Returning to the inn, I flung myself on two chairs, in the hope of sleeping; but in vain: the movement of my imagination was stronger than my lassitude. I repeated the contents of my express over and over again: dinner did not affect the matter. I went to bed amid the lowing of the herds returning from the fields. At ten o'clock, a new noise: the watchman sang the hour; fifty dogs barked, after which they went to their kennels as though the watchman had ordered them to be silent: I recognised German discipline.
Civilization has made progress in Germany since my journey to Berlin: the beds are now almost long enough for a man of ordinary stature; but the top sheet is still sewn to the blanket and the bottom sheet, which is too narrow, ends by twisting and curling up in such a way as to make you very uncomfortable; and, since I am in the country of Auguste Lafontaine[542], I will imitate his genius: I want to inform the latest posterity of what existed in my time in the room of my inn at Waldmünchen. Know then, grand-nephews, that that room was like an Italian room, with bare, white-washed walls, without any wood-work or hangings, a wide coloured band or skirting at the bottom, a ceiling with a circle of three fillets, a cornice painted with blue roses with a garland of chocolate-coloured laurel-leaves and, above the cornice, on the wall, foliage painted in red on an American-green ground. Here and there, little French and English engravings, in frames. Two windows with white cotton curtains. Between the windows, a looking-glass. In the middle of the room, a table for at least twelve people, covered with an oil-cloth with a raised ground, stamped with roses and different flowers. Six chairs upholstered in red tartan. A chest of drawers, three bedsteads round the room; in a corner, near the door, a stove in black glazed earthen-ware, of which the sides show the Bavarian arms in relief; it is topped with a receiver shaped like a Gothic crown. The door is furnished with a complicated iron mechanism capable of closing the gates of a gaol and baffling the picklocks of thieves or lovers. I describe, for the benefit of travellers, the excellent room in which I am writing this inventory, which competes with the Miser's[543]; I recommend it to future Legitimists who may be stopped by the red-headed wild-goat of Haselbach. This page of my Memoirs will give pleasure to the modern literary school.
My room at the Inn.
After counting, by the light of the night-lamp, the astragals of the ceiling and looking at the engravings of the Young Milanese, the Beautiful Greeks, the Young Frenchwoman, the Young Russian, the late King of Bavaria[544], the late Queen of Bavaria[545], who is like a lady whom I know and whose name I cannot possibly remember, I snatched a few minutes' sleep. I rose from bed at 7 o'clock on the 22nd. A bath took away the rest of my fatigue and I was interested only in my village, like Captain Cook discovering an islet in the Pacific Ocean.
Waldmünchen is built on the slope of a hill; it is not unlike a dilapidated village in the Papal States: a few house-fronts painted in fresco, an archway at either end of the main street, no ostensible shops, a dry well in the square, a frightful pavement of large flags mixed with small pebbles, of the kind which one no longer sees except in "the neighbourhood of Quimper-Corentin."
The people, whose appearance is rustic, wear no special dress. The women go with their heads bare or wrapped in a handkerchief in the manner of the Paris milk-maids; their skirts are short; they walk with Bare legs and feet, as do the children. The men are dressed, some like the men of the people in our towns, some like our old peasants. Heaven be praised, they have only hats, and the filthy cotton caps of our burgesses are unknown to them.
Every day, ut mos, there is a performance at Waldmünchen and I used to assist at it in the front row. At six o'clock in the morning, an old shepherd, tall and lean, goes through the village, stopping at different places; he blows a straight horn, six feet long, which one would take at a distance for a speaking-trumpet or a sheep-hook. He first produces three metallic and rather harmonious notes from it; then he sounds the quick tune of a sort of gallop or ranz des vaches, imitating the lowing of oxen and the grunting of pigs. The fanfare ends with a long, rising falsetto note.
Suddenly from every gate debouch cows, heifers, calves, bulls; bellowing, they flood the village-square; they climb up or descend from all the circumjacent streets and, forming into columns, take the accustomed road to the pasturage. Follows the prancing squadron of swine, which look like wild boars and grunt The sheep and lambs, disposed as a rearguard, form the third part of the concert with their bleating; the geese compose the reserve: in a quarter of an hour all are out of sight
At seven o'clock in the evening, the horn is heard again; it is the herds returning. The order of the march is changed: the pigs form the van-guard, with the same music as before; a few, detached as scouts, run at hap-hazard or stop at every corner. The sheep defile; the cows, with their sons, daughters and husbands, bring up the rear; the geese waddle on the flanks. All these animals reach their own homes again, none mistakes its gate; but there are Cossacks that go marauding, madcaps that play about and refuse to go in, young bulls that persist in remaining with a mate which does not belong to their manger. Then come the women and children with their little switches; they compel the stragglers to rejoin the main body and the rebellious recruits to submit to the rules. I delighted in this performance, just as, formerly, Henry IV., at Chauny, used to be amused by the cow-keeper called "Tout-le-Monde," who collected his herds to the sound of the trumpet