The Twins of Table Mountain, and Other Stories Part 17

It was the sacred hour of noon at Sammtstadt. Everybody was at dinner; and the serious Kellner of "Der Wildemann" glanced in mild reproach at Mr. James Clinch, who, disregarding that fact and the invitatory table d'hote, stepped into the street. For Mr. Clinch had eaten a late breakfast at Gladbach, was dyspeptic and American, and, moveover, preoccupied with business. He was consequently indignant, on entering the garden-like court and cloister-like counting-house of "Von Becheret, Sons, Uncles, and Cousins," to find the comptoir deserted even by the porter, and was furious at the maidservant, who offered the sacred s.h.i.+bboleth "Mittagsessen" as a reasonable explanation of the solitude.

"A country," said Mr. Clinch to himself, "that stops business at mid-day to go to dinner, and employs women-servants to talk to business-men, is played out."

He stepped from the silent building into the equally silent Kronprinzen Stra.s.se. Not a soul to be seen anywhere. Rows on rows of two-storied, gray-stuccoed buildings that might be dwellings, or might be offices, all showing some traces of feminine taste and supervision in a flower or a curtain that belied the legended "Comptoir," or "Direction," over their portals. Mr. Clinch thought of Boston and State Street, of New York and Wall Street, and became coldly contemptuous.

Yet there was clearly nothing to do but to walk down the formal rows of chestnuts that lined the broad Stra.s.se, and then walk back again. At the corner of the first cross-street he was struck with the fact that two men who were standing in front of a dwelling-house appeared to be as inconsistent, and out of proportion to the silent houses, as were the actors on a stage to the painted canvas thoroughfares before which they strutted. Mr. Clinch usually had no fancies, had no eye for quaintness; besides, this was not a quaint nor romantic district, only an entrepot for silks and velvets, and Mr. Clinch was here, not as a tourist, but as a purchaser. The guidebooks had ignored Sammtstadt, and he was too good an American to waste time in looking up uncatalogued curiosities.

Besides, he had been here once before,--an entire day!

One o'clock. Still a full hour and a half before his friend would return to business. What should he do? The Verein where he had once been entertained was deserted even by its waiters; the garden, with its ostentatious out-of-door tables, looked bleak and bare. Mr. Clinch was not artistic in his tastes; but even he was quick to detect the affront put upon Nature by this continental, theatrical gardening, and turned disgustedly away. Born near a "lake" larger than the German Ocean, he resented a pool of water twenty-five feet in diameter under that alluring t.i.tle; and, a frequenter of the Adirondacks, he could scarce contain himself over a bit of rock-work twelve feet high. "A country,"

said Mr. Clinch, "that--" but here he remembered that he had once seen in a park in his native city an imitation of the Drachenfels in plaster, on a scale of two inches to the foot, and checked his speech.

He turned into the princ.i.p.al allee of the town. There was a long white building at one end,--the Bahnhof: at the other end he remembered a dye-house. He had, a year ago, met its hospitable proprietor: he would call upon him now.

But the same solitude confronted him as he pa.s.sed the porter's lodge beside the gateway. The counting-house, half villa, half factory, must have convoked its humanity in some out-of-the-way refectory, for the halls and pa.s.sages were tenantless. For the first time he began to be impressed with a certain foreign quaintness in the surroundings; he found himself also recalling something he had read when a boy, about an enchanted palace whose inhabitants awoke on the arrival of a long-predestined Prince. To a.s.sure himself of the absolute ridiculousness of this fancy, he took from his pocket the business-card of its proprietor, a sample of dye, and recalled his own personality in a letter of credit. Having dismissed this idea from his mind, he lounged on again through a rustic lane that might have led to a farmhouse, yet was still, absurdly enough, a part of the factory gardens. Crossing a ditch by a causeway, he presently came to another ditch and another causeway, and then found himself idly contemplating a ma.s.sive, ivy-clad, venerable brick wall. As a mere wall it might not have attracted his attention; but it seemed to enter and bury itself at right angles in the side-wall of a quite modern-looking dwelling. After satisfying himself of this fact, he pa.s.sed on before the dwelling, but was amazed to see the wall reappear on the other side exactly the same--old, ivy-grown, st.u.r.dy, uncompromising, and ridiculous.

Could it actually be a part of the house? He turned back, and repa.s.sed the front of the building. The entrance door was hospitably open. There was a hall and a staircase, but--by all that was preposterous!--they were built OVER and AROUND the central brick intrusion. The wall actually ran through the house! "A country," said Mr. Clinch to himself, "where they build their houses over ruins to accommodate them, or save the trouble of removal, is,--" but a very pleasant voice addressing him here stopped his usual hasty conclusion.

"Guten Morgen!"

Mr. Clinch looked hastily up. Leaning on the parapet of what appeared to be a garden on the roof of the house was a young girl, red-cheeked, bright-eyed, blond-haired. The voice was soft, subdued, and mellow; it was part of the new impression he was receiving, that it seemed to be in some sort connected with the ivy-clad wall before him. His hat was in his hand as he answered,--

"Guten Morgen!"

"Was the Herr seeking anything?"

"The Herr was only waiting a longtime-coming friend, and had strayed here to speak with the before-known proprietor."

"So? But, the before-known proprietor sleeping well at present after dinner, would the Herr on the terrace still a while linger?"

The Herr would, but looked around in vain for the means to do it. He was thinking of a scaling-ladder, when the young woman reappeared at the open door, and bade him enter.

Following the youthful hostess, Mr. Clinch mounted the staircase, but, pa.s.sing the mysterious wall, could not forbear an allusion to it. "It is old, very old," said the girl: "it was here when I came."

"That was not very long ago," said Mr. Clinch gallantly.

"No; but my grandfather found it here too."

"And built over it?"

"Why not? It is very, very hard, and SO thick."

Mr. Clinch here explained, with masculine superiority, the existence of such modern agents as nitro-glycerine and dynamite, persuasive in their effects upon time-honored obstructions and enc.u.mbrances.

"But there was not then what you call--this--ni--nitro-glycerine."

"But since then?"

The young girl gazed at him in troubled surprise. "My great-grandfather did not take it away when he built the house: why should we?"

"Oh!"

They had pa.s.sed through a hall and dining-room, and suddenly stepped out of a window upon a gravelled terrace. From this a few stone steps descended to another terrace, on which trees and shrubs were growing; and yet, looking over the parapet, Mr. Clinch could see the road some twenty feet below. It was nearly on a level with, and part of, the second story of the house. Had an earthquake lifted the adjacent ground? or had the house burrowed into a hill? Mr. Clinch turned to his companion, who was standing close beside him, breathing quite audibly, and leaving an impression on his senses as of a gentle and fragrant heifer.

"How was all this done?"

The maiden did not know. "It was always here."

Mr. Clinch reascended the steps. He had quite forgotten his impatience.

Possibly it was the gentle, equable calm of the girl, who, but for her ready color, did not seem to be moved by anything; perhaps it was the peaceful repose of this mausoleum of the dead and forgotten wall that subdued him, but he was quite willing to take the old-fas.h.i.+oned chair on the terrace which she offered him, and follow her motions with not altogether mechanical eyes as she drew out certain bottles and gla.s.ses from a mysterious closet in the wall. Mr. Clinch had the weakness of a majority of his s.e.x in believing that he was a good judge of wine and women. The latter, as shown in the specimen before him, he would have invoiced as a fair sample of the middle-cla.s.s German woman,--healthy, comfort-loving, home-abiding, the very genius of domesticity. Even in her virgin outlines the future wholesome matron was already forecast, from the curves of her broad hips, to the flat lines of her back and shoulders. Of the wine he was to judge later. THAT required an even more subtle and unimpa.s.sioned intellect.

She placed two bottles before him on the table,--one, the traditional long-necked, amber-colored Rheinflasche; the other, an old, quaint, discolored, amphorax-patterned gla.s.s jug. The first she opened.

"This," she said, pointing to the other, "cannot be opened."

Mr. Clinch paid his respects first to the opened bottle, a good quality of Niersteiner. With his intellect thus clarified, he glanced at the other.

"It is from my great-grandfather. It is old as the wall."

Mr. Clinch examined the bottle attentively. It seemed to have no cork.

Formed of some obsolete, opaque gla.s.s, its twisted neck was apparently hermetically sealed by the same material. The maiden smiled, as she said,--

"It cannot be opened now without breaking the bottle. It is not good luck to do so. My grandfather and my father would not."

But Mr. Clinch was still examining the bottle. Its neck was flattened towards the mouth; but a close inspection showed it was closed by some equally hard cement, but not gla.s.s.

"If I can open it without breaking the bottle, have I your permission?"

A mischievous glance rested on Mr. Clinch, as the maiden answered,--

"I shall not object; but for what will you do it?"

"To taste it, to try it."

"You are not afraid?"

There was just enough obvious admiration of Mr. Clinch's audacity in the maiden's manner to impel him to any risk. His only answer was to take from his pocket a small steel instrument. Holding the neck of the bottle firmly in one hand, he pa.s.sed his thumb and the steel twice or thrice around it. A faint rasping, scratching sound was all the wondering girl heard. Then, with a sudden, dexterous twist of his thumb and finger, to her utter astonishment he laid the top of the neck, neatly cut off, in her hand.

"There's a better and more modern bottle than you had before," he said, pointing to the cleanly-divided neck, "and any cork will fit it now."

But the girl regarded him with anxiety. "And you still wish to taste the wine?"

"With your permission, yes!"

He looked up in her eyes. There was permission: there was something more, that was flattering to his vanity. He took the wine-gla.s.s, and, slowly and in silence, filled it from the mysterious flask.

The wine fell into the gla.s.s clearly, transparently, heavily, but still and cold as death. There was no sparkle, no cheap ebullition, no evanescent bubble. Yet it was so clear, that, but for a faint amber-tinting, the gla.s.s seemed empty. There was no aroma, no ethereal diffusion from its equable surface. Perhaps it was fancy, perhaps it was from nervous excitement; but a slight chill seemed to radiate from the still goblet, and bring down the temperature of the terrace. Mr. Clinch and his companion both insensibly s.h.i.+vered.

But only for a moment. Mr. Clinch raised the gla.s.s to his lips. As he did so, he remembered seeing distinctly, as in a picture before him, the sunlit terrace, the pretty girl in the foreground,--an amused spectator of his sacrilegious act,--the outlying ivy-crowned wall, the gra.s.s-grown ditch, the tall factory chimneys rising above the chestnuts, and the distant poplars that marked the Rhine.