"Oui, et nous lirons Heine ensemble; tiens, à propos! regarde le nom de la rue qui fait le coin! Bolker Strasse! c'est là qu'il est né, le pauvre Heine! Ôte ton chapeau!"
(Barty nearly always spoke French with Daphne, as he did with my sister and me, and said "thee and thou.")
They found a furnished house that suited them in the Schadow Strasse, opposite Geissler's, where for two hours every Thursday and Sunday afternoon you might sit for sixpence in a pretty garden and drink coffee, beer, or Maitrank, and listen to lovely music, and dance in the evening under cover to strains of Strauss, Lanner, and Gungl, and other heavenly waltz‑makers! With all their faults, they know how to make the best of their lives, these good Vaterlanders, and how to dance, and especially how to make music—and also how to fight! So we won't quarrel with them, after all!
Barty found for himself a cheap bedroom, high up in an immense house tenanted by many painters—some of them English and some American. He never forgot the delight with which he awoke next morning and opened his window and saw the silver Rhine among the trees, and the fir‑clad hills of Grafenberg, and heard the gay painter fellows singing as they dressed; and he called out to the good‑humored slavy in the garden below:
"Johanna, mein Frühstück, bitte!"
A phrase he had carefully rehearsed with Daphne the evening before.
And, to his delight and surprise, Johanna understood the mysterious jargon quite easily, and brought him what he wanted with the most good‑humored grin he had ever seen on a female face.
Coffee and a roll and a pat of butter.
First of all, he went to see Dr. Hasenclever at Riffrath, which was about half an hour by train, and then half an hour's walk—an immensely prosperous village, which owed its prosperity to the famous doctor, who attracted patients from all parts of the globe, even from America. The train that took Barty thither was full of them; for some chose to live in Düsseldorf.
The great man saw his patients on the ground‑floor of the König's Hotel, the principal hotel in Riffrath, the hall of which was always crowded with these afflicted ones—patiently waiting each his turn, or hers; and there Barty took his place at four in the afternoon; he had sent in his name at 10 A.M., and been told that he would be seen after four o'clock. Then he walked about the village, which was charming, with its gabled white houses, ornamented like the cottages in the Richter albums by black beams—and full of English, many of them with green shades or blue spectacles or a black patch over one eye; some of them being led, or picking their way by means of a stick, alas!