It was a sleepy summer afternoon. Not a leaf was stirring as I followed the winding Moldau into the pretty village with its storybook castle. The road to the castle was rough and tortuous, reminding me of a back road in the Tennessee mountain country. Just as I was beginning to wonder if the little sedan were equal to the climb, the road turned sharply into a level areaway before the castle courtyard.
I parked the car and went in search of the caretaker. When I found no one, I ascended a flight of stone steps which led from the courtyard to the second floor. The room at the head of the stairs was empty, but I heard voices in the one adjoining. Two cleaning women were scrubbing the floor, chattering to each other as they worked. They were startled to see me, but one of them had the presence of mind to scurry off and return a few minutes later with the archetype of all castle caretakers. He had been custodian for the past fifty-six years. Lately there hadn’t been many visitors.
He took me first to the picture gallery—a long high-ceilinged room with tall windows looking out over the river. There were a dozen full-length canvases around the rough plaster walls, past Dukes of Rosenberg and their sour-faced Duchesses. The clou of the collection was a tubercular lady in seventeenth century costume. The caretaker solemnly informed me that she was the ill-fated duchess who paced the ramparts of the castle every night just before twelve. She had lived, he told me, in the fourteenth century. When I mentioned as tactfully as possible that her gown indicated she had been a mere three hundred years ahead of the styles, he gave me a dirty look as much as to say, “a disbeliever.” I did my best to erase this unfortunate impression and proceeded to the next series of apartments. They included a weapon room, a sumptuous state bedchamber reserved for royal visitors, several richly furnished reception rooms, and a long gallery called the Crusaders’ Hall—a copy, the caretaker said, of a room in the Palace at Versailles. Here hung full-length portraits of such historic personages as Godefroy de Bouillon, Robert Guiscard and Frederick Barbarossa—all done by an indifferent German painter of the last century. Notwithstanding its ostentatious atmosphere, the gallery had a dignity quite in keeping with the musty elegance of the castle.
I thanked the old man, gave him a couple of cigarettes and returned to the car. It was time for me to be getting back to the monastery.
I gauged my arrival nicely. As I pulled up to the entrance, the guard at the archway came over to the car to tell me that eight trucks had just driven through. When I reached the courtyard the last of them was backing up against the chapel wall.
A tall, rangy lieutenant, wearing the familiar helmet liner prescribed by Third Army regulations, walked up to the car as I was getting out and said, “Good afternoon, sir. Dr. Livingstone, I presume?”
So this was Lamont Moore. Just as Lincoln had predicted, I liked him at once. There was a quiet self-possession about him, coupled with a quizzical, humorous expression, which was pleasantly reassuring. I have never forgotten the impression of Olympian calm I received at that first meeting. In succeeding months, there were many times when Lamont got thoroughly riled, but his composure never deserted him. His even temper and his sense of humor could always be depended upon to leaven the more impetuous actions of his companions.
Without wasting breath on inconsequential conversation, he suggested that we “case the joint.” After introducing him to Dr. Mutter, who was still hovering around like a distracted schoolmaster, we made a tour of the premises. By the time we had finished I had the comforting, if somewhat unflattering, feeling that he had a clearer understanding of the work there than I, notwithstanding the time I had spent at the monastery.
On our way down to the village afterward, I asked Lamont if he had had any difficulty coming up through Linz. He said no, but that he also had been warned not to return that way.