She did not like the subject at all. Only her respect for me made her answer.
'Bettler, Lumpen, und Taugenichtse!' I said cheerfully.
'And men who are out of work, and are going back to their own parish,' she said stiffly.
So we talked a little, and I too went to bed.
'Gute Nacht, Frau Wirtin.'
'Gute Nacht, mein Herr.'
So I went up more and more stone stairs, attended by the young woman. It was a great, lofty, old deserted house, with many drab doors.
At last, in the distant topmost floor, I had my bedroom, with two beds and bare floor and scant furniture. I looked down at the river far below, at the covered bridge, at the far lights on the hill above, opposite. Strange to be here in this lost, forgotten place, sleeping under the roof with tramps and beggars. I debated whether they would steal my boots if I put them out. But I risked it. The door-latch made a loud noise on the deserted landing, everywhere felt abandoned, forgotten. I wondered where the eight tramps and beggars were asleep. There was no way of securing the door. But somehow I felt that, if I were destined to be robbed or murdered, it would not be by tramps and beggars. So I blew out the candle and lay under the big feather bed, listening to the running and whispering of the medieval Rhine.
And when I waked up again it was sunny, it was morning on the hill opposite, though the river deep below ran in shadow.
The tramps and beggars were all gone: they must be cleared out by seven o'clock in the morning. So I had the inn to myself, I, and the landlady, and the serving-woman. Everywhere was very clean, full of the German morning energy and brightness, which is so different from the Latin morning. The Italians are dead and torpid first thing, the Germans are energetic and cheerful.