[CHAPTER V.]
ES IST NUR EIN KINDLEIN—ONLY A CHILD.
What wert thou then? A child most infantine,
Yet wandering far beyond that innocent age
In all but its sweet looks and mien divine?
Lights were glittering in the hotel at Grindelwald—something more than the paltry allowance of which Arthur had feelingly complained was being displayed, for, late as it was in the season, there had been arrivals, and the landlord's heart was light.
He could not understand this fancy of people for keen winds, frost and snow, but it suited his purpose and he rejoiced. The dull season would be rendered shorter, and his winter expenses proportionately lightened. In the fulness of his heart he made a great display in the way of illumination, lighted the large stove in the small saloon, and did all he could to make his friends forget the dreariness and desolation that reigned outside.
For the evening that had fallen with a certain calm, autumnal beauty had deepened into a blustering, stormy night. The wind whistled among the hills, the loose snow-drifts were driven blindingly hither and thither; it would not have been a pleasant night to face. Decidedly, the fireside, or, as at Grindelwald, the stove-corner, was the most comfortable resting-place. And so the new arrivals, two young Englishmen and a German (the very same, by the bye, who had annoyed Arthur by his vigorous "wunderschöns" and his dutiful "enthousiasmus" in the course of their journey across the St. Gothard), appeared to think.
As the household was principally composed of men, sundry indulgences were permitted, and unchecked they discussed their cigars and drank their "lager bier" in the saloon, gathered together in a close circle by the stove, their feet filling up by turns its narrow opening. But apparently every one in the hotel was not of the same mind. Several times in the course of one short hour the Englishmen were driven to indulge in strong language, and the German to splutter and fume, by the inroad of a blast of chill air.
The hotel had not been constructed in such a way as to exclude draughts, and whenever the outer door was opened the cold air sweeping up the passages made itself felt in the saloon.
"Donner wetter!" said the German at last as the blast of cold air came in a continued stream, "I must find out all about zis. What can, zen, be ze meaning of it?"