The Adventures of Elizabeth in Rügen

by Elizabeth Von Arnim

'Do not fall into abstractions then, dear Professor, at important moments,' I said; and inwardly rehearsed the eloquent pleadings with which I meant to shake Charlotte's soul when next I saw her.

We said good-bye where the wood ends and the white path goes out into the sun. 'Be sure you let me know when you meet Charlotte,' I said. 'I want particularly to speak to her. Something really important. Tell her so. And I have a letter for her if I can't see her. Don't forget I sleep at Glowe to-night. I'll telegraph where I stay to-morrow. Don't forget. Won't you be very nice and make notes of it?'

He promised, wished me Godspeed, kissed my hand, and turned back into the wood swinging his stick and humming gay little tunes; and I went on in the sun to Lohme.

There I bathed again, a delicious solitary bathe just as the woman was locking up for the day; and afterwards, when she had gone away up the cliff to her dinner, I sat on the empty beach in the sun and thought of all I was going to say to Charlotte. It interested me so much that I forgot I had meant to lunch at Lohme, and when I remembered it it was already time to go up and meet the carriage. It did not matter, as the midday meal is the best one to leave out, and Lohme is not the kind of place I would ever want to lunch in. The beach at the foot of the cliffs is quiet and pleasant, and from it you can see the misty headland of Arkona with its lighthouse, the northernmost point of the island, far away on the left. Lohme itself is a small group of hotels and lodging-houses on the top of low cliffs, very small and modest compared even to Binz and Sassnitz, which are not very big themselves, and much more difficult to get at. There is no railway nearer than Sassnitz, and the few steamers that stop there disgorge the tourist who wants to get out into a small boat and steam away leaving him to his fate, which is only a nice one on quite calm days. Safely on land he climbs up a shadeless zigzag path which must be beautiful in June, for the cliffs are thickly covered with wild-rose bushes, and at the top finds himself among the lodging-houses of Lohme. The only thing I saw when I got to the top that made me linger was a row of tubs filled with nasturtiums along the little terrace in front of the first hotel I passed. The way those nasturtiums blazed against the vast blue curtain of sea and sky that hung behind them, with no tree or bush anywhere near to shadow their fierce splendour, was a sight well worth coming to Lohme for. There is no shade anywhere at Lohme. It stands entirely exposed out in the open beyond the Stubbenkammer forest, and on a dull day must be dreary. It is, I imagine, a convenient place for quiet persons who do not wish to spend much, and the air is beautiful. In spite of the heat I felt as if it were the most bracing air I had yet come across on my journey.

The carriage was waiting just outside the empty, sunny little place, in a road that winds chalkily between undulating fields in the direction of Glowe. Gertrud's face wore a look of satisfaction as she got into her old seat beside me and took out her knitting. She had not been able to knit during those few dreadful days in which her place had been usurped, and she had bumped after us ignominiously in a cart; and how pleasant it was not to have the ceaseless rattle just behind. Yes; it became more and more clear that Charlotte ought to be in her own home with her husband. Her being there would undoubtedly promote the general peace. And why should she go about stirring people up and forcing them to be dogged by luggage carts?

The road wound higher through the cornfields, dwindling at last into a stony track. The country heaved away in ample undulations on either side. There were no trees, but so many flowers that even the ruts were blue with chickory. On the right, over the cornfields, lay the Baltic. I could still see Arkona in front of me on the dim edge of the world. Down at our feet stretched the calm silver of the Jasmunder Bodden, the biggest of those inland seas that hollow out the island into a mere frame; and a tongue of pine-forest, black and narrow, curved northwards between its pale waters and the vigorous blue of the sea. I stopped the carriage as I love to do in lonely places, and there was no sound but a faint whispering in the corn.

We drove down over stones between grassy banks to a tiny village with a very ancient church and the pleasing name of Bobbin. I looked wistfully up at the church on its mound as we passed below it. It was very old—six centuries the guide-book said—and fain would I have gone into it; but I knew it would be locked, and did not like to disturb the parson for the key. The parson himself came along the road at that moment, and he looked so kind, and his eye was so mild that I got out and inquired of him with what I hope was an engaging modesty whether the guide-book were correct about the six centuries. He was amiability itself. Not only, he said, was the church ancient, but interesting. Would I like to see it? 'Oh please.' Then would I come to the parsonage while he got the key? 'Oh thank you.'

The Bobbin parsonage is a delightful little house of the kind that I dream of for my declining years, with latticed windows and a vine. It stands in a garden so pretty, so full of narrow paths disappearing round corners, that I longed far more to be shown where they led to than to be shown the inside of the church. Several times I said things that ought to have resulted in my being taken along them, but the parson heeded not; his talk was and remained wholly church. A friendly dog lay among croquet hoops on the lawn, a pleasant, silent dog, who wagged his tail when I came round the corner and saw no reason why he should bark and sniff. No one else was to be seen. The house was so quiet it seemed asleep while I waited in the parlour. The parson took me down a little path to the church, talking amiably on the way. He was proud, he said, of his church, very proud on week-days; on Sundays so few people came to the services that his pride was quenched by the aspect of the empty seats. A bell began to toll as we reached the door. In answer to my inquiring look he said it was the Gebetglocke, the prayer-bell, and was rung three times a day, at eight, and twelve, and four, so that the scattered inhabitants of the lonely country-side, the sower in the field, the housewife among her pots, the fisherman on the Bodden, or over there, in quiet weather, on the sea, might hear it and join together spiritually at those hours in a common prayer. 'And do they?' I asked. He shrugged his shoulders and murmured of hopes.

It is the quaintest church. The vaulted chancel is the oldest part, and there is an altarpiece put there by the Swedish Field-Marshal Wrangel, who in the seventeenth century lived in a turreted Schloss near by that I had seen from the hills. A closed-in seat high up on the side of the chancel was where he sat; it has latticed windows and curiously-painted panels, with his arms in the middle panel and those of Prince Putbus, to whom the Schloss now belongs, on either side. The parson took me up into the gallery and showed me a picture of John the Baptist's head, just off, with Herodias trying to pull out its tongue. I said I thought it nasty, and he told me it had been moved up there because the lady downstairs over whose head it used to hang was made ill by it every Sunday. Had the parishioners up in the gallery thicker skins, I asked? But there was no question of skins, because the congregation never overflowed into the galleries. There is another picture up there, the Supper at Emmaus, with the Scripture account written underneath in Latin. The parson read this aloud, and his eyes, otherwise so mild, woke into gleams of enthusiasm. It sounded very dignified and compressed to ears accustomed to Luther's lengthy rendering of the same thing. I remarked how beautiful it was, and with a pleased smile he at once read it again, and then translated it into Greek, lingering lovingly over each of the beautiful words. I sat listening in the cool of the dusty little gallery, gazing out at the summer fields and the glistening water of the Bodden through the open door. His gentle voice made a soft droning in the emptiness. A swallow came in and skimmed about anxiously, trying to get out again.

'The painted pulpit was also given by Wrangel,' said the parson, as we went downstairs.