The Tyrol, especially in the vicinity of the Achensee, is absolutely priest-ridden, every one, from the peasants to the gentry, contributing, and the best in the land going into their larders and their coffers.
We were indebted to the overfeeding of these fat priests for a delicacy which was then unknown to me—broiled goose liver with onions. It is a German dish, but a rarity not to be had in even all first-class hotels in Germany and Austria. When you have it, it is announced to the guests personally, with something the same air as if the proprietor should say:
"Madame, the Emperor and his suite will dine at this hotel to-night, at eight."
Goose liver may not sound tempting to some, but as I saw it that night, cooked by the old mother of Fräulein Therese, a luscious white meat delicately browned and smothered in onions as we smother a steak, and so delicate that it melted in the mouth like an aspic jelly, it was one of the most delicious dishes I ever essayed.
As we were eating our dessert, a gemischtes compote so rich that it nearly sent us to our eternal rest, Fräulein Therese came and asked us to have our coffee in the kitchen. A long, low-ceiled room, three steps below the level of the ground, with seats against the wall, and a raised platform on each side, with little tables for coffee, adjoined the hotel. This room at one time perhaps had been a real kitchen, where cooking was done. Now it was turned into a place of recreation. Around the walls were seated a variegated, almost motley, array of men and women, from the dear old fat mother of Fräulein Therese and the three boys, the daughters-in-law, the granddaughters, to a picturesque old man, whose coal-black beard fell almost to his waist, our friend the "shipmaster," and the band of four musicians, all dressed in the Tyrolese costume, with the exception of the women of the Rhiner family.
Some thirty years ago the father Rhiner, now dead and gone, the mother, whose voice is still a wonder, Fräulein Therese, and the three boys journeyed to London to sing before the Queen at her jubilee. This made them famous, and was the beginning of the Fräulein's love story, which was told me in London by Lady J., a relative of the duke who so nearly wrecked the Fräulein's life.
By telling the Fräulein that I knew Lady J., I induced her to repeat the story to me.
"It was in St. Petersburg that I saw him for the second time. He was then the Marquis of B., in the suite of the Prince of Wales, when he went to pay a visit to the Tzar's court. The marquis loved me, as I thought sincerely. I was very young, and I believed him. After he went back to London, he arranged for me to sing in grand opera; they tell me that it was a lie; that I could not have sung in opera; that he only wanted to get me away from my family. They tell me that it was a wise thing, directed by God, that I should drop the letter in which he gave me directions how to meet him, that my sister-in-law should find it, and that my brother should overtake me at the train, and prevent my going. I do not know. I only know that I have always loved him. Even after he became the Duke of M., and married one of your countrywomen, I still loved him. Now he is dead, and I love him still. See, I wear this black ribbon always in his memory. Yet they tell me that he lied to me, and that it was for the best. Well, we are all in God's hands." And she sighed deeply.
She drew her zither toward her, and began to play as I never heard that simple little instrument played before. Then one by one they began to sing. It was amazing how little of the freshness of their voices has been lost during all this time. I never heard such singing. A bass voice which would have graced the Tzar's choir, came booming from the old man with the black beard, as they yodeled and sang and sang and yodeled again, until their little audience went quite wild with delight.
Bee and Mrs. Jimmie were beginning to forgive us. Jimmie dashed over to Fräulein Therese, at Bee's request, to ask who the old man was.