I think one would learn to love these German women if one lived among them for long. There is something so sweet, so womanly, so genuine about them. They seem to shed around them, from their bright, good-tempered faces, a healthy atmosphere of all that is homely, and simple, and good. Looking into their quiet, steadfast eyes, one dreams of white household linen, folded in great presses; of sweet-smelling herbs; of savoury, appetising things being cooked for supper; of bright-polished furniture; of the patter of tiny feet; of little high-pitched voices, asking silly questions; of quiet talks in the lamp-lit parlour after the children are in bed, upon important questions of house management and home politics, while long stockings are being darned.
They are not the sort of women to turn a man's head, but they are the sort of women to lay hold of a man's heart--very gently at first, so that he hardly knows that they have touched it, and then, with soft, clinging tendrils that wrap themselves tighter and tighter year by year around it, and draw him closer and closer--till, as, one by one, the false visions and hot passions of his youth fade away, the plain homely figure fills more and more his days--till it grows to mean for him all the better, more lasting, true part of life--till he feels that the strong, gentle mother-nature that has stood so long beside him has been welded firmly into his own, and that they twain are now at last one finished whole.
We had our dinner at a beer-garden the day before yesterday. We thought it would be pleasant to eat and drink to the accompaniment of music, but we found that in practice this was not so. To dine successfully to music needs a very strong digestion--especially in Bavaria.
The band that performs at a Munich beer-garden is not the sort of band that can be ignored. The members of a Munich military band are big, broad-chested fellows, and they are not afraid of work. They do not talk much, and they never whistle. They keep all their breath to do their duty with. They do not blow their very hardest, for fear of bursting their instruments; but whatever pressure to the square inch the trumpet, cornet, or trombone, as the case may be, is calculated to be capable of sustaining without permanent injury (and they are tolerably sound and well-seasoned utensils), that pressure the conscientious German bandsman puts upon each square inch of the trumpet, cornet, or trombone, as the case may be.
If you are within a mile of a Munich military band, and are not stone deaf, you listen to it, and do not think of much else. It compels your attention by its mere noise; it dominates your whole being by its sheer strength. Your mind has to follow it as the feet of the little children followed the playing of the Pied Piper.
Whatever you do, you have to do in unison with the band. All through our meal we had to keep time with the music.
We ate our soup to slow waltz time, with the result that every spoonful was cold before we got it up to our mouth. Just as the fish came, the band started a quick polka, and the consequence of that was that we had not time to pick out the bones. We gulped down white wine to the "Blacksmith's Galop," and if the tune had lasted much longer we should both have been blind drunk. With the advent of our steaks, the band struck up a selection from Wagner.
I know of no modern European composer so difficult to eat beefsteak to as Wagner. That we did not choke ourselves is a miracle.
Wagner's orchestration is most trying to follow. We had to give up all idea of mustard. B. tried to eat a bit of bread with his steak, and got most hopelessly out of tune. I am afraid I was a little flat myself during the "Valkyries' Ride." My steak was rather underdone, and I could not work it quickly enough.
After getting outside hard beefsteak to Wagner, putting away potato salad to the garden music out of Faust was comparatively simple.
Once or twice a slice of potato stuck in our throat during a very high note, but, on the whole, our rendering was fairly artistic.
We rattled off a sweet omelette to a symphony in G--or F, or else K; I won't be positive as to the precise letter; but it was something in the alphabet, I know--and bolted our cheese to the ballet music from Carmen. After which we rolled about in agonies to all the national airs of Europe.
If ever you visit a German beer-hall or garden--to study character or anything of that kind--be careful, when you have finished drinking your beer, to shut the cover of the mug down tight. If you leave it with the cover standing open, that is taken as a sign that you want more beer, and the girl snatches it away and brings it back refilled.
B. and I very nearly had an accident one warm night, owing to our ignorance of this custom. Each time after we had swallowed the quart, we left the pot, standing before us with the cover up, and each time it was, in consequence, taken away, and brought back to us, brimming full again. After about the sixth time, we gently remonstrated.
"This is very kind of you, my good girl," B. said, "but really I don't think we CAN. I don't think we ought to. You must not go on doing this sort of thing. We will drink this one now that you have brought it, but we really must insist on its being the last."
After about the tenth time we expostulated still more strongly.
"Now, you know what I told you four quarts ago!" remarked B., severely. "This can't go on for ever. Something serious will be happening. We are not used to your German school of drinking. We are only foreigners. In our own country we are considered rather swagger at this elbow-raising business, and for the credit of old England we have done our best. But now there must be an end to it.
I simply decline to drink any more. No, do not press me. Not even another gallon!"
"But you both sit there with both your mugs open," replies the girl in an injured tone.
"What do you mean, 'we sit with our mugs open'?" asks B. "Can't we have our mugs open if we like?"
"Ah, yes," she explains pathetically; "but then I think you want more beer. Gentlemen always open their mugs when they want them filled with beer."
We kept our mugs shut after that.
