Ordering
beer for myself and for a number of peasants (who but for this would
have me their butt, and even as it was found something monstrous in
me), I pondered during my continual attempts to converse with them
(for I had picked up some ten words of their language) upon the folly
of those who imagine the world to be grown smaller by railways.
I suppose this place was more untouched, as the phrase goes, that is,
more living, more intense, and more powerful to affect others,
whenever it may be called to do so, than are even the dear villages of
Sussex that lie under my downs. For those are haunted by a nearly
cosmopolitan class of gentry, who will have actors, financiers, and
what not to come and stay with them, and who read the paper, and from
time to time address their village folk upon matters of politics. But
here, in this broad plain by the banks of the Emmen, they knew of
nothing but themselves and the Church which is the common bond of
Europe, and they were in the right way. Hence it was doubly hard on me
that they should think me such a stranger.
When I had become a little morose at their perpetual laughter, I asked
for a bed, and the landlady, a woman of some talent, showed me on her
fingers that the beds were 50c., 75c., and a franc. I determined upon
the best, and was given indeed a very pleasant room, having in it the
statue of a saint, and full of a country air. But I had done too much
in this night march, as you will presently learn, for my next day was
a day without salt, and in it appreciation left me. And this breakdown
of appreciation was due to what I did not know at the time to be
fatigue, but to what was undoubtedly a deep inner exhaustion.
When I awoke next morning it was as it always is: no one was awake,
and I had the field to myself, to slip out as I chose. I looked out of
the window into the dawn. The race had made its own surroundings.
These people who suffocated with laughter at the idea of one's knowing
no German, had produced, as it were, a German picture by the mere
influence of years and years of similar thoughts.
Out of my window I saw the eaves coming low down. I saw an apple-tree
against the grey light. The tangled grass in the little garden, the
dog-kennel, and the standing butt were all what I had seen in those
German pictures which they put into books for children, and which are
drawn in thick black lines:
