From the upper windows of the principal house, I saw suspended festoons, or strings of apples cut in slices, and exposed to the sun to dry. A lad, smoking his pipe, was driving his mother’s cow to fetch grass from the valley. Women, with pails in their hands, were proceeding towards the spring for water; others were returning to their homes heavily laden with fagots, while several of their idle children were loitering about before their doors.
But, as I had still another dose of water to drink from the Pauline, I hastened to the brunnen, and having emptied my glass (which, like the outside of a bottle of iced water, was instantaneously covered by condensation with dew), I found that it was time to prepare myself (as I beg leave to prepare my reader) for that very lengthy ceremony—a German dinner.
[THE DINNER.]
During the fashionable season at Langen-Schwalbach, the dinner hour at all the Saals is one o'clock. From about noon scarcely a stranger is to be seen; but a few minutes before the bell strikes one, the town exhibits a picture curious enough, when it is contrasted with the simple costume of the villagers, and the wild-looking country which surrounds them. From all the hofs and lodging-houses, a set of demure, quiet-looking, well-dressed people are suddenly disgorged, who, at a sort of funeral pace, slowly advance towards the Allee Saal, the Goldene Kette, the Kaiser Saal, and one or two other houses, où l'on dîne. The ladies are not dressed in bonnets, but in caps, most of which are quiet; the rest being of those indescribable shapes which are to be seen in London or Paris. Whether the stiff-stand-up frippery of bright-red ribands was meant to represent a house on fire, or purgatory itself—whether those immense white ornaments were intended for reefs of coral or not—it is out of my department to guess—ladies’ caps being riddles only to be explained by themselves.
With no one to affront them—with no fine-powdered footman to attend them—with nothing but their appetites to direct them—and with their own quiet conduct to protect them—old ladies, young ladies, elderly gentlemen, and young ones, were seen slowly and silently picking their way over the rough pavement. There was no greediness in their looks; nor, as they proceeded, did they lick their lips, or show any other signs of possessing any appetite at all; they looked much more as if they were coming from a meal, than going to one: in short, they seemed to be thinking of anything in the dictionary but the word dinner. And when one contrasted or weighed the quietness of their demeanour, against the enormous quantity of provisions they were placidly about to consume, one could not help admitting that these Germans had certainly more self-possession, and could better muzzle their feelings, than many of the best-behaved people in the universe.
Seated at the table of the Allee Saal, I counted a hundred and eighty people at dinner in one room. To say, in a single word, whether the fare was good or bad, would be quite impossible, it being so completely different to anything ever met with in England.
To my simple taste, the cooking is most horrid; still there were now and then some dishes, particularly sweet ones, which I thought excellent. With respect to the made-dishes, of which there was a great variety, I beg to offer to the reader a formula I invented, which will teach him (should he ever come to Germany) what to expect. The simple rule is this:—let him taste the dish, and if it be not sour, he may be quite certain that it is greasy;—again, if it be not greasy, let him not eat thereof, for then it is sure to be sour. With regard to the order of the dishes, that, too, is unlike any thing which Mrs. Glasse ever thought of. After soup, which all over the world is the alpha of the gourmand’s alphabet, the barren meat from which the said soup has been extracted is produced. Of course it is dry, tasteless, withered-looking stuff, which a Grosvenor-square cat would not touch with its whisker; but this dish is always attended by a couple of satellites—the one a quantity of cucumbers dressed in vinegar, the other a black, greasy sauce; and if you dare to accept a piece of this flaccid beef, you are instantly thrown between Scylla and Charybdis; for so sure as you decline the indigestible cucumber, souse comes into your plate a deluge of the greasy sauce! After the company have eaten heavily of messes which it would be impossible to describe, in comes some nice salmon—then fowls—then puddings—then meat again—then stewed fruit; and after the English stranger has fallen back in his chair quite beaten, a leg of mutton majestically makes its appearance!
I dined just two days at the Saals, and then bade adieu to them for ever. Nothing which this world affords could induce me to feed in this gross manner. The pig, who lives in his sty, would have some excuse; but it is really quite shocking to see any other animal overpowering himself at mid-day with such a mixture and superabundance of food. Yet only think what a compliment all this is to the mineral waters of Langen-Schwalbach; for if people who come here and live in this way morning, noon, and night can, as I really believe they do, return to their homes in better health than they departed, how much more benefit ought any one to derive, who, maintaining a life of simplicity and temperance, would resolve to give them a fair trial! In short, if the cold iron waters of the Pauline can be of real service to a stomach full of vinegar and grease, how much more effectually ought they to tinker up and repair the inside of him who has sense enough to sue them in formâ pauperis.
Dr. Fenner was told that I had given up dining in public, as I preferred a single dish at home; and he was then asked, with a scrutinizing look, whether eating so much was not surely very bad for those who were drinking the waters? The poor doctor quietly shrugged up his shoulders,—silently looking at his shoes,—and what else could he have done? Himself an inhabitant of Langen-Schwalbach, of course he was obliged to feel the pulse of his own fellow-citizens, as well as that of the stranger; and into what a fever would he have thrown all the innkeepers—what a convulsion would he have occasioned in the village itself—were he to have presumed to prescribe temperance to those wealthy visiters by whose intemperance the community hoped to prosper! He might as well have gone into the fields to burn the crops, as thus wickedly to blight the golden harvest which Langen-Schwalbach had calculated on reaping during the short visit of its consumptive guests.