LETTER XI.
Cologne.
Our room was all ready for us, and it was a fine one, and a rocking-chair in it, as sure as we are here, the first one seen since leaving Paris. How home-like! Letters, too! the best welcome of all. One from you, dear, who have proved by services and self-sacrifices that ‘love’ is more than a word; and two from dear friends whose rare friendship has known no change. How eagerly we read them! How thankful to know you are all well! Oh how far away in body we feel from you to-night!
A rap at the door! A note handed me! What is this? Credentials, and a letter formally introducing our young fellow-traveller of our trip down the Rhine. He was well known by our hotel proprietor. Well, he has worked rapidly since landing to try to assure us more earnestly that he is the gentleman he seemed, and of which I was perfectly positive without his having taken all this trouble. He sends us some fresh, sweet roses, and asks if he may sit with us at table d’hôte. A little resting in our room, a little lingering at the window, from which we have a fine view, and our first, of the great cathedral, and down to dinner we go, Miss F. not forgetting to wear her share of the lovely jacqueminots. Our friend was waiting for us, and looked handsomer than ever in his fine dress-suit. We were all hungry, and did wish a little more speed could be used in serving table d’hôte dinners. If one is sight-seeing, and desires the time for something besides waiting, these long-drawn-out affairs require the patience of a Job to sit to the end of them.
After dining we walked out into one of the parks and heard excellent music, looked about the old town, guided by our German, who was familiar with every spot and who quite educated us upon Cologne and its history. Upon bidding him good-night, he said he should be happy to escort us about the next day, but previous arrangements compelled us to decline with the heartiest of thanks. He was disappointed, and the big, dreamy blue eyes rested upon the sun-browned girl with me, who looks thoroughly the tramp she is. They two converse in German, and so rapidly! I must practise German more; I can hardly follow them. Why will people talk all languages but our own as if tongues were propelled by steam?
Hotel Disch, Cologne, August 1st, 1888.—Thanks we offer for a good night’s rest and for this lovely morning. Our bell rings, and I find at our door a maid with a basket of exquisite flowers tied with blue ribbon, colored, I am sure, with the reflection of a certain pair of eyes. A card, with the donor’s name, hoping the ladies are well. A pretty morning welcome, surely! We receive a call later, and bid God-speed to our German friend, who seems as reluctant to leave us as we are to have him go. But such is travelling: we meet as ships at sea, salute each other and then pass on. Moral of this little episode: If you wish in journeying about to have plenty of attention, take a young lady with you.
Cologne, or Köln, is a large city, and in some of the streets where much of the perfume is made the odor is very evident and much more welcome than the cheese scent of Berne or the garlic-impregnated air of some of the German towns. This is a fascinating old place, and the streets of shops, gay, bright, and progressive looking, and the old, narrow, crooked thoroughfares very odd, with their queer old buildings. The garrison here contains seven thousand soldiers: think of their seven thousand ‘ribs’ at home digging potatoes. There are many churches here, old towers and fountains, an archbishop’s palace, and statues of the different German emperors, one fine one of Gen. Moltke and one of Bismarck, all good specimens of careful work. Cologne water is for sale everywhere, stores of it, in bottles and flasks of every shape, on the street corners, in the corridors of hotels, and children rush up to you and take it out of their pockets, urging you to buy. Throughout Germany I have seen the beautiful face of Queen Louise carved, chiselled, painted and photographed, but here, in an art store, I saw an engraving of the same sweet face, the loveliest of all. No wonder old Emperor William cherished her memory so sacredly, and forgot not the insults of Napoleon heaped upon his beloved, noble mother. We went, for a short time in each, to the Zoological and the Botanical gardens. We thought we would see some of the sights of the town before going into the cathedral, but the huge pile was before us at every turn and we could wait no longer to see the crowning glory of the place.
Cologne Cathedral! Dear, of this great piece of Gothic architecture, with its majestic arches, columns, pillars, windows, and all else that helps make up its wonderful beauty, I have no words to tell you. It is perfect: nothing has equalled it. We wandered about, then seated ourselves, with never before in our lives so beautiful a perspective before us, and I was so overpowered with it all that I am not sure but I should still be sitting there if F. had not said, ‘Come, we must see the chapels.’ There are seven of them, all filled with costly pictures and relics. In the treasury of the church there are gold and silver, diamonds, pearls, emeralds, and rubies enough to buy bread for all Germany. The beautiful churches of this country, the wonderful telling of sacred stories in their paintings, the speaking statues, which bring to us the ‘good tidings’ anew, the soothing, restful colors, are all great lessons and we can get much good from them. But the sacristies, filled with gold and silver in meaningless shapes, precious, costly gems imbedded in old skulls repulsive to look upon, are indeed abominations. If all these riches were turned into money to help the Saviour’s poor, would it not be a better way of doing ‘His bidding’? For the poor and the hungry are not far from the masses of wealth, wherever or in whatever form it may be. I appreciate æsthetically this dazzling display of artistic splendor and riches, but my heart goes out in pity and sympathy toward the multitude who are taxed to support it. And are not these terrible differences, whether in church or in society, the seed which may some time grow into anarchy and revolution? Even in dear, good Boston, not long ago, I heard a delicate woman, who toiled daily for her invalid husband and three little ones, say, ‘I am so discouraged to-day in my struggle for the necessities of life that it is almost maddening to take up the paper and see that Mrs. A. had a thousand dollars worth of flowers at her ball last night, that Mrs. B. wore a ten thousand dollar necklace, and so on.’
This town is well supplied with churches, there being twenty noted ones here. I did not feel much inclined to see anything less impressive than the cathedral, but submissively followed F. to St. Ursula, for, she said, nowhere else could I see the bones of eleven thousand virgins. And sure enough, there they were! many of them placed in position, like rails in a Virginia fence. Three thousand skulls are also ranged along on shelves together, grinning silently at each other. If Hamlet runs out of skulls, there are plenty in Cologne. The decorations, however, would probably not be thrown in, as they are worth a good deal more than the skulls. Some wear embroidered and jewelled hoods, others wear caps of silver and gold. There is a painting of St. Ursula here,’ and the shrine of St. Ursula, set with precious stones. ‘And this is the arm-bone of St. Ursula,’ said our solemn guide. ‘Is it really?’ said I. ‘And this is her foot,’ ‘My! just think of it, F.! St. Ursula’s foot!’ And with renewed solemnity our guide continued, ‘And this is her hair net,’ ‘Her hair net! do let me see it closer. Are her false crimps here also?’ ‘And here are the teeth of the virgins,’ ‘Blessed virgins! they will never have the toothache any more from these teeth!’ ‘And here is the vase in which the water was turned to wine at the marriage-feast at Cana, in Galilee!’ ‘Is it possible? do you really believe it?’ said I. The man—a handsome priest—bowed low and crossed himself. Much of the story of St. Ursula and her pilgrimage is illustrated in paintings on the walls of the church. We surely had our money’s worth, and our fill of churches for one day.
Our German friend does not forget us, although now miles away! Flowers, and a letter to F., which we find upon returning to our hotel, prove this. The letter is so ‘cute,’ and so original, also, in its attempts to express its writer’s feelings in English, that I will copy it for you, word for word, for you will appreciate it, and I am sure he would not object, for you do not even know his name:—
My dear Miss ——: I fear this first letter will be very sentimental, but I cannot help it. I must once more tell it to you how sorry I am that I fear our acquaintance will now be finished already, and how much I felicite myself to have had the bonheur of this acquaintance. Also I feel obliged to thank you much for the confidence you kindly have had in granting unto me this acquaintance. It I never will forget. Yes, it is a bad, sorry word, the word Abschied. I don’t know it meant in English. Before all, if we pronounce it, with the very doubtful hope to see the person everywhere again, to whom we have to pronounce that word. You must have seen how much it gave me pain and trouble to say it to you that evening. By writing, that goes better, than I not do see your eyes, hear your voice, feel your presence but in mind. I now bow down for trying to say to you that forever I will cherish you, as I was an old friend of yours, and that I desire, of all my heart, you may be as happy in all your life as anybody can be, and as you want to be. Wherever you exist, all my wishes and love will be for you, and all the regards for Madame —— accompanying you. And now, enough of my deep feelings, for I fear you may become angry to so hear them, and regulate of your promise to hear my correspondence. If you will have a next letter, I will do my very better to be less melancolie in that following letter, for to-day I cannot else. Allow me pleasure to send you some sweet roses—similie, similie, say the homeopaths; that means—O I know here that means true here, and you must know it. Farewell, my sweet American lady, and good-bye. My hope and longing for the seeing you again is inexplicable. Please now make my most respectful compliments to Madame ——, and do hold me, while life lasts, in your good friendship. I hope you will excuse my bad English, for it all comes from this heart, and not from this head of your faithful friend forever, who is in pain to say adieu to you, and more than ever before must I go to America and your city Boston. I pray you do write to me, your friend, who shall wait and watch for your words.
—— ——.’
I doubt if we could answer in German, on paper, and make ourselves as clearly understood. We hope sometime to see our devoted and much-valued friend again.
Hotel Disch, August 2d, 1888.—We have had a long drive about the city to-day. We saw the bridge of boats and went into the cathedral for the third time, and each time its beauty impresses us more and more. If the tradition connected with the architecture of the cathedral is true, that his Satanic majesty designed it, he certainly did that better than any of the rest of his works. The exterior is also most pleasing to the eye, look at it in any way you will, and the spires, the towers, and the buttresses, with their elaborately carved pinnacles, are ‘things of beauty,’ never to be forgotten.
In our ramble later in the day through the streets, which seem to be laid out something like half circles, a little ragamuffin pulled my dress and asked in German, ‘Can I show you the horses.’ The child’s dirty face was wan and haggard, so we could not begrudge a few pennies given him, and I took his hand, which seemed to please him immensely and on we walked together. ‘There they are,’ said he. And sure enough, looking from a second story window of an old house are two gray horses, stuffed, I presume, but their appearance is very life-like. The story explaining their being there runs like this. The beautiful wife of a rich man apparently died. The grief of the husband was so intense that he would allow no one to come near her, and placed her in the tomb himself, with her rich garments and jewelry on. Thieves went at night to steal these articles, when at their touch she arose and asked, ‘Where am I?’ The men, alarmed, ran away at full speed, leaving the doors open, and the woman, who had only been in a trance, walked out into the street, and to her husband’s house. She knocked at the door until her husband was aroused and asked who knocked. She replied, ‘It is I, thy own Richmodis, thy wife,’ ‘No,’ said he, ‘my wife is dead, and the dead rise no more; sooner would my two grays trot up the staircase into my room and look out of the window.’ He immediately heard a noise, and his two horses came into his room, placed their fore feet on the window sill and looked out, and there they have been looking ever since. And the poor wife, let us hope, was received as flesh and blood. Old traditions and history repeat themselves constantly in these ancient foreign cities.
A party of young girls, with their teacher, arrived at our hotel to-day from Massachusetts, and it was a delight to see their faces and to hear our own tongue. E. reached us this evening from Bayreuth, filled to the brim with Wagner, and greatly regretting that we were not there to see and to hear. Of the latter pleasure we know something from the exquisitely rendered Parsifal selections given at our own Symphony Concerts, but to see Parsifal in the home of its composer is a delight yet to come.
August 3d, 1888.—Leaving Cologne, and carrying much cologne with us, we started at nine o’clock A.M. for Utrecht, turning our faces toward the cathedral’s spire as long as we could catch a glimpse of it, and soon we are out of Germany and in Holland. For all the Germans drink so much beer, we have never seen in the country one intoxicated person, and who could go far in our own land and say that? ’Tis true, and pity ’tis ’tis true,’ that the poor whiskey deluded Americans drink is many times more deadly and destructive than beer. Although we have had few opportunities of seeing the better class of Germans in their homes, we know that home-life is sweet and sacred to them, and the Germans are everywhere proverbially honest and their word to be depended upon. Their country is not only a military one, but it is the nation of music, of the sciences, and people of all other nations flock here for instruction.