CHAPTER XXXVII. MY EXPLOSION AT THE TABLE D'HÔTE
I went the next morning to take leave of Harpar before starting, but found, to my astonishment, that he was already off! He had, I learned, hired a small carriage to convey him to Bregenz, and had set out before daybreak. I do not know why this should have annoyed me, but it did so, and set me a-thinking over the people whom Echstein in his “Erfahrungen,” says, are born to be dupes. “There is,” says he, “a race of men who are 'eingeborne Narren,'—'native numskulls,' one might say,—who muddy the streams of true benevolence by indiscriminating acts of kindness, and who, by always aiding the wrongdoer, make themselves accomplices of vice.” Could it be that I was in this barren category? Harpar had told me, the evening before, that he would not leave Lindau till his sprain was better, and now he was off, just as if, having no further occasion for me, he was glad to be rid of my companionship—just as if—I was beginning again to start another conjecture, when I bethought me that there is not a more deceptive formula in the whole cyclopaedia of delusion than that which opens with these same words, “just as if.” Rely upon it, amiable reader, that whenever you find yourself driven to explain a motive, trace a cause, or reconcile a discrepancy, by “just as if,” the chances are about seven to three you are wrong. If I was not in the bustle of paying my bill and strapping on my knapsack, I 'd convince you on this head; but, as the morning is a bright but mellow one of early autumn, and my path lies along the placid lake, waveless and still, with many a tinted tree reflected in its fair mirror, let us not think of knaves and rogues, but rather dwell on the pleasanter thought of all the good and grateful things which daily befall us in this same life of ours. I am full certain that almost all of us enter upon what is called the world in too combative a spirit We are too fond of dragon slaying, and rather than be disappointed of our sport, we 'd fall foul of a pet lamb, for want of a tiger. Call it self-delusion, credulity, what you will, it is a faith that makes life very livable, and, without it,
“We feel a light has left the world,
A nameless sort of treasure,
As though one pluck'd the crimson heart
From out the rose of pleasure.
I could forgive the fate that made
Me poor and young to-morrow,
To hare again the soul that played
So tenderly in sorrow,
So buoyantly in happiness.
Ay, I would brook deceiving,
And even the deceiver bless,
Just to go on believing!”
“Still,” thought I, “one ought to maintain self-respect; one should not willingly make himself a dupe.” And then I began to wish that Vaterchen had come up, and that Tinte-fleck was rushing towards me with tears in her eyes, and my money-bag in her hands. I wanted to forget them. I tried in a hundred ways to prevent them crossing my memory; but though there is a most artful system of artificial “mnemonics” invented by some one, the Lethal art has met no explorer, and no man has ever yet found out the way to shut the door against bygones. I believe it is scarcely more than five miles to Bregenz from Lindau, and yet I was almost as many hours on the road. I sat down, perhaps twenty times, lost in revery; indeed, I'm not very sure that I did n't take a sound sleep under a spreading willow, so that, when I reached the inn, the company was just going in to dinner at the table d'hôte. Simple and unpretentious as that board was, the company that graced it was certainly distinguished, being no less than the Austrian field-marshal in command of the district, and the officers of his staff. To English notions, it seemed very strange to see a nobleman of the highest rank, in the proudest state of Europe, seated at a dinner-table open to all comers, at a fraction less than one shilling a head, and where some of the government officials of the place daily came.
It was not without a certain sense of shame that I found myself in the long low chamber, in which about twenty officers were assembled, whose uniforms were all glittering with stars, medals, and crosses; in fact, to a weak-minded civilian like myself, they gave the impression of a group of heroes fresh come from all the triumphant glories of a campaign. Between the staff, which occupied one end of the long table, and the few townsfolk who sat at the other, there intervened a sort of frontier territory uninhabited; and it was here that the waiter located me,—an object of observation and remark to each. Resolving to learn how I was treated by my critics, I addressed the waiter in the very worst French, and protested my utter ignorance of German. I had promised myself much amusement from this expedient, but was doomed to a severe disappointment,—the officers coolly setting me down for a servant, while the townspeople pronounced me a pedler; and when these judgments had been recorded, instead of entering upon a psychological examination of my nature, temperament, and individuality, they never noticed me any more. I felt hurt at this, more, indeed, for their sakes than my own, since I bethought me of the false impression that is current of this people throughout Europe, where they have the reputation of philosophers deeply engaged in researches into character, minute anatomists of human thought and man's affections; “and yet,” muttered I, “they can sit at table with one of the most remarkable of men, and be as ignorant of all about him as the husbandman who toils at his daily labor is of the mineral treasures that lie buried down beneath him.”
“I will read them a lesson,” thought I. “They shall see that in the humble guise of foot-traveller it may be the pleasure of men of rank and station to journey.” The townsfolk, when the dessert made its appearance, rose to take their departure, each before he left the room making a profound obeisance to the general, and then another but less lowly act of homage to the staff, showing by this that strangers were expected to withdraw, while the military guests sat over their wine. Indeed, a very significant look from the last person who left the room conveyed to me the etiquette of the place. I was delighted at this,—it was the very opportunity I longed for; and so, with a clink of my knife against my wine-glass, the substitute for a bell in use amongst humble hostels, I summoned the waiter, and asked for his list of wines. I saw that my act had created some astonishment amongst the others, but it excited nothing more, and now they had all lighted their pipes, and sat smoking away quite regardless of my presence. I had ordered a flask of Steinberger at four florins, and given most special directions that my glass should have a “roped rim,” and be of a tender green tint, but not too deep to spoil the color of the wine.
My admonitions were given aloud, and in a tone of command; but I perceived that they failed to create any impression upon my moustached neighbors. I might have ordered nectar or hypocras, for all that they seemed to care about me. I raked up in memory all the impertinent and insolent things Henri Heine had ever said of Austria; I bethought me how they tyrannized in the various provinces of their scattered empire, and how they were hated by Hun, Slavac, and Italian; I revelled in those slashing leading articles that used to show up the great but bankrupt bully, and I only wished I was “own correspondent” to something at home to give my impressions of “Austria and her military system.”
Little as you think of that pale sad-looking stranger, who sits sipping his wine in solitude at the foot of the table, he is about to transmit yourselves and your country to a remote posterity. “Ay!” muttered I, “to be remembered when the Danube will be a choked-up rivulet, and the park of Schônbrunn a prairie for the buffalo.” I am not exactly aware how or why these changes were to have occurred, but Lord Macaulay's New Zealander might have originated them.
While I thus mused and brooded, the tramp of four horses came clattering down the street, and soon after swept into the arched doorway of the inn with a rolling and thunderous sound.
“Here he comes; here he is at last! said a young officer, who had rushed in haste to the window; and at the announcement a very palpable sentiment of satisfaction seemed to spread itself through the company, even to the grim old field-marshal, who took his pipe from his mouth to say,—