‘I will only add that after some weeks of painful debility I was again restored to health, having tasted the full bitterness of death.’
CHAPTER XXIX. THE STRANGE GUEST
The Eil Wagen, into whose bowels I had committed myself on leaving Frankfort, rolled along for twenty-four hours before I could come to any determination as to whither I should go; for so is it that perfect liberty is sometimes rather an inconvenience, and a little despotism is now and then no bad thing; and at this moment I could have given a ten-gulden piece to any one who should have named my road, and settled my destination.
‘Where are we?’ said I, at length, as we straggled, nine horses and all, into a great vaulted porte cochère.
‘At the “Koenig von Preussen,” mein Herr,’ said a yellow-haired waiter, who flourished a napkin about him in truly professional style.
‘Ah, very true; but in what town, city, or village, and in whose kingdom?’
‘Ach, du lieber Gott!’ exclaimed he, with his eyes opened to their fullest extent. ‘Where would you be but in the city of Hesse-Cassel, in the Grand-Duchy of Seiner Königlichen Hoheit——-’
‘Enough, more than enough! Let me have supper.’
The Speisesaal was crowded with travellers and townspeople as I entered; but the room was of great size, and a goodly table, amply provided, occupied the middle of it. Taking my place at this, I went ahead through the sliced shoe-leather, yclept beef, the Kalbs-braten and the Gurken-salat, and all the other indigestible abominations of that light meal a German takes before he lies down at night. The company were, with the exception of a few military men, of that nondescript class every German town abounds with—a large-headed, long-haired, plodding-looking generation, with huge side-pockets in their trousers, from one of which a cherry-wood pipe-stick is sure to project; civil, obliging, good sort of people they are, but by no means remarkable for intelligence or agreeability. But then, what mind could emerge from beneath twelve solid inches of beetroot and bouilli, and what brain could bear immersion in Bavarian beer?