Villa Elsa | Page 7

please. They urged food and fluid upon him in a way that would have dismayed his Yankee doctor. He found himself eating and drinking to an extent he had never imagined. This sort of thing, he concluded half-despairingly, would either be the making of him or kill him. At home the general fear was about too much. Here satiety, over-satiety, seemed to be the rule as at all German firesides. While he dreaded to think what his abstemious digestive apparatus would do, his new friends took not amiss the bountiful spilling of edibles and liquids upon their napkins spread conspicuously over their breasts. Laundering must be cheap in Germany. That was one good thing.
Gard did not forget that this was represented to be a highly instructed and cultivated circle. The members had graduated from the best schools or held degrees from standard universities. He kept asking himself in what guises the much advertised German excellence was yet to appear in this domestic group whose culture and virtues had been so extolled. If these manners and habits were part of its perfect ripened fruit, then American education and life were indeed obviously blighted. He could not help noticing that all hands had not been necessarily washed before meal-time, and that finger nails were unblushingly uncleaned and unkempt. An accidental glimpse under the immense flowing white beard of his host revealed the absence of a shirt collar, and the neck evidently relied on its untrimmed hairiness as an excuse for not being customarily washed.
It became apparent to Kirtley after a month that personal cleanness and neatness in Germany were not particularly considered as next to godliness. The gold braid, spick and span uniforms and other showy gear, were apt to cover dirty bodies and soiled underwear. Alas, the Germans could not wash in beer. He wondered why his old enthusiastic mentor had never given him a hint of these things. Likely he did not know. Distance often increases eloquence in proportion as it breeds ignorance.
With the exhilaration of the bounteous meal, however, Gard's spirits rose to a height he had not known in a long time. If conversation languished over the stony roads of the duality of expression, glasses were clinked together again and a new topic was hopefully started. When it seemed proper to him that the end of the repast should be in sight, a new course would be brought in, usually accompanied boisterously by the two family dogs, including the ferocious beast who had given Gard the shivers. The animals conducted themselves with a ravenous freedom around the board, alternately being petted and fed and allowed to lick plates, only to be in turn kicked out and shrieked after, with a chair occasionally upset in the rumpus. This habit of kicking animals, things and persons Gard later observed was prevalent among the Teutons, whose appropriate fondness for conveniently big boots and large stout shoes at the same time discourages any vanity about small feet. It is a part of their military predilection.
At the end of a couple of hours dinner was brought to a close. Fr?ulein had not yet put in an appearance, and it now came out that she was "at lesson." She must have stayed for another class. After his gastronomic feat Gard did not know whether he felt sick or never better in his life. What's more, he did not seem to care, his senses were so pleasantly numbed.
On his way up to his room, in the dim hall, he caught sight of a young woman hanging up her wrap. Mussed strands of straw-colored hair shone down her shoulders and sent a sudden thrill of gladness through his veins. He had never seen but one Wagner opera and that was "The Twilight of the Gods," with its aureate Rhine maidens bathing in that delicious revelry of divine music. The arrival at last of the daughter of the house, as he assumed this was, brought back a flash of all that golden loveliness.
In his sleep that first night, vast trenchers of food and tankards of drink disported in happy confusion with goddesses blond and magical.
CHAPTER V
FAMILY LIFE
The matter of much eating and drinking had first to be, if possible, disposed of. It was exacting and the most important affair. Kirtley did not want to be discourteous or appear unappreciative. He had come to Germany to do as the superior Germans do. His digestive tract was on the narrow-gage American plan. Theirs was broad-gage, with their surpassing organisms.
At the Buchers Gard had manfully to face six meals a day. Must he be swamped in order to put the desirable adipose tissue on his bones? By all the laws of American dieting and Prohibition the German race should have been destroyed by indigestion and drunkenness centuries ago. But here