"They seem to have very pronounced tastes," I remarked. "Isn't it odd that some of them choose red and the others choose green, as if they belonged to a college team?"
"There is method in their madness," answered Mr. S—— laughingly. "A much more serious matter than a question of taste is at stake. Let me inform you immediately, my dear young lady, that those whom you see before you in red waistcoats are married men, while those in green are bachelors and in the market, so to speak. It strikes me as not a half-bad idea. Surely a girl can't innocently fall in love with the wrong man here."
"Unless she is color-blind," I added.
It is time for supper, and as Mrs. S—— has promised us a real American meal I don't want to risk being a second behindhand. No one can realize what that means—a real American meal—unless one has been living for four months on a German pension diet. Why, after so many foreign menus, I feel like the poor soul who "near a thousand tables pined and wanted food." Yesterday we actually had muffins for breakfast. Think of that when one is living in a country where the mere hint of hot bread or ice water calls forth the remark, "I do not see why all you Americans don't die of indigestion."
I can't get it out of my head that the officer I met on the Promenade this morning was Lieutenant Blum. He passed by with a number of other officers and several showily dressed women, all talking and laughing loudly. It is quite possible that he might have come down here on leave, but hardly probable under the circumstances. I did not get a full look at his face. It was the swaggering walk and the little fat hand raised to salute a brother officer that made me start and look again. By that time he had almost passed. Nonsense! Probably this very minute he is at the pension accepting a cup of tea from Fräulein Hartmann's slender hands, while Frau von Waldfel from behind the urn regards him with admiring glances, for of course the Fräulein is not allowed to see him alone. That would be a frightful breach of etiquette. Well, I will let you know when I return. For her sake, I rather hope I was mistaken.
Innsbruck, January 3.
Yesterday we regretfully left Meran, but the memory of our delightful stay there will long haunt us, and we are living in hopes of another visit to this earthly paradise. We reached Innsbruck at three o'clock, and by four found ourselves here, in this most fascinating of houses—for, Cecilia, we are actually living, eating, sleeping in a castle, a real, bona fide castle, once the hunting lodge of the Emperor Maximilian. I see you start and your eyes glow. "A fig for music!" you say; "Let me live in your castle." Yes, you who so revel in mediævalism, to whom the glimpse of faded tapestries and dulled armor is as so much wine, would surely be in your element here.
How this former resort of knights and retainers sank to the materialistic, twentieth-century level of a pension I have not yet learned, nor cared to. All I know is that the grand old dining-room, hung with ancient portraits of the royal house, still remains; that the carved balconies with their worn railings overlooking the rushing stream of the Inn, the narrow winding corridors, the high diamond-paned windows, the picturesque terrace, the goblets, beakers, and trophies of the hunt are yet here—decaying relics of a brilliant past.
This morning I discovered the crowning feature beneath this most enchanting of roof-trees. Leaving Mütterchen to toast her feet by the fire, I went in search of a book in the library. In the many twistings and turnings of the corridors I lost my way. At length I found myself at the top of a short flight of steps, and thinking this was only another way to the library, I walked down them and along the hall. A worn door was at the end. I pushed it open and entered. For a moment the darkness of the place blinded me, coming as I had from the brightness of the outer house. Then I saw more clearly there were people, yes, actual, live people, kneeling on the stones and telling their beads within touch of my hand. No one noticed me as I stood by the door. As I looked about me I saw that I was in a chapel all of stone. Before me was an altar decorated garishly with paper flowers. The light of the sacrament burned dimly above, and cast a shadow on the rough crucifix hanging near. A few rays of sunlight sifting in through the high window at the farther end of the room sent a shattered shaft across the heads of the peasants, who, absorbed in prayer, made no movement save to slip their beads along their rosaries. The suddenness of the change, the sense of awe in coming upon this one room, this one place set aside as a shrine in the very midst of a busy household, was startling. I felt myself an intruder, and noiselessly slipped away.
Upon inquiry at luncheon I discovered that it is the regular custom on fête days for the people of the village to climb up the hill and attend mass where the ruler of their fathers was wont to worship. On a second visit I discovered that on the right, just after entering the chapel, is a tiny square room which at a first glance looks like a cell. In the rough stones of the wall a square hole is cut, and beneath it is a bench to kneel upon. This place was the private oratory of the Emperor, and here he used to attend mass, receiving the sacrament through the orifice in the stones.