I confess to a certain obliviousness here; a mental haze, amid which the mingled airs of “Rule Britannia” and the “Marsellaise” float indistinctly. But above all, and through all, with terrible distinctness, tones the voice of Pimblebeck; his boyish form dilated into the dimensions of a Goliath, as he pours forth the words of a Prussian revolutionary song, some few of which stand out in letters of fire in my memory still, thus:—
“Prinzen vom Land hinaus,
Denn kommt der Bürger Schmaus;
Aristokraten
Werden gebraten;
Fürsten and Pfaffen die werden gehangt!”
“Drive out the prince and priest,
Then comes the burger’s feast;
Each aristocrat
Shall broil in his fat,
And nobles and bigoted bishops be hanged.”
CHAPTER XIII.
fair time at leipsic.
From Berlin to Leipsic by rail, in an open carriage, is not the most interesting journey in the world. Whirr, whizz, burr! away we hum through the keen Spring air, between pleasant banks and dark fir-woods, not very rapidly indeed, for we travel under government regulations, but pleasantly enough if it were not for the sparks and the dust. There are few objects of interest on our route, till we perceive the towers of Wittenberg rising out of the hollow on the left, and we are at once buried in a dream about the simple monk of Eisleben, who, in his struggle against the papal authority, grew into the gigantic proportions of a Luther.
At Köthen we change carriages, for we are on the Saxon frontier. With a snort and a roar, we start upon our journey over the dull waste, which can be described in no better way than by the single word repeated: sand, sand, sand. And now it comes on to rain, and my thin blouse is but a sorry shred to withstand the cold, dead drizzle. By degrees the heavy night clouds wrap themselves round us, fold by fold, till we see the engine fire reflected on the ground like a flying meteor; and the forms of lonely trees on the roadside come upon us suddenly, like spectres out of the darkness.
“Have you a lodging for the night, friend?” inquires a kind voice near me, speaking to my very thoughts.
“No. I am a stranger in Leipsic.”
“And your herberge?”