‘Surely one suffices?’ said the guide, eyeing me with disapproval; for taking me for the wife of the man in spectacles he regarded my desire to have a number all to myself as only one more instance of the lengths to which the modern woman in her struggle for emancipation will go.
The stick and sunshade were accordingly tied together.
‘Do you wish to ascend the tower?’ he asked my companion, showing us the open-work iron staircase winding round and round inside the tower up to the top.
‘Gott Du Allmächtiger, nein,’ was the hasty reply after a glance and a shudder.
Taking for granted that without my husband I would not want to go up towers he did not ask me, but at once led the way through a very charming hall decorated with what are known as trophies of the chase, to a locked door, before which stood a row of enormous grey felt slippers.
‘The public is not allowed to enter the princely apartments unless it has previously drawn these slippers over its boots,’ said the guide as though he were quoting.
‘All of them?’ I asked, faintly facetious.
Again he eyed me, but this time in silence.
The man in spectacles thrust his feet into the nearest pair. They were generously roomy even for him, and he was a big man with boots to match. I looked down the row hoping to see something smaller, and perhaps newer, but they were all the same size, and all had been worn repeatedly by other tourists.
‘The next time I come to the Jagdschloss,’ I observed thoughtfully, as I saw my feet disappear into the gaping mouths of two of these woolly monsters, ‘I shall bring my own slippers. This arrangement may be useful, but no one could call it select.’
Neither of my companions took the least notice of me. The guide looked disgusted. Judging from his face, though he still thought me a worm he now suspected me of belonging to that highly objectionable class known as turned.
Having seen us safely into our slippers he was about to unlock the door when the bell rang. He left us standing mute before the shut door, and leaning over the balustrade — for, Reader, as Charlotte Brontë would say, he had come upstairs — he called down to the Fräulein who had taken our stick and sunshade to let in the visitors. She did so; and as she flung open the door I saw, through the pillars of the balustrade, Brosy on the threshold, and at the bottom of the steps, leaning against one of the copper wolves, her arm, indeed, flung over its valuable shoulder, the bishop’s wife gasping.
At this sight the custodian rushed downstairs. The man in spectacles and myself, mute, meek, and motionless in our felt slippers, held our breaths.
‘The public is requested not to touch the objects of art!’ shouted the custodian as he rushed.
‘Is he speaking to me, dear?’ asked Mrs. Harvey-Browne, looking up at her son.
‘I think he is, mother,’ said Ambrose. ‘I don’t think you may lean on that wolf.’
‘Wolf?’ said his mother in surprise, standing upright and examining the animal through her eyeglasses with interest. ‘So it is. I thought they were Prussian eagles.’
‘Anyhow you mustn’t touch it, mother,’ said Ambrose, a slight impatience in his voice. ‘He says the public are not to touch things.’
‘Does he really call me the public? Do you think he is a rude person, dear?’
‘Does the lady intend to see the Schloss or not?’ interrupted the custodian. ‘I have another party inside waiting.’
‘Come on, mother — you want to, don’t you?’
‘Yes — but not if he’s a rude man, dear,’ said Mrs. Harvey-Browne, slowly ascending the steps. ‘Perhaps you had better tell him who father is.’
‘I don’t think it would impress him much,’ said Brosy, smiling. ‘Parsons come here too often for that.’
‘Parsons! Yes; but not bishops,’ said his mother, coming into the echoing hall, through whose emptiness her last words rang like a trumpet.
‘He wouldn’t know what a bishop is. They don’t have them.’
‘No bishops?’ exclaimed his mother, stopping short and staring at her son with a face of concern.
‘Bitte um die Eintrittskarten,’ interrupted the custodian, slamming the door; and he pulled the tickets out of Brosy’s hand.
‘No bishops?’ continued Mrs. Harvey-Browne, ‘and no Early Fathers, as that smashed-looking person, that cousin of Frau Nieberlein’s, told us last night? My dear Brosy, what a very strange state of things.’
‘I don’t think she quite said that, did she? They have Early Fathers right enough. She didn’t understand what you meant.’
‘Stick and umbrella, please,’ interrupted the custodian, snatching them out of their passive hands. ‘Take the number, please. Now this way, please.’
He hurried, or tried to hurry, them under the tower, but the bishop’s wife had not hurried for years, and would not have dreamed of doing so; and when he had got them under it he asked if they wished to make the ascent. They looked up, shuddered, and declined.
‘Then we will at once join the other party,’ said the custodian, bustling on.
‘The other party?’ exclaimed Mrs. Harvey-Browne in German. ‘Oh, I hope no objectionable tourists? I quite thought coming so early we would avoid them.’
‘Only two,’ said the custodian: ‘a respectable gentleman and his wife.’
The man in spectacles and I, up to then mute, meek, and motionless in our grey slippers, started simultaneously. I looked at him cautiously out of the corners of my eyes, and found to my confusion that he was looking at me cautiously out of the corners of his. In another moment the Harvey-Brownes stood before us.
After one slight look of faintest surprise at my companion the pleasant Ambrose greeted me as though I were an old friend; and then bowing with a politeness acquired during his long stay in the Fatherland to the person he supposed was my husband, introduced himself in German fashion by mentioning his name, and observed that he was exceedingly pleased to make his acquaintance. ‘Es freut mich sehr Ihre Bekanntschaft zu machen,’ said the pleasant Ambrose.
‘Gleichfalls, gleichfalls,’ murmured the man in spectacles, bowing repeatedly, and obviously astonished. To the bishop’s wife he also made rapid and bewildered bows until he saw she was gazing over his head, and then he stopped. She had recognised my presence by the merest shadow of a nod, which I returned with an indifference that was icy; but, oddly enough, what offended me more than her nod was the glance she had bestowed on the man in spectacles before she began to gaze over his head. He certainly did not belong to me, and yet I was offended. This seemed to me so subtle that it set me off pondering.
‘The public is not allowed to enter the princely apartments unless it has previously drawn these slippers over its boots,’ said the custodian.
Mrs. Harvey-Browne looked at him critically. ‘He has a very crude way of expressing himself, hasn’t he, dear?’ she remarked to Ambrose.
‘He is only quoting official regulations. He must, you know, mother. And we are undoubtedly the public.’
Ambrose looked at my feet, then at the feet of my companion, and then without more ado got into a pair of slippers. He wore knickerbockers and stockings, and his legs had a classic refinement that erred, if at all, on the side of over-slenderness. The effect of the enormous grey slippers at the end of these Attic legs made me, for one awful moment, feel as though I were going to shriek with laughter. An immense effort strangled the shriek and left me unnaturally solemn.
Mrs. Harvey-Browne had now caught sight of the row of slippers. She put up her eyeglasses and examined them carefully. ‘How very German,’ she remarked.
‘Put them on, mother,’ said Ambrose; ‘we are all waiting for you.’
‘Are they new, Brosy?’ she asked, hesitating.
‘The lady must put on the slippers, or she cannot enter the princely apartments,’ said the custodian severely.
‘Must I really, Brosy?’ she inquired, looking extremely unhappy. ‘I am so terribly afraid of infection, or — or other things. Do they think we sha
ll spoil their carpets?’
‘The floors are polished, I imagine,’ said Ambrose, ‘and the owner is probably afraid the visitors might slip and hurt themselves.’
‘Really quite nice and considerate of him — if only they were new.’
Ambrose shuffled to the end of the row in his and took up two.’ Look here, mother,’ he said, bringing them to her, ‘here’s quite a new pair. Never been worn before. Put them on — they can’t possibly do any harm.’
They were not new, but Mrs. Harvey-Browne thought they were and consented to put them on. The instant they were on her feet, stretching out in all their hugeness far beyond the frills of her skirt and obliging her to slide instead of walk, she became gracious. The smile with which she slid past me was amiable as well as deprecatory. They had apparently reduced her at once to the level of other sinful mortals. This effect seemed to me so subtle that again I fell a-pondering.
‘Frau Nieberlein is not with you this morning?’ she asked pleasantly, as we shuffled side by side into the princely apartments.
‘She is resting. She had rather a bad night.’
‘Nerves, of course.’
‘No, ghosts.’
‘Ghosts?’
‘It’s the same thing,’ said Ambrose. ‘Is it not, sir?’ he asked amiably of the man in spectacles.
‘Perhaps,’ said the man in spectacles cautiously.
‘But not a real ghost?’ asked Mrs. Harvey-Browne, interested.
‘I believe the great point about a ghost is that it never is real.’
‘The bishop doesn’t believe in them either. But I — I really hardly know. One hears such strange tales. The wife of one of the clergy of our diocese believes quite firmly in them. She is a vegetarian, and of course she eats a great many vegetables, and then she sees ghosts.’
‘The chimney-piece,’ said the guide, ’is constructed entirely of Roman marble.’
‘Really?’ said Mrs. Harvey-Browne, examining it abstractedly through her eyeglasses. ‘She declares their vicarage is haunted; and what in the world do you think by? The strangest thing. It is haunted by the ghost of a cat.’
‘The statue on the right is by Thorwaldsen,’ said the guide.
‘By the ghost of a cat,’ repeated Mrs. Harvey-Browne impressively.
She seemed to expect me to say something, so I said Indeed.
‘That on the left is by Rauch,’ said the guide.
‘And this cat does not do anything. I mean, it is not prophetic of impending family disaster. It simply walks across a certain room — the drawing-room, I believe — quite like a real cat, and nothing happens.’
‘But perhaps it is a real cat?’
‘Oh no, it is supernatural. No one sees it but herself. It walks quite slowly with its tail up in the air, and once when she went up to it to try to pull its tail so as to convince herself of its existence, she only clutched empty air.’
‘The frescoes with which this apartment is adorned are by Kolbe and Eybel,’ said the guide.
‘You mean it ran away?’
‘No, it walked on quite deliberately. But the tail not being made of human flesh and blood there was naturally nothing to pull.’
‘Beginning from left to right, we have in the first a representation of the entry of King Waldemar I. into Rügen,’ said the guide.
‘But the most extraordinary thing about it happened one day when she put a saucer of cream on the floor for it. She had thought it all over in the night, and had come to the conclusion that as no ghost would lap cream and no real cat be able to help lapping it this would provide her with a decisive proof one way or the other. The cat came, saw the cream, and immediately lapped it up. My friend was so pleased, because of course one likes real cats best — —’
‘The second represents the introduction of Christianity into the island,’ said the guide.
‘ — and when it had done, and the saucer was empty, she went over to it — —’
‘The third represents the laying of the foundation stone of the church at Vilmnitz,’ said the guide.
‘ — and what do you think happened? She walked straight through it.’
‘Through what?’ I asked, profoundly interested. ‘The cream, or the cat?’
‘Ah, that was what was so marvellous. She walked right through the body of the cat. Now what had become of the cream?’
I confess this story impressed me more than any ghost story I have ever heard; the disappearance of the cream was so extraordinary.
‘And there was nothing — nothing at all left on her dress?’ I asked eagerly. ‘I mean, after walking through the cat? One would have thought that some, at least, of the cream — —’
‘Not a vestige.’
I stood gazing at the bishop’s wife absorbed in reflection. ‘How truly strange,’ I murmured at length, after having vainly endeavoured to account for the missing cream.
‘Wasn’t it?’ said Mrs. Harvey-Browne, much pleased with the effect of her story. Indeed the amiability awakened in her bosom by the grey felt slippers had increased rapidly, and the unaccountable conduct of the cream seemed about to cement our friendship when, at this point, she having remarked that there are more things in heaven and earth than are dreamt of in our philosophy, and I, in order to show my acquaintance with the classics of other countries, having added ‘As Chaucer justly observes,’ to which she said, ‘Ah, yes — so beautiful, isn’t he?’ a voice behind us made us both jump; and turning round we beheld, at our elbows, the man in spectacles. Ambrose, aided by the guide, was on the other side of the room studying the works of Kolbe and Eybel, The man in spectacles had evidently heard the whole story of the cat, for this is what he said: —
‘The apparition, madam, if it has any meaning at all, which I doubt, being myself inclined to locate its origin in the faulty digestion of the lady, seems to point to a life beyond the grave for the spirits of cats. Considered as a proof of such a life for the human soul, which is the one claim to our interest phenomena of the kind can possess, it is, of course, valueless.’
Mrs. Harvey-Browne stared at him a moment through her eyeglasses. ‘Christians,’ she then said distantly, ‘need no further proof of that.’
‘May I ask, madam, what, precisely, you mean by Christians?’ inquired the man in spectacles briskly. ‘Define them, if you please.’
Now the bishop’s wife was not used to being asked to define things, and disliked it as much as anybody else. Besides, though rays of intelligent interest darted through his spectacles, the wearer of them also wore clothes that were not only old but peculiar, and his whole appearance cried aloud of much work and small reward. She therefore looked not only helpless but indignant. ‘Sir,’ she said icily, ‘this is not the moment to define Christians.’
‘I hear the name repeatedly,’ said the man in spectacles, bowing but undaunted; ‘and looking round me I ask myself where are they?’
‘Sir,’ said Mrs. Harvey-Browne, ‘they are in every Christian country.’
‘And which, pray, madam, would you call the Christian countries? I look around me, and I see nations armed to the teeth, ready and sometimes even anxious to fly at each other’s throats. Their attitude may be patriotic, virile, perhaps necessary, conceivably estimable; but, madam, would you call it Christian?’
‘Sir — —’ said Mrs. Harvey-Browne.
‘Having noticed by your accent, madam, that the excellent German you speak was not originally acquired in our Fatherland, but must be the result of a commendable diligence practised in the schoolrooms of your youth and native land, and having further observed, from certain unmistakable signs, that the native land in question must be England, it would have a peculiar interest for me to be favoured with the exact meaning the inhabitants of that enlightened country attach to the term. My income having hitherto not been sufficient to enable me to visit its hospitable shores, I hail this opportunity with pleasure of discussing questions that are of importance to us all with one of its, no doubt, most distinguished
daughters.’
‘Sir — —’ said Mrs. Harvey-Browne.
‘At first sight,’ went on the man in spectacles, ‘one would be disposed to say that a Christian is a person who believes in the tenets of the Christian faith. But belief, if it is genuine, must necessarily find its practical expression in works. How then, madam, would you account for the fact that when I look round me in the provincial town in which I pursue the honourable calling of a pedagogue, I see numerous Christians but no works?’
‘Sir, I do not account for it,’ said Mrs. Harvey-Browne angrily.
‘For consider, madam, the lively faith inspired by other creeds. Place against this inertia the activity of other believers. Observe the dervish, how he dances; observe the fakir, hanging from his hook — —’
‘I will not, sir,’ said Mrs. Harvey-Browne, roused now beyond endurance; ‘and I do not know why you should choose this place and time to thrust your opinions on sacred subjects on a stranger and a lady.’
With which she turned her back on him, and shuffled away with all the dignity the felt slippers allowed.
The man in spectacles stood confounded.
‘The lady,’ I said, desirous of applying balm, ’is the wife of a clergyman’ — (Heavens, if she had heard me!)— ‘and is therefore afraid of talking about things that must lead her on to sacred ground. I think you will find the son very intelligent and ready to talk.’
But I regret to say the man in spectacles seemed extremely shy of me; whether it was because the custodian had taken me for his wife, or because I was an apparently unattached female wandering about and drinking coffee by myself contrary to all decent custom, I do not know. Anyhow he met my well-meant attempt to explain Mrs. Harvey-Browne to him with suspicion, and murmuring something about the English being indeed very strangely mannered, he edged cautiously away.
We now straggled through the rooms separately, — Ambrose in front with the guide, his mother by herself, I by myself, and a good way behind us, the mortified man in spectacles. He made no effort to take my advice and talk to Ambrose, but kept carefully as far away from the rest of us as possible; and when we presently found ourselves once more outside the princely apartments, on the opposite side to the door by which we had gone into them, he slid forward, shook off his felt slippers with the finality of one who shakes off dust from his feet, made three rapid bows, one to each of us, and hurried down the stairs. Arrived at the bottom we saw him take his stick from the Fräulein, shake his head with indignant vigour when she tried to make him take my sunshade too, pull open the heavy door, and almost run through it. He slammed it with an energy that made the Jagdschloss tremble.
Delphi Collected Works of Elizabeth von Arnim (Illustrated) Page 307
