In a German Pension | Page 2

visit Munchen?"
"I am afraid I shall not have time. You see, it is important not to break into my 'cure.'"
"But you MUST go to Munchen. You have not seen Germany if you have not been to Munchen. All the Exhibitions, all the Art and Soul life of Germany are in Munchen. There is the Wagner Festival in August, and Mozart and a Japanese collection of pictures--and there is the beer! You do not know what good beer is until you have been to Munchen. Why, I see fine ladies every afternoon, but fine ladies, I tell you, drinking glasses so high." He measured a good washstand pitcher in height, and I smiled.
"If I drink a great deal of Munchen beer I sweat so," said Herr Hoffmann. "When I am here, in the fields or before my baths, I sweat, but I enjoy it; but in the town it is not at all the same thing."
Prompted by the thought, he wiped his neck and face with his dinner napkin and carefully cleaned his ears.
A glass dish of stewed apricots was placed upon the table.
"Ah, fruit!" said Fraulein Stiegelauer, "that is so necessary to health. The doctor told me this morning that the more fruit I could eat the better."
She very obviously followed the advice.
Said the Traveller: "I suppose you are frightened of an invasion, too, eh? Oh, that's good. I've been reading all about your English play in a newspaper. Did you see it?"
"Yes." I sat upright. "I assure you we are not afraid."
"Well, then, you ought to be," said the Herr Rat. "You have got no army at all--a few little boys with their veins full of nicotine poisoning."
"Don't be afraid," Herr Hoffmann said. "We don't want England. If we did we would have had her long ago. We really do not want you."
He waved his spoon airily, looking across at me as though I were a little child whom he would keep or dismiss as he pleased.
"We certainly do not want Germany," I said.
"This morning I took a half bath. Then this afternoon I must take a knee bath and an arm bath," volunteered the Herr Rat; "then I do my exercises for an hour, and my work is over. A glass of wine and a couple of rolls with some sardines--"
They were handed cherry cake with whipped cream.
"What is your husband's favourite meat?" asked the Widow.
"I really do not know," I answered.
"You really do not know? How long have you been married?"
"Three years."
"But you cannot be in earnest! You would not have kept house as his wife for a week without knowing that fact."
"I really never asked him; he is not at all particular about his food."
A pause. They all looked at me, shaking their heads, their mouths full of cherry stones.
"No wonder there is a repetition in England of that dreadful state of things in Paris," said the Widow, folding her dinner napkin. "How can a woman expect to keep her husband if she does not know his favourite food after three years?"
"Mahlzeit!"
"Mahlzeit!"
I closed the door after me.

2. THE BARON.
"Who is he?" I said. "And why does he sit always alone, with his back to us, too?"
"Ah!" whispered the Frau Oberregierungsrat, "he is a BARON."
She looked at me very solemnly, and yet with the slightest possible contempt--a "fancy-not-recognising-that-at-the-first-glance" expression.
"But, poor soul, he cannot help it," I said. "Surely that unfortunate fact ought not to debar him from the pleasures of intellectual intercourse."
If it had not been for her fork I think she would have crossed herself.
"Surely you cannot understand. He is one of the First Barons."
More than a little unnerved, she turned and spoke to the Frau Doktor on her left.
"My omelette is empty--EMPTY," she protested, "and this is the third I have tried!"
I looked at the First of the Barons. He was eating salad--taking a whole lettuce leaf on his fork and absorbing it slowly, rabbit-wise--a fascinating process to watch.
Small and slight, with scanty black hair and beard and yellow-toned complexion, he invariably wore black serge clothes, a rough linen shirt, black sandals, and the largest black-rimmed spectacles that I had ever seen.
The Herr Oberlehrer, who sat opposite me, smiled benignantly.
"It must be very interesting for you, gnadige Frau, to be able to watch.... of course this is a VERY FINE HOUSE. There was a lady from the Spanish Court here in the summer; she had a liver. We often spoke together."
I looked gratified and humble.
"Now, in England, in your 'boarding 'ouse', one does not find the First Class, as in Germany."
"No, indeed," I replied, still hypnotised by the Baron, who looked like a little yellow silkworm.
"The Baron comes every year," went on the Herr Oberlehrer, "for his nerves. He has never spoken to any of the guests--YET! A smile crossed his face. I seemed to