verily believe that we dwellers in cis-At- lantic cities have lost through inanition the delicate taste for simple food. A pleasant- faced field laborer broke in upon these gus- tatory reflections by calling for Schnapps, and sitting down beside me with a friendly greeting. With easy grace he plunged in medias res by beginning, "It would not be so bad but that the drought hurts the tobacco. They have rain in the Hartz," he ran on, " and rain in the South. But here in the valley of the Leine we are the last to get it; and here we de- 27 In the Footprints of Heine pend upon our tobacco crop. Does the Herr travel on business?'* He spoke not as though he were opening a conversation but as though he were wind- ing up a comprehensive reply to a census- taker. I assured him that I was traveling solely for pleasure. Then, to my surprise, he grew somewhat bitter and cynical. " Pleasure," said he with a frown, " is a thing nowhere found. People travel the world over, but health and home is the best they can ever discover." Hastily I strapped my knapsack on my back, paid my score and left the inn. It was high noon. The sun was pretty warm. Before coming anywhere in the vicinity of the Hartz, I must still walk twelve kilome- ters to Northeim or at least two hours. I did what Heine doubtless would have done had he been able in the year 1824. I moved quietly to the railway station and took a train for Northeim. Thus only could 28 On the Golden Uplands I gain the time I had lost during that day by late rising and slow marching. This man- ifestation of initiative on my part pleased me. But as we sped through the sunlit fields I felt a little shamefaced. A maiden's charm, however, soon made me forget my peccadillo. She and her father were in the same com- partment with me. She was blue-eyed and golden-haired, and of a bewitching fascina- tion. Before long she had wormed out of me my name and confided that hers was Edith. She cheered the way with a merry song and her father seemed merely amused in his good-natured German way as she car- ried on recklessly with the stranger. She made me tell her my age; she could have made me tell her anything. She told me her age also. She was three. Northeim showed more animation than any place on the way since I left Got- tingen. Children were coming home from 29 In the Footprints of Heine school, and here and there a grown-up man or woman would walk in the street just as though they were not figures in an old print or a picture book. " Die Sonne," a pleasant inn that was fifty years old when Heine stopped there, is almost unchanged. The waiter wore a dress suit and there were gas fixtures in the dining-room, but the carpet in the corridors, I could have sworn, had been laid in 1775. Heine had tasted here the first food on his journey and he avers it was a great improvement on the stale academic courses set before him at Gottingen. His wraith seemed still to be hovering in " Die Sonne/* and I recalled how he had solemnly directed at this place a trio of inquiring travelers to the Hotel de Briihbach, Gottingen's university prison. It was about one o'clock and it seemed a little too hot for walking. I waited until the sun was lower in the heavens before I resumed my march. Houses of the Six- 30 On the Golden Uplands teenth and Seventeenth centuries flanked the winding street on both sides and children played about them just as they do about our ramshackle tenements. The church that had seen four centuries of worshipers come and go, still flashed the soft wonder- ful colors from its stained-glass windows as it did in 1519, when it was built. Once clear of the town, I took, in the German vernacular, " the road manfully be- tween my legs " and began to walk in dead earnest. I had nearly fifteen miles to Oste- rode and the road already began to climb up hill. I shall never forget that walk from Northeim. All the sweet, simple pictures of summer that the city-pent heart yearns for bordered that highway. Fields of ripe yel- low wheat were swayed gently by the breeze in golden music. Scythe-men were swinging their flashing blades in the oatfields, while the women plodding behind them bound the sheaves. Spans of oxen were drawing 3' In the Footprints of Heine ploughs and frequently even cows could be seen ploughing which struck me as un- gallant. An itinerant merchant with a little house on wheels, a van with a chimney and a tiny window, came bowling along the road behind two stout horses, with his wife beside him, and that seemed an enviable mode of life. Beyond the fields on either hand a range of densely wooded hills, harbingers of the Hartz, curtained the horizon. Not a single cloud necked the soft blue expanse of the heavens, and I felt wonderfully free and happy. Through my mind flashed the long years of waiting and hoping for this journey through a magic land, and the old boyish dreams of achievement and joy and glory began to stir and waken as from a long sleep. " Steiget auf ihr alten Traume ! " But I did not need to bid those ancient dreams arise, for now they had complete pos- session of me. Fifteen years had suddenly 32 On the Golden Uplands been thrust aside, and I was a boy again. I wonder how many of us ever reflect upon the wealth of dreams and visions that lies buried in our hearts, if only we could stop to evoke them. Yet, the beauty of youth, what is it but the power and freshness to dream gen- erous, dazzling dreams and to build wonder- ful air castles ? The treasure of Captain Kidd is as nothing compared with this rich cache, deeply, too deeply, sunk in our own hearts. The swift headlong current of life carries us dizzily forward with never a pause to think on what we have missed by the way. And perhaps that is a mercy, too ; for how many would find that they had not utterly failed to reach their true goal ? I passed through Caltenburg, which was one deserted village street with only a few ducks and hens in possession. At the tavern, however, there were some signs of life. The inn-keeper was noisily transacting a horse trade with a befuddled customer, while the 33 In the Footprints of Heine inn-keeper's wife in the short petticoats char- acteristic of the peasants in these parts, was stumping about on her bony shanks and serv- ing refreshments to two other customers. These were the assistant station-master of Caltenburg and some equally high official, both finely built, robust young men in spot- less uniforms. I have seen such young men in America at the head of great enterprises. " I have been at Caltenburg three years," the assistant station-master was saying to his friend as they quaffed their beer, "and it is high time I was promoted and transferred. But I see no sign of any change." Yet he did not seem despondent. I sympathized with him nevertheless, and after drinking a glass of seltzer water, I pushed on toward Osterode. The roads began to grow steeper and the hills higher. The burden on my back kept increasing in weight until it seemed all but intolerable. The sun declined rapidly and cool breezes came wandering 34 On the Golden Uplands now and again from the distant hilltops. Soon I saw the red roofs of Osterode gleam- ing under the slanting rays, and as I entered the main street of the city a ball of misty fire, promising rain for the morrow, disap- peared behind a ridge of the hills. In the Footprints of Heine CHAPTER IV THE BLACK DOG AT OSTERODE Und das Ecbo^ wie die Sage Alter Zeiten, ballet wider. GOETHE. MY heart should have been singing as I entered Osterode, for I was actually in the Hartz, the land of a thousand le- gends, the goal of so many youthful dreams. The chill air of dusk could not have cooled my joy, but my back ached so sorely from the load I had borne all day, that somehow I forgot to be glad. Weary and footsore I entered the Hotel Kaiserhof, engaged a room and fell limply upon the bed. Despite all my fancied wisdom I had done what nearly every foot traveler does on the first day : I had walked too far and carried too much. I lay there inertly for a space, the 36 The Black Dog at Osterode pain oozing from my body, and my mind dully conscious of the process. After half an hour's rest hunger began to animate me, and I knew that I should re- cover. But I was still aching as I crept into the deserted dining-room and made a sparse meal of a leathern omelette. In this I sur- passed Heine. For when he came here he was so tired he could not eat at all, but went supperless to bed and dreamt grotesque and fearful dreams. I stepped out on the pave- ment, and the chill struck me so sharply, I contracted like the mercury in a bulb. Yet somehow it made me more comfortable to reflect that in New York at that moment people were sweltering under an August sun. But I did not linger. The watery rays of a street lamp here and there cast a cheerless light and there seemed to be not another human being in the street. I found out afterwards that tales of ghosts and hobgob- lins are so numerous in Osterode that to this 37 In the Footprints of Heine day inhabitants are literally afraid to go home in the dark. Even the skeptical give a certain credence to these legends, and chil- dren particularly are convinced that an en- chanted captain, in the shape of a black dog, nightly patrols the streets of Osterode. This nervousness seemed premature, for it was only nine o'clock and the captain of foot, or rather the black dog, with true mili- tary precision begins his rounds at exactly eleven o'clock. Before the ruins of an an- cient guardhouse in the fallen city wall he makes his appearance, follows a definite route every night and disappears somewhere in the neighborhood of the Hartz communal granary. Should you meet him on the way he is sure to follow you to your door. Un- less you speak to him he will not molest you. In former days, when there was sol- diery at Osterode, this dog made it his busi- ness to waken the guards who fell asleep while on duty. 38 The Black Dog at Osterode Tired though I was, I offered the credu- lous head waiter, who told me this story, a handsome trinkgeld if he would accompany me to the old corn magazine so that we might waylay the enchanted captain. "Bcwabrel* 1 gasped the nervous little waiter, "not I, Herr. Besides," he added, after a pause, " I can tell the Herr what the dog looks like ; he is the image of dogs em- ployed by butchers to draw meat-carts. I have seen him more than once." That was all well enough, I told him, but it was my desire to ask the captain to pose for his photograph the next morning. The waiter looked at me dubiously for a moment and then in soothing tones in- quired, " Does the Herr require anything for the night?" The Herr required a warm salt-water bath for his aching back and tired feet ; after that the Herr fell into a sweet dreamless sleep 39 In the Footprints of Heine that repaired all the damage done by the previous day's exertions. It was nearly nine o'clock when I awoke, and even the leaden sky failed to depress me. For under that sky lay a trim little city, sombre indeed, but with a certain tone and color befitting its picturesque if gloomy history of many long centuries. In the mid- dle of the Twelfth Century it was already a thriving village, and a hundred years later, when it became the property of Henry the Lion, it was a town of some pretensions. For about four centuries after that it served as the seat of the Dowager Duchesses of Grubenhagen, and that, according to some, is the reason so many old wives' tales cluster about Osterode. For a while, at the begin- ning of the Fifteenth Century, it was even a member of the Hansa league, but misfor- tune overtook the little city. The greedy eyes of the robber barons perched on the surrounding mountains ever turned to the 40 The Black Dog at Osterode thriving town, nestling below in the green lap of the Soese valley, and Osterode never had time to recover from the many predatory incursions. The citizens of Osterode were not always afraid of the dark. Once, in 1510, they went so far as to pitch Heiso Freienhagen, their burgomaster, out of a window. The mayor had suddenly become distasteful to them because he had suffered Jacob Lurdes, his foster-son, a dashing, popular rogue, to be put in the stocks. Jacob's friends one day rushed into the Rathaus, seized Freienhagen and threw him from the window upon a clump of upward-pointing spears, obligingly held by some others of Jacob's admirers. That was another opportunity for the Duke and his predatory friends to come marching down from Herzberg to teach Osterode bet- ter manners toward the powers that be. Siege and fire and pestilence are common factors in the history of most of these Hartz towns In the Footprints of Heine and the names of such generals as Tilly, Merode, and Pappenheim are still spoken with dread in the mountains. They sing songs now in Germany about " the jolly Pap- penheimers," but those rollicking blades had a way of encamping round a town and de- manding forty thousand thalers or promising, as an alternative, ruin and utter destruction. Merode, Pappenheim's aide, was the last of these besiegers. When he made his de- mand, in 1631, Osterode sent its children to him with a prayer and conjured him " for the sake of Christ His Blood and Passion" to let them depart the city, and they would leave all their goods behind them. Merode an- swered with cannon. Since then nothing else has ever happened to Osterode. As I sat down to breakfast with the appro- priate nod and mumbling of "Mahlzeit!" to two or three other travelers, it began to rain smartly. Each of us bestowed a gloomy look upon the window and then we fell to 42 The Black Dog at Osterode our breakfasts in silence. None of us mat- tered one iota to the others, and this thought gave me a kind of pleasure. All the outer envelopes that clothe your identity and make the personality that you show to the world, disappear in this sort of solitary travel. Haz- litt in one essay exclaims, "Oh! it is great to shake off the trammels of the world and of public opinion to lose our importunate, tormenting, everlasting personal identity in the elements of nature, and become the crea- ture of the moment, clear of all ties to hold to the universe only by a dish of sweet- breads, and to owe nothing but the score of the evening and no longer seeking for applause and meeting with contempt, to be known by no other title than the Gentleman in the Parlour!" It is a long exclamation but the sentiment is sound; for at that par- ticular moment I felt myself holding to the universe by no more than the ubiquitous omelette. The omelette for breakfast, the 43 In the Footprints of Heine schnitzel for all other meals henceforth be- came my daily fare in the Hartz, and even now I occasionally dream of knights and ladies within glittering castle walls setting golden platters of both these dishes before me and I, with horror in my voice, vowing that I had already consumed my share of them. The rain did not seem in the least discon- certing. I wished to go on, naturally, but if I could not, why then, I could not. Osterode was doubtless as good as any other place. I went up to my room, pulled out a book from the knapsack, and attempted to read. But that is not easy when you are in a new, strange place with people about you whom you have never seen before, will never in all proba- bility see again, and this is your one oppor- tunity to learn something of them. My at- tention wandered from the book to the red roofs, the warm color of which seemed to mitigate the cheerless picture of a mountain 44 The Black Dog at Osterode town overhung by the passage of storm. Soon I descended to the cafe and took up a news- paper. An old gentleman with a ruddy face stamped with both shrewdness and credulity, and a beard resembling that of Uncle Sam in the cartoons, broad-backed and corpulent in figure, glanced at me once or twice over his spectacles and, apparently making sure that I was a stranger, remarked upon the weather. I insulted the weather responsively and soon we were deep in talk concerning Osterode. City father or official of a sort though he seemed to be, he knew little of the early history of his city, but he was full of its legends. He was a firm believer in the capacity of some people to enchant others, or to fix them to a certain spot by means of magic spells. He told me many tales of men possessed of this magical gift who had per- manently banished various spooks that made certain houses uninhabitable. " The story of the headsman of Osterode," 45 In the Footprints of Heine he went on, "is well known in the Hartz. That lad was not only clever at his trade, but he could also cast spells. Sometimes he would do it merely for the entertainment of his friends. Once he saw two gossiping women pass just as the cows were being driven out to pasture in the morning. He cast a spell upon those women, and they stood rooted to the spot until the return of the herd at sun- down, so they had their fill of gossip." The old man chuckled as he pictured the pre- dicament of the two tabbies. " Another time," he continued, " on a Sat- urday night, a thief was stealing cabbages from the headsman's kitchen garden. Just as the rogue was scaling the wall to escape with his plunder, the headsman fixed him with a spell upon that wall until the Sunday morning, when good folk were on their way to church. There hung the thief with his cabbages in sight of all. The headsman, who had put so many others out of misery, laugh- The Black Dog at Osterode ingly approached him, presented him with a pig's head and said, 'Take this as well, for it is a poor stew without meat,' and so released him." And the teller of tales shook his broad sides with laughter at the pranks of the ex- ecutioner, who seemed to be a kind of hero, despite his trade. The old man recounted other similar in- cidents of marvelous texture in the life of the celebrated executioner, whose name he could not tell. But the master-stroke of the Scharf- ricbters talents seemed to be his capture of Hans von Eisdorf. Hans was the Robin Hood of the Hartz. So many legends cluster about that romantic robber, that one doubts his reality ; but he actually flourished in the Seventeenth Century and terrorized the mountaineers. He and his merry men were the scum left in the hills by Tilly's and other armies that swept across the face of the Hartz in those times. You hear of Hans gal- loping into a town with twenty-four riders, 47 In the Footprints of Heine or a hundred riders, or two hundred and fifty. The number varies with the story. At all events, he and his riders waylaid travel- ers and robbed and plundered to their hearts* content. So clever was he at evading capture that the simple hill men could not but ad- mire him. One day a fair was held at Oster- ode,and Hans von Eisdorf had the effrontery to come into the city disguised and to mingle with honest men. "Hans," recounted the Osterodean, "was tracked by spies to a certain tavern, and there he sat drinking one, bold as you please. The headsman was sent for, and quick as a wink he had fixed the bandit to his chair by means of a spell. Hans could not move hand or foot, and then every one knew the heads- man was stronger than Hans von Eisdorf, who was drawn and quartered in the market- place that day at Osterode." The old gossip had almost made me forget that I had a solemn duty to perform . I was now 48 The Black Dog at Osterode a pilgrim of twenty-four hours' standing and I had learned much wisdom on my journey. I called the head waiter to my room and gave him a variety of objects to pack for me and to send back to Gottingen. No rare curios these, culled by the wayside, but things that yesterday I had deemed indispensable. They all came out of my knapsack, and included the half of a pair of hairbrushes, a tin of to- bacco and a pipe, some clothing, another book or two, and some rolls of films. The morning was well advanced, and I decided to march on despite the small drizzle into which the rain had settled. As I strapped on my knapsack I laughed aloud for joy, so light seemed my load compared with yesterday. Swiftly I crossed the broad old marketplace, where Hans von Eisdorf had been so severely dealt with, and entered the bookshop of Frau Hedwig von Grassow, to buy a map. "The Herr is marching far?" she asked in kindly tones. 49 In the Footprints of Heine "To Klausthal," I answered; then with a kind of premonition I added, " I suppose I shall be able to obtain food on the way." "The Herr has had no luncheon?" she exclaimed with some concern ; " then let him go back at once and procure a proper meal. Pedestrians cannot live on air, and the Herr will find it always takes a little longer to go to places in the Hartz than the guide-books pretend. Does the Herr come from the Kaiserhof ? Please then to go back to the Kaiserhof; it is good enough." This advice seemed so excellent and was so kindly given that I mention Frau von Grassow's name, because I felt such a wo- man ought to go down to posterity. I paused for a moment at the old slate-cov- ered market church, built in a peculiarly northern variation of the Gothic style, now extinct even in Germany. There lie buried under Sixteenth Century grave-stones some of those Grubenhagen Dowagers who loved 5 The Black Dog at Osterode to dwell here in retirement, when their daughters-in-law came in turn to rule the Dukes of Grubenhagen. Before the beauti- ful old Rathaus which is not far off hangs the town-curiosity an immense skeleton of some prehistoric monster resembling the ichthyosaurus, found in the neighboring chalk hills. I made an excellent meal at the Kaiser- hof on a fair variety of the schnitzel. My coming back so pleased the proprietor that he himself gave me elaborate directions for my route. The chambermaid, overhearing the name Lerbach mentioned, ran after me to ask whether I was going to Klausthal by Lerbach, and to ask me, if so, to visit her parents there and to be pleased to tell them she was happy. Lerbach is about four miles from Osterode, but as Osterode (population 7100) was the first great city this girl had ever lived in, she felt unspeakably remote from her village home at Lerbach. 5 1 In the Footprints of Heine I followed the road that runs through the town along the Sose River. The Sose, at least in Osterode, is a stream of pebbles, with here and there a small patch of mois- ture. I passed the old corn magazine, built in 1722, bearing the arms of England and Hanover in honor of the Georges, then rul- ing Great Britain. In this neighborhood the enchanted captain nightly disappears, and just beyond the magazine I crossed a bridge into the village of Freiheit ; avoid- ing the Chaussee I struck out into the old Hartz road which Heine followed when he walked this way. The Lady of the Diligence CHAPTER v THE LADY OF THE DILIGENCE Icb will im grunen Wald ergehn Wo Blumen spriessen und Vogel singen ; Denn wenn ich im Grabe einst liegen werde 1st Aug und Ohr bedeckt mit Erde, Die Blumen kann ich nicht spriessen sehn Und Vogelgesang hor' ich nicht klingen. HEINE. THE rain had ceased suddenly and the sun began to shed a tender hazy light upon the ancient ruin of Osterode castle. So far back as the Sixteenth Century this abode of the dowagers was already aban- doned, and Heine, when he passed by it, saw only a round tower standing. Dilapidation must have gone on during the past century, for only the half of that tower remains to- day, and the fragments of one or two of the walls. Weeds and rank grasses grow thick 53 In the Footprints of Heine upon the site ; creepers pierce the clefts among the stones, and worm their way among those corpse-like remains of by-gone grandeur, completing the picture of desola- tion. The owl's hooting is heard from the dead gray tower and the country people tell many a fearsome, wonderful legend of this ruin. Heine wrote one of his most beauti- ful ballads upon it: " Gras bedeckt jetzt den Turnierplatz Wo gekampft der stolze Mann Der die besten iiberwunden Und des Kampfes Preis gewann. 11 Epheu rankt auf dem Balkone Wo die schone Dame Stand Die den stolzen Uberwinder Mit den Augen uberwand." Grass o'ergrows the ancient tilt-yard l Where once charged the haughty knight, Who subdued the bravest hero, And bore off the prize of fight. 1 Translated by Brooksbank. 54 The Lady of the Diligence Ivy creeps along the dais Where once beauty gave the prize, Vanquishing the haughty victor With the lustre of her eyes. From the present fallen state of the castle, it is certainly difficult to imagine the noble knight tilting before it or the noble dame watching the tourney from her gleaming bower. But this is the poet's vision. The commoner sort of imagination of the pea- sants does not strive to visualize a glitter and pomp it is ignorant of but connects the legends it has created with the actual visible ruin. And for the most part these legends deal with a pale enchanted damsel decreed to watch a rich treasure chest in the under- ground recesses of the castle. The place cries aloud for a story, and, as the remnants of masonry are heavy and massive, the legend-making mind concludes that gold is buried beneath it. In the same manner the Russian peasant, whose mind 55 In the Footprints of Heine works in even more mysterious ways, can- not conceive of the great Czar as eating such common fare as bread and meat. There is therefore a legend among the peasants that the Czar feeds on little golden watches of fabulous price. Soon I could gaze down from a height upon the town of Osterode, whose bright red roofs gleaming among the foliage made it appear to Heine like a moss rose. With a merry heart I walked briskly along a green turf footpath beside the great Hartz road and the deep, tenebrous forest of pine and cedar seemed to take me to its bosom and soothe me with its rich and brooding si- lences. At almost regular intervals new hills, dark and pine-crested, swung into view with a kind of rhythmic majesty, and I seemed to experience the effect of wonderful strains of music crashing heavenward. Perfect still- ness hung over road and forest. I slacked my pace to drink in this beauty that I had 56 The Lady of the Diligence so long waited for, but in a few minutes I had a sense that something was wrong. I could not understand it, but unmistakably there was a feeling of maladjustment. Presently, however, the nameless misgiv- ing solved and cleared itself. Hurry was dead and I was assisting at the obsequies. For so long had it been my daily portion, that to find myself strolling in leisure with- out a thought of the busy, pressing world, reveling in wonderfully beautiful scenery, was something of a shock to the nerves. As soon as I understood my trouble it vanished and my very heart began to sing for joy. Happy thoughts flitted through my brain as I drank in the balmy pine-laden air : it was a kind of spiritual second wind. Golden rays of sunlight filtered through the verdure and fell in bright patches every- where. The road kept winding upward through the dusky forest with here and there an open glade sloping away. From 57 In the Footprints of Heine the hollow of one of these open spaces along the road a strange murmurous music, the like of which I had never heard before, came creeping up to the road above and seemed to envelop the traveler like some sweet seductive perfume. Far below me a herd of milch-cows was grazing, and I could scarcely believe that the bells of the herd were making the rich, satisfying music that seemed nature's own peculiar psalmody. I ran down the slope to the bottom of the glade and a wolf-hound came baying to- ward me. " Spitz ! Spitz ! " some one cried below, and the dog turned tail and ran to his master, an elderly, gray-haired man in a fustian tunic, gaitered to the knees, who lay stretched in the luxuriant grass, surrounded by his tuneful herd. I gave him good-day, unstrapped my knapsack, and sat down be- side him wondering whether he knew what a delectable way of life was his. We chatted of many things, and after his first shyness 58 The Lady of the Diligence before the stranger had passed, this man of seventy told me to the tune of the woodland bells the tale of the Hiibich Rock, which was near to the town of Grund, somewhere on our left. "That rock," he began with almost childish simplicity, as though he were tell- ing me history, " that rock was much higher than it is now. In the Thirty Years' War it was truncated by cannon. So tall was it in ancient days that no one could climb to the top. A forester's son, however, succeeded one day in climbing to the very peak, and great was his delight at this achievement. But Hubich,King of the Pygmies who lived under the rock, resented such effrontery. " Spitz ! " he suddenly cried and pointed to a red heifer that had strayed from the herd. The dog made a dash for the errant heifer, leaped madly before it, and with hoarse barking drove it back to the herd. " y^," he continued, turning again to me, 59 In the Footprints of Heine " so Hiibich resolved that the young man should die. By his magic power he made it impossible for the youth to descend, and it seemed the wild boy was doomed to starve to death on the top of the rock. His father, the forester, came, and the young man begged him to shoot him and so release him from the torture of death by starvation. But this the Hubich King, touched by the father's suffering, would not permit. Just as the old forester aimed his piece at the son, lightning flashed, crash after crash of thunder rent the forest stillness, and a violent rain-storm made shooting impossible. The heart-broken old man went home resolved to return on the morrow and put his boy out of misery. But Hubich, moved to mercy, took the young man into the dim recesses of his un- derground realm, gave him silver in abun- dance, and much gold, made him promise never again to climb the great rock, and sent him home rejoicing." 60 The Lady of the Diligence There was something touching about this simple, dignified credulity in a man of sev- enty, who was at heart a child. For more than fifty years he had been herding cattle here, and this was all the life he knew. Aside from the cows and the forest, what could be more real to his mind than the legends? With mutual good wishes we parted, and laboriously I climbed back to the road, re- solved to make good the time I had spent with the shepherd. But the magic of the bells kept me lingering a while longer at that point, and I believe that if I live to be a hundred years I shall never be able to forget that music. Renan somewhere tells of a Bre- ton legend concerning the sunken city of Is, which the sea engulfed. In calm weather fishermen relate that they hear from the depths the church-bells of Is chiming the hymns. "Such a sunken city of Is," said Renan, " I have in my heart, and its per- sistent bells still toll the faithful to sacred 61 In the Footprints of Heine offices/' So, I fancy, in my own heart will remain forever the beautiful glade before Lerbach in the Hartz and the herd bells will evermore make music there. The way to Lerbach continued to be an avenue of wonderful beauty and verdure. It seemed as though nature had assembled every fair spot she possessed for a proud ex- hibit in this place. Afterward, she would, no doubt, disperse those treasures to the hum- bler regions, all whose pride and glory they were. I recalled a notion I had in childhood regarding the origin of cities. From the country home where I was born my parents sometimes took me to a city fifteen miles distant, and my first idea was that all those people had assembled, and the city rose up there solely for the purpose of selling wares to us and other country-folk. For how could one conceive of living in a place so noisy and crowded ? After we had all bought ac- cording to our needs, these feverish people 62 THE WAV TO LERBACH The Lady of the Diligence would doubtless disperse to their various homes and the abandoned shops would van- ish away. Before Lerbach I met an old Albino woman bent double by a huge basket on her back: yet she walked briskly, knitting a stocking as she went. I gave her good-day and asked her whether she would like to be photographed. "No," she mumbled, "for that would bring upon me the evil eye." With her ashey white face, wrinkled and lined, and her pink- ish eyes, she was probably the ugliest of her sex hereabout, but she had a fear lest her charms, fixed forever in a picture, should lure the envious eye of evil wish to her per- son. Lerbach's population is largely made up of Albinos, whom their neighbors call " white blackamoors." At the very door of the village lies a clear pond that must have been empty at one time, for that is what the name of the village signifies. Here the en- 63 In the Footprints of Heine chanted damsel who guards the treasure in the vaults of Osterode castle is said to bathe very frequently. She alone, probably, in all this region, puts the pond to any such use. Witches and pygmies are so numerous here- about that you cannot be sure of your safety in the water. As it is, the pygmies have a way of taking newly born babes from their mo- thers, leaving their own horrid changelings in the room. The village lies in a narrow gully between two high hills and seems peculiarly secluded. There is much inter- marriage here, everybody is related to every- body else, and many children are born crip- pled and deformed. The defective children are thought to be changelings inflicted on parents by malevolent pygmies. Many an old crone is suspected of witch- craft at Lerbach. An aged woodsman, the father of the hotel-maid in Osterode, whom I had sought out, told me that not so long ago a huntsman saw a lily-white doe on the 64 The Lady of the Diligence crest of a hill. He suspected something, and instead of using shot, he loaded his piece with a "Matthew." (A Matthew is an an- cient four-pfennig coin with the head of Matthew, Goslar's patron saint, upon it. In cases of witchcraft it had the power of the cross.) Promptly the white doe disappeared and a woman the huntsman knew well stood in its place. Angrily he warned her that she had best not be at such tricks again. Above Lerbach the way lies through no- ble forests of pine and cedar and beech, and they seem to be constantly murmuring of a blissful, beautiful peace that passeth under- standing. As the venerable heads of those magnificent giant trees swayed from side to side, gently, rhythmically, they all seemed to be giving a stately greeting to the way- farer. Now and again I heard the sound of an axe from the depth of the wood, but in the road I was solitary, for this is not the highway of touristry. Here and there a Scho- 65 In the Footprints of Heine nung, that is a new patch of wood planted where an old had been, stood surrounded by the great forest Titans, with almost the ten- der appeal of a child among a crowd of eld- ers. Steeper and steeper the road grows as it winds its way in and out through that se- cret, enfolding forest, that once upon a time screened Hans von Eisdorf and his band of Harzscbutzen. At many a darkling turn here Hans waylaid and stripped the rich mer- chants of the Hartz. Now and again I paused and looked back with a growing wonder upon the opulent landscape of hill and dale, forest and glade, that lay spread out below me. With a kind of tenderness I gazed upon the fair and placid scene drenched in soft, golden sunlight, quite forgetting the toil that many a steep piece of road had cost me ; just as in life, once the first fever of youth is past, you look back yearningly upon the dear days that are no more and the happy memories they hold, 66 The Lady of the Diligence forgetting that pain was there as well as pleasure. But it was a way I knew and had traveled. What lay beyond was clothed in the dense garment of mystery. At the forest tavern of Heiligenstock, which stands upon the site of an ancient chapel for travelers, some rough woodsmen were drinking at a table by the roadside and making the forest ring with their loud, troll- like laughter. The reason for their jests and demeanor I soon found to be a well-dressed solitary lady, young and pretty, who was the sole occupant of the post coach that had halted before the tavern. The horses were being baited and the postilions themselves were taking a snack of something, but the lady remained in the depth of the great yel- low coach which had drawn up near to the woodsmen. The men of a certain class, irre- spective of clime or country, cannot help "showing off" before women of a better. A sweet-faced waitress, who seemed too In the Footprints of Heine good for her place, was serving beer to the roisterers and smiling good-naturedly at their jests, which were, so far as I could hear, in no case offensive. Either the woodsmen were better than they looked, or a face such as that waitress possessed is its own protection. I gave the men good-day after the fashion of the country, and sat down at a neighbor- ing table for a few moments of rest. As I was unstrapping my knapsack the lady in the mail coach suddenly leaned forward to the window, and with that fleeting glance I had of her high-bred, delicate face I expe- rienced the curious sense of vague familiar- ity we sometimes have on meeting strangers. Either I had seen her or met her before, or something within me leaped to meet her now. But in a moment she was again hid- den in the obscurity of the coach. The pos- tilions had finished their repast and with their horsehair plumes waving in the breeze they clambered up to the box. The coach 68 The Lady of the Diligence was a public conveyance and going to Klaus- thai, my destination. I had a quick impulse to take passage in it and thus become the traveling companion of the beautiful lady. But conscience bred of New England edu- cation reminded me that my plan was to walk. Consideration for the lady did the rest. The coach rolled away and I remained at the table, like the bridegroom in Lochin- var, dangling " bonnet and plume," and hop- ing that we might meet again. The woods- men clinked their glasses and continued their troll-like laughter in careless ignorance of the soul struggle near them. In the Footprints of Heine CHAPTER VI PISGAH SIGHT Verlangst du nicbt nach einem Besenstiele ? Ich wiinsckte mir den allerderbsten Bock. Auf diesem Weg sind wir noch weit vom Ziele. GOETHE. SOON after leaving Heiligenstock I be- held a youth with a knapsack and stock, solitary like myself, approaching me. He was probably not over eighteen, but so deep and settled was the gloom on his thin, pale face that he seemed pathetically out of place in that vital, sanative forest. With a pretense of asking the road I addressed him and we chatted for the space of a few moments. He was a victim of the rigid gymnasium system of Germany. So much learning is crowded upon boys not yet in the university that, in- stead of the plump red-cheeked lads of the 1 70 Pisgah Sight picture books, you often see these over- worked melancholy youths creeping about like shadows in the land. Much Latin and a goodly store of Greek that boy doubtless possessed, but in viewing him I thought with pleasure on the foot-ball and horseplay of our own schoolboys. At a crossing to which I came after leav- ing the schoolboy, where the old Hartz road meets the new chaussee, sat a gray-haired man breaking stones. Dignity seemed to be crowning labor like a verified copy-book maxim in the figure of that old man bent over his menial task. When I spoke to him he saluted, for on his cap was the button that throughout the length and breadth of Ger- many denotes the official. Though lowly in station he could not forget that he held office under the Empire. " By thy sword shalt thou live " was the blessing conferred upon Esau, and if the sword be the symbol of office, Esau is a German to-day. In the Footprints of Heine Buntenbock, a maroon-roofed village that lies away from the road, I passed without entering, for the afternoon was waning. Old worked-out mines, long since abandoned, furnish Buntenbock with one or two legends concerning salamanders. More than one miner while digging for iron discovered quantities of salamanders in the soil. One was so annoyed by them that he burned many barrows full of the vaguely described, crawl- ing creatures. He did not even heed the signals of that friendly gnome of the mines, "the Hill-Monk,'* who, according to the legend, sought to restrain him. Foolish, foolish miner ! The Hill-Monk would have made his everlasting fortune, for the crawl- ing salamanders were pure and precious gold. Ziegelhiitte, a small summer hotel stand- ing isolated by the roadside just opposite Buntenbock, came forth to meet me with 72 Pisgah Sight open arms. Two small children ran forward; one grasping my stick and another my hand, led me willy-nilly to the living room of their father's house. I could not resist such an invitation, so I paused for a few minutes. The thin, mild host, father of the children, put some refreshment before me and gently bade them leave the stranger in peace. But peace is abundant at Ziegelhiitte, and the tow-headed children insisted on hearing the adventures of the solitary wanderer. I pushed on through the gathering dusk, intent upon reaching Klausthal before the threatened rainfall. A spattering of drops, however, overtook me, and I sought protec- tion by entering the great forest and walking under the shade of the towering pine tops. The bit of rain soon took off, but I con- tinued to walk on the dry needles among the pines, which gave me an indescribable thrill of adventure. That " probably arboreal " an- 73 In the Footprints of Heine cestor of ours was doubtless delighted to come into his own again, to flit in and out among the great giants of the forest, ancient scene of his life's conflict. The clouds lifted for a brief space, and as I emerged from the forest to the open road again I beheld, far and dim on my right, a peak that rose above the circling hills. A young man and a girl with cloaks over their heads were standing by the roadside and gaz- ing from out of their tent-like garments to the distant hill-tops. " That," they said both together, in some- what awestruck tones, " that is the Brocken." This was a Pisgah sight that had not been vouchsafed to Heine; at all events, he makes no mention of it. The way I was going, the Brocken was still several days* journey. By railway the distance could, of course, be made in a few hours. But the railway was wholly absent from my calculations. I had become a pedestrian, and measured all distances ac- 74 Pisgah Sight cordingly. The Brocken at that moment seemed to me remote as Mecca. Klausthal suddenly rose before me at one leap. Such is the shape of the country that you see nothing of Klausthal until you actually stand before it. Heine had the same experi- ence, although he entered the town at high noon. A certain chilly pallor seemed to fall upon the houses from the sunless sky, and instinc- tively you felt that mountaineers must live much of their time under such a light, and therefore have great need of very warm hearts. I followed the long street up hill and down dale toward the " Krone." Folk went hurriedly shuddering into doorways, lights began to blink, and together with the night I entered the inn of the Golden Crown. Golden, at any rate, it must have been once, for so reads the sign over the door, but even the landlord calls it simply " Die Krone" to- day, and nearly a hundred years ago Heine 75 In the Footprints of Heine had dropped the "golden." A mild blond young man received me and gave me a room bedecked with profusion of royal purple. It was the most expensive room in the house, but apologetically he informed me that he had no other. The price was four marks the night (one dollar) inclusive of breakfast. By way of mitigation he informed me that His Imperial Majesty William II, when he, in his younger days, had made his Hartz tour, occupied the self-same room, and for that occasion it was decorated. " Heine, too," he added, "slept in this apartment." I took the room without a murmur. The bland young waiter of the silken mustache hovered about me for a space with an indescribable air of friendly detachment. He was the image of a young German Duke I had once seen in a Paris cafe. With his re- mote air he theorized in murmurous, apolo- getic tones concerning the color scheme. " Red," said he, "is not so restful to the 76 Pisgah Sight nerves as might be some quieter color. But all the other cheaper rooms are full two Herren and a gentleman with his wife and daughter. Yet the Herr will probably sleep soundly enough. Majesty found no difficulty in sleeping here; but then," he added with his silken smile, " Majesty is probably used to it." Now, though I had never entertained am- bitions for a throne, I felt a pang of jealousy when the Duke thus flaunted royalty in my face, particularly since I had not entered a word of complaint. I was getting into high latitudes indeed. "Majesty," I retorted, "is a traveler of much experience and can put up with all sorts of conditions, and so, my lad, can I. Kindly send me in a bottle of spring water." That put the Duke in his place, I thought. He vanished and soon returned with the water, a chastened soul. He took my order for supper in a brisk business-like fashion with 77 In the Footprints of Heine never a shadow of his former grand manner, and almost warmly recommended Klaus- thal's favorite cate, fried partridge. "The birds have just been killed," said the waiter, " and the Herr doubtless knows how good they are in this vicinity." The Herr knew nothing. "Partridges," he replied, "once brought a likely pair of rogues to justice hereabout." And what with his soft voice, his suave smile, and unusual urbanity of manner, he seemed a very pleasant young man narrating an anec- dote to a friend. "Those rogues," he went on, " waylaid a merchant of Osterode and fell upon him close to Heiligenstock. The man was unarmed and could do nothing against the two jailbirds, so he freely offered them all his gold and begged them to spare him. 'No/ said the rogues, 'if we spare you, then you will denounce us.* He swore by all that was highest and dearest he would not de- nounce them, but in vain. Just as they were 78 Pisgah Sight making ready to slay him a flock of partridges sailed by overhead. ' Then,' said the merchant, 'if you have no pity in your hearts, yonder birds shall betray you.* The rogues laughed and slew him. ' Now, look you/ said one to the other, 'let us stop in at Ziegelhiitte and have a bite and a bottle before we wander farther.' So saying, they entered the inn and asked the landlord for his best. ' I have some fine birds,' said he, ' only just brought down.' 'The birds, the very thing!' they cried in one voice. He brought in the birds and the bottles, and the feasting rascals grew merry. ' Now let the birds betray us,' said they, and rattled on in maudlin fashion. It so happened, however, that a dozing servant behind the stove, awakened by their hellish laughter, heard their babble and slipped his news to mine host. Instantly the servant was dis- patched to Klausthal, while the landlord adroitly held the thieves engaged in conver- sation until the holy angels came and packed 79 In the Footprints of Heine them off to gratuitous lodgings in Klausthal prison/' "And what," I interrupted, "had the holy angels to do with it?" "That," he answered, with the patient superiority of an elder explaining to a child, "that is a name we have for constables here." He was the Duke again. " In less than four weeks," he concluded, " the rogues were swinging from a gibbet. The birds had be- trayed them after all." "Then partridge is my meat," I an- nounced, dismissing His Grace from the purple Chamber. I was in a civilized country. Men all about me wore the garb of civilization, but some- how they still had in their hearts the credu- lity of childhood or of men of an earlier age. So it is in the secluded places of the world, on the heights and in the forests. In the bare and populous valleys where civilization sweeps headlong and unstemmed, all of these 80 Pisgah Sight simple, charming traits of mankind of an earlier date deliquesce and disappear forever- more. It is the difference that made the Hartz so strangely fascinating to me. It is the fresh- ness and simplicity that lured so many of the world's greatest souls to these regions. Goethe and Heine, and Chamisso, creator of the won- derful Peter Schlemihl, all sought the bra- cing, inspiriting solitude of these mountains for their souls' good, and all avowedly with profit. When I came down to the dining-room I saw at a glance the reason for all the grandeur and pride of the Duke. Facing him at a table in an angle of the room sat a fair- haired stately damsel gazing lovingly into his eyes. She was the Lady Kunigunde of all the German romances I had ever read. She was, as I afterward learned, the land- lord's daughter and my friend the Duke had but recently married her. That was the se- cret of his constant air of detachment, his 81 In the Footprints of Heine apparent desire to have done with mundane folk who thought upon nothing but beer and schnitzel and kept him from his bride. Then my heart went out to the Duke and rejoiced in his happiness even in this remote town, such is the universal effect of love. I must own, however, that once in his lady's neighborhood, he seemed capable of discuss- ing schnitzel to considerable purpose. The Lady Kunigunde seemed wholly out of place in the inn parlor. She obviously belonged in a high-studded wainscoted hall built in the Gothic on the top of a hill, in the times of Gotz of the Iron Hand. In modern days she seemed anachronistic even in a castle, for there she would perhaps be merely writing about Elizabeth and vegetable life in German gardens. The Enchanted Hill Man CHAPTER VII THE ENCHANTED HILL MAN Auf ' dem Berge steht die Hiitte Wo der alte Bergmann wohnt; Dorten rauscht die grune Tanne Und erglanzt der goldne Mond. HEINE. THE dining-room held more than one surprise that evening. All the smaller tables being occupied, I sat down at the large table in the middle of the room, and scarcely had I done so when a party of three entered and took places near me, doubtless the gentle- man with the wife and the daughter the waiter had mentioned. My eyes did not lin- ger long on the rubicund, bearded features of the gentleman, nor yet on the well-fed, placid countenance of the wife. For in the face of the daughter I instantly beheld some- 83 In the Footprints of Heine thing pleasantly familiar in a flash I knew: she was my lady of the diligence. She smiled faintly, I thought, as she pronounced in one voice with her parents the courteous dis- syllable "Mahlzeit" and sat down opposite me. Short though my wanderings had been thus far, I nevertheless experienced in some degree the exile's pleasure on seeing a face not wholly strange. My solitary pilgrimage was purely voluntary, long-awaited and painted by fancy in the colors of the rain- bow. But such is human nature that I had a thrill of pleasure upon beholding some one I had seen before. In actual exile I suppose not only every familiar face, but every stock and stone fills the heart with endless tender yearning. As Cacciaguida foretold to Dante in Paradise, " Tu lascerai ogni cosa diletta," for all things are beloved when you are forced to leave them. 84 The Enchanted Hill Man We sat for a few moments in silence, but soon the natural amiability of this family, that I afterward came to know so well, as- serted itself, and the gentleman remarked that unless he erred I seemed to be a foot- tourist. I owned as much. " You are, I see, a stranger in these parts/* said he. " I do not suppose they have such mountains in England." He took me for an Englishman. My pride was humbled. Hitherto the simpler people I had met be- lieved that I was a native of some part of Germany not their own, at least until I told them otherwise. But the educated man de- tected me at once by my speech. When I told him, however, that I was come all the way from America to look upon the Hartz, and to wander up and down in it, he and his ladies became alive with interest and friendliness. " Ach, America ! " exclaimed the wife in astonished tones, " but that is wonderful." 85 In the Footprints of Heine And the daughter cried, "What a Klotz (log) I am ! I should never have known the Herr was not a German." " Such as you, Fraulein," I replied, "grace embassies and courts ; you are flattering both your father and myself without any visible effort.'* She laughed delightedly. " Will you not tell us about Amer- ica ? " she begged, with a very pretty man- ner. "As you probably know/' I told her, "we are all savages and cowboys and Indians there, little better than wild Apaches or Mohawks. But with all that we make prodigious sums of money every day." " The Herr thinks we are peasants, papa," she pouted, "and that we believe all that nonsense." The parents smiled upon their handsome daughter. " At all events, I believe that nonsense," I pursued, "and that is why I did not allow a certain American to-day to take passage 86 The Enchanted Hill Man in a mail coach that held a beautiful lady as sole passenger despite his inclinations." At this they all laughed heartily. " Now you see, daughter," said the mother earnestly, "nothing passes unnoticed in this world. I told her," turning to me, "that it would not be seemly for her to travel alone from Osterode to Klausthal. But she insisted on being left behind to stay with a sick school friend." "I knew you were the Herr of Heiligen- stock," said Fraulein reflectively; then after a pause, "but, anyhow^ I have no fear of savages." The talk became general, and soon the landlord, a man of seventy, with a strong face, erect and soldierly of bearing, sat down with us and pleasantly remarked that if walk- ing be our plan he feared we should have a wet road to-morrow. " Come wet, come dry, we shall walk nevertheless," answered the father of the In the Footprints of Heine Fraulein ; then, with a glance at his daugh- ter, he added, " we do not like to travel in mail coaches." She blushed and we all smiled. It seemed very grateful to a lonely stranger like myself to have that bit of Ould Grouse -in -the -gun -room humor between him and this pleasant family, Hartz pedes- trians like himself. The landlord, father of Kunigunde and father-in-law of the Duke, volubly went on to tell us about the city of Klausthal, of which he seemed very proud. The father of the young lady he deferen- tially addressed by the title of " Herr Ge- heimrath," which showed me that I was in distinguished company ; and, indeed, as I afterwards found, Herr Geheimrath Hoppe was a Privy Councillor to the King of Sax- ony. " Legends in this countryside seem to flourish like forests," said the landlord, "and to grow like ore. Most of the tales are of miners and hunters." 88 The Enchanted Hill Man Ore, according to the simple notions of the miners of the Hartz, grows like any other product of the soil. A famous Hartz toast is, " Es grune die Tannc, es wachse das Erz ! Gott schenke uns alien ein frohliches Herz ! " May the ore keep growing, the pine keep green, And God give us hearts light and serene. We urged the landlord to tell us some of these legends. "First, then," said he, "I shall tell you the tale of the Venetian." One or two of the guests from the smaller tables sat down near us, Fraulein Hoppe drew her chair in more closely and smiled encouragingly upon the old man. In his gratification he there- after addressed all his narrative to the girl. "Once," he began, "there was a Vene- tian at Klausthal who had been made over- seer of a mine. Such was his good-nature that if any of the miners wished to go home 89 In the Footprints of Heine he readily gave them leave and did their work himself. But this was bad discipline, so that the overseer brought upon himself frequent punishments from his superiors. For that reason he felt a longing to return to Venice. "One day, when all the men had gone home, he kept his foreman behind and asked him whether he wished to go with him. The foreman agreed and they descended the shaft, went along the galleries, blasted their way farther and, after a brief repast, began to penetrate ever deeper into the rock, along a wondrously beautiful way. At last they arrived at Venice and emerged in a luxuriant garden at the overseer's very door. The foreman was pleased with the place; but one day when the overseer inquired of him whether he would not like to see the Hartz again, the foreman replied, * With all my heart.* He took his mining lamp and they walked within the rock as before, but 90 The Enchanted Hill Man as the Klausthaler could not find his way for the heaps of stone left by the gunpowder explosions, the Venetian escorted him to the very mouth of the mine and then went his way back to Venice. "But when the foreman arrived at Klaus- thai not a soul there knew him or had the slightest recollection of him. Neither his wife nor his children were there, nor was there even a memory of them. The ancient chronicles were then consulted, and these in very truth recorded that a miner of the foreman's name and description had vanished from Klausthal some centuries before. But the foreman vowed that he had sojourned in Venice but a little while." Mine host concluded with a wave of the hand which plainly said, " I could tell you many other things no less veracious and re- markable, should you press me," gave us all an inclusive glance and smiled benignly upon Fraulein Hoppe. We were not a difficult In the Footprints of Heine audience. A festive air hung about the lit- tle company, as though we were so many friends on a junket. All of us had probably read of scenes of this kind, and we were in high good humor to be actually living in a sort of romance. I, for my part, was in- wardly congratulating myself because I was none of your record-making pedestrians who cover many leagues per diem but arrive at nightfall with what Stevenson calls " a frost on their five wits," too heavy and tired to hold up their heads. With great glee I joined Fraulein Hoppe in en treaties for another tale. The landlord was nothing loath. After a de- cent pause he began afresh and told us two or three stories concerning the Devil. Ac- cording to those yarns, the Devil is almost a domesticated animal at Klausthal. He can be summoned by very simple means. For in- stance, two miners of an investigating turn wanted to see the Devil. One brought a book with him and read it in the depths of 92 The Enchanted Hill Man the mine until the Devil came. He looked at them and vanished. But when the second miner tried the same trick the Devil reap- peared, and threatened to take his life unless he could read the page backward. Luckily the miner could, and so escaped. Just as Charles Lamb could have written Shake- speare's plays "if only he had the mind," so, in Klausthal, apparently anybody can conjure up the Devil if he but has the inclination. Indeed, we seemed almost to feel his im- pending presence the while our host spun his genial yarns. "I never thought," Fraulein Hoppe broke in joyously, "that the Devil was so much of a household pet in Klausthal." We all laughed. The landlord smiled indulgently and replied, not without gravity, " He is well known to most of us." Which showed that he was a philosopher as well as a story-teller. In Heine's Harzreise is to be found a beau- 93 In the Footprints of Heine tiful Mountain Idyl recording in ballad form the bewitching fairy-lore as though it had been narrated by a pretty child sitting on his knee in the snug security of a miner's cabin perched on the hillside. In the sweet, simple measure of the folk-song, the child pours forth many a tale of knight and lady, witch and gnome. " Also bluhen Marchenbilder Aus des Mundes Roselein, Und die Augen giessen druber Ihren blauen Sternenschein." Thus do lovely fairy pictures From the rosemouth spring and bloom ; While her clear eyes shed resplendent, Sweet blue starlight through the gloom. Heine's mountain cabin was somewhere in this vicinity, and I should have given much to have come upon it in my wander- ings. The stars glimmering and the pine trees murmuring overhead, the sweet peace and 94 The Enchanted Hill Man contentment of the cabin interior with the bearded miner playing airs upon the zither while the little girl was recounting all her fairy lore dearly should I have loved to be a part of such a scene. But that is the privilege of the poets of the world, those mortals half divine, the play of whose minds leaves a shimmering trail of beauty. So far from giving airy nothing a local habitation I must needs describe in workaday prose, without any attempts at airy flights, the local habitation, the inn-parlor company, and the grizzled landlord spinning his yarns ; though we could not but feel as we listened to those tales that we were really living a kind of poetry. People here seemed simpler, a less sophisticated, more innocent generation of mankind, and therefore more poetical. The note is struck in the words of Heine's child of fancy : " Und die Katz' ist eine Hexe, Denn sie schleicht bei Nacht und Sturm. 95 In the Footprints of Heine Druben nach dem Geisterberge Nach dem altverfallnen Turm." And an evil witch is pussy, For she steals thro' storm and night To the ghostly castle-ruin There upon the dreadful height. The landlord, too, told tales of witches, but they were not metrical nor quite so fan- ciful. The chilly little hill town seemed suddenly alive with witches as the old man kept recalling instances of many a beldame who proved upon investigation to be no better than a servant of him who ruined the soul of Doctor Faustus. It is on the eve of Wal- purgisnight that the witches are most preva- lent, for then every mother's daughter of them must hasten to the Brocken revels and make obeisance to her lord and master. Generally it is the shape of black cats that the witches are wont to assume. " Folk tell each other hereabout," said the landlord, " concerning an old woman and The Enchanted Hill Man her daughter who were returning to Klaus- thai on the eve of one Walpurgisnight, and being heavy laden they sat down to rest on the edge of the town. Numberless black cats were moving Brockenward, and some of them as they passed called the old woman by name. 'Tell Mistress Overseer L. that she must not miss the dance/ cried one of the cats. And sure enough the daughter, to her horror, heard her mother call as they passed the house of the Overseer : ' Mistress Overseer L. must not miss the dance.' Whereupon Mistress L., disguised as a sleek, fat cat, black as Erebus, leaped from a win- dow and hastened on to Brocken to join the Prince of Darkness." When the party broke up for the night, we, who a few hours ago met in the hallways with the enveloping silences of strangers, were now almost like a family party cheerily commenting on the agreeable evening and bidding one another a friendly good-night. 97 In the Footprints of Heine " What," asked Fraulein Hoppe gayly, " think you of our German old wives' tales ? " " Old wives' tales," said I, " and young wives' faces both are very pretty and in- teresting." She gave me a comical look of utter hope- lessness and despair and said good-night. In my room I endeavored by candle-light to write up my note-book, lest the expe- riences of the day should fade from my memory. But my eyes and limbs were heavy, and, besides, I knew I should never for- get this day in the Hartz nor this night at Klausthal. Klausthal, the word, means " the vale of the hermitage," and was not really settled until about 1 544, whereas the little sister-city of Zellerfeld, which is really one and indivis- ible with Klausthal, was created by monks of the thrifty order of St. Simon and St. Jude about the year 1 200. The monks, after their fashion, chose the pleasantest spot in the 98 The Enchanted Hill Man neighborhood for their monastery, which was a kind of pious hostelry and station for way- farers on the road to Goslar. To-day, I am sorry to say, a brewery stands on the site of the ancient cloisters, and the refreshment it af- fords the wayfarer is not so piously adminis- tered as that by the monks of old. Mine after mine, rich in iron ore and silver, was uncov- ered by the Dukes and Duchesses who ruled this region, and to this day Klausthal and Zellerfeld are still bringing forth the gifts of the earth. Here, too, the name of Tilly is still a dread- ful sound, for in the Seventeenth Century he brought the sword and fire and pestilence to both Zellerfeld and Klausthal ; he made bur- densome levies and "drowned'* the mines, from all of which it took generations to recover. Remnants of Tilly's fortifications are still to be found at Klausthal. Jerome Bonaparte, also, at a later date, did much to impoverish this section of the Hartz during 99 In the Footprints of Heine his brief reign as King of Westphalia. His voracious brother needed money for his wars, and "little brother Jerome " took all he could out of Klausthal and Zellerfeld. But like your wiry men of no great strength or stature who seem proof against ills and sufferings, the two little cities stand calm and unpretentious, prosperous, though by no means tempting providence. Klausthal's one "monument," which I saw upon entering the town, is the wooden church, said to be the greatest fane built of wood in all the world. It is, indeed, a large rambling building with a double tower, not unlike a Russian church, that does not invite the eye a second time. Not far away is the Mining Academy, said to be one of the best in Europe, built by Jerome Bonaparte the one good thing he did for the Hartz. In Heine's day there was a mint at Klausthal for silver coin in which the poet professed only a hopelessly academic interest. The mint is 100 GOSLAR THE GLORIOUS The Enchanted Hill Man here no more, and of the mines Dorothea and Carolina, which he visited with much inter- est, one is now wholly abandoned and the other I decided not to seek. For here again I knew that Heine had the advantage of me. When he descended into the depths of the " Carolina," some, he declared, already heard the Americans shouting "Hurrah for Lafay- ette." I knew I should hear nothing of the sort. The air of Klausthal is said to be singularly bracing. The great Goethe tells us that he had to flee from '* mouldy " Goslar to the clearer air of Klausthal. In his letters to Frau von Stein he refers more than once to the invigor- ating atmosphere of this region, for which he confesses a nostalgia. " The best part of this journey," wrote Minister Goethe from Klausthal in Decem- ber, 1 777, " is that all my own ideas of ad- ministration are at every step confirmed ; be it a farm or a principality, it is all so simple 101 In the Footprints of Heine that one has small need to travel if one but has the wit to learn at home." That is the one conclusion to which every Hartz traveler arrives: that at bottom, despite all appar- ent complexity, the best in life is a vastly simple matter. Small wonder that from Goe- the's day to this every thoughtful, educated German, soon or late, feels impelled to make a tour in the Hartz. And how many a poet or thinker, world-weary and despondent, has left the aching of his heart in this salubrious air and come back to the world refreshed with new strength ! I pitied William of Hohen- zollern, who, now that he is Emperor, cannot repeat thejourney he made in the careless days of his youth. Willingly, I knew, would he sleep again in the purple bed that once was his, but which now tendered me its luxuries, if only he could leave his cares behind. The rain whipped incessantly upon the panes, and swiftly I sank into the sleep that fears no waking. The Hartz Air-Cure CHAPTER VIII THE HARTZ AIR-CURE Away on the fair horizon The city with spire and tower Appears like a vision in cloudland Veiled by the twilight hour. HEINE. WHEN I awoke the next morning the sun shone cold and pale into my royal chamber, and nothing could have induced me to rise had I not been suddenly surprised by the soothing music of the herd-bells that pleased me so much the day before. I leaped from my royal couch to the window to see the sleek, patient cattle, belled and stately, being driven out to pasture. The quiet street, the ambling cows, the mail coach at the post-office door, all presented a picture so sweet and wholesome that I felt a momen- 103 In the Footprints of Heine tary desire to go out at once to the landlord and make terms with him for a life tenure of my apartment. But I knew that do what we will we, poor mortals, cannot imprison and hold captive those fleeting impressions of pleasure and beauty that visit us all during life. Now and then an artist can rivet a scene to a canvas ; but even pictures are nothing more than materials to serve the imagination. A small boy of six or seven was standing under my window as the herd passed, and with unconscious abandon he was giving a musical rendering of the early morning clucking of a hen. " Tsuck, tsuck, tsuck, mein Huhnchen, Tsuck, tsuck, tsuck, mein Ei ! " Such were the words of his song, and he repeated them over and over in a delicious childish treble. An American boy would have sung : 104 The Hartz Air-Cure " Cluck, cluck, cluck, my chicken, Cluck, cluck, cluck, my Egg," but I knew I should never hear that song in America. I dressed leisurely, rang for my coffee, and when I descended the stairs with my pack on my back, ready to pay my score and de- part, I found that Herr Geheimrath Hoppe, his wife and his daughter had left the inn nearly two hours before on their way to Goslar. At this I felt aggrieved, and the igno- miny of my late rising came home to me sharply. I had looked forward to a pleasant walk in the company of that family, particu- larly in that of the old gentleman. I made a wry face as I looked out upon the street, muddy with the night's rain, and asked the Duke how far it was to Goslar. A day's journey, he informed me, and in his distant, detached manner allowed it to be understood that there was a railway station not a hundred miles away. I did not choose 105 In the Footprints of Heine to take the hint, and with a last look at the hospitable " Krone " I once again set forth on my travels. As I passed over the ancient boundary from Klausthal into Zellerfeld the pale sun hid behind a black cloud and a shower of rain plumped down to consecrate the day. In some dudgeon I knocked at a door bearing the sign of a wagoner and liveryman and asked the price of horses to Hahnenklee, a point about midway to Gos- lar. By the time I arrived at Hahnenklee, the rain, I thought, should cease. The mas- ter wagoner named a large sum, but anyhow, he said, his horses were all at the railway station. I sat down to wait, and in the room with me sat a white-haired, parchment-faced old woman rocking a child in a cradle and telling it a story: Heine's observation, touch- ing the personification of inanimate objects and household utensils in this region, came to my mind as I listened. The old crone was relating a tale of the violent opposition 106 The Hartz Air-Cure on the part of the cradle to entertain its present incumbent, but the pillows being of a kindlier and softer nature, finally prevailed. At intervals she would break into snatches of song about the gentry who " with their weapons and with their pistols rode straight into Poland." And when she stopped the drowsy little rogue would call for "more pistols." The rain stopped as suddenly as it began and I decided not to wait for horses after all. I moved on through Zellerfeld, and soon I was in the open road again with the wet woods glistening on either hand and the famous Hartz throstle breaking into heart-filling melody under the emerging sun-rays. Avenue after avenue of pine and birch and cedar opened up, and despite the moisture underfoot my heart sang again in the joy of the winding road. Two boys with a dog draw- ing a little cart regularly passed me on the way down dale and fell behind again when it 107 In the Footprints of Heine came up hill. They were not communica- tive lads, but I had their silent company nearly all the way to Hahnenklee. The green folds of the hills round about were dotted with the ubiquitous Kurhaus and stout patients come for the cure. Those Kur- hauser are really nothing but summer hotels. The cure consists in breathing and eating. Many a sedentary schoolmistress ponderously moving about these slopes for "summer- freshness," as they call it, laughed aloud at me for an eccentric to be trudging through the mud with a pack on my back. I, in turn, laughed^at her as I observed how unbeautiful were her feet upon the mountains. For the every-day German woman is almost never trimly shod, and Heine, it may be recalled, professed to have made studies in compara- tive anatomy with especial reference to the feet of elephants and those of the Gottingen dames. In the groups of women guests taking 1 08 The Hartz Air-Cure their morning walk I was forced to conclude that many hailed from Gottingen. Bockswiese, a little village on the way to Hahnenklee, is almost wholly made up of Kurhauser. The rambling wooden hotels and pensions of every size and variety have the half-doomed air of deciduous plants. Teem- ing though they were now with clusters of guests, winter would see them stripped and bare, standing gaunt and empty against the landscape. Nevertheless, Bockswiese, nestling in the bosom of a little valley, made a pretty showing of flowers and terraces, and I decided to take luncheon at the Kurhaus. The host was a clever-looking German who had made a small fortune in South America, which, with a post-graduate course in prices at New York, fitted him admirably for his present occupation. I took my meal in the sun parlor, where reposed many full-bodiced ladies behind glass 109 In the Footprints of Heine windows, like specimens in a museum of eth- nology. One spirited young girl of sixteen, however, not only gave an impression of life herself, but galvanized others into a sem- blance of vivacity. "Why," she asked, with passionate ear- nestness, "do they call this * summer fresh- ness ' and ' air-cure ' when it is so cold and wet that we have to be shut up here freezing without a taste of fresh air? One might as well be at home.'* I smiled to myself over my schnitzel, for in that flaxen-haired, pallid girl I perceived an original thinker, fit country- woman of Kant and Nietzsche and Schopen- hauer. The stout women listened to her in speechless stolidity. But upon seeing the grin on the face of the stranger some of them be- gan to quiver with unintelligent laughter. Observing this, the girl turned upon me for a moment two blue eyes filled with bitter pride, and I felt rebuked. The weather, I learned, had been indeed bad for several days / no The Hartz Air-Cure in this locality. But the heavy ladies had come here to take the air-cure, for a certain period ; and by very force of gravitation they stuck to the programme even though they could not leave the house. Ordinarily, how- ever, Bockswiese and the neighboring village of Hahnenklee are said to be pleasant resorts and invigorating. I left both of these villages behind, and under a sun growing pale and paler, like the slave in the " Asra," I pushed on to Goslar. Goslar ! The name had been ringing in my head during all the years since my boyhood. That word had always been mellifluous and musical to my ear, and a picture of the city it denominated had been built up in my mind by years of dreaming and imagining. Heine's mountain child had sung, " Aber seit die Muhme tot ist, Konnen wir ja nicht mehr gehn Nach dem Schutzenhof zu Goslar Und dort ist es gar zu schon." Ill In the Footprints of Heine Now that dear Aunt has gone, We can never more repair To the Goslar Shooting Park, There it is too gay and fair. It was my fond hope that Goslar would not disappoint me. People, and places too, I knew full well, had a melancholy fashion of falling short upon first sight, or upon comparison with the early ideal. Of this truth I had al- ready gleaned bitter experience in the instance of a certain poppy-field. A child I once knew had become passionately and deeply attached to a certain brilliant field of poppy. In his sweet and placid country life, that field of scarlet poppy stood out as might a lively ro- mance in an otherwise uneventful existence. It kept stirring a procession of vague, deli- cious fancies in the childish mind. When he went to the roaring city to live and to learn, many a picture of his earlier life grew dim and faded in the tumult of the town-life. But the brilliant, scarlet poppy 112 The Hartz Air-Cure field kept growing ever more brilliant and more scarlet in his mind and ever vaster in extent. It was no longer a field at all, but a whole poppy country, a glowing demesne stretching with every year farther and far- ther until it was difficult to see its confines. After some years the child's parents de- cided to pay a visit to that countryside and to take him with them. He longed fever- ishly for the end of that journey. His father and mother speculated upon the welfare of this neighbor or the vicissitudes of that. But the boy kept gazing out of the window and craning his neck eagerly for a sight of the land of heart's desire. It seemed strange that when he stepped out at the station he could not already see the stretch of scarlet country. He leaned forward in the carriage to catch the earliest possible glimpse of it. At last he saw it. Like some wonderful jewel the vivid color flashed from that plain of surrounding green. His little heart gave In the Footprints of Heine a great leap with utter joy, and, as soon as he alighted, he ran headlong to his loved domain, and at last he stood on the edge of it. Something caught at his throat as he looked ; the tears welled up in his eyes and for a moment drowned the entire picture. For this field that his young imagination had developed during the years into a whole glowing, vast poppy country, was nothing more than a mere garden plot. I was sorry I had left Hahnenklee. The sun completely disappeared, and a sky of lead, taking matters into its own hands, began to drizzle a thin persistent rain that seemed to aim at the marrow of unprotected travelers. The woods were dank and wet and I had no cloak or umbrella ; so I trudged on in the hope of soon finding a shelter of some sort. Before long I heard the cracking of a whip and from a turn in the road behind me the post coach came rolling with four steaming horses and a picturesque superstruc- 114 The Hartz, Air-Cure ture of trunks and boxes on the roof. There was my salvation. I hailed the coach and in a moment the uncomfortable pedestrian sat pleasantly surrounded by a score or so of warm fellow passengers speeding to Goslar in a coach-and-four. s The feelings I experienced in that coach convinced me that the interest we take in life is a more or less constant factor with each of us, depending only upon our hearts and heads, not upon external circumstances. I remember being present at the meeting of the envoys of two great nations bent upon making peace after a bitter war. No doubt I was pleased to be there and interested in the participants. Here, in the sombre soli- tude of the Hartz, where men and events are scarcer, I seemed to myself almost as pleased to be taken from the wet road and put among this strange company of passengers, and almost as much interested in them. So, to the pioneer in the wilderness a new human In the Footprints of Heine being is an event, and to the desert traveler, another traveler. A stout middle-aged woman with an eager, vivacious air that distinguished her from the others nodded, smiled and asked me in Eng- lish was I not an American. She, too, was an American, from Washington, D. C., she informed me; and that accounted for her vivacity. She had been born in Germany and now she was a resident of Berlin, but she persisted in proclaiming herself an Ameri- can, and that cost her dear. For the guard, dissatisfied with the trinkgeld she had given him on a previous journey, disregarded the ticket she held and roundly accused her at every halting place of not paying her fare. " Ich kenne die Dame," he repeated over and over again, and the fact that he " knew the lady " seemed to him to be a warrant for insulting her. I, myself, did not get to the root of the controversy until some time after, for I had come in the middle of it. The 116 The Hartz Air-Cure guard had been abusing the woman ever since the coach left Hahnenklee. But a little bewhiskered, schoolmasterish person who understood the entire business from the first kept repeating, after the guard had jumped to his box, " I cannot grasp that man's standpoint, I have no idea of his concept ; " but never a word when the guard was at the door. Some of the women grinned and snick- ered at the poor lady's discomfiture, all of which she had brought upon herself by too openly declaring she was an American, so that twice as much was expected from her by way of trinkgeld. Despite our assump- tion of politeness on the part of Europeans generally, the middle-class German, man or woman, is anything but well-bred or agree- able, except very superficially. When I finally realized the occasion of the guard's rudeness and remonstrated with him, he would only snarl back, 117 In the Footprints of Heine " I know the lady ; I know the lady." On through the rain we swung with a great spattering of mud and cracking of whips, up hill and down hill, now deep in a ravine of road among the sky-shouldering pines, now on the edge of precipitous ba- sins, dark green and forest-covered, hun- dreds of feet deep. At last the spires and turrets of Goslar loomed through the mist and I beheld the wet slate and tile roofs of an embattled city, so mediaeval in aspect that it surpassed even my optimistic imagin- ings: for only in Froissart had I seen de- picted anything like Goslar in the Hartz. In the coach a lady from Leipzig had mentioned the hotel Zum Achtermann as a pleasant hostelry; so, without consulting the guide-book, I marched straight upon that stronghold and beheld with delight that it was a stronghold indeed a mass- ive round tower of the best Middle Age masonry, part of Goslar's city wall. Round 118 The Hartz Air-Cure this tower was built a modern hotel filled with German tourists and doing a roaring trade. But so soundly had the burghers of old builded the city that their spirits still seemed to be hovering over the tumult within these walls and the most unimagi- native person could not help picturing the swash-buckling captains who held the tower centuries ago. In the Footprints of Heine CHAPTER IX GOSLAR THE GLORIOUS Set mir gegrusst, du grosse, Geheimnissvolle stadt. HEINE. HAD it not been for the rubicund, ci- gar-smoking men, the fat women in badly made clothes, and a few shops with garish " American " display windows, Gos- lar would still have seemed the mediaeval city of Barbarossa and of Henry the Fowler. Heine relates his disappointment in the city. But Heine was no lover of Kings and the kingly associations of Goslar may have caused him to enter it in a spirit of mock- ery and irritation. The " narrow labyrin- thian streets" offended the poet, whereas they are part of the charm of the place. For land there is in abundance round about 1 20 Goslar the Glorious Goslar and plenty of room to stretch. But in a walled city you have to make the most of what room you have within or be spilt out into unprotected solitude. One disap- pointment, however, does await the trav- eler to-day the Goslar Shooting Park. " There it is too gay and fair," sings Heine himself. If you come there now on a bright summer day you will find much linen hung out to dry, and not royal linen, either. I had not been in Goslar half an hour before I sought out the Shooting Park. But my disappointment in both the dimensions of the " Park " and its present mean uses was wholly forgotten when I beheld in a little solemn group, gazing de- jectedly at the wet flapping garments, the otherwise cheerful family of Hoppe. As I approached them we looked at one another for a moment, and then burst into relieving laughter. 121 In the Footprints of Heine "You did wake up after all," remarked Fraulein Hoppe with incisive cordiality, and the mere commonplaces of greeting uttered by her parents passed completely over my head, for I have not any notion of what they said. My cheeks felt hot for the frac- tion of a second, and Frau Hoppe shot a re- proachful glance at her daughter. But that damsel did not choose to see it, and added sweetly that she too had always entertained an ambition to sleep two or three days at a time, but only in America, she supposed, could that accomplishment be acquired. " The habit of sufficient sleep, Fraulein," I replied with an effort to collect my wits, "smooths out our tempers and tends to make us kind to the unfortunate/' It was Frau- lein's turn to blush. "Some unfortunates," she answered tartly, "deserve no kindness." Womanlike she in- sisted on the last word. The Herr Geheim- rath smiled with dancing eyes under his 122 Goslar the Glorious bushy eyebrows ; but Frau Hoppe looked bewildered and did not seem quite to com- prehend. Together we strolled away from theSchut- zenhof to get a glimpse of the town ; for though my friends had arrived considerably earlier they were forced to spend much time within doors while their clothes were a-dry- ing. Fraulein Hoppe looked at my own seemingly dry garments with suspicion and asked whether the railway journey from Zellerfeld to Goslar were interesting. " Holla ! " cried the spirited Councillor, laughing, and throwing up his hand as an umpire does a sword at a students' duel. " That is unfair, and we believe nothing of the sort on the part of the Herr." I thanked him meekly for defending a stranger who was in need of defense and Fraulein laughed softly at her own thrust. I did not pursue the subject, for my eyes fell upon the coach just starting on the return trip to Hahnenklee. 123 In the Footprints of Heine My friends were staying at an hotel called Kaiserworth, in the marketplace, and thither we bent our steps through the narrow streets that so displeased Heine. In the shops was a rich display of pots and vases and whole table-services made of shining zinc, for which Goslar is famous. Soon we were in the heart of "Old Goslar," which architecturally is the Germany of five hundred to a thousand years back. At any moment you expect a Hans Sachs or a Walther von der Vogelweide to emerge from a gabled house humming a tune of the Meistersinger. "Goslar," said the Geheimrath with en- thusiasm, "is a monument of Ancient Sax- ony in splendid preservation." "The only living guide-book in captiv- ity," added Fraulein, somewhat irreverently, putting her hand on her father's arm. But as she said this a look of gentle, affectionate tenderness flashed from her to her father, and the old gentleman pressed her hand to 124 Goslar the Glorious his side. I thought I detected moisture in his eye as he went on, " Every stone of Goslar is dear to me. It is nearly thirty years since I first came here as a student making my Hartz journey. Here it was that I saw for the first time my wife. She had beautiful golden hair and a roguish eye and she had come here for the day with a sightseeing party from Harzburg." " Carl ! " murmured the Frau Geheimrath with ill-concealed pleasure, remonstrating in a purely general way. " I followed their carriage on foot," the Geheimrath ran on delightedly, with the bit in his teeth, " and I never lost sight of it all the way I was young then and that night I slept at the same hotel at Harz- burg. Now," he added rather inconsequen- tially, " here is this child by our side, making the same Harzreise." " Thrilling ! " exclaimed the daughter lightly. "It seems almost as though I were 125 In the Footprints of Heine hearing the tale for the first time." But despite this mild sarcasm she, too, seemed pleased. The square of the marketplace is like a picture in oils of some mediaeval scene sel- dom found save on canvas. Some of the buildings date back to the Tenth Century, and yet remain in excellent repair. In the centre is a fountain shaped like a large basin of metal. In the event of a fire some one beats upon the metal and it sounds the alarm like a mighty church bell. It is believed that the Guild of the Bell Founders presented it to the town four or five hundred years ago, but legend has it that the Devil brought the fountain as a gift to Goslar. " In those days," says Heine, " the people were stupid and the Devil was stupid, too ; so they gave each other gifts." Folk were strolling about the narrow mar- ketplace in the neighborhood of the foun- tain ; and with an odd mixture of holiday 126 Goslar the Glorious gayety and pious veneration for those ancient monuments of German art and prowess, they disappeared down streets and lanes, Right Upper Entrance and Left Upper Entrance, like figures on a stage. The Kaiserworth, built in 1492, as Guild House of the Broad- cloth Tailors, is now an hotel and on this day was teeming with custom. With its colonnade of pillars and arches, its steep red roof, dwarfed windows, and strange, squat buttresses and dormer windows, it takes your eye more than perhaps anything else at Goslar. But instead of prosperous German tourists you expect to see the grave, bearded members of the Guild in trunk hose and balloon-sleeved doublets of a modest hue bustling hither and thither about the house, not without a pride in themselves, in their imposing home, and in the royal city of Goslar in the Hartz. From among those placidly drinking out of doors under the arches a party of tourists, young and old, 127 In the Footprints of Heine came forth, and, embarking in two carriages, departed for Harzburg. The Geheimrath nudged me as he heard the order to the driver. " Precisely the same story thirty years ago," he whispered, and we took the places of the departing tourists under the arches. " My favorite," says George Borrow, " I might say, my only study, is man." Man, certainly, in the persons of the Privy Coun- cillor and his family, seemed a far more absorbing study than even this quaint and picturesque spot which many believe to be more alluring than Nuremberg. Never hav- ing seen Nuremberg I cannot say. But one of the chief pleasures of foreign travel I was now enjoying fully. I had become the inti- mate of these fine specimens of foreigners in their own land, conversed in their own tongue, shared their holiday mood and even their sentiment. "Now I am gray and old," said the 128 Goslar the Glorious Councillor with a touch of melancholy, that constant attendant upon the German rejoic- ing, " now I am gray and old, yet this place is wholly unchanged." "I could swear," put in his wife, "that yonder nuns drinking beer are the same two nuns I saw that day we came from Harz- burg." There indeed sat two stout nuns in their trappings of renunciation, partaking of the universal beverage. No one seemed in the least concerned about them or their beer- drinking, and I remarked that in no English- speaking country could nuns be seen drinking beer in public. " Ach, but then neither could my wife and daughter drink beer in public in English- speaking countries," rejoined the Councillor with a smile. " We are not like that here. But," he added, "we have other faults. Every land has its virtues and its faults. Eng- land has much liberty and little tolerance; 129 In the Footprints of Heine you Americans have great strength and lack some other things. We Germans " "Have all the virtues!" caught up his sprightly daughter with gusto and an em- phatic nod of the head. We all laughed and abandoned serious conversation for the time. The square was filled with sunlight and life, and the ancient buildings that had stood about this spot for so many centuries, some illumined and some in the shade, seemed almost to be endowed with a life of their own, full of a homely beauty and a quiet distinction, but little touched by the tooth of time. The Romanesque market church, with its slender towers, dating back to the Twelfth Century, still stands firm and grace- ful with many years, if not centuries, of life before it. The Brusttuch, perhaps the origi- nal "flat-iron" building, with a roof incred- ibly steep and high, has been proclaiming, since 1 526, the taste and learning of Master 130 Goslar the Glorious Thelling, whose name is inscribed upon a board in Greek letters, thus : MAriSTEP BHAAIFK The Brusttuch is a hotel to-day. Less pre- tentious and more beautiful is the Fifteenth Century Gothic Rathaus,rich with the orna- ments and embellishments of five hundred years of civic pride, and softly mellow, though not crumbling, in the afternoon sun. " I am steeped in roofs and masonry of an ancient day," wrote Goethe from Goslar, and that was more than a hundred and thirty years gone by. The folk who sat at the tables about us, drinking genially and whole-heartedly, were assuredly less picturesque than the " roofs and masonry," and, to the naked eye, less interest- ing. " A fine agglomeration of Philistines " was Goethe's experience; "one feels quite comfortable here." We also, the Hoppe fam- ily and myself, felt at ease among the good In the Footprints of Heine folk whose enjoyment of life was simple and visible. It lay chiefly in beer and schnitzel and wienerwurst. Hans was holding Elsa's hand under the table and Max was seeking Gretchen's. The friends of the sweethearts caught them and rallied them, and Hans's father or Gretchen's would say with a guf- faw, "So I made it, too, when I was young," to the general joy of the party, and to all within earshot. There was no fashionable touristry here ; only those classes called, in the words of Goethe, " the lower, but in the sight of God, surely the highest." For in them, so Goethe believed, reside all the virtues, self- control, contentment, common sense, truth, and, best of all, patience. The author of "Werther" and"Gotz" could mingle on equal terms with people of this order only by traveling incognito as "Weber, an artist . . . very polite to all." Happily I stood in need of no such devices, 132 Goslar the Glorious so I could go to and fro among them with perfect immunity. According to a middle high-German proverb, " Kumt ein ohse in fremdiu lant Er wirt doch fur ein rint erkannt." And conies an ox to foreign land, He 's known for cattle, out of hand. ^ I was known for a stranger at once, but my desire to chat with the good people was too obvious to be misinterpreted. When the Hoppes went up to their rooms, I lingered below, and soon there came to my table three clerks from Berlin, who entertained me with the gossip of the capital in the version of the "department store" employee. They were honest, vulgar men, who had left their wives at home and made holiday in a half boister- ous, half sentimental humor. Under their commonplace chatter I discerned a genuine desire to behold noble and beautiful scenery, to emulate spirits greater than theirs. Two 133 In the Footprints of Heine of them carried knapsacks like my own for I cannot tell what purpose. Utterly empty seemed these greenish pouches, flapping loosely on their backs in every wandering bit of breeze. The third carried a little leathern satchel, doubtless similarly laden. Goethe somewhere observes how little is necessary for such a journey : my clerks' were apparently bent on proving that even that little could be spared. Upon learning that I was an American they fell to questioning me with regard to the cost of living. What, for instance, did I pay for clothes in my country? When I told them they promptly informed me that the best tail- ors in Berlin could make the same clothes for less than half. And so with other things : they would scarcely allow me to make a reply, so eager were they to show me how extravagant we were. Yet they seemed anxious to have me guess what fortunes might await such as themselves in the Western Hemisphere. 134 Goslar the Glorious It was difficult to say, I told them, but that, at all events, there were no Hartz tours in America. Then they grew boastful : "We have walked thirty kilometers to- day," said one of them, " and to-morrow we shall be in Riibeland." It was "schon" where they had been and " schon " it would be where they were going. They had but one word to describe all things, and that word was schon. Again and again, however, they reverted to the cost of living in America. In the Footprints of Heine CHAPTER x THE THRONE OF BARBAROSSA Dorten setz* ich still micb nieder Und gtdenke alter ZV, Alter bluhender Geschlecbter^ Und venunkner Herrlichkeit. HEINE. UPON the square of the marketplace debouch a number of streets and lanes, some straight and some crooked, some modern and some of an older day. Into one of these narrow thoroughfares I strolled away from the Kaiserworth, and I might have been wearing the seven-league boots, so swiftly did I transfer myself from the square and its traffic into a little silent quadrangle upon which lay the peace of centuries. The toy- like gabled houses of mediaeval Germany, with their steep roofs, sharp-ridged and pierced by many dormer windows, seemed 136 The Throne of Barbarossa to be asleep in the half-light, like the fabled troops of Barbarossa in the heart of Kyff- hauser. They seemed to be awaiting a day when the guilds will once more be bustling and active, and the life of the royal city transformed by some Hartz-loving Kaiser who will again choose for his seat the Kaiser- haus at Goslar. Legend has it that at a cer- tain magical moment Barbarossa's troopers will receive a word of command and sally forth with their leader at their head to save the German Empire. Perhaps that is what Goslar is awaiting. I walked through more than one such spot, in places washed by the sluggish and shallow Gose, a tiny super- annuated streamlet, with much history and little water, to which the city owes its name. For in the language of the Franks who estab- lished it, Gose-lar means the place on the Gose. Exactly when Goslar was founded is un- certain, but the first historical mention of 137 In the Footprints of Heine it occurs in 979, in a Chronicle of Otto IPs time. For two centuries after that date Gos- lar was the chosen seat of the Holy Roman Emperors. After their wars and pilgrimages they loved to return to their peaceful moun- tain home in the Kaiserhaus at Goslar. Then the city blossomed and prospered so that even to this day it carries something royal in its air. An ancient inscription in the Rathaus reads : O Goslar, du bist togeda de hilge romeske rike suder middel und wae nicht macsta dar van That was the city's motto to regard itself as loyally, and freely, though irrevocably, pledged to the Holy Roman Empire. Henry the Fowler, perhaps, first cast a glamour upon the Hartz, because he was quietly snaring finches here when the princes notified him that he had been elected Em- peror. "Here" means the Hartz as a whole, 138 A LITTLE BACKWATER AT GOSLAR The Throne of Barbarossa for like the seven cities of Homer, many a spot to-day claims to have been Emperor Henry's fowling ground. Henry II, his suc- cessor, began the palace at Goslar and took a great delight in the little city that lies nestling at the foot of the Rammelsberg. The Ram- melsberg is in all likelihood the only beget- ter of Goslar. For centuries that mountain has been steadily yielding silver, lead, zinc, and even some gold. Folk-lore relates that the horse of a knight named Rame first un- covered the silver ore with its hoof a thou- sand years ago. But Jacob Grimm, who could compose bewitching folk tales, could also decompose them ; he has proven scientifi- cally that Rame's horse is but a thin dis- guise of Odin's silver-hoofed steed. What with its wealth on the one hand and its noble situation on the other, Goslar seemed a fitting home to those Prankish Emperors, from the second Henry on ; and the fourth of that name even honored Goslar so far as to 139 In the Footprints of Heine be born there. When its glory waned a shade, Lothair, the Saxon, and the Hohenstaufen monarch Frederick I, surnamed Barbarossa, were at the pains of restoring it ; for the Reichstag held by Redbeard in June, 1 154, at the palace of Goslar, surpassed all others in splendor and magnificence. The wars of Guelph and Ghibelline brought havoc to Goslar as to many another city, and the last mediaeval Emperor to sit enthroned there was of the victorious Guelphs, William of Holland. Since that date, 1253, the city was become as a widow, she that was great among the nations ; for over six centuries she looked in vain for any royal favor, until in 1875, William I, grandsire of the present Emperor, visited that seat of ancient glory and again a Kaiser sat upon a throne in the palace at Goslar. It must not be supposed, however, that the long term of waiting for imperial occupation wholly annihilated Goslar. The vital little 140 The Throne of Barbarossa city joined the Hansa league toward the end of the Thirteenth Century, and early in the Fourteenth became a free city. Thereafter began a period of building and growth until it was the boast of the Hartz that Goslar had forty places of worship. In the Fifteenth and Sixteenth Centuries were erected the circumvallations, the Rathaus, and the eight famous guild houses of which to-day the Kaiserworth alone remains. Fire and pesti- lence and the Swedish wars left their bitter mementoes to Goslar in the course of the years. But now, under Prussian rule, it has seventeen thousand inhabitants, a snug pros- perity, and a rich heirloom of distinguished tradition. That evening the family of Hoppe came to dine with me, not at my fortified Hotel Zum Achtermann, but in a more modern hostelry, across the way, with less tobacco smoke and more variety. Thus far on my pilgrimage I had met with no English or 141 In the Footprints of Heine American tourists saving only the lady in the coach to Goslar. But at the Hanover, while awaiting my guests, I beheld two eld- erly Englishwomen dining at a neighboring table. One of them was giving orders in per- fect German with the cosmopolitan air of an experienced traveler. But in their con- versation, scraps of which I could not help overhearing, there figured only the names of one English family and of one or two streets in Mayfair. They seemed completely oblivious of their surroundings and might have been in their own dining-rooms. Later, when a waiter, in lighting a patron's cigar, accidentally burned a bit of his napkin, one of the women, was sufficiently interested to lift up her lorgnette, glance angrily about the room, and exclaim with a peculiar drawl- ing inflection, "What is that na-a-sty smell ! " Then she relapsed into Mayfair. The Councillor Hoppe delivered himself 142 The Throne of Barbarossa of some well-seasoned reflections on the variety of life as we proceeded with our dinner. " Last night," said he, " we were in a homely place reveling in simplicity ; every stranger approached the circle and became a friend. Here on the other hand the waiters are numerous and dressed cap-a-pie. The master is not an inn-keeper, but a scientist running a first-rate hotel on scientific prin- ciples. No other guest would think of speak- ing to us. We all think the simplicity better and we all have this kind of thing as often as we can afford. Strange world, not so?'* "Not at all," replied Fraulein Hoppe im- perturbably. "Last night at Klausthal was like love in a cottage highly romantic and interesting, for a while. To-night is like sub- sequent prosperity, which makes the cottage doubly dear in retrospect." I ventured to observe that Fraulein was surprisingly cynical for one of her years. 143 In the Footprints of Heine " It seems, then, that in America also," she answered with a warm flush, "girls are expected to know nothing and see less. I thought that only in Germany women must pretend to be fools even if they are not." After dinner we agreed that on the mor- row we should visit the shrines together prior to my departure for Harzburg. I escorted my guests part of the way to their hotel in the marketplace, and upon my return alone the gentle breeze, the soft rustle of the shade trees and the blinking gas lamps, all seemed to be the elements of a wonderful peace that brooded darkling over the ancient town. I felt that all the turbulence I had brought in my heart from the nervous and feverish Occi- dent had given way to a spirit of sweet tran- quillity and dignified repose in this old im- perial city. The sense of security common to all German towns, however small or dark, was in itself a soothing influence to the stranger. I seemed to breathe in happiness 144 The Throne of Barbarossa and quietude with every breath of my nos- trils. Most of the inhabitants of Goslar, cer- tainly most of the touristry, seemed to be assembled deep in the bosom of the Achter- mann tower drinking beer. Nowhere else is drinking taken so seriously as in Germany. With the Latin peoples conversation is the principal object of the long sessions in cafes. But in a German beer cellar, such as that at the Achtermann, you see beyond any doubt that every one seems to be possessed by an incomprehensible desire to consume as much liquid as is possible in the short span of a mortal life. Laughter and conversation seem to be the merest accessories to the main busi- ness in hand. Here and there, in university cities, you may still behold such a scene as that in Auerbach's cellar at Leipzig, to which Faust and Mephistopheles are introduced by Goethe. But the every-day German citizen is not romantic in his potations. Some days H5 In the Footprints of Heine later, when I made my way to Auerbach's at Leipzig, I found the saddest parody on Goethe's classic scene. No glorious catches such as The dear old Holy Roman Realm How does it hold together ? resounded there, nor were there any roister- ing blades like Brander, Frosch, and Siebel. The scenes from "Faust" were indeed painted on wall and ceiling, but the Leip- zig clerk and "counter-jumper," together with his lady, were in possession of that im- mortal tavern. And if the Devil ever comes there to-day, as I make no doubt he does, it is as a mean, shabby rascal slinking about among the tables with his tail between his legs. The next morning the Hoppes and my- self set out to see the sights of Goslar. We looked back to their hotel, the Kaiserworth, to get a view in the morning sunlight of that famous guild house. In their niches, 146 The Throne of Barbarossa about midway between ground and roof, stand the German Emperors, the Henrys, Otto I, Konrad II, and Lothair III, with sceptre and globe. Heine's description of them as "smoky-black, partly gilded, re- sembling baked university proctors," still holds good to-day. We walked across to the Rathaus and were admitted to its little civic museum for a consideration. The relics of Goslar's long and brilliant history are numerous, and every visitor, no doubt, finds some of peculiar interest to him. Many are impressed with the massive silver cup which some Thirteenth-Century German Benve- nuto Cellini decorated in rich Byzantine style : the guide tells you exactly how many hundred thousands, offered by a rich Amer- ican, had been refused by the municipality. Others are wont to linger over a letter written in 1529 by the hand of Dr. Martin Luther, full of spiritual encouragement to Goslar in the cradle-days of the Reformation. "Keep In the Footprints of Heine me in your prayers" are his last words to the citizens of Goslar. But what took my fancy was an instrument called the Beisskatze, or " Bitecat." The Beisskatze is in a sort an edition of the stocks. It is a box about double the width of a coffin standing upright, divided into two compartments. Whenever two women were taken in the act of scolding and re- viling each other in the open street or in the marketplace, they were thrust into the Beisskatze, separated, yet in horrible prox- imity. For the upper part of the Beisskatze, even to the partition, is of thick wire grill- work, so that the belligerents could still see and vilify one another, if they chose. But all the world could see them then, for the thing was put in the square before the Rat- haus. One such exhibition, it seemed to me, of a pair of scolds in the marketplace, must have been more efficacious than a whole statute book of prohibitive legislation. Gen- 148 The Throne of Barbarossa tie Frau Hoppe threw up her hands in dread at the imaginary spectacle of two women encased in that cleverly contrived little prison. Her husband smiled and remarked, " Das war gar nicht dumm" (That was by no means stupid.) Their lively daughter made as though heaving a profound sigh and murmured piteously that the Golden Age was past. We strolled towards the Domkapelle, the ancient chapel, once the portal of Goslar's great cathedral that stood for a thousand years. The fame of that Cathedral survives in many a legend and story, but aside from this chapel not a stone of it stands to-day. In 1 820 the municipality sold the ruin of it for 5000 thalers. Heine relates that when he inquired for the Cathedral as well as for a certain imperial chair, in 1 824, he was told that the one had been razed and the other sent to Berlin. "We live," remarks Heine, "in a portentous age, thousand-year-old 149 In the Footprints of Heine Cathedrals are demolished and throne-chairs are cast upon the scrap-heap." It is such sayings as this that make Heine unpopular with royalty even to this day. In the brilliant, vivid days of the Emper- ors, the defunct Cathedral was the glory and pride of Goslar. The old verger who was showing us the meagre collection of relics in the Chapel complained in bitter tones that were the Cathedral now standing, he, the verger, would, by your leave, have a different tale to tell. To this sentiment we could not help giving our unqualified agreement. "As it is," he continued, " I shall tell you, if you like, of the bloody fray that took place in this Cathedral nearly nine hundred years ago." That melancholy verger had something of the poet still lingering in his bosom, though long since the thoughts of trinkgeld had al- most completely supplanted all else that may have been there. The monotonous formula in 150 The Throne of Barbarossa which he described, for revenue only, the few dusty relics, gave way to a more natural and less wearisome kind of speech as he began the story of the affray. " In the year 1 06 3," he began, " Henry IV, while still very young, celebrated Christmas day at Goslar. It happened that the servants of the Bishop of Hildesheim and those of the Abbot of Fulda came to blows. The reason was that the Abbot had been accustomed at all public functions to sit beside His Grace, the Archbishop of Mainz. But as the Bishop of Hildesheim maintained that in his see none but the Archbishop might precede him, those who were placing the chairs fell to scuffling and violence. The King was of tender years, and the Bishop was rich, therefore unbridled. The Duke Otto of Bavaria, who chanced to be present, held with the Abbot and tempo- rarily quelled the outbreak." As the verger was relating the story we could not help gazing from him to a re- In the Footprints of Heine markable wooden carving of Christ, the size of life, nailed to a cross. Human hair clothes the head, which is crowned with real thorns. The face, besmeared with blood, is of work- manship so marvelous, that in the dim light of the chapel you seem actually to behold the pangs and agony of human suffering upon the rack of the cross. Heine maintains that the figure presents the death agonies of a man, but not of a divinity. That may indeed be true, but the wonderful presentment of silent anguish seemed unspeakably terrible as the verger continued the tale of the prelates* insolence and pride : "At the celebration of the next Whitsun- tide a repetition of the chair business broke out into a horrid scene of bloodshed that made a treat for the Devil. This second en- counter was no longer a spontaneous brawl, but a premeditated battle planned and pre- pared. Hecelon, Bishop of Hildesheim, had hidden Count Eckbert with a number of 152 The Throne of Barbarossa men behind the altar, and at vespers, when the servitors again had words with respect to the chairs, Eckbert and his crew rushed forth and pummeled the Abbot's men with fists and clubs, driving them through this very chapel, where we now stand, into the street. The Fulda men raised an alarm, and in a few moments a throng of the Abbot's retainers burst into the Cathedral and fell upon the Hildesheimer. Battle shouts, the clash of arms, and the cries of the wounded mingled into a fearful and un- holy din, such as ought never to have filled a house of the Lord. The Cathedral was soon awash with blood scandalously shed in an unrighteous manner. All this time the Bishop stood upon an eminence urging on his men and promising them absolution if only they fought valiantly. The young King, a mere boy, lifted up his voice and conjured the rioters, by his majesty, to desist. His en- treaties, however, fell upon deaf ears ; he 153 In the Footprints of Heine barely escaped from the tumult with his life and ran into his own palace. The Hilde- sheimer won, for they had been in readiness. The Abbot's men rallied their forces and attempted another attack outside the door, when the ' service ' was over, but night came on and put an end to the fight. " From under the doors of the Cathedral the blood flowed like water, and many a knight lay dead within. Buko, Bishop of Halberstadt, was among the slain, and to-day he lies buried at Ilsenburg. The Count of Sommerschenburg also lay upon the floor of the Cathedral, as well as a number of nobles from Swabia, Saxony, and Bavaria. Through the hymn, ' Hunc diem gloriosum fecisti,' broke in the coarse tones of the Devil with, ' This day of wrath I brought about.' He even showed himself, all fiery red, and put out his flaming tongue in derision over the havoc he had created. In the Seven- teenth Century the hole through which the '54 The Throne of Barbarossa Prince of Darkness broke into the Cathe- dral was still exhibited, and no mason could ever repair it. No one was ever punished for that awful misdeed, for Count Eckbert was a cousin of the King's, and the Abbot of Fulda was soothed by a great sum of gold." The verger also was soothed, and we went forth from the dim old chapel into the sunlit space of the street of the Bell-founders, where happily no Fulda men-at-arms lay in wait for us. Only a few very unwarlike tourists were straggling along toward the Kaiser- bleek, which is crowned by the stately edi- fice of the Kaiserhaus. This palace, in the words of the guide-book, " is not only his- torically but also art-historically the most important secular edifice in all Germany." Certain it is, that no other royal palace dat- ing back to the Eleventh Century remains in Germany to-day. At the first glance you are struck by the 155 In the Footprints of Heine unexpectedly modest proportions of this castle as well as by its absolute simplicity. It seems strange that Holy Roman Em- perors and heroes like Barbarossa found suf- ficient for their needs a building that not only kings but many a plain millionaire to-day would not improbably deem to be cramped quarters. Two great bronze statues, present- ing the likenesses on horseback of the an- cient Emperor Barbarossa and the modern Emperor William I, gaze from high ped- estals upon the terrace, and behind them two stone lions facing each other guard the outer stairways. The terrace itself is of a dark northern austerity with scarcely a touch of the profusion and brilliancy of color that paint the grounds of French chateaux. Heine does not speak of the Kaiserhaus, for in his day it was little more than a ruin. If by chance he cast a glance toward the Kaiserbleek, after leaving the chapel, he beheld the dark spectral remains of a 156 The Throne of Barbarossa building, the skeleton of what was once a palace, unworthy a second glance. History records the many vicissitudes of the Kaiser- haus. At so remote a date as 1289 it was already in a state of dilapidation. The local government patched it up to serve as a court- house, and later as a hall of assembly. In the Sixteenth Century it became a communal granary, and in the seventeenth a Jesuit col- lege. Later, the structure developed into a theatre, and finally became again a granary. It was not until after the establishment of the Empire in the nineteenth century, that 450,000 marks were appropriated to restore that monument of one-time glory. To-day it appears much as it did in the eleventh and twelfth centuries the palace proper, a house-chapel and a covered passageway con- necting them. So closely did the architects follow the ancient style that should Barba- rossa emerge from his long sleep in the moun- tain he would straightway recognize his old 157 In the Footprints of Heine habitation in the midst of all the glaring novelty surrounding it. The bewilderment for Barbarossa would begin within doors. The old sandstone throne (the very same that had been taken to Berlin and, in the words of Heine, thrown upon the scrap-heap) still stands in the mid- dle of the hall upon a dais, as of yore. Six massive wooden pillars support the beams of the ceiling. But the pictures painted upon the walls, where his own counterfeit present- ment figures, would strike him at once as a strange innovation. A young woman, daugh- ter of the curator, would wait until a suffi- cient number of tourists was collected to form a group of proper size, and through the bare, unfurnished rooms she would lead the Emperor and the others, descanting glibly and easily upon the pictures, the work of a painter named Wislicenus. " Henry II being crowned by Pope Ben- edict VIII,'* would rattle on the castellan, .'58 The Throne of Barbarossa "Henry III leads Pope Gregory IV cap- tive across the Alps ; Henry IV barefoot before the Pope's door at Canossa; Henry V struck by lightning; Barbarossa kneeling before Henry the Lion," and many more subjects similarly depicted. The most of these Barbarossa would decipher and com- prehend. But larger than all the rest would loom forth a fresco depicting allegorically the creation of a new German Empire. " William I and his Paladins," in the phrases of the castellan, " at the Gate of Triumph received by the damsels Alsace and Lorraine; Bismarck standing at the foundation of the new edifice of the Em- pire." Those words would fall strangely upon the ear of Barbarossa. A new German Em- pire, " neither holy nor Roman," would seem odd to him who received his crown from Papal hands and, later, fell fighting for the Cross against the Saracens. '59 In the Footprints of Heine The house-chapel named after St. Ulrich is one of the most remarkable structures of its kind now extant. It is built in the shape of a Greek cross and is what is called a " double chapel." While the Emperor and his family were hearing service in the pal- ace story, the servants of the palace par- took in the self-same mass below stairs. The upper story is a kind of gallery to the lower, but in this instance the gallery is more im- portant than the rest of the edifice. At the bottom of this tall chapel lies en- tombed the brave heart of Henry III, sur- named the Black. For many centuries it reposed in the now vanished cathedral; thence it was taken to the Guelph museum at Hanover ; now at last it has found per- manent rest in the Chapel of St. Ulrich at Goslar. Permanent, at all events, we be- lieve it to be. But those who buried it in the Cathedral centuries ago, doubtless felt no less securely that this sepulture was for 1 60 THE KAISKRHAUS AT GOSLAR The Throne of Barbarossa eternity; that nevermore should be dis- turbed the dust of him who built this glo- rious fane. But time outlives the will of Kings and even Cathedrals. And the pass- ing of the world's glory, though old as the universe, comes hor e anew to every human soul of us. It was nearly noon, and I, for one, was sated with sightseeing ; for that is an i~t i have never quite mastered. The tourists who can go on filtering through mase^ms and galleries day in, day out, without a moment's pause for refection, have ever been my admiration. I proposed to the Hoppes that we abandon further marvel- seeking for the time being. But the Coun- cillor was bent upon showing his wife and daughter a certain "wonde- -clock" famous throughout the land. At precisely twelv_, when the clock strikes the hour, begins the exhibition given by this contrivance, which is as nearly a thing of life, so report goes, 161 In the Footprints of Heine as machinery can be. It has come almost to the dignity of a shrine. Scores of guide- posts, arrows, and wooden hands scattered up and down Goslar point the way thither, and the feet of the tourists have worn a rut in the pavements that lead to it. The pre- sent owner, a son of the inventor, has to such a degree prospered by the wide-spread interest in his dead father's ingenuity that he has built a new and spacious house, while the clock continues to bring him in a com- fortable thing per annum. To the new house we accordingly re- paired and took our seats in front of the family breadwinner, which is the size of a small organ. Five minutes before twelve a young girl of dark and striking beauty, daughter of the present proprietor, took her place before the clock and briefly told the story of the family masterpiece, while her father was idly lolling in a chair among the audience. Her grandfather, she said, had 162 The Throne of Barbarossa originally made this time-piece for the King of Hanover. Later, however, it re- turned to the maker's possession. She enu- merated in detail the performances of the wonder, the beating out of the hour by angels, the scene of the crucifixion, the playing of a hymn, and so on. As soon as she had done, the clock began to strike, the angels began with tiny hammers to beat the hour ; the crucifixion was enacted by the tremulous mechanism; a concealed music box of feeble pitch tinkled out a hymn, and the twelve Apostles, with small jerky move- ments, came forth by twos from a little door, made obeisance before the Saviour, and then returned to their places. Not without interest though the thing was as a product of human skill, it seemed some- what undignified for a public entertainment. And yet both the Councillor and his lady seemed to be much impressed with it and again and again expressed their amazement 163 In the Footprints of Heine at this feat of mechanical genius. Their daughter, however, seemed morose and list- less. " Child's play ! " was all she said. Near by is another wonder-clock made wholly of straw. The "weights " by which the clock is made to work being of necessity light, this clock is set going, a few seconds at a time, whenever sightseers pay the price of admission. The inventor is a slight, sallow man, who seems to have spent all his force in the making of this toy. No rich and spa- cious house is his, but a modest tenement with prattling children about. With dreamy, wist- ful eyes the little man keeps gazing at the window for patrons, and, whenever they arrive, a faint flush mounts his cheek as he modestly explains his work and pockets the small fee. We all wished that he were the possessor of the more lucrative trick-clock of his richer rival, who, we learned, looks upon him but sourly. I regretted that Heine 164 The Throne of Barbarossa had no opportunity of seeing those toy-like inventions, for had they existed then, he would have hit them off with some unfor- gettable phrases. I vowed I should look upon no more trifles that day. It was not the like of these that I wished to bear away in my memories of Goslar. What I desired to clasp to my brain, not without reverence, was the genuine at- mosphere of grandeur that survives in that little city from a time when the most cele- brated of Imperial hands built it and the bravest of Imperial hearts loved it as a sweet and dignified retreat after strife and conquest. The greatest and the least of us alike yearn for some nook that invites our soul and senses to repose, some quiet spot that holds our gods and our love. Goslar, folded in the bosom of the hills, was such a spot for certain noble rulers of the world, and to this day it main- tains not a little of its ancient character. Majesty qualifies the impression you get of 165 In the Footprints of Heine it from without ; charm and tranquillity per- vade its precincts within. To see Goslar, the Hoppes agreed with me, is to remember it forevermore. Forest Sanctuary CHAPTER XI FOREST SANCTUARY Wit stbn' ick mich, Natur, nach dir, Dich treu und lieb zu fuhlen ! GOETHE. THE time had now come for me to part with the friendly family whose com- pany added so much to my pleasure. A near kinswoman of Frau Hoppe's was to arrive at Goslar that afternoon and for her they had promised to wait. For me, on the other hand, in order to continue in the track of Heine, it was necessary to go by way of Harzburg. Heine unfortunately does not precisely state what route he followed from Goslar to the Brocken. But as he mentions passing near Harzburg, I decided to go by way of that city, since it was my fancy to cover as nearly the same ground as I could. In the Footprints of Heine Harzburg, moreover, is famed as a German spa and I had never before seen one ; besides, many a pleasing legend clings to that locality. The Hoppes had it in mind to sleep another night in Goslar and on the morrow to as- cend the Brocken. There we were all to meet again. " We shall have a Walpurgis night all our own," announced the Councillor cheerily. " You count without your host," re- marked Fraulein Hoppe with a touch of cruelty ; " the Herr may feel like sleeping forty-eight hours or so at Harzburg and we may never see him again." " Paula ! " murmured gentle Frau Hoppe reprovingly. " The host at Walpurgis night on the Brocken is a Herr who needs no sleep," put in the Councillor. For all that Fraulein gave me a warm handclasp at parting, Herr Hoppe clapped me on the back, and his kindly Frau gave me motherly advice on the 168 Forest Sanctuary avoidance of chills. I found no ready words to answer the young lady's sarcasm, for my heart was somewhat cast down at leaving my friends. Our ways parted. Near the outskirts of the town I paused at an unpretentious tavern for a bit of luncheon. The landlord took me through the house into a smiling garden, and I found myself at the rear of the bar- racks. A number of soldiers, principally petty officers, with their sweethearts, sat about the tables, while through the open windows you could see the rank and file at meat within the barracks. If the fare set before me in that garden is the regular mess of the soldiers, commend me to the i65th of Foot stationed at Goslar. I moved through the quiet streets past the Zwinger, a tower with walls sixteen feet thick, and out through das Ereite T0r, the broad gate that was wont to admit the trains of the Emperors, returning from wars and 169 In the Footprints of Heine expeditions abroad. At one stride I was in the wheatfields, where the scythe was ringing and the sickle gleaming. The stout women toiling would glance up for a second at the stranger with a pack on his back and then fall again to their tasks. What the men could have been about I cannot say ; almost all these field laborers were women and boys and girls. Through the fields runs a path into the forest, and in a few moments I was enveloped by the silent leafy wilderness hushed under the midday calm. The map I had bought at Osterode now came to my aid, and without doubt or hesi- tation I set forth on the way to Harzburg. Of drift-ways and bridle-paths, common to wooded country, there are, to be sure, not many in the Hartz. Yet it is saying much for a map that it laid me under the necessity of asking scarce a single question during all my tour. Even where there was a network of cross-paths the map, on the one hand, the 170 Forest Sanctuary Hartz Club's guide-posts, on the other, made everything plain. Briskly I walked up a de- clivitous path and very soon I stood upon a hill high and far above Goslar. Again I was struck by the mediaeval aspect of the city below with its domes and spires that gleaming city of Kings. Lane and meadow, grove and stream in and about the picturesque city below, all fell into a kind of delightful harmony, simple and pleasing, like sweet music. I could have lingered the balance of the day gazing into that radiant valley. But a thin drizzle of rain, commencing suddenly, urged me farther into the depths of the for- est, where the foliage sheltered the path. With every step I mounted higher and higher among the mighty trees and the path kept growing ever steeper. Never before had I seemed to myself to be so impressed with the delicious wonder of dark and soli- tary woods. The song of the sirens, it seemed to me, was present in this northern forest as 171 In the Footprints of Heine much as in the JEssan isle. A low murmur- ous music seemed to breathe through all space and to bewitch my ears like enchant- ment. Generous, beautiful thoughts filled my heart and soul ; I began to wish for some beloved companion to share the richness and the beauty. In such a place the love of man and woman must have a thousandfold more meaning than it has in the crowded cities. There the heart is constantly seduced by a multiplicity of distractions. My path emerged from the forest for a space, and it seemed a mere tiny ribbon of uneven ground on the edge of a yawning chasm, steep and precipitous, many hundred feet deep. The wind that was music in the forest was blowing a gale through this sav- age bit of gorge and the rain smote my face sharply. Harsh and stony was the way, and it seemed a cruel hardship after the ease and beauty of a little while ago. But before long you grow accustomed to a piece of 172 Forest Sanctuary rough road, even as in life you grow inured to treading a difficult path, until it seems not unnatural. Soon, however, I rounded the naked curve of the cone-shaped hill about which I was winding and again I en- tered the forest. A low hut made of boughs stood by the wayside, a shelter for travelers fatigued by the climb or caught in a storm. Over the doorway was rudely carved the legend, " I guard the folk 'gainst weather and wind ; Do you guard me from usage unkind." A young man and two young women, his sister, apparently, and the sister's friend, who had sought protection from the rain, were chatting pleasantly as I entered. They nodded to the stranger, surveyed him unobtrusively as he sank down on the bench, and contin- ued their conversation. That is, the brother and the sister did so. The other girl, how- ever, belonged to the species of woman that must needs conquer all in her path. She 173 In the Footprints of Heine grew every moment more vivacious, laughed often and exquisitely, showing pearly teeth, and began to interlard her conversation with French and English phrases, casting furtive glances at the unknown wayfarer. All the arts and charms of this, the period of her blossoming, she paraded not because the stranger mattered in the least, but because to do so was her irresistible instinct. The traveler, however, felt both shy and fatigued, and had not even the spirit to ask a question. He slung his knapsack over his shoulder again and with another nod left the hut. The rain ceased and the sun was again triumphant in its endless warfare with the clouds. The succession of the sun's defeats and victories is more swift and frequent in this region than in the lowlands. I paced on with a cheerful heart, often looking up to see the sky showing through the openings in the pines, or the sun lightly dappling the trunks. The road was now straight and 174 Forest Sanctuary smooth, though not too much worn to give that spring to the foot that quickens the pulses of the traveler. The black thrushes in the treetops broke forth into a wonderful chorus of full-throated song, but otherwise perfect stillness reigned all about. That great pine forest appeared to envelop me as a mother takes an infant in her embrace, com- forting as well as protecting. It seemed al- most miraculous that one who had so long been tossed about the world by fate and chance, like a cork on troubled waters, should suddenly find himself tasting fully the sweet and wholesome peace for which we cannot help yearning. A young deer, a hundred yards in front of me, was standing by the wayside, thoughtfully contemplating the beaten track of mankind. I was almost upon that lithe philosopher before he turned tail and scampered off among the trees, not with the speed of fear, but simply in re- sponse to his inborn impulse. That deer In the Footprints of Heine must have felt that there was nothing in my heart but brotherly affection for the like of him. If ever Mr. Rousseau could have made me return to nature, now was his time. A step farther on two young men with the feathery intimations of moustaches on their upper lips came swiftly toward me from behind a bend and we greeted one another with the freemasonry of the road ; and though they seemed university youths and gently reared, they too bore light and dangling knapsacks that could not have held a change of linen. They told me they had left Harzburg that morning, and I gravely asked them whether it had rained there, with the air of one who might ask whether rain had been falling in Central Russia. Near though Harzburg was in reality, it was still a matter of more than three hours' journey to the pedestrian and therefore a remote section of the globe. That city, of 176 Forest Sanctuary which I knew nothing, seemed suddenly to possess the lure of all things impossi- ble of immediate attainment, and I found myself wishing I were already in Harz- burg. We parted, the youths and I, with mu- tual good wishes, and I began to descend the winding path, now on the edge of a piece of bare, craggy hillside, now again in the bosom of the forest. Every time I emerged to one of the treeless spots I thrilled to behold in the blue distance the summits of the dark green mountains grouped in a kind of solemn and noble dis- order. Serene though the sky was above, the mountains, nevertheless, seemed pos- sessed by a deep and changeless melancholy. Mighty pillars they stood, reared by nature to shelter the laughing valleys ; yet they seemed to be overhung with a gloom so profound that it almost made your heart ache. I thought upon rulers of men and the 177 In the Footprints of Heine loneliness said to surround them upon the lofty height of their thrones. In my own soul, however, there was nothing but the wholesome joy of life. The Valley of Ochre CHAPTER XII THE VALLEY OF OCHRE Wo alle Baume sprechen Und singen wie tin Chor, Und laute ^uellen brechen Wie Tanzmusik beruor. HEINE. THE slope downward became more abrupt and I found myself fairly run- ning down hill. The most blessed of all sounds, the murmur of a stream, came to my ears, and a moment later I bounded into the King's Highway, broad and white, to behold the celebrated Ochre River running along beside it. The celebrated Ochre ! I wondered whether it was always the mere runnel that I saw before me at that moment. If it was, how came it to be so famous? In the wars of the Merovingians we hear of the Ochre, and Charlemagne, the godlike Emperor, we read 179 In the Footprints of Heine in the chronicles, was in 775 and also in 780 encamped victorious beside that river. With the aid of the sword, cogent argument, he baptized the natives in the waters of the Ochre. The impression of that particular ceremony did not prove to be lasting, for the little leaden crosses given to all of the con- verts in token of their new faith, still pepper the bottom of the historic stream. No sooner was the back of the conqueror turned than the faith and the symbolic cross were alike hurled into the yellowish water. It was this river, too, that gave us the pigment bearing its name, and that is the reason we all have Ochre in our vocabularies. I stood gazing at the little mountain stream, listening to its sweet, busy, rippling music, as one in a dream. Some tall woodsmen of these parts passing by woke me out of my reverie, and in their melancholy faces I seemed to see the same gloom that overhung the range of hills. 1 80 The Valley of Ochre From that point on, to the end of my jour- ney, the faces of the travelers and tourists on the Hartz seemed invariably cheerful and often joyful. The natives, on the other hand, seemed to partake of the gloom of the rocks about them. Their love for weird tales of death and horror and demons is not im- probably a phase of this melancholy, this twilight that settles on their countenances and in their souls. There was a kind of aus- terity even in the laughter of the moun- taineers. The purling river, though inconsiderable to-day, must have been stronger in the past, for as I walked on I saw that even the para- sitic man-made highway had failed to tame the wild gorge cut by the Ochre in the course of the centuries. Great granite rocks lie tumbled high on either hand and savage bits of scenery still remain to tell of a grander era in this valley. I had not far to walk, how- ever, before I came to Romkerhalle, one of 181 In the Footprints of Heine the most beautiful spots in the Hartz. The gorge at this point is perhaps at its deepest and the rocks at their highest. The Ochre broadens somewhat, and from the right comes a mountain rill, the Romke, tum- bling down rocks hundreds of feet high, in the shape of a triple waterfall. Directly op- posite these falls is a small hotel. Half a hundred people who had either driven or walked here from Harzburg sat about the tables out of doors gazing up at the rocks with the shining water tumbling over them. The hum of the tourists mingled with the soft and agreeable noise of the waters, and thus the sound that filled this part of the val- ley was not, in Nietzsche's phrase, " all too human," nor yet wholly wild, but a pleasant harmony of both. I unstrapped my knap- sack, ordered refreshment, and gazed peace- fully now upon the flashing waters, now on the happy throng about me. There was no mountain gloom at Romkerhalle. 182 The Valley of Ochre The water splashed and prattled, the nu- merous tourists were going hither and thither among the tables greeting acquaintances or denuding the "curio" booth of its knick- knacks and colored postcards. Every one in this holiday atmosphere was either buying or addressing picture-cards, intent upon shar- ing his pleasure with friends. Coach after coach, in the meanwhile, kept arriving and departing, laden with passengers, chatting, laughing, and even singing. I felt a desire to linger here a long time and then to take the coach to Harzburg. But the accusing image of Fraulein Hoppe rose before my mind's eye, and I dismissed the idea as unworthy. I paid my score, strapped on the knapsack firmly, grasped my stick, and, not without a yearning look at the waiting coaches, I turned my face resolutely toward Harz- burg. The Ochre, which I now followed for some distance, will long remain in my mem- 183 In the Footprints of Heine ory as a river abounding in wonders. Though the stream seemed now to contain everything but water, yet the heaps of yellow-coated boulders piled up along the bed pointed to a time when this was a rushing, headlong cur- rent of great might. It had cut its way deep through the rocks which, in places, rose to considerable height above the stream. Fan- tastic figures, carved by time and water in those rocks, make the banks picturesque. The Sleeping Lion and the Monk look like rude sculptures on a gigantic scale. The lion, especially, couchant in the rock, gives the impression of man's handiwork. The left bank is for the most part a sheer, precipitous wall of dark pine forest, sombre, mysterious and changeless. Day in day out the denizens of the village of Oker, through which I passed, have that eternal black wall to con- template from their windows. No wonder there was gloom upon their faces and no laughter in their eyes. I myself was begin- 184 THE VALLEY OF OCHRE The Valley of Ochre ning to feel the influence and therefore pressed on. Night was falling when I entered the city of Harzburg and a shower of rain came as an advance guard. Seeing a coach with the name of the hotel my guide-book recom- mended as the first, I hailed it and took a seat beside the driver, all other places being filled. The coachman, as usual, asked was I English, and upon learning my nationality inquired " whether Roosevelt lived in New York." Then with a sudden transition he desired to know whether a lad of about his own inches could earn a livelihood in New York. Without waiting for an answer he in- formed me that he had seen Buffalo Bill at Magdeburg some years ago, and he did me the honor to add that I spoke better German than Mr. Buffalo Bill. He would sail for America at once, he told me, were it not for the Army in which he was obliged to serve. For that reason the German government I8J In the Footprints of Heine would not permit him to leave the coun- try. The streets through which we were driv- ing were broad and populous. Carriages were swiftly coursing up and down and well-dressed women were rolling in luxurious victorias. Long rows of booths displayed a store of wares meant for patronage wealthier than Hartz natives, or even the run of German tourists. In short, I was in a brisk and modern watering place, filled with traffic and foreign custom. With the pack on my back I felt out of place in this Vanity Fair ; and though I encountered neither Lord Hate-Good nor Sir Having Greedy, yet I was sure they must have been there together with all the rest of their kind. In a few moments we drove up to the Harzburger Hof, the most pretentious hotel I had clapped eyes on in this region. Vanity Fair CHAPTER XIII VANITY FAIR Mein Gott ! da sieht es sauber aus ! Der Kot liegt nicht auf den Gassen ; Viel Pracbtgebaude sab ich dort, Sehr imponierende Massen. HEINE. A BABEL of tongues, French, Russian, German, English, fell upon my ear as I entered the door, a portly commissionaire with bewhiskered inscrutable features gently took the wet knapsack from my back and conducted me to a splendid apartment look- ing out to the Burgberg, a cone-shaped moun- tain, pine-covered and towering over Harz- burg. In two minutes a valet came, in Sterne's phrase, to put me in mind of my wants, and altogether I was surrounded by more ceremony than I cared about. I missed the homely circumstance of Klausthal and 187 In the Footprints of Heine Osterode; all this luxury jarred upon my taste for simplicity which the journey until now had driven home in so agreeable a man- ner. There was nothing for it, however, but to do as the Romans, and 'to listen with gravity to the valet's petition for a place as my body-servant. That tailorish little person busied himself about the room, at the same time narrating in a lively fashion the chief events of his important life. A German gentleman in whose service he had spent many years had carried him all over the habitable globe and thus bred in him an ineradicable passion for travel. America was the land that had formed the deepest imprint upon his fancy. I was American, was I not? He knew it at a glance. Indeed, the very instant he had set eyes on me he felt that jointly we represented his ideal inner picture of master and man. Poor, and could not keep a valet ! Ha ! Ha ! He knew all about the poverty of Americans, 188 Vanity Fair particularly if they stopped at the Harz- burger Hof. I told him I should see him to-morrow. Upon entering the dining-room I felt even more the difference between the other guests and myself. Portly gentry they were, stock-brokers, many of them, at the very least, dressed in the height of fashion and suitably to the hour. My rough mountain- eering clothes must have given me a sort of Cinderella air, and that notion amused me. Among the rich there is always a large pro- portion of the new rich, and these, on the Continent at all events, seem to take it out of life, as the phrase goes, in solemn-visaged silence. From time to time they gazed fiercely about them and then hung brood- ing over their plates like a leaden sky. Here and there, of course, there was some sem- blance of life, but life and laughter are scarce among the rich. The waiters however, I must in justice add, were fully as attentive 189 In the Footprints of Heine to me as to the most bejewelled and sullen of shirt fronts. Mentally I kept repeating to myself that I was a gay, rollicking blade, in self-defensive protest against all that so- lemnity. After dinner I entered a large and softly lighted coffee-room that was already filled with guests. My friends, the new rich, still clung to their ferocious silence, but here there were also some groups of gentler folk who conducted themselves with something like ease. Some of the German family par- ties contained high-bred, beautiful girls whose talk fell musically on the ear and whose manners were simple and modest. In one corner two young men seemed to be calling on two young ladies under the benignant eyes of the parents. Those girls, as girls sometimes will when young men are near, were lavishing their attentions upon a handsome boy of seven or eight and vastly spoiling that youngster. His little sister stood 190 Vanity Fair quite crestfallen to find herself neglected while he was being made so much of. A few years later, I thought, when this child has learned her woman's arts, she may look back comprehendingly on her to-night's experience. I took up a Frankfort news- paper while waiting for coffee, and the first thing that fell under my eye was the list of American Stock Exchange quotations. Hastily I threw down the paper and for the balance of the evening contented myself with reading my neighbors. It was no ill reading, either, with the Slav and Gaul and Teuton so thoroughly intermingled. But I could not thrust away an uneasy feeling that inadvertently I had strayed somewhat too close to the coast of Philistia, which is more dangerous and far less attractive than the coast of Bohemia. The next morning when my valet with the wanderlust brought the hot water, he respectfully wished to know whether I meant 191 In the Footprints of Heine to take the hot, the cold, or the pine-needle baths. In a world teeming with variety, tastes were apt to differ ; his personal preference, however, lay with the pine-needles. He was one of those unimaginative people who al- ways take the obvious for granted. I was at a watering-place, therefore he blinked all in- dications to the contrary and concluded I had come to take the baths. I was on the point of citing Dr. Johnson as authority that one might be born in a stable and yet not be a horse. But instead I told him briefly my intention to sleep that night on the Brocken. " Ach so ? " he marveled, and added that his defunct master, the German gentleman, would not have dreamed of stirring forth on so murky a morning. "That," said I with gravity, "must have been precisely the point where he and I dif- fered." l" he replied with military brev- 192 Vanity Fair ity, and I could see that I fell in his esteem. He had the manners to renew his suit for employment and to give me his address, but I saw plainly his heart was no longer in it ; not with such eccentrics as I would a com- fortable body like himself be taking ser- vice. He saw me gazing out to the Burgberg, the dark, conical mountain, crowned with a gray castle ruin. *' If the Herr should ascend there," said the valet, " he might be enriched by the woman in white that guards a treasure at the bottom of a well. I have been there and I am still poor," he added blithely. " Then," I replied, " it were useless for me to try." There are many legends here of men and children who had been richly dealt with by the ghostly virgin who guards the ubiquitous treasure. Gold and silver and plate she has given away freely, though not of late years, so the valet informed me. Tour- 193 In the Footprints of Heine ists, apparently, do not promote in the na- tives the habit of giving. One legend has it that Henry IV, the Emperor who had waited barefoot on the Pope's pleasure at Canossa, hurled his crown into the well on the mountain. Later, he took up his residence in a subterranean palace there he, Otto IV and Barbarossa, the three monarchs who at one time or another during their life had dwelt in the castle. It is from their regal abundance that the lady in white was wont to scatter her largesse. At one time in its history, in the fourteenth century, the castle had so far degenerated from its royal estate as to become a nest of robber-barons. Three brothers named Von Schwiecheldt lifted all the cattle in the re- gion and led their neighbors a merry dance. The lords, spiritual and temporal, could not keep the predatory brothers down, until gun-powder was invented. The robbers in their mountain fastness could not take note 194 Vanity Fair of the march of science. Their occupation left them but little leisure. When the allied lords of the neighborhood opened fire with the new engines of destruction the brothers saw their time had come. To-day an obelisk stands upon the Burgberg inscribed with Bismarck's famous phrase, " We are not go- ing to Canossa." In the Footprints of Heine CHAPTER XIV THE WILD HUNTSMAN Peitschenknall, Hallo und Hussa ! Rossgewieh'r. Gebell von Hunden ! yagdhorntbne und Gelachter ! Wie das jauchzend widerballte ! HEINE. THE morning wore on and still the clouds of a forbidding darkness hung oppressively over Harzburg. Vainly I waited for a ray of sunshine, but as none broke through I paid my score and braced myself for the ascent of the Brocken before the lux- uries of that all too comfortable hotel could wholly corrupt me. Briskly I followed a winding path that leads you almost at once into the forest, and soon I shut out all view of the flesh pots I had left behind. Two children, a boy and a girl, stragglers of a party that was walking toward a retreat called 196 The Wild Huntsman Molkenhaus, were lustily shouting for the echo, that repeated their cries and sent them reverberating among the pines. They seemed like another Haensel and Gretel, half terri- fied, half delighted, with the mighty stir they were creating in the dusky forest. Thinking to amuse them, I joined the echo in answer- ing their calls. For a moment they did not know what to make of it. But when they looked about and saw the dark figure of a pedestrian with a pack on his back following in their path, they clasped hands and ran as fast as their little legs could carry them. I laughed aloud and made signs to convey how utterly harmless I was, but they only ran the harder until they joined their elder a farther on. Later when I passed them they seemed brave enough, now that they were securely with their friends. " Der wilde Jaeger" they whispered au- dibly to each other, " the wild huntsman!" and exploded with shouts of laughter. Evi- 197 In the Footprints of Heine dently they had walked here before, and some one had told them the tale of the Wild Huntsman, for this is the region where the huntsman roams. The English version of the Wild Huntsman, that brought fame to Sir Walter Scott in 1796, is generally familiar. The rabid Wildgrave, who trampled peas- ants' fields, heedlessly slew their cattle, and even rode down poor folk, whenever ill- luck threw them in the way of his mad cavalcade, is vividly depicted in Scott's poem. But in the neighborhood of Harzburg an- other legend, that of the savage nun, Ursula, is woven in with the tale of Hackelberg. Ursula was a strapping young woman, noble of birth, but rough of manner, whose father had delighted in her accomplishments which were far from womanly. She could course with the hounds and wind the bugle- horn and hunt the boar with the best of her father's trencher companions. After his death, her kinsfolk scarcely knew what to do with HAR/.BURC;: WHERE THE WILD HUNTSMAN ROAMS The Wild Huntsman a girl so strangely reared. They could not let her associate with their own delicate daughters, so they put her in a convent. Now, that convent was famed throughout the Hartz for the beauty of its singing; all of the nuns in it were of noble race. When the Abbess for the first time heard Ursula's voice joining in the choir, she shuddered. The other nuns turned pale. Never had sounds so rude and harsh and uncouth desecrated the walls of that house. The voice was that of a villainous stable-fellow, not of a lady born. The Abbess commanded her never again to sing in that convent. The nuns shunned her ; life became a burden to her. The captive herself drooped more pitifully everyday. One night she vanished. After much search the Abbess, to her dis- may, learned that Ursula had fled to the Wild- grave Hans von Hackelberg, of Harzburg, the most ardent of all huntsmen, whom she had known in her father's house. Neither 199 In the Footprints of Heine threat nor curse by bell, book, and candle could bring Ursula back to the cloisters. She was in her element, and together with Hack- elberg, of the flashing eye, she hunted up hill and down dale, pausing not for wind or weather, not for Saint or Sunday. Ursula shouted with loud delight, and unceasingly they followed the chase. The Wildgrave winds the bugle horn, To horse, to horse ! halloo, halloo ! His fiery courser snuffs the morn, And thronging serfs their lord pursue. Horse and hound, lord and serf, madly dashing, crying, shouting, rushed like a whirl- wind through the forest, filling the gloom with the wildest noises as day after day they pursued their quarry. On the Maundy Thursday came the priest to Hackelberg and said : "To-morrow is Good Friday, lord." "To-morrow is the great boar-hunt," was the gruff" reply. The priest entreated him to 200 The Wild Huntsman pay more heed to the Church's festivals, for his soul's sake. " I have naught against you or your cloth," said Hackelberg, " if only you forbear burden- ing my life with your prating. Would I could hunt from now till doomsday morn- ing. Never should I rue it; not I." "God save you from such a fate, lord," murmured the priest. " Long is eternity and precious is salvation " " Precious tome is the chase," broke in the Wildgrave roughly, " and more precious than all is the boar-hunt. Away with your salva- tion ! Give me the chase forever if only you could ! " Good folk on their way to church the next day felt ill at ease as they leaped aside to make way for the noisy cavalcade on its way to the hunt. " Ha, ha ! " laughed Hackelberg raucously. " I dreamt that a mighty tusker gave me my quietus, instead of t' other way about." The 201 In the Footprints of Heine huntsmen who followed the Wildgrave per- force felt somewhat ashamed when they beheld the church-goers and, upon hearing of Hackelberg's ominous dream they coun- seled him to turn back. Hackelberg roared with harsh laughter. Ursula blew a blast upon the horn, gave her roan the spur and fairly flew over hill and dale with Hackelberg shouting and crying after her, so that the forest rang again. Soon the Wildgrave's unerring spear lodged in the side of a mighty boar. The beast made a leap for the huntsman, but again the spear sank deep in its side, and soon the man had laid low his prey. " And this was to be my undoing ! " he laughed. " That were truly a new leaf in the annals of Hackelberg's hunting." So saying he kicked aside the head of the stricken beast. The sharp tusk pierced the leathern boot to the bone of the Wildgrave and the foam on the mouth of the boar was absorbed 202 The Wild Huntsman by the wound. The foot began quickly to swell and Hackelberg was carried by his com- panions to a hunting-lodge near by. Like an arrow Ursula's roan sped up the Burgberg, and with fear and foreboding in her heart she implored the priest to come to the aid of the wounded forest-lord. "If only the Wildgrave recovers," she vowed, "I shall return to the convent forevermore. But come at once, I pray you." "That lies in God's hands," slowly an- swered the pious man. " I doubt, more- over, whether the right reverend lady Abbess would set much store by your return." Hackelberg received the priest with rage and with curses. He would hear nothing of religion or prayer. "If you bring me no aid," he cried, " you might have remained on the Burgberg. I am angry that a trifle should spoil me days of hunting." 203 In the Footprints of Heine " Days, my lord?" said the priest. " Never again will you follow the hunt, for your wound is mortal." Whereupon the Wildgrave raged and cursed the more in his fury and swore away his immortal soul. On a sudden he grew dumb and stark ; he died without consolation. They buried him near to the lodge, and the denizens of Harzburg breathed more freely when that evil life, which had filled their hills with clamor, was stilled at last. But one night after the coming of the full moon, Ursula's gray veil was seen floating from the tower upon the Harzburg. Once again she seemed to wind her bugle horn and the Hartz folk down below awoke from their sleep in a tremor of fright. Hackelberg was again rushing through the forest on his steed. The castle-gate flew open; Ursula and all the troop leaped forth and joyously sur- rounded their ancient lord, the Phantom Huntsman. Ursula greeted him with delight. 204 The Wild Huntsman Again she blew a blast more wild and strange than ever before. The storm wind howled, the thunder rolled and crackled ; but the owl- screech of Ursula's bugle was louder than all. The nightbirds circled about the ghastly cavalcade; louder bayed the savage hounds and louder still rang out the "Wod wod" of Hackelberg's hunting cry. People crossed themselves for fear. Horse and hound, lord and serf, madly dashing, crying, shouting, rushed like a whirlwind through the forest, filling the gloom with the wildest noises as they pursued their quarry. Still, still shall last the dreadful chase, Till time itself shall have an end ; By day, they scour earth's cavern'd space, At midnight's witching hour, ascend. This is the horn, and hound, and horse, That oft the lated peasant hears ; Appalled, he signs the frequent cross, When the wild din invades his ears. 205 In the Footprints of Heine The wakeful priest oft drops a tear For human pride, for human woe, When at his midnight mass he hears The infernal cry of " Holla-ho ! " And so it will be till doomsday morning. Witches' Trail CHAPTER XV WITCHES' TRAIL Seh' die B'dume hinter Baumen^ Wie sit schnell voruberrucken^ Und die Klippen^ die sich biicken, Und die langen Fehennasen. . . . GOETHE. IT was no wonder, in view of the texture of the tale, that the children laughed when they dubbed me the Wild Huntsman. A very mild bogey, indeed, I proved to be as I smiled at them in passing. Speedily I left them and their elders behind and pushed on to the Molkenhaus, the station toward which all those promenaders were making. I love my fellow men, but I was earnest enough pedestrian to feel somewhat ham- pered by the dawdling " constitutional " walkers on this fine forest road. Just as I 207 In the Footprints of Heine spied the red roofs of the woodland dairy bearing the name of Molkenhaus, the rain, that had not fallen for almost three hours, began to descend, and a throng of prome- naders soon filled the refreshment pavilion by the roadside. I ordered coffee only "for the house's sake," in return for the shelter over my head. A herd of gentle Alderney cows was rumi- nating in a pasture beyond the house, op- posite the pavilion, and in an inclosure a number of deer standing or lying down, were thoughtfully chewing the cud with a fine philosophical air. They had, I reflected, much need of philosophy to be content be- hind fences, with the free and noble forest on every side of them. Their ancestors, I thought, must have been a fiercer race, for they lived among the pines, with the danger of Hackelberg's troop ever upon them. Now their mild descendants were fed with hay by human hands ! Philosophy ! Perhaps it 208 Witches' Trail was merely the indolence of luxury : that is how Rome declined and fell. Round about me all the tongues of Eu- rope were being spoken, chattered, mur- mured; French and Danish, German and Spanish, Roumanian and Russian. A huck- ster at a booth was driving a rapid trade in wooden fans and paper-cutters, and I myself, seeing the rain bade fair to continue all day, began reluctant treaty for an umbrella. Thus far I had prided myself on traveling with- out any such impediment. A ten-year old Russian boy who was buying lollipops be- gan a conversation with me and inquired the name of my country. "America!" he cried. "I read in the newspaper that Americans waste millions." "And I," was my reply, "read that Rus- sia wastes men. What do you say to that?" But he had not yet reached the age of argu- ment. Some other notion having popped into his head, he branched off to a wholly 209 In the Footprints of Heine new subject. In the meantime the huckster was waging a guerrilla warfare upon my com- mon sense with his umbrella. I had declined to pay^the price he asked as exorbitant and had almost made up my mind to go with- out the umbrella. He came down a point but still asked too much. On a sudden, how- ever, he turned frank. "Herr," said he, "the umbrella would cost in Berlin so much. I charge you so much in addition, because this is not Berlin with a thousand shops. This is the Hartz. That is why I ask more than the value.'* Whereupon I paid his price and departed. All the chattering, coffee-drinking " cure- guests" were soon far behind me, and I set- tled into that easy, swinging stride that is the pedestrian's delight. I was again alone in the forest with its sounds and its silences, that I had come to love so well. The breezes gently fanned my face, the birds caroled overhead, the very path seemed to welcome 210 Witches' Trail my footsteps. Suddenly, after the manner of the Hartz, the sun broke through the clouds almost before the rain ceased and the soft caressing light seemed to seek me through the treetops. Before long my road came to a small mountain streamlet, the Ecker, which flows into the Ochre; for even the Ochre has tributaries. The Ecker bickering down to the valley with all its might has all the pretty ways of the poet's brook. Whether it comes from haunts of coot and hern, or not, it seems, with prodigious bustle, to be relating its little adventures since it left the Brocken. For some time I kept that stream on my right hand, like an honored guest, and listened with zest to its soothing mur- murous tale. I found myself singing as I went, with what a light and joyous heart, for mother earth had blissfully relieved me of all my sorrows and cares. Many a time have I wished since then that my heart could rejoice again as it did that day by the Ecker. 211 In the Footprints of Heine A German student who passed me in this region said that he had left the Brocken that morning, and that a heavy rain was falling at the time. Remote and unimportant as this fact may seem now, I remember that it cast a kind of cloud upon me then. It had been my hope to come upon the Brocken in sunshine ; to be told that all was obscured by clouds on the peak to which I had been looking as the shining goal of my travels, was quite dispiriting. One cannot, however, remain long dispirited with soft sunshine, a blue sky, the song of birds overhead, and good, springing turf underfoot. I had, more- over, attained in the course of these forest wanderings to a serenity of mind that, as I found afterwards, was proof against more disturbing occurrences than the student's announcement. Soon, therefore, I forgot the student and the rain, and literally went on my way rejoicing, with the gentle mur- mur of the Ecker still filling my ears like 212 Witches' Trail a kind of psalmody. That and the occasional whispering of the trees seemed nature's prayer of thanksgiving for all those bless- ings to which I bore joyous testimony as I moved among them. Beauty like this, it seemed to me, inspires a kind of reverence in the human breast that all the churches might envy. On a sudden strange, loud noises filled the forest, and soon I saw before me three tall Germans, broad of girth and ruddy of face, frisking about like school-boys. Their capacious lungs were filling the woods with sound, and the echoes were busy with their laughter. They seemed fitter far for haunts of flowing beer than for hard walking among the mountains ; but when we paused for greet- ing I found they were every one of them poets. They overflowed with sentimental imagery and praise of the road they had traveled, and strongly advised me to go the way they had come. 213 In the Footprints of Heine " We have been walking three days," spluttered one of them in a high state of glee, "and we have all but made up our minds to walk the rest of the summer.'* They wore no special costume, but the ordinary clothes of the every-day German citizen, and, of course, the usual empty green knapsack on their backs. A few moments after we parted, I looked about, and already the stout varlets with their exuberant stride were a goodly distance behind me, but the forest still rang with their song and laughter. I moved on somewhat more slowly than be- fore, consulting the map frequently, for this was a place of cross-paths and drift-ways. My road, however, I found without any great difficulty, and before long I came upon the wayside forest inn of Scharfenstein. This was the last place where I could obtain food before reaching the top of the Brocken, for Scharfenstein lies almost at the foot of the mountain. In Heine's day, it seems, there 214 Witches' Trail was no station in this region ; the poet, there- fore, was compelled to partake of the bread and cheese of a shepherd lad concerning whom he wrote a lively poem, beginning " A monarch is the shepherd lad A hillock green his throne " Something better than bread and cheese was served me by the solitary waiter in this secluded little forest inn, though the con- ditions were somewhat less romantic than those described by Heine. The small wooden house is set in the middle of a vegetable garden, and near the house is a pavilion with a few tables and chairs. The waiter, a young man of twenty-five, brought me to the pa- vilion, besides the inevitable schnitzel, deli- cious vegetables, to say nothing of a quantity of conversation. He greatly resembled my flat-footed friend of Gottingen ; he, too, in- terlarded his speech with English phrases, and told me of his travels in foreign parts. As a cabin steward on an Atlantic steamship 215 In the Footprints of Heine he had visited New York, and he spoke with rapture of Fifth Avenue. He was apparently given to drawing a long bow, and, as he rattled on, his speech was comically punc- tuated by shots from the surrounding forest, where its proprietor, a prince of the house of Stolberg-Wernigerode, was hunting small game. " His Transparency," said the waiter ex- citedly, "paused here this morning, and spoke to me just as you are speaking now." "It is pretty clear," said I, "that His Transparency is no ordinary prince." "That he is not," readily assented the waiter, and he descanted much, though rather obscurely, on the greatness of the house of Stolberg-Wernigerode. Upon inquiry as to a family resembling the Hoppes, the waiter could not tell me whether or not they had passed this way. His mind was that day wholly absorbed by His Transparency. No sooner had I left the house than a 216 Witches' Trail gentle rain began to fall, and my Molken- haus umbrella had to be opened and kept open for the remainder of the afternoon. The ascent, gradual at first, became rapidly precipitous and grew more difficult with every step. A magnificent pine forest clothes the lower part of the Brocken, and as you stoop toiling to your climb the great snake-like roots of those giant trees seem to grasp the soil with mighty convulsions of titanic fingers. You glance up and the dark green tops seem to prop the sky. Frequently the roots, all gnarled and twisted, climb over large granite rocks before they seize the earth, and yet the trees they nourish are no less towering and upright. Nature here shows none of her gentler aspects of the green val- leys, but all her fierce, rude, awe-inspiring strength. Heine records having seen " yel- low deer " here when he made his climb. If any still remained, they must have kept to the dry thickets. I saw nothing but run- 217 In the Footprints of Heine nels of water moving down the muddy road. Heine,moreover, had golden sunlight all the way. I had nothing but a steady rain that accompanied me like a too-faithful friend as I climbed among the pines. A party of two men and a young woman, Russians by their speech, were in advance of me, and for a brief space I walked with them. But the rain was too heavy for the gait set by the woman, and I moved on as rapidly as I could. Now and then I would stand for a few moments under a tree to rest and gaze at the glistening moss banks, or listen to the ceaseless murmur of partly subterranean waters. But these breathing spells were of necessity short; too long delay, I feared, would make the path more miry, and I pressed on with all my strength. How I en- vied the Germans their light knapsacks now ! Every ounce upon my back was ten pounds as I kept interminably stepping up on ledges of rocks in the way. The pines kept grow- 218 TOILING UP THE KKOCKF.N Witches' Trail ing shorter the higher I climbed, and a lit- tle more than half way up the mountain the stunted fir tree began to predominate. In a wayside hut, a shelter for travelers, a family of Saxons, a man and two women, sat munching sandwiches. The knapsacks on their backs hung quite empty; at last I had ascertained the secret of the German knapsack. The women were tall and strap- ping, with plain good-natured faces. They urged their man to resume his journey, but that mild, blond little fellow with his small sparse moustache and mincing mouth, pro- tested he was still too tired. They jocularly offered to carry him, and they could have done it with ease. We all left the hut to- gether, but soon the difficulty of the way was too much for the little Saxon, and he paused for breath, the two towering females looking down upon him half tenderly, half contemptuously. The fir trees kept shrinking in size, and huge cairns of granite rock lined 219 In the Footprints of Heine the way, as though hurled together by Ti- tans' hands. So steep is the way here that, in Heine's phrase, even Mephistopheles must breathe hard as he climbs this, his favorite mountain-side. The trees wholly die away as you ascend. You see only elderberry bushes and some rank, hardy vegetation, those na- tives of the rocks. My heart gave a little leap as I descried, without any preliminary glimpses, the ugly, unpretentious caravanserai known as the Brockenhaus standing bleak and solitary on the bald top of the moun- tain. The Brocken CHAPTER XVI THE BROCKEN We, it seems, have entered newly In the sphere of dreams enchanted. Do thy bidding, guide us truly, That our feet be forward planted In the vast, the desert spaces ! GOETHE. THE very first persons I met as I crossed the threshold were the Geheimrath Hoppe and his bright-eyed daughter. They were standing hospitably in the doorway, gazing into the curtain of cloud. " You have really climbed all the way ? " exclaimed the Councilor after the first greet- ings. " My wife felt tired so we came up by the funicular railway." "Why did you give us away at once?" complained Fraulein Hoppe to her father, 221 In the Footprints of Heine "we might have had a similar confession from him in time/' With the air of a war-scarred veteran I pointed silently to my wet garments and be- draggled condition. " Go directly to your room, please," said the girl, with genuine concern in her voice, " and let your garments be dried ; do not come forth till you are wholly dry." I felt a warm glow of pleasure to be under this gentle violence, to find under the child's humorous exterior the kindly heart of her mother. The porter led me to a chamber that was all bed and that bed in a chill per- spiration. I lifted the bulky feather quilt and recoiled as I touched the sheets ; they were cold and damp. The double windows failed to keep out the moisture in this abode of clouds. The gaunt frame of an iron heating oven at the foot of the bed naturally suggested a fire, which I ordered at once. The porter 211 The Brocken nodded, then wavered for a moment, as though he were about to commit a dis- honest act. "The Herr is aware," he finally blurted out, virtue triumphant, "that a fire costs a mark?" " Are all the rooms like this ? " I asked. " Some are not so good," he replied. "Well," said I, "if you had three stoves here I should order three fires." The expression on his countenance told me that he must meet with many odd fish even here in the clouds. The maid took my boots to the more busi- ness-like fire in the kitchen, as their condition demanded, and brought me a pair of felt slippers in their room. I warmed the sheets by my own stove, hung my wet clothes about it, and crept into the bed quite spent with the day's walk. Bits of cloud came wandering in through the chink of open window and melted away as my oven kept warming to its work. 223 In the Footprints of Heine Fatigue overcame me, and I fell into a golden dreamless sleep. By rights I should have been dreaming of demons and gnomes and witches whose tra- ditional home I was then invading. The very name Brocken connotes the Devil and witch- craft wherever the German tongue is spoken. On the eve of Walpurgis, that frenzied night of Satanic revelry, German youths playfully put broomsticks and besoms at the girls' doors, and the next day tease them about their eerie ride to the Brocken orgie. For it is the way of the dominant sex to hold that only the women are given to witchcraft. As the wizard's chorus in Faust has it, Denn geht es zu des Bosen Haus, Das Weib hat tausend Schritt voraus. When towards the Devil's House we tread Woman 's a thousand steps ahead. 1 Yet men, too, are known to throw in one another's teeth such remarks as, " Had I not 1 Translated by Bayard Taylor. 224 The Brocken lent you my roan, or my black mare, you should now still be lying on the Brocken." Or, one asks another to return him a debt of money. " What money ? ' ' asks the bewildered debtor. "What money! "is the reply. "Don't you know that you would still be held by the Devil on the Brocken, had I not paid your tavern score?" Every child knows the first of May to be the wild Walpurgis night, and in his dreams the grisly witches whirl on goat or pitchfork, broom or goose, all flying Brocken ward. The revel is held for the double purpose of doing homage to Mephisto and of stamping down the last of the winter's snow. A savage and unholy dance it is, as many an old man in the Hartz describes it. By some ruse, or through the favor of some witch, those masculine intruders lay claim to having seen that which no male eye is ordinarily permitted to see. To this day every cat in the Hartz is deemed to be a witch on the first of May. Goethe has summarized all 225 In the Footprints of Heine the Brockenlore in his celebrated cantata " Walpurgisnacht." " Die Hexen zu dem Brocken ziehn, Die Stoppel ist gelb, die Saat ist grim. Dort sammelt sich der grosse Hauf, Herr Urian sitz oben auf." The witches ride to the Brocken's top, The stubble is yellow and green the crop. There gathers the crowd for carnival, Sir Urian sits over all. All the wild tales told of the Brocken to-day are of those grisly trains and eerie rides and whirling dances : " The way is wide, the way is long ; See, what a wild and crazy throng ! " And whoever is allowed to gaze on the rev- els sees what Goethe has already described, " witchhood's swarms of wantonness/' and how in the words of Mephistopheles, " They crowd and push, they roar and clatter ! They whirl and whistle, pull and chatter." No new discoveries relating to Brocken 226 The Brocken witchcraft have been made since Goethe's day. Time was when to mount the Brocken was deemed a formidable enterprise. The first known Brocken climber was a Sixteenth Century cartographer, Tileman Stoltz, who ascended the peak in 1560. A duke, Henry Julius of Brunswick, caused a road to be hewn through the forest and adventurously took his young Duchess, Elisabeth of Denmark, to the top so that she might behold at one glance the greater part of his domain. That road is now overgrown and wholly lost. Peter the Great of Russia visited the Brocken in 1697. Eighty years later Goethe made the ascent in midwinter and the result was his noble philosophical poem " Harzreise im Winter/' and not improbably his conception of Walpurgis night in " Faust." By the time Heine climbed the Brocken, half a century later, tourists had already begun to mount it in considerable numbers. As early as the 227 In the Footprints of Heine year 1800 the then Duke of Stolberg-Wer- nigerode had built the Brockenhaus, which is to this day property of that house, and conducted as an hotel in its interest. Since Heine's day the house has been much en- larged. I was awakened from my nap by the por- ter who brought word from Herr Hoppe that the sun was emerging, and I was bid- den to come to the tower. Indeed, through the window came no longer bits of drifting mist but somewhat pale rays of cold sun- shine. Hastily I tumbled into my clothes, called for my boots from the kitchen and made for the top of the circular observation tower that stands beside the house. A hand- ful of people were gathered there with tele- scopes and opera glasses, and among them were my friends. Frau Hoppe greeted me with her usual air of gentle, maternal inter- est and her amiable daughter looked at my eyes and murmured, 228 The Brocken " What a pity to wake a sleeping child! " The clouds were breaking up and the sun kept gaining the upper hand and throwing its oblique rays upon the bald top of the mountain. It was sharply cold and those who had wraps wore them and still seemed chilled. But the farther the mists drifted horizonward, the more oblivious did we be- come of the cold. For before our eyes was spreading such a panorama as most of us had never seen anywhere else. Round about the foot of the mountain lay the tiny villages like children nestling to the bosom of a mother. The dark hills, in wavelike lines of a wonderful rhythmic symmetry sur- rounded the Brocken as so many courtiers surround a prince. High as they had seemed before, when I was wandering among them, they were now lowly enough as they surged about the knees of regal Brocken. Beyond the hills, on every hand, radiated outward the bright green valleys dotted here and 229 In the Footprints of Heine there with towns and cities, and stretching horizonward. The shining meadows and golden corn-lands of Germany decked out the view; and those thread-like silver bound- aries between them, could they be the streams that made such a to-do in the gorges ? North and West was the clearest view and the most glorious. To the south- east the land was somewhat darkened by the shadow cast by the Brocken. There were few exclamations ; every one stood riveted to the spot, like a clothed statue, gazing at the un- folding vista. Fraulein Hoppe looked with a radiant face and two great tears trickled down her cheeks. All seemed transfig- ured, and it flashed through my mind what a wonderful sight is the human countenance, once it is lifted above the commonplace ways of mankind. A curious tenderness comes to your breast when you behold the abodes of men from a height and a distance. The hud- dling roofs, the dim roads, the faint curls 230 The Brocken of smoke with a kind of gentle pity you look upon all the little concerns of man, simply and patiently working out his destiny in the valley. After all my toil through sun- shine and storm to mount the peak and look on the valley from an eminence, I now felt a pang of longing to flutter down to the snug towns and villages, set among the deep green meadows, and washed by the flashing streams. So wayward a thing is the human heart. Darkness came on apace, swiftly blotted out the view, and soon the clouds returned to their own and enveloped us like a cling- ing mantle. The nipping air drove us from the tower, and upon the ground, still gazing westward, we saw a clump of tall, strong young men. They turned and looked at us; suddenly one of them ran forward, and with a merry word of greeting, embraced Frau Hoppe and the Councilor. He was about to embrace their daughter as well, but she 231 In the Footprints of Heine put out her hand at arm's length and said, " Wie gehts dir, Fritz ? " Fritz Eichholtz, to whom I was promptly introduced, was a nephew of Frau Hoppe's, a university student of Berlin, and he rapidly informed us that he and some members of his corps were on their way to Harzburg to a junket of that association whose caps were blue. Those of his chapter who were with him had decided to sleep that night upon the Brocken, and as there would be a kneipe or drinking session held in the course of the evening, the youths invited the Councilor and myself to join them. "After my wife and daughter are gone to bed, I shall be delighted," said the Coun- cilor eagerly. " In the meanwhile do you, Fritze, dine with us." The presence of the ladies obviously eliminated the possibility of a consolidation of the two parties. The young man consulted with his friends, then sat down with us in the large gloomy din- 232 The Brocken ing-room. The students were dining in a smaller room by themselves and every now and then a roar of laughter would come to us from that direction, followed by bustling waiters grinning, broadly. Young Eichholtz would pause and listen to the sounds of the revelers and remark chuckling, " The boys are doing well famous lads ! " "You would prefer to be with them, I know," Frau Hoppe gently observed from time to time. But he vowed he was wholly happy, and regaled us with an account of a duel fought at the rooms of the blue-caps at Berlin on the Saturday, in which their man, though bleeding from eighteen cuts, was victorious. " Confess, Fritze," said Fraulein Hoppe, "that you are anxious to promote that fright- ful dueling because you are studying sur- gery." " No ; we receive no fees from brothers," In the Footprints of Heine laughed Fritz; "besides, I have bled my- self." Upon learning my nationality the youth informed me that in his party was an Amer- ican army officer who was an alumnus of Berlin and a brother of the corps. When Eichholtz introduced us to the room of the students the laughter suddenly ceased as though a word of command had been given. The dozen of men with narrow, peaked, blue caps on their heads and sashes of the same color over their breasts, rose as one man, and, after Eichholtz had pro- nounced our names, each one in turn ut- tered his own name, bowed, lifted his cap and shook hands. The Major proved to be an acquaintance and he passed me the word in American slang that this was to be a joy- ous occasion. The stocky square-jawed young man at the head of the table made room for the Councilor on his right and for myself on his left next the Major. 234 The Brocken " Silentium ! " he cried, rapping for order upon the table with the flat of a bare sabre, " Silentium ! Turn to page 226 and sing the Burse henlied. First verse ! " In tolerable har- mony they began a famous student song, " The Bursch with proper stuff in him, He must be always jolly ! " With powerful throats and glowing faces they sang many verses of this stirring patri- otic song and their effort seemed to demand no small quantity of refreshment afterward. The song ended, the chairman with a few courteous words handed his cap and his sabre to Herr Hoppe and bade him take his place. The Councilor seemed to the manner born. Promptly he rapped for order and proposed another song. " Silentium for the Privy Councilor ! " they all cried delightedly and broke into the rollicking song he proposed. The Ge- heimrath's face beamed with pleasure and he seemed a boy again, despite his gray hair, 335 In the Footprints of Heine among these incorrigible boys, the stalwart German students. Every German seems to have this faculty of throwing care to the winds and assuming the spirits of youth. Healths were drunk and " salamanders rubbed/' all in this pitch of joy. (A salamander is drunk standing, by command, and after the glasses are drained their bottoms are rattled in uni- son against the table and all put down finally with a crash on the board.) The Major, as the brother from overseas, was allowed the privilege, when he took the chair, to conduct the singing of the most widely known of all the Burschen-songs " Gaudeamus igitur juvenes dum sumus," which was trolled out with such vim by those lusty voices that all the windows rattled. Somewhere on the Brocken certain laborers, who were engaged in building an addition to the house, grew emulous of the students and their tired voices reached us in a chorus pathetically faint and weary during the pauses 236 The Brocken of our song. The kindly blue-caps sent out the materials for a health to the workmen and in response to their faint cheer burst into a ringing ditty anciently sung by the Pappenheim troops. " Or at beer or at wine Jolly Pappenheimers must we be ! " Later their hospitality went so far as to ask even me to assume the sabre of leadership. With strange gusto I found myself calling for "silentium" and leading in a comic song about death. The hour was growing late ; Herr Hoppe and myself pleaded the fatigue of a long day's march, and under much genial protestation we parted with our unquench- able hosts. We were hoping for sunshine on the mor- row, but the night, when we peered into it, promised nothing. A cool blanket of thick cloud met our warm faces as we opened the house-door, and we could not see a foot be- fore us. The wind howled most dismally 23? In the Footprints of Heine about the windows and shrieked savagely into chimney and cornice. Now and then snatches of song were grotesquely mingled with its cries and wailings ; spurts of rain whipped the panes from time to time, all of which made it difficult to fall asleep. It was exactly the night for a witches' revel, and no better or lovelier spot could be found in all Germany. I now understood why the Brocken was the altar of witchcraft. In the morning we could see a dim silver disk making brave though vain attempts to dissipate the cloud-bank. The west wind, too, did all that it could, but the masses of oddly shaped cloud that ever sped before it seemed inexhaustible. Herr Hoppe, who was already abroad, jocularly asked me whether I had seen the sunrise. " Lest my daughter tease you about it," he added, "I will tell you privately that there has been no sunrise." 238 The Brocken "Very well," said I, "then I shall paint for her the sunrise she missed." But when Fraulein Hoppe joined us I had not the heart to tease her, for this was probably the last time I should see her. She was herself in somewhat serious mood and very candidly informed me that she had enough of tramping for one summer and heartily wished herself back at her home near Dresden, where the roses climbed in at her window. She asked whether I had ever been to Dresden. "No," said I, "but that is precisely where I am going after my Hartz journey is over." Herr Hoppe was out of earshot. We looked at each other for a moment, but Fraulein Hoppe said nothing. The morning train brought a handful of freezing people who fell frantically to ad- dressing picture postcards as though their life depended upon it. The students, some- what the worse for wear, began to appear in 239 In the Footprints of Heine the guest-room, and soon departed with the postcard regiment on the funicular. Very thin was the "public" on the Brocken that morning. In Heine's day the romantic move- ment in Germany was in full swing ; he, therefore, was enabled to record sad stories of passionate love and weeping apostrophes to the moon on the part of some of the guests. The modern tourist, though still sen- timental enough to come to the Brocken, no longer apostrophizes the moon. The pic- ture postcard passion and the funicular are the best index to the times. " It is odd," said Fraulein Hoppe, when I spoke to her of this, "that the witches still employ broomsticks and pitchforks, out- grown forms of locomotion, when they could buy excursion tickets on the funicular." The Hoppes left me and a few moments later the pleasant trio appeared with ruck- sack and staff, fully accoutred for their jour- ney to Harzburg. A whole romantic litera- 240. The Brocken ture of melancholy filled me as I saw my friends departing. " Come and visit us when you are at Dres- den," the Geheimrath urged as he warmly pressed my hand. "Under her own roof this child will not tease you," he added, glancing at his daughter with a twinkling eye. " Oh, but I trust she will," I put in has- tily. " Please do not fail us," gently entreated Frau Hoppe ; "we shall depend upon your coming and be ready to receive you." Fraulein Hoppe merely nodded as if in confirmation of her mother's words. In her eyes was a look at once soft and brilliant. She put out her little gloved hand almost timidly, merely murmuring, " Auf iviedersehen" and I knew we should meet again. In the Footprints of Heine CHAPTER XVII Icb bin die Prinzessin Use Und wohne im Ihenstein ; Komm' mit nacb meinem Schlosse^ Wir wollen selig sein. HEINE. HEINE was favored with a sunrise on the Brocken of which he gives a vivid picture in verse and prose. All hope of see- ing the sun this day, however, seemed futile. I merely waited until the clouds should grow a little less dense before I set out toward II- senburg alone. As I remained thus musing in the guest-room familiar voices suddenly fell upon my ears and I looked up to behold my three clerks of Goslar approaching. They had but recently arrived and were now about to turn their faces to Ilsenburg. They had little to tell me of what had befallen them 242 The Princess Use since we parted at the Kaiserworth in Gos- lar save that all they had seen was "schon" and "kolossal." Their knapsacks were not any fuller than before, nor their linen cleaner. As they sat a few moments longer conspir- ing against future thirst I went to the lobby, if one may so designate the chill hallway of that house, to enter my name in the Brocken book. This guest-book even in Heine's day " contained nonsense enough." Since his visit many tomes of that commodity have been imported to the Brocken and there deposited by the hosts of the Philistines. A century makes but little change in the cast of their minds. To-day, even as a hundred years ago, people complain of the thick clouds, the rain, their wet feet. Doggerel abounds, and it is mostly on the order of this flower of poesy which I culled: " Auf dem Brocken ist es schon, Auf dem Brocken ist es fein ; Ach, konnt ich hier doch immer sein ! " 243 In the Footprints of Heine " On the Brocken it 's sweet, On the Brocken it 's clear ; Ach, I wish I could stay forever up here ! " One gentleman from Leipzig, who signed himself "author," seized this opportunity for publication and indited a long, involved poem upon the beauties of untamed nature. It was not a masterpiece of originality or wisdom. Under that gem I felt moved to write that on this day I took possession of the Brocken in the name of Ferdinand and Isabella of Spain. The three clerks now came forth from the guest-room, and after each had religiously entered a " sentiment " in the book, we turned our backs upon the Brockenhaus. In Heine's time it was cus- tomary for the servant-maids to present a posy of flowers to each departing guest. But to-day the young women selling fans, paper-weights and other mementoes in the hallway are far too busy with their traffic to practice any such pretty customs. 244 The Princess Use We marched briskly into the cloud, past the Schneelocber, deep gullies that drop down abruptly making the path precipitous. In these gullies the snow lingers until late in the spring and disappears only after the witches stamp it down on the first of May. We four, the clerks and I, bounded from rock to rock with enforced rapidity. One of the men gave it as his opinion that any- body could be a mountain-goat here, for you could not help leaping from crag to crag. In a very short space of time the bushes and ground-pines began to grow taller. The air was perceptibly warmer and the clouds were overhead instead of all about us. We met a number of small parties as- cending and almost all inquired with pant- ing breath how much they had still to climb. "A good two hours," one of the clerks would reply and watch the depressing effect upon the inquirer's countenance. A few 245 In the Footprints of Heine steps farther on the clerks would laugh heartily at this humor. We were among the pines again before long ; the delicious, mysterious murmur of underground waters seemed to come to us from every side. " Here and there," in Heine's picturesque phrases, "from under rock or brush, the water would glance forth, as though gently speculating whether or not it dared to face the daylight. Then, with a resolute leap, a little torrent would come to the surface. Many others soon join, and to- gether they form that most cheerful of all mountain streams, the swift-flowing Use." Heine's comparison of this little river to a lively girl is perhaps the aptest of all such similes. The bright waters, now leaping down tiny falls, now singing and foaming merrily round scattered rocks in their course, give precisely that impression of a maiden briskly busying herself about her pretty af- fairs. The pines and beeches and birches 246 The Princess Use tower over road and stream, nodding to- gether high overhead and making an avenue that the fairest and costliest of English parks might envy. My three companions laughed and shouted like children, leaped upon rocks in the course of the Use and begged to be photographed. The birds mingled their song with the laughter of the men, and such was the state of our delight, we could then and there have proved to Schopenhauer that this was the best of all possible worlds. The Prin- cess Use who, according to legend, bathes in this stream, had truly cast her spell upon us, even as of old she had bewitched Henry the Fowler, and Heine, the poet, who sang of her : " I am the Princess Use, 1 I dwell at Ilsenstein ; Come to my castle with me, Bliss shall be thine and mine. " With water of my fountain Will I bedew thy brow, 1 Translated by T. Brooksbank. 247 In the Footprints of Heine And thou shalt forget thy sorrows Poor lad, so care-sick now." The Ilsenstein, a great granite rock beetling over the road, is surmounted by an iron cross to which Heine was obliged to cling when he climbed the rock. Neither the clerks nor I felt moved to ascend the Ilsen- stein. We entered the town of Ilsenburg, which seemed to be gently slumbering on both banks of the Use. There was scarce a human being to be seen as we marched along the somnolent street; the Use alone seemed possessed of any life. Trim little houses gray with age and trim little gardens bright with flowers about them lined the street, as if they alone, without any human aid, were Ilsenburg's citizens, Mayor and corporation. At a cross-road my clerks shook hands in the friendliest manner and took their way Harzburg while I walked on to an hotel. " The Herr will not forget to send us the 248 The Princess Use pictures he took of us!" was the last I heard from them as I waved my hand. A few steps brought me to the Hotel at the Red Trout, and as I entered its silent, leafy grounds, I felt as though I had joined a brotherhood. A sort of enchantment seemed to lie upon the spacious and picturesque inn, upon the soft lawns and shrubbery, upon the mirror- like lagoon that stretched along one side of this Land of Nod. A solemn waiter, still fastening his apron, came from the kitchen to my seat under a shade tree and said, not asked, " Sie iviinscben Fore lien." I seemed to myself to be in a dream. For a few moments I gazed at him without feel- ing able to utter a sound. At last I repeated mechanically in his own words, " Yes, I desire trout." Whereupon he brought up two live trout from a net in the lagoon and carried them silently into the kitchen. 249 In the Footprints of Heine I sat gazing upon the unbroken surface of the water and the one thought that strug- gled to my brain through the seas of out-of- doors stupidity and sheer physical well-being that possessed me, was : " My journey is at an end." Much of the Hartz lay still before me. I knew I was going on to Wernigerode as soon as I had finished with the trout, and that I should probably go farther still ; yet I could not away with the feeling that my journey was done ; even as Heine's Harzreise had ended at Ilsenburg. I shook myself from this strange hypnotic lethargy and paced up and down the side of the sleeping lagoon until my trout should be brought. The Prin- cess Use, I reflected, she of the spells and witchcraft, was still at her arts, else why should I feel this sense of culmination after having walked through her garden ? When I tasted of the trout I realized that never again, even though a long life may 250 The Princess Use await me, should I partake of such a godlike dish as that on the Saturday in August, Zum Roten Forellen ! If that is what the Prin- cess feeds on, small wonder she survives for- ever. In somewhat brighter mood I paid the score, shouldered my knapsack and walked slowly toward the railway station. The settled look of the place was whole- some to the eye, and though I saw much poverty even here, it was a spacious and roomy poverty that one might envy. Not here the hideous oppressive squalor of our glorious cities, that makes your cheek flush and your heart ache, nor that painful, abject misery that you see so often "by Bagdad's shrines of fretted gold " ; there was genuine beauty about the humble homes of the poor at Ilsenburg. The train, for which I had not long to wait, carried me through a beautiful region with yellow grainfields on the one hand and the green hills on the other to the Capital 251 In the Footprints of Heine of their Transparencies, the Princes of Stol- berg-Wernigerode, who have reigned here for nearly a thousand years. Long before you reach the city, their castle perched high upon a rock shows its gray walls and many windows to you with a benevolent though exclusive air. The loveliest of Hartz cities (Goslar excepted) lies at the foot of the princely rock and an attentive welcome awaits you at the inn of the Weisser Hirsch. No parlor could be cleaner than the broad shaded streets I walked; no people could appear more cheerful or contented than the smiling inhabitants of Wernigerode. Gentle breezes seem to play all day among the shade trees, and a spirit of quiet joy hangs over all. The legend over the door of the en- chanting Rathaus, built in 1500, seems to express the city's charming air of sphinx- like peace. The legend reads : " Einer acht '/, der Andre vertacbt's, der Dritte betrachfs, was machfs?" "One thinks, the next blinks, 252 THE CASTLE OF WERNIGERODE The Princess Use the third will brood; what's the good?" The ceiling of the Ratskeller, deep in the foundations of the Rathaus, is covered with wise sayings. It is perhaps the only Rat- skeller in Germany that countenances, how disdainfully soever, possible abstinence. " If you will not drink beer," reads one Sprue b, "drink springwater and so strong will you be no Kater will conquer you." As Kater means both tom-cat and the after-effects of over-indulgence, the spirit of Wernigerode is well expressed in the saying. I made plans for visiting the Church and the Castle on the morrow, and for journeying to another famous region, the Riibeland, and thence to Quedlinburg; I visited the old house where Goethe put up when he made this journey in 1777 and determined that on the Mon- day I should have it photographed. Alto- gether I had begun to feel that this was a place worth clinging to. That evening at dinner, however, I was 253 In the Footprints of Heine again overcome with the feeling that I should not travel farther in the Hartz. The first English-speaking family I had seen in many days, consisting of a middle-aged man and two women, seemingly his wife and her sis- ter, sat at a table near me and talked of the Riibeland. I was all but on the point of hailing them as fellow countrymen ; they, I thought, would help dispel this singular hu- mor that beset me. The man, however, sud- denly launched into a disquisition upon the English parts of speech with a voice so drawl- ing and dreary that his wife frankly leaned against the wall and fell asleep ; the sister made a brave attempt at following him, but soon she too began to nod. That man was obviously an instructor of youth. Youth alone can withstand and even forget such streams of boredom. Grown folk wilt before it as tender plants before an evil wind. For the first time in the Hartz sleep did not deal with me beneficently. It did not The Princess Use visit me at all for a long time, and was but fitful when it came. Wild dreams raced through my brain, and when I arose at an absurdly early hour in the morning, my mind was possessed with one Idea to go back to Gdttingen and thence to Dresden. I felt I was sated with beauty, and that to make it mine forever I must not absorb more im- pressions. The soul requires rest from beauty, it seemed to me, as the body from work. Flight was the idea uppermost within me. Riibeland, the Castle I felt less than in- difference for them ; but all the past journey glowed in fresh brilliant colors. The porter who served me with coffee said he had but just dispatched the omnibus with another guest to the station for the seven ^o'clock train. Not a cab or vehicle of any sort was to be seen in the empty sun- kissed square. I seized my knapsack and cane, asked the direction to the station, and ran the entire way, my rucksack shaking 255 In the Footprints of Heine heavily upon my back. All that day I trav- eled small distances in shuttle trains from station to station, for there are no express trains in this region on a Sunday. Impa- tiently I paced each platform while waiting for the next train, until, at last, when I was actually on the train from Kreiensen to Got- tingen, I felt somewhat more at ease. All my wanderings and all the wonderful things I had seen passed like a panorama before my mind. With what a different eye did I look upon Gottingen, upon the inn Zur Krone, upon the waiters who gave me my mail ! They, too, seemed to feel that I was no longer the same person who left them, but in a sort, a pious pilgrim who had accom- plished his quest, a palmer who had seen many sacred places in holy land and bore within him many blessed memories. THE END CAMBRIDGE . MASSACHUSETTS U . S . A HMR