The man tried
his best to understand me; he tried, and kept on trying,
harder and harder, until I saw it was really of no use,
and said:
"There, don't strain yourself - it is of no consequence."
Then X turned to him and crisply said:
"MACHEN SIE a flat board."
I wish my epitaph may tell the truth about me if the man
did not answer up at once, and say he would go and borrow
a board as soon as he had lit the pipe which he was filling.
We changed our mind about taking a boat, so we did not have
to go. I have given Mr. X's two remarks just as he made them.
Four of the five words in the first one were English,
and that they were also German was only accidental,
not intentional; three out of the five words in the second
remark were English, and English only, and the two German
ones did not mean anything in particular, in such a connection.
X always spoke English to Germans, but his plan was
to turn the sentence wrong end first and upside down,
according to German construction, and sprinkle in a German
word without any essential meaning to it, here and there,
by way of flavor. Yet he always made himself understood.
He could make those dialect-speaking raftsmen understand
him, sometimes, when even young Z had failed with them;
and young Z was a pretty good German scholar. For one thing,
X always spoke with such confidence - perhaps that helped.
And possibly the raftsmen's dialect was what is called
PLATT-DEUTSCH, and so they found his English more familiar
to their ears than another man's German. Quite indifferent
students of German can read Fritz Reuter's charming
platt-Deutch tales with some little facility because many
of the words are English. I suppose this is the tongue
which our Saxon ancestors carried to England with them.
By and by I will inquire of some other philologist.
However, in the mean time it had transpired that the men
employed to calk the raft had found that the leak was not
a leak at all, but only a crack between the logs - a crack
that belonged there, and was not dangerous, but had been
magnified into a leak by the disordered imagination of
the mate. Therefore we went aboard again with a good degree
of confidence, and presently got to sea without accident.
As we swam smoothly along between the enchanting shores,
we fell to swapping notes about manners and customs
in Germany and elsewhere.
As I write, now, many months later, I perceive that each of us,
by observing and noting and inquiring, diligently and day
by day, had managed to lay in a most varied and opulent
stock of misinformation. But this is not surprising;
it is very difficult to get accurate details in any country.
For example, I had the idea once, in Heidelberg,
to find out all about those five student-corps. I started
with the White Cap corps. I began to inquire of this
and that and the other citizen, and here is what I found
out:
1. It is called the Prussian Corps, because none
but Prussians are admitted to it.
2. It is called the Prussian Corps for no particular reason.
It has simply pleased each corps to name itself after
some German state.
3. It is not named the Prussian Corps at all, but only
the White Cap Corps.
4. Any student can belong to it who is a German by birth.
5. Any student can belong to it who is European by birth.
6. Any European-born student can belong to it, except he
be a Frenchman.
7. Any student can belong to it, no matter where he
was born.
8. No student can belong to it who is not of noble blood.
9. No student can belong to it who cannot show three full
generations of noble descent.
10. Nobility is not a necessary qualification.
11. No moneyless student can belong to it.
12. Money qualification is nonsense - such a thing has
never been thought of.
I got some of this information from students themselves
- students who did not belong to the corps.
I finally went to headquarters - to the White Caps - where I
would have gone in the first place if I had been acquainted.
But even at headquarters I found difficulties; I perceived
that there were things about the White Cap Corps which
one member knew and another one didn't. It was natural;
for very few members of any organization know ALL that can
be known about it. I doubt there is a man or a woman
in Heidelberg who would not answer promptly and confidently
three out of every five questions about the White Cap Corps
which a stranger might ask; yet it is a very safe bet
that two of the three answers would be incorrect every time.
There is one German custom which is universal - the bowing
courteously to strangers when sitting down at table or
rising up from it. This bow startles a stranger out of his
self-possession, the first time it occurs, and he is likely
to fall over a chair or something, in his embarrassment,
but it pleases him, nevertheless. One soon learns to expect
this bow and be on the lookout and ready to return it;
but to learn to lead off and make the initial bow
one's self is a difficult matter for a diffident man.
One thinks, "If I rise to go, and tender my box,
and these ladies and gentlemen take it into their heads
to ignore the custom of their nation, and not return it,
how shall I feel, in case I survive to feel anything."
Therefore he is afraid to venture.
