While this was going on, the landlord and I were keeping up an animated conversation, of which I remember nothing more than that it turned chiefly upon the state of his own family and affairs, and tended to impress me with becoming notions of his dignity. Indeed, I may state, once for all, that the landlord of a German inn, whether it be an hotel in a capital, or like this at Marchovides, a beer-shop in a remote village, is in his own eyes a person of very considerable importance. While his wife, poor soul, performs all the menial offices about you, which the domestics either cannot, or are not expected to perform, the host himself is content to keep you in talk, which he not unfrequently accomplishes by sitting down beside you, and helping you to discuss your wine or beer. Nor does it inflict the slightest wound upon your dignity, whatever your station in life may be, to fall in with his humours. If you cut him short, you may miss the opportunity of learning something which you could have wished to learn, and you are sure to suffer from the diminished attention which is shown to you ever after. If you indulge him, you may be bored for a while, it is true; but you have the satisfaction of reflecting, that you neither wounded a private man's feelings, nor offered wanton outrage to the customs of a community.
Like my boy I was by this time getting tired and sleepy; and I cast sundry wishful glances towards the heap of straw. The landlord understood my situation, and hastened to assure me that we should have the whole of the chamber to ourselves, and that if I would lie down, the place should be cleared for us in a quarter of an hour. "For, to tell you the truth," cried he, "we all sleep, my wife, and I, and the children, and these wenches, in a little chamber beyond; the whole house, large as you justly observed that it was, being occupied, either as store-rooms for flour, or with the machinery of the mill." I begged my friend not to put his household to the smallest inconvenience on my account, and lying down beside my companion, closed my eyes.
I soon found, however, that sleep was out of the question. The temperature of the apartment could not be less than a hundred degrees, and there were so many dim lights and strange figures passing to and fro, that all my efforts to abstract myself from them proved fruitless. I therefore opened my eyes again, and lay to observe the issue. In a short time landlord, landlady, and children withdrew. Then followed a sort of clearing-up of odds and ends by the maidens, and last of all a washing of feet and legs. This latter operation amused me exceedingly, and I could not resist the inclination which I felt of complimenting the lasses on their fair proportions. But they did not on that account lower their drapery a jot. On the contrary they laughed heartily, and chatted to me all the time their ablutions went forward, and wished me a sound sleep as soon as they were finished. As they carried with them the last of the torches, their wish was, in some measure, accomplished; for my eyes, after repeated efforts, closed of their own accord, and were not opened again, except during feverish and brief intervals, till five o'clock next morning.
CHAPTER V.
MARCH RENEWED. SCENERY MORE AND MORE GRAND. A POPULATION OF WEAVERS. HOCHSTADT. THE ISER. MAGNIFICENT RIVER, AND CAPITAL TROUTING. STARKENBACH. EXTREME KINDNESS OF THE INHABITANTS. CARRIED TO THE CHANCELLOR'S HOUSE. FISH THE ISER AGAIN. THE EFFECT OF MY SPORT ON A RELIGIOUS PROCESSION. SUPPER AT THE HIGH BAILIFF'S. GAME AT CHESS. TAKE LEAVE OF OUR KIND HOSTS WITH MUTUAL REGRET.
Our toilet this morning was very speedily completed. A dip of the whole head into a basin of water, and a hasty and imperfect rinse of the hands; these, with the application of tooth-brush, hair-brush, and razor, to their respective departments, put us in marching order; and coffee being served without delay, by six we were en route. Hoen Elbe, not far from the fountain of the mighty Elbe, was our proposed point. But
The best laid schemes of mice and men,
Gang aft awry,
and Hoen Elbe we were destined never to behold.