There was something to my mind so very novel in bathing in broth, that I resolved to try the experiment, particularly as it was the only means I had of following the crowd. Accordingly, retiring to my room, in a minute or two I also, in my slippers and black dressing-gown, was to be seen, staff in hand, mournfully walking down the long passage, as slowly and as gravely as if I had been in such a procession all my life. An infirm elderly lady was just before me—some lighter-sounding footsteps were behind me—but without raising our eyes from the ground, we all moved on just as if we had been corpses gliding or migrating from one churchyard to another.
After descending a long well-staircase, I came to a door, which I no sooner opened, than, of its own accord, it slammed after me exactly as, five seconds before, it had closed upon the old lady who had preceded me, and I now found myself in an immense building, half filled with steam.
A narrow passage or aisle conducted me down the middle, on each side of me there being a series of doors opening into the baths, which, to my very great astonishment, I observed, were all open at top, being separated from each other by merely a half-inch boarded partition, not seven feet high!
Into several of these cells there was literally nothing but the steam to prevent people in the houses of the opposite side of the street from looking—a very tall man in one bath could hardly help peeping into the next, and in the roof or loft above the ceiling there were several loop-holes, through which any one might have had a bird’s-eye view of the whole unfledged scene. The arrangement, or rather want of arrangement, was altogether most astonishing; and as I walked down the passage, my first exclamation to myself was, “Well, thank Heaven, this would not do in England!” To this remark the Germans would of course say, that low, half-inch scantling is quite sufficient among well-bred people, whatever coarser protection might be requisite among us English; but though this argument may sound triumphant, yet delicacy is a subject which is not fit for noisy discussion. Like the bloom on fruit, it is a subject that does not bear touching; and if people of their own accord do not feel that the scene I have described is indelicate, it is quite impossible to prove it to them, and therefore “the less said is the soonest mended.”
As I was standing in the long passage, occupying myself with the above reflections, a nice, healthy old woman, opening a door, beckoned to me to advance, and accordingly with her I entered the little cell. Seeing I was rather infirm, and a stranger, she gave me, with two towels, a few necessary instructions,—such as that I was to remain in the mixture about thirty-five minutes, and beneath the fluid to strike with my arms and legs as strenuously as possible.
The door was now closed, and my dressing-gown being carefully hung upon a peg (a situation I much envied it), I proceeded, considerably against my inclination, to introduce myself to my new acquaintance, whose face, or surface, was certainly very revolting; for a white, thick, dirty, greasy scum, exactly resembling what would be on broth, covered the top of the bath. But all this, they say, is exactly as it should be, and, indeed, German bathers at Wiesbaden actually insist on its appearance, as it proves, they argue, that the bath has not been used by any one else. In most places, in ordering a warm bath, it is necessary to wait till the water be heated, but at Wiesbaden the springs are so exceedingly hot, that the baths are obliged to be filled over-night, in order to be cool enough in the morning; and the dirty scum I have mentioned is the required proof that the water has, during that time, been undisturbed.
Resolving not to be bullied by the ugly face of my antagonist, I entered my bath, and in a few seconds I lay horizontally, calmly soaking, like my neighbours. Generally speaking, a dead silence prevailed; occasionally an old man was heard to cough,—sometimes a young woman was gently heard to sneeze,—and two or three times there was a sudden heavy splash in the cell adjoining mine, which proceeded from the leg of a great awkward German Frau, kicking, by mistake, above, instead of (as I was vigorously doing) beneath the fluid. Every sigh that escaped was heard, and whenever a patient extricated him or herself from the mess, one could hear puffing and rubbing as clearly as if one had been assisting at the operation.
In the same mournful succession in which they had arrived, the bathers, in due time, ascended, one after another, to their rooms, where they were now permitted to eat—what they had certainly well enough earned—their breakfast. As soon as mine was concluded, I voted it necessary to clean my head, for from certain white particles which float throughout the bath, as thickly as, and indeed very much resembling, the mica in granite, I found that my hair was in a sticky state, in which I did not feel disposed it should remain. I ought, however, most explicitly to state, that the operation I here imposed upon myself was an act of eccentricity, forming no part of the regular system of the Wiesbaden bathers—indeed, I should say that the art of cleaning the hair is not anywhere much encouraged among Germans, who, perhaps with reason, rather pride themselves in despising any sort of occupation or accomplishment which can at all be called—superficial.
Before I quit the subject of bathing, I may as well at once observe, that one of my principal reasons for selecting the apartments I occupied at the Englischen Hof was, that the window of my sitting-room looked into the horse-bath, which was immediately beneath them. Three or four times a-day, horses, lame or chest-foundered, were brought to this spot. As the water was hot, the animals, on first being led into it, seemed much frightened, splashing, and violently pawing with their fore-feet an if to cool it, but being at last more accustomed to the strange sensation, they very quickly seemed exceedingly to enjoy it. Their bodies being entirely covered, the halter was then tied to a post, and they were thus left to soak for half or three-quarters of an hour. The heat seemed to heighten the circulation of their blood, and nothing could look more animated than their heads, as, peeping out of the hot fluid, they shook their dripping manes and snorted at every carriage, and horse, which they heard passing.
The price paid for each bathing of each horse is eighteen kreuzers, and this trifling fact always appeared to me to be the most satisfactory proof I could meet with of the curative properties of the Wiesbaden baths: for though it is, of course, the interest of the inhabitants to insist on their efficacy, yet the poor peasant would never, I think, continue for a fortnight to pay sixpence a-day, unless he knew, by experience of some sort or other, that his animal would really derive benefit.