If the
only woman I had ever loved had been on board, I should have sat
silent, and let any other fellow talk to her that wanted to, and
that felt equal to it - by explaining that he had met a friend and
that they had been talking. It appeared to have been a trying
conversation.
I also ran against the talkative man and his companion. Such a
complete wreck of a once strong man as the latter looked I have
never before seen. Mere sea-sickness, however severe, could never
have accounted for the change in his appearance since, happy and
hopeful, he entered the railway-carriage at Victoria six short hours
ago. His friend, on the other hand, appeared fresh and cheerful,
and was relating an anecdote about a cow.
We took our bags into the Custom House and opened them, and I sat
down on mine, and immediately went to sleep.
When I awoke, somebody whom I mistook at first for a Field-Marshal,
and from force of habit - I was once a volunteer - saluted, was
standing over me, pointing melodramatically at my bag. I assured
him in picturesque German that I had nothing to declare. He did not
appear to comprehend me, which struck me as curious, and took the
bag away from me, which left me nothing to sit upon but the floor.
But I felt too sleepy to be indignant.
After our luggage had been examined, we went into the buffet. My
instinct had not misled me: there I found hot coffee, and rolls and
butter. I ordered two coffees with milk, some bread, and some
butter. I ordered them in the best German I knew. As nobody
understood me, I went and got the things for myself. It saves a
deal of argument, that method. People seem to know what you mean in
a moment then.
B. suggested that while we were in Belgium, where everybody spoke
French, while very few indeed knew German, I should stand a better
chance of being understood if I talked less German and more French.
He said:
"It will be easier for you, and less of a strain upon the natives.
You stick to French," he continued, "as long as ever you can. You
will get along much better with French. You will come across people
now and then - smart, intelligent people - who will partially
understand your French, but no human being, except a thought-reader,
will ever obtain any glimmering of what you mean from your German."
"Oh, are we in Belgium," I replied sleepily; "I thought we were in
Germany. I didn't know." And then, in a burst of confidence, I
added, feeling that further deceit was useless, "I don't know where
I am, you know."
"No, I thought you didn't," he replied. "That is exactly the idea
you give anybody. I wish you'd wake up a bit."
We waited about an hour at Ostend, while our train was made up.
There was only one carriage labelled for Cologne, and four more
passengers wanted to go there than the compartment would hold.
Not being aware of this, B. and I made no haste to secure places,
and, in consequence, when, having finished our coffee, we leisurely
strolled up and opened the carriage door we saw that every seat was
already booked. A bag was in one space and a rug in another, an
umbrella booked a third, and so on. Nobody was there, but the seats
were gone!
It is the unwritten law among travellers that a man's luggage
deposited upon a seat, shall secure that seat to him until he comes
to sit upon it himself. This is a good law and a just law, and one
that, in my normal state, I myself would die to uphold and maintain.
But at three o'clock on a chilly morning one's moral sensibilities
are not properly developed. The average man's conscience does not
begin work till eight or nine o'clock - not till after breakfast, in
fact. At three a.m. he will do things that at three in the
afternoon his soul would revolt at.
Under ordinary circumstances I should as soon have thought of
shifting a man's bag and appropriating his seat as an ancient Hebrew
squatter would have thought of removing his neighbour's landmark;
but at this time in the morning my better nature was asleep.
I have often read of a man's better nature being suddenly awakened.
The business is generally accomplished by an organ-grinder or a
little child (I would back the latter, at all events - give it a fair
chance - to awaken anything in this world that was not stone deaf, or
that had not been dead for more than twenty-four hours); and if an
organ-grinder or a little child had been around Ostend station that
morning, things might have been different.
B. and I might have been saved from crime. Just as we were in the
middle of our villainy, the organ-grinder or the child would have
struck up, and we should have burst into tears, and have rushed from
the carriage, and have fallen upon each other's necks outside on the
platform, and have wept, and waited for the next train.
As it was, after looking carefully round to see that nobody was
watching us, we slipped quickly into the carriage, and, making room
for ourselves among the luggage there, sat down and tried to look
innocent and easy.
B. said that the best thing we could do, when the other people came,
would be to pretend to be dead asleep, and too stupid to understand
anything.
I replied that as far as I was concerned, I thought I could convey
the desired impression without stooping to deceit at all, and
prepared to make myself comfortable.
