Villa Elsa Part 20

"The German way?" she echoed bluntly. "Why, I thought everybody in the world danced alike."

"We don't whirl round and round as you do," Gard explained.

"Well, I'll swear!" she clucked incredulously, her tongue in her cheek as if saying, "What sort of dancing can that be!"

The dust and streams of perspiration began to affect everyone, but the music and revolving exertions grew more rapid and vigorous as the hours advanced. Beetles and bugs sailed through the air along with the familiar German odors that greeted Kirtley's nostrils.

Everyone became freer. Enjoyment ran higher. Men shed their coats and women made themselves equally comfortable. It was beer, beer, beer.

When Fritzi had seen that her Herr was not to take part, she began to behave toward him with a more bluff unconventionality. She made him acquainted with all her partners and girl friends. She confided to him the little jingling trinkets she wore. Her face ablaze, her hair tousled, her feet keeping on the floor with difficulty, she looked to Gard like a flaming maenad. She had come in cheap satin, and also in silk hose which she particularly doted on. But like all thrifty German maids, after two or three dances she divested herself of these and put on stouter stuffs which she had brought along and which could stand the wear and tear. The possession of those finer things had first to be shown to gratify vanity. Then recourse was had to a practical basis for physical pleasure.

Gard mused over the seething picture before him. He knew it had been pointed out that while the Germans are lewd, they are not dissolute.

They do not let their duties suffer. Their ample physiques can stand hard strains, and a night of revelry is followed next day by a prompt resumption of tasks. These young folk, tearing about like disheveled satyrs and nymphs, would be at their jobs in the morning.

The Teuton does not waste his patrimony in riotous living or lead a lawless existence. To this extent the influence of the Government, in its way, was felt. While it recognized that the forceful animal spirits of its people must be indulged to keep them contentedly in control, it set its face against waste of time and of belongings in any prolonged habits of dissipation. Thus the strength and material resources, the plodding industry and economy, of the race were conserved as well as energized.

As for the German women, they are not naturally pa.s.sionate in the ordinary emotional and imaginative acceptation of this word. Their pa.s.sions are not extended by any radical complications of romance or ideality. In a sense, they keep their heads in any indulgence.

CHAPTER x.x.xIV

CHAMPAGNE

At midnight Kirtley saw a remarkable sight. On the stroke of twelve, loud toasts to Der Tag were suddenly lifted high in air as the orchestra broke forth with the Wacht am Rhein. An uproar seized the a.s.sembly. "Gott scourge England! Down with France! Deutschland uber Alles!" In a twinkling it was a crowd mad for war. Beer mugs were smashed, various objects of apparel were flung far and wide.

Improvised orators--students--mounted tables and began crying for vengeance on the world in speeches which, in the hubbub, did not get much beyond preliminary exclamations.

Hatred of Great Britain stood out above it all. How long must the Fatherland be held in check? "Der Kaiser! Hoch der Kaiser!" The popular national frenzy had in this spot ripped off any bounds.

Burn, sack, violate, kill--Gard heard the intimations--the threats--of all such frightfulness. In the furor he stood up on his table to get a better view of the extraordinary demonstration. It sounded fateful, terrible, like descriptions recited of the French Revolution. He was almost awestruck. At its height he feared personal violence for himself. He had sometimes been taken for a Britisher.

Anderson was right again. The Teutons l.u.s.ted for war now. What a spectacle! The old, old German hate. This very lowly cla.s.s of people--waiters and waitresses--had nothing, would be the very first to face severe hardships, and the men would suffer more than any at the front. They would all be mainly the ones to go hungry, be cold, be killed. But here appeared the cannon fodder demanding to be shot down in its craze for Triumphant Germany. It was hoa.r.s.e for Victory or Destruction. It was drunk with its physical power. These soldiers were angrily impatient to be let loose like h.e.l.lhounds, from the sullen fastnesses of mountains and swamps behind the Rhine, upon the Christian populations beyond in the great plains of civilization.

When the tempest had pa.s.sed and its activities were dwindling into the renewed whirlwinds of the dance, Gard resumed his seat, his head beginning to swim a little. At last his doubting eyes were as if unsealed. A Vandal tribe, a great and powerful Vandal tribe, still lived in the world. It was feeding on Conflict--the food of its ancient bellicose G.o.ds.

How was it, indeed, that our trained American observers, men who had been educated in Germany and those who had not, never saw anything of this danger that was boiling in the b.r.e.a.s.t.s of even the humblest cla.s.ses of Teutons? Yes, Anderson was correct. The Germans were, after all, frank enough about it. All was spontaneous and bold.

Egged on by their military, political, educational, religious masters, the populace could easily, at any time, work themselves up like this into a frantic state about conquest. And yet Americans heard nothing of it. It was as if their channels of information were subsidized under German authority.

At one o'clock supper time came and Gard ordered. There were Fritzi and another girl and two young men--all very profuse in their appreciation of his hospitality. The popping of a few bottles of cheap champagne sounded in his ears. He was in the swing of the excitement and could not be outdone. His brand was French, of a fine quality. It exhilarated his brain far above the plain, distorted commonplaces of Loschwitz.

After supper the real frolic set in. The true devotees now alone remained. They began doing fancy twists, with legs out far and wide.

Vests came off, with collars and ties, and feminine charms became as familiar as an old story that is read too often to have much meaning for the senses. To Gard it all now appeared seemly enough, like an opera peasant ballet whose frank rusticities were excused under the inspiration of the music.

Fritzi's hair floated loosely over her shoulders. It looked to him even brighter than Elsa's. Her snug, many-colored bodice became partly unlaced and she had kicked off her tight slippers under Gard's table. In their heated condition many of the other waitresses were dancing in their unshod feet. He thought it very natural and pleasing when Fritzi rushed up with her heirloom of silk stockings which she had removed early in the evening. They had been her grandmother's who had worn them at some grand baron's wedding long ago--the sole tradition and distinction connected with Fritzi's lineage. One of her friends had been robbed in the dressing room and she was afraid to trust these precious articles there longer. She made sure that Gard had tucked them in his pocket for safekeeping.

As she hurried to rejoin the circles, he saw that she had worn through the bottoms of her dancing hose.

Whenever that feeling of discomfort, which he had been conscious of early that morning, surged for a moment through him, a sip of champagne brought quick relief and gilded the scene and his spirits with its necromancy. He felt dizzy but blissful. He became drowsy.... He had sunk into a dream, glorious then ugly, foolish but haunting.

He dreamed he was an armored knight of the time of Charlemagne. He was astride a steed caparisoned for battle, and was riding southward from the Alps in the blazing sunlight, along a white road amid what he supposed were the gardened plains of Lombardy. By his side, in similar array, rode a lovely blond princess of the North with a wonderful luxuriance of hair--some daughter of the Frankish race of fierce and resplendent Brunnhildas or Fredegondas.

She at last became wearied of her heavy armor, the length of the journey and the burning sun. He a.s.sisted in extricating her from her coat of mail, and took her over into his arms asleep, letting her armor ride upright on her charger save for the helmet which he fastened to his pommel. As the horses kept onward he held with delight her lightsome body, with her miraculous tresses entwining him as she slumbered. He held her embraced in tenderness, for had not she--a princess--trusted him and gone away with him alone?

He had not thus ridden with her far, before his eyes, alert in every direction for the treacherous enemies of the land, beheld with gaping fright an immense black serpent, brilliant with scales glistening in the scintillating air, slowly uncoiling out of her headless panoply that was still riding bolt upright by his side. He glared down at her in the certainty that she had turned into a twin serpent at his breast. She lay there still in the seductive form of a woman. But she had turned loathsome to his touch. He hurled her to the ground and the next moment was flying on foot, afield, in horror from the spot.

And he recalled in his dream how woman and the snake have been allied in legend, religion and history--how they have ever been identified in the minds of men. His beautiful queen had been at one with the serpent in that suit of metal. Or was it only Elsa?--was it only Fritzi?--with their amber hair?

For what seemed a very long time he was fitfully trying to decide--when he slowly made out that brawny Frau Bucher stood over him.

CHAPTER x.x.xV

RECUPERATION

She was in the act of giving him a potion for a raging fever. Once he realized that Herr Bucher sat silently poring over a book by the bed, chucking him back into it when he tossed out. The Bucher children occasionally appeared on errands for his comfort. The family nursed him more diligently than if he had been their own.

Gard came back to his senses rather rapidly. He had found himself in his room. He was in his own bed--that German bed. Summertide was steadily flooding in through the grateful leaves of his linden, and brightening his confining walls. His narrow-gage American digestive apparatus had, it appeared, finally rebelled over the broad German fare. All his eating and drinking during the months had proven disastrous. When he had begun to feel bad that last day, it only needed a little champagne to bring to a head the inevitable revolt.

And so, toward the end of his year, he was physically not far from where he had been on coming to Deutschland for the sake of its inspiring virilities.

He had plenty of time to wonder how he had got back to Loschwitz from the Waitress Dance. He never inquired, never learned. But Fritzi alone knew his address. He had no recollection of anything.

He went through his pockets. His valuables were intact. His money was all there as nearly as he could figure out, except a reasonable amount evidently used to pay the supper bill and convey him home.

Truly those considerate servants had not acted like amateurs.

He finally remembered about Fritzi's hose. They were gone. At length Frau Bucher said she had forgotten to tell him that a pretty young woman came to reclaim them. He was ashamed enough. To be carried to his room in the odor of champagne and with a girl's silk stockings in his pocket! _He_--Gard Kirtley! Was this the low estate to which German life had brought him?

But he soon observed that the Buchers cared nothing about all this.

Young men, as we have seen, were expected to go on larks. No one spoke of the distressing occurrence. There was no disagreeable testimony that he had made great trouble. No looks of reproach attacked him. His Puritan habits had been, in fact, very curious to the parents. They felt now that he was a youth whom they could understand. He was true to the proper type.

It was a relief for him to know that he had not dropped in respect before any of the household. He believed he had, on the contrary, grown in their estimation, as had Rudi after his "experience." The poor Herr Kirtley was considered a much abused victim of an unfortunate sickness. Once Frau exclaimed:

"Ach Himmel! our sons have such a hard time of it!"

When he began to eat ravenously after his enforced abstinence, hearty foods and heavy drinks were supplied. It is the German fashion at such times to build up the strength quickly with l.u.s.ty meals. He was started promptly again on the road to gastric ruin.

Often at night a cold sweat would bead over Gard. What would he do about Frau Bucher and Elsa? He had been thrown helpless into their hands. Holy Smoke! Would he become a German in spite of himself? He sometimes wished the Imperial Secret Service might scare him out of the country as had been the case with the lucky Deming.

The Buchers had likely saved his life. He had been brought by them faithfully back to health. How was he going to repay? What excuses could he offer when the time came to face Frau's proposal? How could he possibly make his escape at all agreeably? Was ever a fellow in just such a pickle?

And here was the ever-capable Elsa dutifully bringing his viands and at times reading to him stories from Hoffmann. She was like a real fairy out of a German story book. The new Heine she had given him lay there, but neither suggested opening it. It was not a thing to get well over.

To a sick man, his nurse seems heavenly. And Elsa looked truly golden as she sat there over the Hoffmann, with the sunlight streaming about her head. In Gard's phantasmagoria at night there had often been a blond maiden, dancing and lovely--but mingled at length into some unpleasant circ.u.mstance like that connected with the phantom princess he had ridden with in Italy.

Ernst, still limping from his beating, came in now and then and read out of a ponderous volume on the Relation of German Music to the Reformation. It was full of intricate, plodding, dull detail in the German style, which the lad found of interest. But Gard, despite this kindness, could not make much headway with it. Smoking was, of course, permitted to accompany his man-like return to health, and it was always a genial hour to have Anderson sitting there in the wreaths of nicotine before the summery window, talking, talking.

The correspondent came several times, bringing comic papers. Gard pleased him by saying he was veering round to the journalist's way of thinking on things German. He related the Der Tag incident at the ball. The family life of the Teutons, the life of the plain people--all were substantiating the essential and alarming truth of the old man's beliefs. At last another American in Germany had been found who was experiencing an awakening. The result was a mutual appreciation.