'Tacitus describes it so accurately that there can be no reasonable doubt.'
'Oh—Tacitus. I thought Klüver had something to do with Charlotte. Where is Charlotte?'
'Conceive the procession of the goddess Nerthus, or Hertha, mother of the earth, passing through these sacred groves on the way to bless her children. Her car is covered, so that no eye shall behold her. The priest alone, walking by the side, is permitted to touch it. Wherever she passes holyday is kept. Arms are laid aside. Peace reigns absolute. No man may seek to slay his brother while she who blesses all alike is passing among her children. Then, when she has once more been carried to her temple, in this water thou here seest, in this very lake, her car and its draperies are cleansed by slaves, who, after performing their office, are themselves thrown into the water and left to perish; for they had laid hands on that which was holy, and even to-day, when we are half-hearted in the defence of our adorations and rarely set up altars in our souls, that is a dangerous thing to do.'
'Dear Professor,' I said, 'it is perfectly sweet of you to tell me about the goddess Nerthus, but would you mind, before you go any further, telling me where Charlotte is? When I last saw you you were whirling after her in a waggonette. Did you ever catch her?'
He looked at me a moment, then gave the bulging pocket of his waterproof a sounding slap. 'Little cousin,' he said, 'in me thou beholdest a dreamer of dreams, an unpractical greybeard, a venerable sheep's-head. Never, I suppose, shall I learn to remember, unaided, those occurrences that I fain would not forget. Therefore I assist myself by making notes of them to which I can refer. Unfortunately it seldom happens that I remember to refer. Thou, however, hast reminded me of them. I will now seek them out.' And he dragged different articles from the bulging pocket, laying them carefully on the moss beside him in tidy rows. But the fact of only one of the two handkerchiefs being there nearly put him off the track, so much and so long did he marvel where its fellow could be; also the sight of his extra pair of socks reminded him of the urgent need they were in of mending, and he broke off his search for the note-book to hold each up in turn to me and eloquently lament. 'Nein, nein, was fur Socken!' he moaned, with a final shake of the head as he spread them out too on the moss.
'Yes, they are very bad,' I agreed for the tenth time.
'Bad! They are emblematic.'
'Will you let me mend them? Or rather,' I hastily added, 'cause them to be mended?' For my aversion to needles is at least as great as Charlotte's.
'No, no—what is the use? There are cupboards full of socks like them in Bonn, skeletons of that which once was socks, mere outlines filled in with holes.'
'And all are emblematic?'