ÆäÀÌÁö À̹ÌÁö
PDF
ePub

NOTES AT A GERMAN BATH.

Villa Clara, Bad-Langeweile, June 18.-I arrived a week ago at my German bath, ordered thither, much to my disgust, for a couple of months. I am a middle-aged spinster, of no particular personal attractions, and a wearer of the "terrible blouse of no shape whatever," that M. Ohnet says all English women affect when on their travels. My young cousin, however, who is my travelling companion, amply makes up for my deficiencies. Mattie is a pretty, healthy, English girl of seventeen, fresh from school, and imbued with the strong intolerance of youth for everything not British. Cheapness being an object, we have come to an entirely German pension, for the Teuton may be depended upon for always choosing the places where you get best value for your money. The twenty or thirty ladies boarding here are a noisy, gossiping, friendly crew. It seems "always afternoon" at Bad-Langeweile. Not that we are lotus-eaters in any literal sense of the word-for the water that we drink is unpleasantly medicinal-but one certainly becomes here forgetful of the lapse of

We do exactly the same things every day-we drink, bathe, sleep, eat, in endless rotation. After the intolerably long one o'clock dinner the ladies retire to bed and to sleep for two hours or so, till the coffee appears, served on little tables under the luxuriant vines in the garden. Oh, those noisy dinners! No wonder the pensionnaires are tired. At dinner-time it is as if Babel itself were let loose, or like the monkey-house at the Zoo. Outside, in the flickering sunlight, the pines send forth their delicious scents, and the oaks wave their branches temptingly; but no, we must forswear their proffered delights, and eat steadily through seven courses and a dessert. The Germans, however, do not flinch; they know their duty and they go through with it bravely. The only thing to which they do object is having even the smallest scrap of window opened; "Es zieht," they murmur, if you make so bold as to open one little chink. But they are good old souls-in their way.

June 22. Among the pensionnaires are two particularly belligerent elderly ladies, Frau Auerbach and Frau Biener. Frau Auerbach is a well-to-do widow of fifty, red-faced, stout, very ill

natured, expensively dressed, and a confirmed hypochondriac. As to Frau Biener, she is a fat, square, old lady, a "Hausfrau" of the good old type. She knits interminable black worsted capes, and must certainly be a descendant of Mrs. Bayham Badger; for, like that celebrated lady, she has had two husbands, and airs their memories at every possible opportunity. She weighs, I should think, some 200 lbs., and is besides of so unprepossessing an exterior, that one could hardly imagine how anyone had ever got so far as to propose to her. Frau Biener is now in charge of her daughter-inlaw, Louise, a young woman not long married, pallid, lethargic, and dismally resigned to sit under her mother-in-law's large wing. Louise does not, however, like her relative, knit worsted capes: she does no work at all; she never does anything but sit and gaze sadly on her surroundings, only breaking the silence by occasionally remarking, with a faint gleam of a smile, "My husband is coming to fetch me to-day fortnight." Mattie cannot stand Louise at all. She gets so cross with the poor bride's inanity that she can hardly sit at table with her; but then Mattie, as I said, is always a little intolerant. Frau Auerbach amuses her more, especially when she is quarrelsome, which, indeed, is generally the case. Even over discussing the rival doctors (the doctors and the "cure" here form the great topics of conversation) Frau Auerbach manages to be unpleasant.

"If there's anything to be found out, depend upon it, my dear Frau Biener, Dr. Frickel is the man to find it out," she remarked today at dinner in her most domineering voice. "He says he never met with such a case as mine," she went on proudly, "and it seems to him wonderful how I have kept up all these years. Ah, it is not everybody who has my great strength of mind."

(Frau Auerbach is Dr. Frickel's most paying nervous patient.)

This assertion roused Frau Biener. "H'm, h'm, I don't know," she responded; "Frickel may be all very well, but Dr. Marx is the safe man."

"Zickinger is the cleverest of all. He puts his finger on the very place," here struck in pretty Elise, the waiting-maid, anxious to avert a quarrel. "Such brown eyes! they exactly match his beard! so young too-only thirty-two, and already Hofarzt!"

"Frickel is still younger, and his eyes are brown too," here remarked Fräulein Bertha, a sentimental lady of six-and-twenty. A young girl near us blushed, but said nothing.

Our pension, like Mr. Oliver Wendell Holmes's boarding-house, boasts of a "young girl." She is an object of deep interest to us all. Her name is Marie, and she appears to be entirely alone in the

world. She has a dollish sort of prettiness, with blonde curls like a baby's, and a shell-pink complexion. She sits about and does nothing. all day; she is almost as idle as Louise, and quite as satisfied with herself.

June 25.-The young girl has a lover! She informed us of the great fact to-day, by the springs. Her "Bräutigam" is young, handsome, rich-or so she says. Looking up suddenly to tall Mattie, she asks wonderingly:

"And have you not a bridegroom, too? or did you never have one?"

Mattie, who is only just seventeen, is much taken aback. She has never before felt the humiliation caused by the want of a "bridegroom," but now she feels it keenly. So she confesses indiscreetly that she might have had one, only this spring, but

"But you do not love him," continues the young girl in Englishvery bad English. "Oh! I love my Schatz' so," she continues; "I love him so."

Mattie shudders, then blushes to the roots of her hair-for the words have been loudly spoken, and some very evident English in the vicinity appeared to be amused. "Oh, would you mind saying 'like' instead of 'love,' next time?" she murmurs. "We never say 'love,'

in English-we have no such thing!"

Marie is astounded at this assertion, and takes some time to get over it. As for Mattie she has not got over the shock to her feelings yet. Just now she is looking out into the starry night, her head. leaning on her pretty round arms.

"You know," I say apologetically, "we can't expect Germans to be quite like ourselves. They are much more effusive."

"I call it positively sickening," says Mattie.

June 28.- The young girl's lover has arrived! She seemed quite bright for her-on hearing the news of his approach, and she showed her joy by actually beginning to work on a square of white cotton crochet.

"That's right-preparing to be a good housewife!" cries Frau Auerbach approvingly. Housewife indeed! We don't believe that Marie can write, and if she can read it is quite as much as we should expect from her. But then she is an adept at "laying the cards," which relaxation she appears to indulge in at least five times a daywhenever, indeed, she is not bathing or drinking. Mattie is quite sick of seeing her do it. And I, for my part, think the crochet not so much of an advance on the cards. All the ladies here crochet, and we imagine their rooms filled with dreadful squares and mats.

Such an odd couple arrived yesterday. We can't make them out at all. They are both young and good-looking, and appear not to be related to each other; at any rate, their names are down in the visitors' book as Mr. Thompson Binns and Mrs. Jackson. The lady is a widow from San Francisco, and the gentleman seems to be acting as her escort. He is handsome, dark, and curly-haired; "like a brigand of the middle ages," says Fräulein Bertha. There is about his proceedings that air of mystery which is so dear to the female heart. All the old ladies are full of conjectures about him. "What in the name of wonder," says Frau Auerbach, "can he want with the Kur'?" On the other hand the lady is sickly, as Mr. Thompson Binns informed us on arriving, with American frankness. This frankness went far to win Frau Auerbach's heart. Without losing a moment, I saw her tuck the American lady under her arm, and sally forth with her to Dr. Frickel at once, to avoid all fear of her changing her mind. By the time they returned, Mr. Binns was drinking his coffee, surrounded by an admiring circle, explaining to Mattie and me: "We met on the ship. She was ill, and, as I'd nothing particular to do, I just took her along on the cars. I told the ship's doctor and the captain that I'd see to her. I'd do the same for any woman." A sentiment which gained him unbounded applause.

June 30.-Marie and her bridegroom are sitting outside on the terrace together. (The crochet is thrown aside.) It is noticeable that the young man never says a sensible word to his betrothed, never makes any attempt at what may be called "conversation." This disgusts Mattie more than ever. "He treats her exactly like a doll or a plaything," she complains. At the present moment he happens. to be pulling her ears playfully, and giving her stage embraces--they are certainly very public ones. All this seems more or less to imply that Germans do not want much intellectual companionship in their wives. At dinner to-day, Mattie, always full of the "higher education," asked Fräulein Bertha if many German girls learned. Greek and Latin. Marie's lover chanced to overhear the question. "Horrible! I can't bear a learned woman," he said twirling his blonde moustache.

She is a

Fräulein Bertha has a great contempt for Marie. pallid, sentimental young woman, who loves to talk of the "immensities" and to pose as a "femme incomprise." She is emancipated that is, for a German-and it is distantly rumoured that she writes poetry. She likes to make people think that there is a dark mystery surrounding her life. "Ah," she said to me once,

"if poor Bertha had had a thaler for every time she had said good-bye, she would long ago have been a millionaire." She sits and gazes at Mattie and me with sad, saucer-like eyes, but she seldom gets further with us than the remark already quoted. (I defy anybody, however, to talk about the "immensities" with such a thoroughly practical young person as Mattie.) Fräulein Bertha has taken forty baths at almost boiling-point, and has almost washed herself away as the result. That is the worst of Germans, they never do things by halves. They can seldom be induced to take a bath, but when they do take them, they take them with a vengeance! Bertha is much attracted by Mr. Thompson Binns. "There is a man who is capable of dragging a woman round the town by her hair!" she says admiringly. But I think she misjudges the poor man. Mrs. Jackson, small, pale, and self-possessed, is capable not indeed of pulling him round the room by his hair, but certainly of turning him round her finger. Mrs. Jackson, by the way, is always beautifully dressed in the latest Paris fashion, and wears diamonds as big as peas. Last night when Mattie and I were at an outdoor concert in the "Kurgarten," we chanced to sit behind a couple conversing in the tenderest tones. Mattie recognised, in the semi-darkness, the big diamond pin that Mrs. Jackson wears in her hair. Without wishing to play the part of eavesdroppers, we could not help overhearing in a lull in the music the following words:

"How many pills did he tell you to take?"

"Oh, I'm to judge of how they suit me. My constitution 's so remarkably highly strung. When are you to commence taking baths? That'll be the test!"

Mattie and I moved away. shaking with suppressed laughter.

"How romantic!" she whispered,

"Oh, one thing does as well as another to make love over," I said, remembering the old ballad of Edwin, Angelina, and the ipecacuanha.

July 2.-I was going down into the garden to-day, with the intention of writing in the arbour, when Mattie met me, and said warningly, "Don't go in there! I believe Mr. Binns is proposing to Mrs. Jackson!"

I had hardly time to answer when Mr. Binns himself emerged from the arbour, looking radiant. He came up to us gaily.

"Mrs. Jackson is just taking a nap," he said, "before she goes to the bathhouse; she asked me to leave her in peace, so, perhaps, it would be as well, ladies, if you didn't disturb her. It's always best to take a woman like that at her word, you know. She's a woman of

« ÀÌÀü°è¼Ó »