If any one imagines for an instant that all this very valuable information was obtained without much effort, and heroic endurance of many evils, he is entirely mistaken. At such times, if you wish to see anything, you must either be in and of the multitude, or you must look from a window, which affords you only one point of view and curbs your freedom, and doesn't allow you to run from place to place in time to see everything there is to be seen. At these dramas enacted by high-born artists for the purpose of touching the hearts and awakening the zeal of the lowly, there are no private boxes and reserved seats. We scorned the trammelling window, and chose to mingle with our fellow-men, with our fellow-butcher-and-baker boys, as well as with little knots of intrepid, amused women, like ourselves. Upon the whole, we enjoyed it. We made studies of human nature, and of policeman nature, which is often not by any means human, but, as Sam Weller says, “on the contrary quite the reverse.”
Policemen everywhere are glorious, awe-inspiring creatures. German policemen are particularly magnificent. They wear such gay coats, and are often such imposing, big blond men, it is impossible to look at them without admiration. The way they thrust and push when they want to keep a crowd within certain bounds is as ruthless as if they were huge automata, with great far-reaching limbs that strike out and hew down when the machinery is wound up. Practically they are successful; the only trouble is, it is the innocent ones in front, pushed by the pressure of the crowd behind, who are thrust back savagely, with a stern “Zurück!” by the mighty men, and who are treated like dumb, driven cattle. A friend who is always dauntless and always humorous, feeling the weight of a heavy hand on her shoulder, and hearing a tempestuous ejaculation in her ear, calmly looked the autocrat in the face, and with gentle gravity said, “Don't be so cross!” at which the great being actually smiled.
After that we thought perhaps these petty officials dressed in a little brief authority only put on their crossness with their uniforms. Perhaps at home with their wives and blue-eyed babies they may be quite docile. They may even, here and there,—delicious idea!—be henpecked!
This was the sentiment expressed by a loyal German at the close of the day: “Lord, now lettest thou thy servant depart in peace, for I have seen my Kaiser.”
[pg!203]
THE CANNSTADT VOLKSFEST.
It rained, in the first place, which was very inconsiderate of it; rained on the race-course, on the school-girls in white muslin with wreaths of flowers on their heads, on the peasants in their distinctive dresses, making their full, white sleeves limp and shapeless, spotting the scarlet-and-blue bodices of the maidens from the Steinlach Thal and Black Forest; rained on the monkey-shows and negro minstrels, the Punch and Judys, the beer-shops, booths, and benches, on the country people in their best clothes, the city people in their worst, upon all that goes to make up the Cannstadt Volksfest,—in short, upon the just and the unjust.
It was a beautiful experience to sit there in a waterproof, holding an umbrella and seeing thousands of other people in waterproofs holding umbrellas, on the raised circular seats that extended round the whole great race-course, while, occupying the entire space, within the track was a mass of men standing, also with umbrellas; but on account of our elevated position we could see very little of the men, while the umbrella effect was gigantic. It was like innumerable giant black mushrooms growing in a bog.
And all the time the band opposite the empty royal pavilion played away with great energy, while without this enclosure for the races, among the surrounding booths and “shows,” country people were plunging ankle-deep in the mud, and the violins that call the world to see the Fat Woman, the accordion which the trained-dog man plays, the turbulent orchestras of the small circuses, and the siren tones of the girl who sings for the snake-charmer, united to make an ineffable Pandemonium.
This Volksfest was founded fifty years ago by Wilhelm, father of the present king of Würtemberg, who did much to promote the agricultural interests of his people, taking great personal interest in everything appertaining to farming, stock, etc., giving prizes with his own hand for the best vegetables and fruits, the largest, finest cattle,—for excellence, in fact, in any department. Since then, it is an established national event, that happens every year as regularly as September comes; always attracting many foreigners, to whom it is amusing and interesting, in the rare opportunities it affords of seeing many distinctive features of Suabian peasant-life. It should be visited with thick boots and no nerves, for the ground is as if the cattle upon a thousand hills had come down in a great rage and trampled it into pits and quagmires, and the noise is—utterly indescribable. To say that the Volksfest combines the peculiar attractions of the Fourth of July, St. Patrick's Day, a State Fair, and Barnum, gives, perhaps, as correct a notion of the powwow that reigns supreme, as any elaborate description that might be made.