In a German Pension | Page 2

dishes were changed for beef, red currants and spinach. They
wiped their forks upon black bread and started again.
"How long are you remaining here?" asked the Herr Rat.
"I do not know exactly. I must be back in London in September."
"Of course you will 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