A Tramp Abroad - The Original Classic Edition. Twain Mark

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СКАЧАТЬ for it turned out that there was not a German in that party who did not understand English perfectly. It is curious how widespread our language is in Germany. After a while some of those folks got out and a German gentleman and his two young daughters got in. I spoke in German of one of the latter several times, but

       without result. Finally she said:

       "ICH VERSTEHE NUR DEUTCH UND ENGLISHE,"--or words to that effect. That is, "I don't understand any language but German and English."

       And sure enough, not only she but her father and sister spoke English. So after that we had all the talk we wanted; and we wanted a good deal, for they were agreeable people. They were greatly interested in our customs; especially the alpenstocks, for they had not seen any before. They said that the Neckar road was perfectly level, so we must be going to Switzerland or some other rugged country; and asked us if we did not find the walking pretty fatiguing in such warm weather. But we said no.

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       We reached Wimpfen--I think it was Wimpfen--in about three hours, and got out, not the least tired; found a good hotel and ordered beer and dinner--then took a stroll through the venerable old village. It was

       very picturesque and tumble-down, and dirty and interesting. It had queer houses five hundred years old in it, and a military tower 115 feet high, which had stood there more than ten centuries. I made a little

       sketch of it. I kept a copy, but gave the original to the Burgomaster.

       I think the original was better than the copy, because it had more windows in it and the grass stood up better and had a brisker look.

       There was none around the tower, though; I composed the grass myself, from studies I made in a field by Heidelberg in Haemmerling's time. The man on top, looking at the view, is apparently too large, but I found

       he could not be made smaller, conveniently. I wanted him there, and I wanted him visible, so I thought out a way to manage it; I composed the picture from two points of view; the spectator is to observe the man

       from bout where that flag is, and he must observe the tower itself from

       the ground. This harmonizes the seeming discrepancy. [Figure 2]

       Near an old cathedral, under a shed, were three crosses of stone--moldy

       and damaged things, bearing life-size stone figures. The two thieves were dressed in the fanciful court costumes of the middle of the sixteenth century, while the Saviour was nude, with the exception of a cloth around the loins.

       We had dinner under the green trees in a garden belonging to the hotel and overlooking the Neckar; then, after a smoke, we went to bed. We had a refreshing nap, then got up about three in the afternoon and put

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       on our panoply. As we tramped gaily out at the gate of the town, we overtook a peasant's cart, partly laden with odds and ends of cabbages and similar vegetable rubbish, and drawn by a small cow and a smaller donkey yoked together. It was a pretty slow concern, but it got us into

       Heilbronn before dark--five miles, or possibly it was seven.

       We stopped at the very same inn which the famous old robber-knight and rough fighter Goetz von Berlichingen, abode in after he got out of captivity in the Square Tower of Heilbronn between three hundred and fifty and four hundred years ago. Harris and I occupied the same room which he had occupied and the same paper had not quite peeled off the walls yet. The furniture was quaint old carved stuff, full four hundred

       years old, and some of the smells were over a thousand. There was a hook

       in the wall, which the landlord said the terrific old Goetz used to hang his iron hand on when he took it off to go to bed. This room was very large--it might be called immense--and it was on the first floor; which means it was in the second story, for in Europe the houses are so

       high that they do not count the first story, else they would get tired climbing before they got to the top. The wallpaper was a fiery red, with huge gold figures in it, well smirched by time, and it covered all the doors. These doors fitted so snugly and continued the figures of the paper so unbrokenly, that when they were closed one had to go feeling and searching along the wall to find them. There was a stove in the corner--one of those tall, square, stately white porcelain things that

       looks like a monument and keeps you thinking of death when you ought to be enjoying your travels. The windows looked out on a little alley, and

       over that into a stable and some poultry and pig yards in the rear of

       some tenement-houses. There were the customary two beds in the room,

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       one in one end, the other in the other, about an old-fashioned brass-mounted, single-barreled pistol-shot apart. They were fully

       as narrow as the usual German bed, too, and had the German bed's ineradicable habit of spilling the blankets on the floor every time you forgot yourself and went to sleep.

       A round table as large as King Arthur's stood in the center of the room;

       while the waiters were getting ready to serve our dinner on it we

       all went out to see the renowned clock on the front of the municipal buildings.

       CHAPTER XII

       [What the Wives Saved]

       The RATHHAUS, or municipal building, is of the quaintest and most picturesque Middle-Age architecture. It has a massive portico and steps, before it, heavily balustraded, and adorned with life-sized rusty iron knights in complete armor. The clock-face on the front of the building is very large and of curious pattern. Ordinarily, a gilded angel

       strikes the hour on a big bell with a hammer; as the striking ceases, a life-sized figure of Time raises its hour-glass and turns it; two golden rams advance and butt each other; a gilded cock lifts its wings; but the

       main features are two great angels, who stand on each side of the dial

       with long horns at their lips; it was said that they blew melodious

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       blasts on these horns every hour--but they did not do it for us. We were told, later, that they blew only at night, when the town was still.

       Within the RATHHAUS were a number of huge wild boars' heads, preserved, and mounted on brackets along the wall; they bore inscriptions telling

       who killed them and how many hundred years ago it was done. One room in the building was devoted to the preservation of ancient archives. There

       they showed us no end of aged documents; some were signed by Popes, some by Tilly and other great generals, and one was a letter written and subscribed by Goetz von Berlichingen in Heilbronn in 1519 just after his release from the Square Tower.

       This fine old robber-knight was a devoutly and sincerely religious man, hospitable, charitable to the poor, fearless in fight, active, enterprising, and possessed of a large and generous nature. He had in him a quality of being able to overlook moderate injuries, and being able to forgive and forget mortal ones as soon as he had soundly

       trounced the authors of them. He was prompt to take up any poor devil's quarrel and risk his neck to right him. The common folk held him dear, and his memory is still green in ballad and tradition. СКАЧАТЬ