Madam Willard. Josiah Flynt's Grandmother
On leaving Berlin we resolved to go as far as our allowance would permit, into the Tyrol if possible, and we thought that our mileage could be prodigiously increased if we drank water with our meals, and "looked the other way" when more than five pfennigs was wanted as Trinkgeld. The Norwegian never once swerved in living up to this programme, but I fell from grace at times. The looks and "faces" that we got from guides, palace lackeys and waiters were specimens that, could we have drawn them, would make a very interesting gallery to look over to-day. But, alas! neither one of us could sketch, all that we have now is the remembrance. During the six weeks or more that we traveled we saw disappointment, distrust, hatred and pugnaciousness in all the different shades and colorings which the German countenance is equal to. The Norwegian said that he enjoyed such sights, but there were moments when I begged off, and tipped as I saw fit. It made no difference to the Norwegian, however, whether the service rendered was a two-hour chaperoning through a great castle, or a mere response to a question. Five pfennigs remained his limit in the tipping line to the end, and I doubt whether his entire bill on this score came to over three marks. His non-alcoholic régime nearly got us into serious trouble in Nürnberg. As had been our custom in other towns, we had selected a modest restaurant at the noon hour, and called for the regular meal. Although we did not order beer, it was served to us, but left untouched. When we came to pay our reckoning we called the waiter's attention to the beer item, saying that we would not pay it as the beer had not been asked for. Such a hubbub and pow-wowing as then began I have never seen over two glasses of beer. The proprietor came, the other waiters also, and even some of the guests labored with us in the matter.
"But it is the custom, Meine Herren," the landlord kept saying, to all of which the Norwegian returned a determined "No." It might or might not be the custom, and whether it was or not, did not make a particle of difference; he was not going to pay for something that he had neither wanted nor asked for.
The upshot of the arguing was that we picked up our grips and started to leave. The burly proprietor snatched my bag away from me in the hallway. The Norwegian sprang at him with an oath—the first and last I ever heard him use.
"Damn you!" he hissed through his teeth. "I'll break every bone in your body," and I think he would have fulfilled the contract had the proprietor given him a chance. The latter dropped my bag, and fled back into the restaurant for reinforcements. But, by the time he was ready for war again, we were in the street, and the landlord contented himself with calling us swindlers and pigs. I make no doubt that later there was a protracted discussion in the restaurant about the matter, and that for many a day afterward the Starumgäste, who had witnessed the affair, made beery conjectures as to our nationality and education. Whatever their final decision may have been, the Norwegian had carried his point. Alone, I doubt whether my independence would have been so assertive, but I was glad at the time to have witnessed a successful revolt against the tyrannical German Getränkezwang.
What Ibsen, whom we saw in his home a few days later, would have said to this episode, is hard to conjecture. Very possibly he might have told us that we were in the wrong in going to such a place, that we should have sought out a vegetarian eating-place—the teetotaler's refuge, when the Bierzwang is to be avoided. He very frankly told us, however, what he thought of Prohibition as a cure-all for the liquor traffic problem. The Norwegian had asked his opinion in the matter and he got it. This is about what Ibsen said:
"You can't make people good by law. Only that which a man does of his own free will and because he knows that it is the right thing to do, counts in this world. Legislating about morals is at best a sorry makeshift. Men will have to learn to legislate for themselves without any state interference, before human conduct is on a right basis."
This deliverance on the part of Ibsen came in its turn with other topics on which he expressed himself during our interview with him. We had called at his home at the suggested hour—eleven—and had been immediately shown into the parlor, I think it was. Pretty soon Ibsen strolled in. I should have recognized him without trouble anywhere. The long, defiant hair pushed back from his forehead, the silky side whiskers, the inevitable spectacles, the tightly closed lips, the long coat—these things had all been brought out prominently in his photographs, and were unmistakable. At the time he was the most famous literary man I had ever met, and he was easily the most talked about dramatist in Europe. I was much impressed by this fact, and for the moment probably looked at him as if it was the last chance to see a great public character that I was to have. The Norwegian took the event more calmly, walking up to Ibsen with his great hand outstretched as if to an older brother. The two men looked each other well in the eyes—their eyes were strikingly similar in color and shape—passed greetings in Norwegian, and then I was introduced.
"And what is it that you want?" Ibsen asked bluntly enough, motioning to the sofa, he himself taking a chair. From his manner and curtness of speech he might have been taken for a doctor during calling hours. He was friendly after a fashion, but the fashion was as if he had long since finished with making intimate acquaintances, and henceforth meant to hold the world at a distance. He looked "business" to the last degree.
As the conversation progressed he thawed a little, and was not quite so reserved. But throughout our two visits with him—there was a second call on the next day—he at least answered questions as if he were on the witness stand, and had been cautioned by his counsel not to overstate things.