Feiertage, or holidays for servants in Germany, are a great annoyance to the order of domestic life. They are so importunant in their demands, and so obstinately disagreeable if not gratified, that it is better for the family to go to the restaurant for dinner and “eat bitter herbs where there is peace,” than to remain at home for “a stalled ox,” with angry servants to serve it. While they demand so much for themselves, they are equally disappointed if the herrschaften do not celebrate every birthday of their own. The extra work is no consideration, and by touching little ways they show their pleasure when extra company is expected. Bouquets are placed on the coffee table by the plate of the member of the family whose birthday has arrived; a cake, with the number of candles to indicate the age of the person is found burning, and Frederika and August have broad smiles on their faces as they come in and rattle off some poetry which they have committed to memory for the occasion, wishing the person whose birthday they are celebrating glück and heil.
Dinner parties are the most frequent and most formal entertainments in Germany. They are stereotyped, but the type belongs purely to Germany. When the ladies enter the room, after the introductions they are invited to be seated on the sofa and chairs of the “dress-circle” which we have described. The gentlemen stand around the fair ones, bending or breaking their backs in the effort to talk, or the more unconcerned stand off in groups, learning from the hostess at the earliest moment which ladies they are to escort to the table. The seat on the sofa is the seat of honor, and if a lady of inferior rank has arrived first and occupied that place, she rises immediately and resigns it on seeing her superior enter the room; so that a captain’s wife will offer the seat to a major’s wife, and a major’s wife to a general’s wife, and so on. The white-gloved diener throws open the doors of the dining-room ten minutes after the arrival of the guests, and the guests have the privilege of speaking to each other at the table if an introduction has failed in any case in the salon. The dinner is served entirely from the buffet; the snowy damask, flowers and glass are only presented upon the table for the guests to feast their eyes upon. The meats are all carved in the kitchen, and handed around by the servants. A good menu resembles the French taste and order somewhat, although a discerning eye will detect the German element in the following:
Bouillon (consommé).
Caviar (caviare).
Lobster.
Salmon du Rhin.
Turbot d’Ostende.
Poulets Santés aux Truffes.
Pâté de Foie Gras.
Filet de Bœuf Garni, Remouladen Sauce.
| Rehbraten, | } | Salad Compotes. |
| Petit Pois, |
Butter und Käse und Radieschen, mit Pumpernickel.
Pudding d’Orange.
Dessert.
Café et Liqueurs.
There is much leisure, much conversation, and much “toasting,” at a German dinner. Instead of the ladies retiring when the cigars and coffee are served, as they do in England, the gentlemen and ladies leave the table at the same time, and upon entering the salon each guest goes to the host and hostess and offers his or her hand, saying in the most gracious manner, “gesegnete malzeit.” The guests all shake hands with each other and repeat the same, and then the gentlemen go into the library to smoke, and coffee is taken to them, as it is also brought to the ladies in the salon. The German hostess does not dress for her dinner parties as much as the English women. She is never décolleté—generally appears in light or black silk, square neck and half sleeves, with long white gloves. When the hour for departure comes, the diener goes down to the street corner, orders a droschke (cab) for those who have not private carriages, for one mark (twenty-five cents), the old kutcher will drive away the happy or weary guest, and the diener returns with a bright countenance and full pocket, having received from each guest in the corridor below enough “five silver groschens” to take Frederika to twenty concerts, and buy as many glasses of beer as they want. And so goes life in the “Vaterland!”
[THE VALUE OF GOOD FOOD.]
The food which you give to your body keeps it for long years unwasted and unworn, besides giving it the power by which it works and moves. The food, to you, is maintenance as well as strength. You do not destroy yourself by the labor you get through.
The bread and meat which you eat, first get changed into the substance of your body; actually become flesh and blood; then as flesh and blood they perform a certain amount of useful labor. Like the iron of the steam engine, they are worn away by the work; but that is not of any real consequence, because fresh food will make fresh flesh and blood, capable of doing fresh work. You therefore are fed, not only that you may be able to work, but also that you may be kept in repair while you are working, at least during some three-score years and ten.