“Ingelheim! Thou sweet, familiar name!” he said. “Thou noble castle of my knightly emperor; so thy name has outlasted the centuries, and the vines that Charlemagne planted in his Ingelheim still blossom? Does this new world know aught of Roland and of great Carolus, his master?”
“That you must ask the mortal over yonder,” replied Judas; “we have nothing to do with the earth. He is a doctor and magister, and must be able to give an account of his generation.”
The giant fixed his eyes inquiringly upon me, and I replied: “Noble Paladin! Humanity has grown cold and depraved; its shallow skull is nailed to the present, and looks neither forward nor backward; but we are not yet so bad that we should forget the glorious heroes that once walked our earth, and threw their shadows into our times.”
The spirit of song seemed to have come over the company, for no sooner had Andrew ended than Judas began to sing unasked, and the others followed him. With a resounding bass voice Roland sang a war-hymn of the old Franconians, only a few words of which I understood, and at last, when they had all sung, they looked at me, and Rose nodded encouragingly. So I began—
“Am Rhein, am Rhein, da wachsen unsere Reben
Da wächst ein deutscher Wein.”
When I had finished, they all came crowding about me to shake my hand, and Andrew breathed a kiss upon my lips.
“Do they sing that?” cried Bacchus. “Now then, Doctor, I’m mighty glad to hear that; your race cannot be so very frail if it sings such clear and cheery songs.”
“Ah, sir,” I said sadly, “there are many sentimentalists who refuse to give such a song the credit of being poetry, like some pietists who consider the Lord’s prayer not mystic enough for devotion.”
“There have been fools at all times, sir!” replied Peter. “But talking about your generation, tell us what has happened on earth during the last year?”