She says: "This IS a bedroom."
He says: "Where's the bed?"
"There!" she says, pointing to the box on which the sacks and
antimacassars and cushions lie piled.
"That!" he cries. "How am I going to sleep in that?"
The chambermaid does not know how he is going to sleep there, never
having seen a gentleman go to sleep anywhere, and not knowing how
they set about it; but suggests that he might try lying down flat,
and shutting his eyes.
"But it is not long enough," he says.
The chambermaid thinks he will be able to manage, if he tucks his
legs up.
He sees that he will not get anything better, and that he must put
up with it.
"Oh, very well!" he says. "Look sharp and get it made, then."
She says: "It is made."
He turns and regards the girl sternly. Is she taking advantage of
his being a lonely stranger, far from home and friends, to mock him?
He goes over to what she calls the bed, and snatching off the top-
most sack from the pile and holding it up, says:
"Perhaps you'll tell me what this is, then?"
"That," says the girl, "that's the bed!"
He is somewhat nonplussed at the unexpected reply.
"Oh!" he says. "Oh! the bed, is it? I thought it was a pincushion!
Well, if it is the bed, then what is it doing out here, on the top
of everything else? You think that because I'm only a man, I don't
understand a bed!"
"That's the proper place for it," responds the chambermaid.
"What! on top?"
"Yes, sir."
"Well, then where are the clothes?"
"Underneath, sir."
"Look here, my good girl," he says; "you don't understand me, or I
don't understand you, one or the other. When I go to sleep, I lie
on a bed and pull the clothes over me. I don't want to lie on the
clothes, and cover myself with the bed. This isn't a comic ballet,
you know!"
The girl assures him that there is no mistake about the matter at
all. There is the bed, made according to German notions of how a
bed should be made. He can make the best of it and try to go to
sleep upon it, or he can be sulky and go to sleep on the floor.
He is very much surprised. It looks to him the sort of bed that a
man would make for himself on coming home late from a party. But it
is no use arguing the matter with the girl.
"All right," he says; "bring me a pillow, and I'll risk it!"
The chambermaid explains that there are two pillows on the bed
already, indicating, as she does so, two flat cushions, each one a
yard square, placed one on top of the other at one end of the
mixture.
"These!" exclaims the weary traveller, beginning to feel that he
does not want to go to bed at all. "These are not pillows! I want
something to put my head on; not a thing that comes down to the
middle of my back! Don't tell me that I've got to sleep on these
things!"
But the girl does tell him so, and also implies that she has
something else to do than to stand there all day talking bed-gossip
with him.
"Well, just show me how to start," he says, "which way you get into
it, and then I won't keep you any longer; I'll puzzle out the rest
for myself."
She explains the trick to him and leaves, and he undresses and
crawls in.
The pillows give him a good deal of worry. He does not know whether
he is meant to sit on them or merely to lean up against them. In
experimenting upon this point, he bumps his head against the top
board of the bedstead. At this, he says, "Oh!" and shoots himself
down to the bottom of the bed. Here all his ten toes simultaneously
come into sharp contact with the board at the bottom.
Nothing irritates a man more than being rapped over the toes,
especially if he feels that he has done nothing to deserve it. He
says, "Oh, damn!" this time, and spasmodically doubles up his legs,
thus giving his knees a violent blow against the board at the side
of the bed. (The German bedstead, be it remembered, is built in the
form of a shallow, open box, and the victim is thus completely
surrounded by solid pieces of wood with sharp edges. I do not know
what species of wood it is that is employed. It is extremely hard,
and gives forth a curious musical sound when struck sharply with a
bone.)
After this he lies perfectly still for a while, wondering where he
is going to be hit next. Finding that nothing happens, he begins to
regain confidence, and ventures to gently feel around with his left
leg and take stock of his position.
For clothes, he has only a very thin blanket and sheet, and beneath
these he feels decidedly chilly. The bed is warm enough, so far as
it goes, but there is not enough of it. He draws it up round his
chin, and then his feet begin to freeze. He pushes it down over his
feet, and then all the top part of him shivers.
He tries to roll up into a ball, so as to get the whole of himself
underneath it, but does not succeed; there is always some of him
left outside in the cold.
He reflects that a "boneless wonder" or a "man serpent" would be
comfortable enough in this bed, and wishes that he had been brought
up as a contortionist. If he could only tie his legs round his
neck, and tuck his head in under his arm, all would yet be well.
