Villa Elsa Outdoors
IN the vernal season the lectures and theaters were dropped for neighborhood excursions of which the Buchers, like all German families, were extremely fond. A rendezvous would be made for dinner, for instance, at some attractive spot up the Elbe. It would be a walking trip from Loschwitz along the winding banks or up on a higher path stretching from one smooth, low-lying hilltop to another. Everywhere the invigorating odor of pine lay in the air. The company assembled by twos or singly at their convenience during the late afternoon. Generally the Herr would be last. And when he was spied approaching, with a cock's feather in his hat and supporting himself authoritatively on his big stick, a chorus of acclaim greeted him, for craving appetites were now to be satisfied.
The household would pass the evening dining al fresco and enjoying the landscape studded with historic and other enduring memories. Near by was Hosterwitz, where Weber composed "Oberon" and "Der Freischütz." Often mists from the Elbe rose mystically to engarland the crenelated castles here and there on the heights. A drowsy river boat in that long agreeable northern twilight would finally gather up the family at the dock and drop them off at home.
Sundays were the favorite time for these little outings. Lessons, classes, tasks, were then lightened. Gard had quickly become aware in Germany that the Sabbath is considerably a day of work as well as pleasure. The usual impression in America that the Germans are religious, not to speak of being moral, was dispelled. This had been a fragment of his erroneous idea that they are active Protestants in the sense that carries any Calvinistic or ethical meaning.
Neither the Buchers, nor any of the families whom Kirtley met through them, went to church. The Protestant churches were, in fact, gloomy, tasteless and almost empty. Their services appeared cheerless and forbidding. Tremendous fear was their keynote. It seemed far more agreeable to a German to partake of the national sacrament out in a beer garden.
His attitude seemed to be that his race were born so constitutionally and thoroughly in line with Divineness that they did not need to do anything about it. The religious element, as a shaper of conduct and thought, was accordingly not required. As for any restraining power, the Government furnished all of this that was necessary.
At any rate the rulers looked after religion. They observed all-sufficiently its rites. They stood next to Deity and represented and protected the people. Kirtley remarked that when the ordinary German began talking of God, which was rare, he was soon talking of the Emperor. Both deities were ever solicitous for him, working tirelessly in his behalf. The Kaiser was properly the national busybody, the head schoolmaster, who attended to everybody and everything and drove all constantly forward toward a unified and splendid destiny.
Thus arose the firm belief of the Germans in their natural righteousness—the righteousness of how they act, what they possess. Gard saw there existed among them little virtue in the way of religion to offer the youth of other lands. To send an American son or daughter to Deutschland for such influence and benefit was but another example of the prevailing misconception of real Teutonism.
Many an evening the family dined at the famous Schiller Garden which stretched along the shore, just across the river. Knitting and sewing and books were taken along, a large table was secured, and there the members ate and refreshed themselves with liquids in leisurely fashion from six o'clock until bed time. There would be plenty of talking and smoking and plying of needles as the moonlight or river lights danced forth to guide the active river traffic and also the large inflowings and outflowings of restaurant guests. And all to the bracing music of a capital orchestra reeling off jubilant marches and waltzes.
These were good times when the German was to be observed under the most favorable colors. After Tekla's little tragedy snatched her away from Villa Elsa, as will soon be seen, this dining out became the regular event of the day.
On one of these occasions in the Schiller Garden the conversation fell once more on America. The subject had not been touched since the eruption over Yankee "pigs". It had lain dormant under the mesmeric effect of Jim Deming's appearance.
Gard gathered the following for his notebook. The Buchers maintained that, even if the Hohenzollerns were not wanted, they were necessary to hold Germany together. Otherwise she would split up into many impotent states and be at the mercy of the solidary races adjoining her. But who could not want the Hohenzollerns? They had made of Germany—really a small, poor country—a mighty power. Look at huge America, by contrast! She was weak, disorganized, aimless. She was the proverbial giant with few bones. The western half of the United States was still practically undeveloped, and yet it abounded in natural wealth.
Then there was the Monroe Doctrine. It was a baseless fiat for which there was no legal or moral justification—as arrogant a presumption as could be claimed of any edict of a Kaiser. The Buchers asserted that the Doctrine was a crime against humanity. It had kept, for a hundred years, South America and Central America indifferently civilized, miserably governed, their thin populations uneducated, thriftless, superstitious, bigoted. Said the Herr:
"If our Germany had had full access to that half hemisphere it would be in a full blaze of progress. It would be affording prosperous homes to untold millions of Europeans now packed together like sardines. The mines, forests, rich soils, grazing lands, would have long ago been completely opened up, tilled, occupied, for the benefit of man who is still, in the main, inadequately fed and clothed. We Germans can, admittedly, manufacture cheaper and better goods than anyone. We ought to be free in our way and by our own methods to supply those Americas with the necessities and comforts of civilization and make them rich and happy.
"Their mongrel races are poverty stricken, disease stricken, and often fighting among themselves. The United States does little for them. Nor will she let anyone else. She plays the dog in the manger to the detriment of the world. And this is because she is vain, timid and without plan. Is that logical, wise and serving mankind for the best? Were conditions reversed, would she herself favor such a backward, lagging programme?"
Kirtley admitted to himself that this was a very good and valid point of view for Germans. He recognized its general source, for the Buchers, in the Dresden newspapers. But he did not enter into argument. He had satisfied himself that argument with Teutons, who do not have open minds, who are obsessed by fixed ideas bored into them, can only end in unpleasantness—a row. He had come to Germany to learn. It would be defeating this purpose to air what notions he might have.
In Villa Elsa itself a good deal of the feasting in April and May was carried on in the garden where flowers and dogs completed the picture, together with much open-air singing accompanied by the piano up in the salon. Were it not for the musical cult, it would have been difficult, Gard had concluded, to live in this household. As Anderson said, music had in a degree tamed the German "beast" of the north and made it possible to get on with him at all. Music rather than woman, religion, or the ideal of social intercourse, had partly softened him.
The Bucher sons liked to come to table outdoors with spurs or side arms, and the Herr's favorite hunting equipment was often in evidence, recalling to him days of valiant sport. With their stiff and long strides they affected to be larger, greater, than other males. Supermen in the form of Goliaths! The women loved the sight of such warlike paraphernalia. Such things added zest to the joyous toast—Der Tag! But none of these heroes had yet killed anyone or anything, so far as Kirtley discovered.
In warm weather Villa Elsa did not relax in the matter of six daily repasts. Breakfast at half-past seven. Bread, slices of cold meat and something in addition, at eleven. Luncheon at one, hearty enough for a dinner. At half-past four helles beer and tea with Butterbrods. Dinner at seven. And on going to bed a fortifying supper of pigs' feet, sausage, cheese and other man-like delicacies, flooded with potations.
Gard had, after the months, adjusted himself somewhat to these conditions. He had become, he thought, more used to the German way of living. To get the best out of it, he realized that one must coarsen instead of refine the senses and aptitudes. Instincts should be strengthened, roughened, rather than checked or made more esthetic. The German puts a heavy hand on things. He takes big bites at existence. Thunderous might envelops and clouds his idea of perfection.